Activating a slideshow after clicking a menu button, and having the slideshow change on location?

arcadekitten

Hi everyone! Sorry if I start asking a lot of questions, I just wanna make sure that I know what I'm doing and if the things I want to try doing are do-able!

In the game I'd like to work on, I wanted to employ something I call a "memory button". My idea goes something like...

The game takes place in many different towns. Each town takes up a few different scenes. When the player clicks on the "Memory Button" on their screen(next to the main menu button), a slideshow of about 3-4 different images would play that shows the player what the Main Character remembers from that town. After the slideshow is finished, it would go back to normal gameplay.

I'm a bit unsure of how I'd go about this. Different variables would turn on/off to tell the game what town you're in, but I'm unsure of where to go from there. I'm still getting used to using images (having them appear and then fade away again) in cutscenes also.

At first I thought I would have the button be controlled by an action list that tells the engine which game objects(the images) to make visible and then hide again with a fade. But I'm not sure how this would work, as so far I'm only aware that images need to be game objects in a scene, and that I can't call an image directly through the action list without it being attached to a scene already. I also don't really want to add the same 3-4 memory images as objects in every scene a town covers.

I think that maybe using the journal feature could help me somehow? But I haven't really touched that at all yet so I'm not totally sure. I've also seen a lot of people use Unity UI when making stuff with journals, and I'm pretty unfamiliar with that too.

So I guess I'm just asking what the best way to go about making a feature like this is! Worst case scenario if I can't implement it this way, is that I'll just have the player go through their memories automatically the first time they enter a town, and then every town will have a special object like a bench or something with a "jog my memory" option attached. Still, though, I'd like to know if there's a way to make it work as described above! Sorry for the lengthy post, thank you in advanced for any help or assistance you are able to provide!

Extra context if it means anything:
-The memories don't update during the game at all, they're only for memories the MC has about the town(s) before the game started, so there's no worries there.
-Memory slideshows should only play in the town they belong to. MC shouldn't be able to go back and look at memories for Yellowtown when they're in Redtown, etc.
-Some memory slideshows will be longer or shorter than others, so some might be 3 images long whereas others are 5, etc etc
-Memories are currently planned as being still images, as when you look at them you're meant to feel like you're flipping pages in a storybook almost. However, I might try adding small animations to some if possible.

ChrisIceBox

If a given town's memory sequence is always the same, you're probably best off using Timeline. Timeline is great for timed sequences that involve animations and audio that needs to be synced with one another.

A series of slideshow pages could be done by placing each background as a sprite in the scene, and animating their position / alpha values in Animation tracks. You could also incorporate small animations as additional Animation tracks.

Timeline itself is a Unity feature, but you can control the playback of Timelines in AC using the Engine: Control Timeline Action.

To have the ability to play the same sequence in multiple scenes, you have a couple of options:

1. Make the entire sequence a prefab (attaching the Playable Director on the root) and use the Object: Add or remove Action to spawn it in when you need it
2. Make each sequence in a separate scene, and switch to that scene when you need to show it. To have the Player return to their original position afterwards, enable Player-switching in the Settings Manager and create a separate (invisible) Player that sits inside each sequence scene. You can then use the Player: Switch Action to switch to the intended Player (and open the scene they're in), and then use another such Action to switch back to your proper Player - position intact - afterwards.

Different variables would turn on/off to tell the game what town you're in

A quick note on this: as the Player can only be in one town at a time, you don't need a separate variable for each town. A PopUp variable can be used to store all town names in one, which you can then read using the Variable: Pop Up switch Action.

arcadekitten

@ChrisIceBox I see! Thank you so much, I'll try looking into the Timeline feature and see how it works!