speech bubbles...

no3ry

I'm new to using AC.
I want to use multiple different comic-style speech bubbles.
※ I'm using the UI:TEMPLATE SPEECH BUBBLE from DOWNLOAD as a base. This is incredibly helpful.

I registered multiple SPEECH BUBBLE elements in the Menu Manager and prepared variations with different shapes.
My goal is to place these in the top-right and top-left corners of the character and switch between them based on emotion.

However, I'm having trouble getting this switching to work properly.
In AC ActionListEditor, I used AC.ActionMenuSelect.CreateNew and specified the element name I added to the menu, but the bubble image doesn't change.

Is there a better way to do this?

ChrisIceBox

Welcome to the community, @no3ry.

ActionMenuSelect, or the "Menu: Select element" Action, won't affect the visibility of any Menu or elements - but instead is used to select an Element automatically, simulating input from the user.

ActionMenuState, or the "Menu: Change state" Action, can be used to control the visibility of a Menu or Elements within it.

Are your variants each an Element within the same Menu? You can call the "Hide Element" / "Show Element" methods to display the intended variant and hide the others. Otherwise, the same Action can lock/unlock different Menus.

Side note: "CreateNew" is a function intended to be called by custom scripts to generate ActionLists through code - is that the case here? If you're running a custom script and just want to affect element display, it's not necessary to go through the ActionList system. Each Action runs code that's publicly accessible via AC's API, and it's possible to affect element visibility in custom script:

var menu = PlayerMenus.GetMenuWithName("MyMenu");
var element = menu.GetElementWithName ("MyElement");
element.IsVisible = false;
menu.ResetVisibleElements ();
menu.Recalculate ();

no3ry

Hello Chris, thank you for your response.

Using the hints from your answer, I was able to display the duplicated SPEECH BUBBLE image.
However, I'm encountering an issue where the lines entered into Dialogue Play Speech aren't reflecting in the TextMeshPro within the BUBBLE.
Could I be overlooking a setting somewhere?
I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide a little more guidance.

Since I'm not very familiar with Unity (C#), I'd prefer to control this as much as possible using the AC Action Editor as a practical approach.
Apologies for the delay, but the AC versions are 1.85 and Unity 2022.3.6f.

sample shot: https://ibb.co/Ly2MBdv

ChrisIceBox

However, I'm encountering an issue where the lines entered into Dialogue Play Speech aren't reflecting in the TextMeshPro within the BUBBLE.

For speech text to be displayed in a TextMeshPro box, you'll need to ensure that your Menu has a Label element linked to that TextMeshPro component, and that its "Label type" property is set to "Dialogue Line".

The default Speech Bubble has this in an element named SubsLineLabel inside its Subtitles menu.

Your screenshot shows three different boxes to show speech text in. You'll want three separate Subtitles menus to display these in - with each menu relying on a separate UI prefab.

If you have the prefabs already made, you can copy/paste the Subtitles menu in your Menu Manager to create two new ones, and then link each new one to a different prefab via its "Linked Canvas prefab" field. For each, then select the SubsLineLabel element and link the TextMesh Pro field to the Label's "Linked text" field.

If you haven't seen it already, a video guide to creating a new Subtitles menu from scratch can be found at this point in AC's 3D Primer tutorial. This covers the creation of a new UI prefab, and how to link it up to a new Menu and Label element.

This is all only me speaking generally, however. If you'd like to share screenshots of your setup and the changes you've made, I can give more specific advice.

no3ry

I apologize for asking such basic questions repeatedly.
I truly appreciate your answers.
I'll start by studying the “AC's 3D Primer tutorial” for now.
If I get stuck again, I'll consult you once more.
Thank you.