Conversations menu issue following update to v1.62.1

wmsgva

I updated my game to v1.62.1 (also tried v1.62.2) and there is now an issue with the Unity UI menu used for the Conversation menu (there doesn't seem to be an issue with the other menus displayed manually).

The conversation menu was working properly previously, but now it seems to refresh every few seconds and the cursor jumps from its current position on one of the DialogueList buttons to slightly above or below it. As I notice you made some changes in this release regarding Unity UI menus and animation, perhaps there's a bug that has been introduced.

I also checked if there was an issue with my Unity UI prefab by assigning the default AC prefab (ConversationUI.prefab) to the menu and the same problem occurs.

ChrisIceBox

Does it occur if you rely on the Demo game's Settings, Cursor and Menu Managers?  If not, there may be some key difference with your own that's causing it.  Can you provide steps to recreate the problem?

It's not clear what's happening exactly - refreshing in what way, and do you mean that the mouse cursor itself is changing position?

wmsgva

The dialogue which is displayed seems to be redrawn (dialogue briefly flickers) and the cursor is changing position.

I have identified the source of the problem: To understand my platform, I am using AC mostly for menu display and translation features. Most of the logic is managed using Playmaker.

My HUD is displayed as an AC menu, but it contains values in variables shared between PM & AC. A loop in PM updates these variables every few seconds and calls upon an AC Interaction to update them in AC (it's a shame that AC needs this to update variables coming from PM, but anyway). The AC HUD menu uses these variables to update its display.

Whenever any of my menus (Options, pause, load, save & other specific dialogues) are displayed, the HUD menu disappears. What's strange is that despite the HUD variables being updated regularly, it only impacts AC menus based on Conversation (appear type set to during conversation). None of the other menus flicker. For some reason, AC is updating the HUD menu, which is not visible anymore, during conversations, which is generating this flicker problem.

I can solve this by having a flag to stop HUD variable updates when needed, but there seems to be something working differently when the HUD menu is hidden by other manually displayed menus and those displayed during conversations.

wmsgva

Just did a further test: Apparently is not updating the HUD variables which is the issue, but simply calling an AC interaction from Playmaker.

I created an empty AC interaction and had my Playmaker FSM call this using the "Send Message" action with the "Interact method" and this creates the flicker during conversations. As this is the usual way of calling AC interactions from PM, it is an issue.

ChrisIceBox

My best guess would be that the flicker is due to the ActionList momentarily blocking gameplay.  Set its When running field to Run In Background and that should disappear.

You shouldn't have to update AC variables every frame, however - AC will sync itself automatically with linked variables when it is required to display or make use of them.

wmsgva

Thanks Chris, the run in background did the trick.