3D First person game - Enabling player movement during cutscene / conversation

Temmy

Hello there,

AC Ver# : 1.63.1

Unity Ver# : 2018.1.0f2

Currently, I have a conversation with a NPC which is a cutscene actionList. It is triggered from a Interaction actionList. As it is running however the player is unable to move.

I would like to change this so the player can move and freelook while dialogue is occuring, but, when dialogue options appear that's when they are forced to freeze (and the mouse pointer can be used to select the desired conversation option).

So far I've tried setting the cutscene and the actionList which triggers it to 'run in background' however changing that setting doesn't appear to change anything. The player still remains frozen while dialogue occurs.

I assume what I'm up against here is some deeprooted, enforced behaviour of AC.

Could someone please give me some pointers how I can achieve this, or, am I being too bold here?

Many thanks!

ChrisIceBox

• I assume what I'm up against here is some deeprooted, enforced behaviour of AC.

Indeed.  The state of the ActionList from which it is run is not the determining factor - whenever a Conversation begins, AC enters a separate "DialogOptions" state.

With some tweaks to the DialogOptions menu element script, however, it may be possible to introduce the concept of "overriding" the active Conversation on a per-Conversation-menu level.  Leave it with me for the momen and I'll see if it's possible.

Temmy

Thanks @ChrisIceBox

ChrisIceBox

Actually, overriding the Conversation on a per-menu level isn't the right approach at all.  AC's Conversation and ActionList systems are heavily intertwined, so it'll only bring about other problems if you try to enforce things through code.

The better approach would be to have AC optionally treat Conversations as being "normal gameplay".  The Engine: Manage systems Action could then be called when the Conversation menu is turn on or off to control which systems are allowed to run (movement, interactions) etc.  Again, it'll need looking further into before I can commit to such a feature, but I'll consider it.

Temmy

I'd appreciate that, sir.

In the meantime, is there any way I can use an actionlist to mimic dialogue in the form of just a sequence of strings which I can then pickup / capture in a custom script?

In my case, dialogue from NPCs at least doesn't touch the AC UI or menus - only the player's speech does. But I adore actionlists for their ability to clearly structure the flow and pacing of things.

ChrisIceBox

You can always write a custom Action if need be.  But the Dialogue: Play speech Action will invoke the OnStartSpeech event - even if no UI is set up to display it.