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Best export method for dialogues

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out the best way to export CSV file, so that someone else can look through it and make edits.

I've ran into couple of problems though:
1) Order of speech lines
I can't seem to find the best way to keep the speech lines in order. In an Action List, when adding Speech Actions, it's not rare for me to add a new line of text in between two already existing ones, so the numbers of linked up actions may look something like this: (1), (2), (15), (3) etc.

This is fine in the game, but when I click "Gather Text" it assigns ID's not in order the Speech Actions are linked through, but rather by it's Action Number. This means that later in Excel, the dialogue is out of order, so it may be hard to grasp what is going on for someone editing the text.

2) Conversations don't have any other value other than ID and Scene.
The closest way I've managed to sort the CSV file to the order of what it appears in game is when I sort the file by Scene, but even then, the dialogue options from the conversations are always somewhere at the bottom. I was hoping maybe a correct use of speech tags would help, but it doesn't seem possible to add tags to conversations.

In ideal situation, I would be able to see the dialogue in Excel in order it is linked together in the ActionList, with the dialogue options from the conversations in between. Is this doable at all, or is there always some kind of sacrifice to be made?

Thanks!

Comments

  • Order of speech lines

    ID numbers are assigned in order of their creation, but AC internally records the order in which speech lines are listed in an ActionList.

    In the Text Export Wizard, create a new column set to Speech Order. That'll give you a new column that you can sort by in Excel to display lines in the correct order.

    Conversations don't have any other value other than ID and Scene.

    As Conversations are defined separately from the ActionLists in which they appear, and since they can be re-used across multiple ActionLists, they cannot be included in speech orders.

    However, speech lines will automatically have their Description set to their "parent ActionList". If you manually enter in the same Description into your Dialogue Option lines, then you can similarly sort by this value if you export the Description column in your CSV file.

  • Thank you for the reply.

    I've exported the CSV file with the Speech Order column. The numbers in the column are in order, but the speech lines are not. I tried resetting the text in AC, and gathering everything again, but no change.

    Regarding the Conversations, I'm not sure what you mean by "set to their parent ActionList". I've tried to parent the Conversation by dragging it into the Cutscene in the hierarchy tab. I've resetted the text, re-gathered it, but the Conversation still has no Description. I also can't see any field to manually enter Description in the Conversation.

    Am I missing something silly in both cases?

  • The numbers in the column are in order, but the speech lines are not.

    This is after sorting all rows according to the "Speech Order" column in Excel? Are all the lines arranged sequentially in the ActionList itself? Bear in mind that you will have to re-gather your text after adding/rearranging lines to the ActionList.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "set to their parent ActionList".

    I wasn't referring to parenting in the Hierarchy - I'm just talking about the ActionList that your speech lines are contained in.

    When gathering text, a speech line's description will be set to the name of the ActionList it is found in - unless the Action is commented.

    I also can't see any field to manually enter Description in the Conversation.

    Apologies - there isn't one, but I see your point about not enough detail being provided in the line's entry. I shall see about adding something similar to the above for "Dialogue Option" line types in v1.68.0.

  • I did a small example of the Actions order and how it appears like in CSV. I did re-gather the text before exporting.

    Actions are linked up and their numbers are not in order on purpose. The Speech Manager ID is also not in order:

    In CSV, I make sure the SpeechOrder column is exported and in order, but the Text column does not correspond the order it would appear in game:

    Note: I manually added a column at the end, to show how ideally the text would appear in CSV. I understand Conversations are a bit more problematic, but being able to sort out at least the text for now would be great.

    It seems to me that SpeechOrder just follows the ID number, and not how the Actions are linked as?

    Unity: 2018.2.18f1
    AC: 1.67.5

  • Yes, there is an issue with the ordering system - thanks for bringing it to my attention.

    In SpeechManager.cs, look for the function "SetOrderIDs". As a test, try removing the 2nd instance of:

    action.isMarked = true;
    

    Does removing that resolve the issue?

  • Yes, this seems to have solved the order problem!

    Usually when exporting CSV, the SpeechOrder came in order by default, but now I had to sort it A-Z in OpenOffice. Once sorted, it's perfectly fine!

    This was tested just with the Play Speech Action, and the Conversation is still not sorted. I guess the only way to go about the Conversations is if it had some extra options for exporting.

  • Again, the ability to assign descriptions to Dialogue Options will be introduced in v1.68.0 - and this'll be set by default to their Conversation.

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