I just confirmed that the current version of the Dialogue System's Adventure Creator Support package works fine with AC 1.48. No updates are necessary.
Hi! Is there a way to use the Dialogue System's actions with parameters?
It would be super useful to be able to create action lists that call different conversations or barks along side some other sequence of actions. ie.: click a TV/cellphone/etc, show a default menu prompt with a question stored in a Gvar -like "want to answer?", "want to turn on?"-, then if true, call a specific DS bark sequence or conversation. It would be great in case you need to repeat the process for many similar objects which need different conversations.
Not really, the only downside I could think of is that you'll have to go through the process of learning to use the Dialogue System properly, and it can take a bit, because it can do a lot of stuff. But apart from that, no, not really. You'll actually gain a lot from it. Using conditions with dialogues is much easier with the Dialogue System, also you can use it with several editors like Articy:craft or Chatmapper, so you won't really have to write all the text directly in the unity editor if you don't want. You can always use ACs dialogue for less complex conversations which in many situations will actually be faster.
Beside dialogues features, it'll open up options you didn't have before, specially regarding to integrations AC doesn't have natively. for example, AC only allows AC and unity UI, but the dialogue system takes most major UI systems like NGUI or Daikon forge (no longer supported by its developer but now free!). So, even though AC doesn't support them, you can actually use any of these assets to create all the GUI elements related to conversations (from the subtitle boxes, to the dialogue option boxes, QTE markers, Alert message boxes, timers, etc).
For the integrations that AC and the Dialogue system do share, it'll provide you with alternative ways to get things done. For example: Cinema Director. You'll have the option to call a cinema director cut scene from either AC's actions or directly from a conversation in the Dialogue system editor which will allow more flexibility when writing dialogue. Besides this, The Dialogue system has a range of triggers that you can use as either alternatives to ACs or to work in tandem with ACs trigger/hotspots. By the way, I find the Dialogue System's bark triggers specially useful. Also, just like AC's, The Dialogue Systems support is top notch. Tony Li is amazingly friendly and helpful, that alone gives it a lot of value.
Seems like the DS is the way to go. I don't much of those advanced options but the ability to create dialogs outside of unity (e.g chatmapper) is enough reason for me to buy.
Sounds good! If you have any questions about using the Dialogue System, or using it with Adventure Creator, just let me know!
BTW, Chat Mapper and articy:draft are commercial products. If you're on a really tight budget, Neverwinter Nights, while also a commercial product available on GoG, is less expensive and includes the Aurora Toolset. It uses an outline-style editor instead of a node-based editor. BioWare used iterations of the Aurora Toolset to write the dialogue and quests in games like Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc. The Dialogue System's built-in editor (which runs in Unity) also has node-based and outline-based editing modes.
The only thing that changed in the support package is the example scene. Since the GameEngine prefab and some elements of AC's Demo scene (which the Dialogue System's example is built on) changed in AC 1.5.1, I had to update the example scene.
Assets/Dialogue System/Third Party Support/Adventure Creator/Scripts/Sequencer Commands/SequencerCommandACSpeech.cs(69,26): error CS1061: Type `AC.Speech' does not contain a definition for `displayDuration' and no extension method `displayDuration' of type `AC.Speech' could be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?
The Dialogue System Extras page will have an updated AC Support package by tomorrow. (The package "Adventure Creator Support 2017-07-11 is not updated for AC 1.58, since AC 1.58 was just released yesterday. There will be a new support package by tomorrow.)
Apologies, @PixelCrushers - I mistakenly left that change out of the release notes. The displayDuration is no longer made available since it it was not a true reflection of a speech's length. I'll try to be more careful in future.
Comments
@kyuubi - You're welcome to try out the free evaluation version of the Dialogue System: http://www.pixelcrushers.com/dialogue-system-evaluation-downloads/
It's exactly the same as the paid version except it has a watermark and doesn't include source code.
If you have any questions about using it, just let me know!
Amazing quick response.
Seems like the DS is the way to go. I don't much of those advanced options but the ability to create dialogs outside of unity (e.g chatmapper) is enough reason for me to buy.
I will try the demo first just in case.
Thanks you so much!
BTW, Chat Mapper and articy:draft are commercial products. If you're on a really tight budget, Neverwinter Nights, while also a commercial product available on GoG, is less expensive and includes the Aurora Toolset. It uses an outline-style editor instead of a node-based editor. BioWare used iterations of the Aurora Toolset to write the dialogue and quests in games like Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc. The Dialogue System's built-in editor (which runs in Unity) also has node-based and outline-based editing modes.
Thanks going to check it out!