Comments

• mikdog

  October 1 edited October 1

  Huh - turns out turning on the 'Duplicate for each line' setting in the AC Menu seems to have solved it.
  Nice.
• mikdog

  October 6 edited October 6

  Hi Chris, I'm encountering a new problem, that was maybe always there but I've only started noticing it now: I'm using UnityUI for Subtitles, and am noticing that the subtitles appear very quickly in the middle of the screen before correctly appearing above the player's heads. Any idea how to fix this please?

  I'm using Super Text Mesh along with the script on the Wiki. Even if I turn off 'Canvas Fade' it doesn't help the issue.

  
• mikdog

  October 6

  I can remedy the problem by deselecting 'Duplicate for each line?' option in the menu, but then I run into the problem mentioned in the first post in this thread.

  Hmm...
• mikdog

  October 6

  After plenty testing it seems like it's related possibly to the way the ACWiki script integrates 'Super Text Mesh' because when I disable Super Text Mesh on the Subtitles Canvas element and just use Text Mesh Pro, the temporary placement issue is solved.

  I think the ACWiki script is positioning the text in the right place a little too late, so the text is appearing at the Prefab origin and only being moved above the character's head a moment later.

  Wonder if any way to solve this.
• ChrisIceBox

  October 7

  Can you share the script? I seem to have a bit of an issue accessing the wiki page right now.
• mikdog

  October 7 edited October 7

  Hi Chris - sure, thanks, it’s this one:
  https://adventure-creator.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Text_Mesh_subtitle_integration
  I asked the creator about it but he says he wouldn’t know or even remember the script from 9 years ago. I can’t seem to comment it as code from my phone [edit: [pasted from comp, and included the supertext.color = speech.GetColour (); line that the script on the wiki doesn't have.

  > using UnityEngine;
  using System.Collections;
  
  public class SuperTextFromACSpeech : MonoBehaviour {
      /*
      This script is to make Super Text Mesh work with Adventure Creator.
      Essentially, it lets AC handle all non-text elements (sound effects, user input),
      while letting STM handle all text-related issues (scrolling speed, animations, colors, etc.)
  
      Simply put this script on a Super Text ui item in your subtitlesUI adventure creator menu,
      then hide the text item that AC thinks it's referencing (put it offscreen, make it invisible, whatever!).
  
      AC will play dialogue sounds and handle input as normal,
      but the player will only see the Super Text.
  
      Script by @johndaguerra.  No credit needed, but I'm cool and it'd make me happy if you followed me on twitter!
      */
      SuperTextMesh supertext;
      AC.Speech speech;
      AC.Dialog dialog;
  
      void Start () {
          supertext = GetComponent<SuperTextMesh>();
          dialog = FindObjectOfType<AC.Dialog>();
      }
  
      void Update () {
          //If there is dialogue currently being spoken...
          if (dialog.GetLatestSpeech() != null)
          {
              //And you haven't already sampled it...
              if (speech != dialog.GetLatestSpeech())
              {
                  //Then set the supertext text to print the dialogue
                  speech = dialog.GetLatestSpeech();
                  supertext.color = speech.GetColour ();
                  supertext.Text = speech.log.fullText;
                  //This tells the text to read at regular speeds, in case it was told to speed read
                  supertext.RegularRead();
              }
          }
  
          if (supertext.reading == true)
          {
              if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0) || Input.GetKeyDown("space"))
              {
                  //If the player clicks or presses space while reading, then speed read
                  supertext.SpeedRead();
              }
          }
  
      }
  }
  
• mikdog

  October 7

  In case useful or in case it might affect things, this is my SubtitlesUI setup. Was a fairly convoluted setup to get the background colour box of the text to conform to the text amount, and for setting the min and max horizontal size the text box could be (took me a couple days of fiddling and watching and rewatching various tutorials, perhaps second nature to some but defs not for me).

  
• ChrisIceBox

  October 8

  Try this:

  using UnityEngine;
  using AC;
  
  public class SuperTextFromACSpeech : MonoBehaviour
  {
  
      SuperTextMesh supertext;
      AC.Speech speech;
      AC.Dialog dialog;
  
      void Start () {
          supertext = GetComponent<SuperTextMesh>();
          dialog = FindObjectOfType<AC.Dialog>();
      }
  
      void OnEnable()
      {
          EventManager.OnStartSpeech_Alt += OnStartSpeech;
      }
  
      void OnDisable()
      {
          EventManager.OnStartSpeech_Alt -= OnStartSpeech;
      }
  
      void OnStartSpeech(Speech speech)
      {
          this.speech = speech;
          supertext.color = speech.GetColour ();
          supertext.Text = speech.log.fullText;
          //This tells the text to read at regular speeds, in case it was told to speed read
          supertext.RegularRead();
      }
  
      void Update ()
      {
          if (supertext.reading)
          {
              if (KickStarter.playerInput.InputGetMouseButtonDown(0) || Input.GetKeyDown("space"))
              {
                  //If the player clicks or presses space while reading, then speed read
                  supertext.SpeedRead();
              }
          }
  
      }
  }
  
• mikdog

  October 8

  Hi Chris, thanks - I get this compilation error:

  Assets/bbsugar/Scripts/SuperTextFromACSpeech.cs(39,41): error CS0122: 'PlayerInput.InputGetMouseButtonDown(int)' is inaccessible due to its protection level
• mikdog

  October 8

  Ah - I asked KaiClavier (the author of Super Text Mesh) about this and he gave some suggestions, the first of which (replacing "supertext.Text" with "supertext._text") seemed to do the trick:

  https://itch.io/t/5397155/issue-with-adventure-creator-and-super-text-mesh#post-14425498

  I tried to make a contribution to the ACWiki's integration script (and also added the line:
  supertext.color = speech.GetColour ();
  So that the script uses the character's subtitles colour, but struggled to get the script formatting to appear correctly with the web editor.
• mikdog

  October 13

  Morning Chris. Shucks, I thought I had it working after Kai's suggestions but weirdly, in the editor, when I play the game, it seems fine, but as soon as I try and record with Unity's recorder, I can see the quick movement before the text gets moved into place.

  Example of what's happening with recorder:

  

  I'm also trying to get help from Kai. He asks:

  Can the TMP object be moved elsewhere? Curious if it's controlling position at all.

  Will think more on this over the weekend, but I'd really just like to figure out... what is trying to make this move back to the origin anyway? Could it be a setting for subtitle location in AC or something...?

  Wondered if you had any ideas or thoughts here, please? I have an empty game object in the character prefab that I use for the 'Speech Menu Placement Child' subtitle positioning, but even if I remove that link, the problem persists.

  He also mentioned this.

  I'm also guessing at this but... does your STM object have a ContentSizeFitter on it? I've been running into some problems with nested layouts and contentsizefitter in just the last few days actually and wrote myself a rudimentary script to make sure the effects of ContentSizeFitter happen frame 1 with STM, rather than waiting for the layout update. (It just forwards information to a LayoutElement component) So I could try sending over a cleaned up version of the script with this, but with any luck it's one of the first 3 issues.

  I do have a Content Size Fitter on both the 'Panel_TextBG' and the 'TextBoxContainer'

  
• mikdog

  October 13

  Additional info:

  I tried your script from Oct 8 and used an LLM to edit it like this:

  - Replaced KickStarter.playerInput.InputGetMouseButtonDown(0) with Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0) to detect a left mouse button click using Unity's Input class.
  - Replaced Input.GetKeyDown("space") with Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space) to use Unity's KeyCode enum for better clarity and consistency.
  

  to get it working in my project, but the error that I demonstrate in the recorder of subtitles first appearing in the middle of the screen and moving into place a frame or two later, happens in the editor too with the script.
• ChrisIceBox

  October 14

  See if the script solves the original issue when "Duplicate for each line?" is unchecked again.
• mikdog

  October 14

  Thanks Chris - I did try. Sadly, same result.
• mikdog

  October 14 edited October 14

  Hi Chris - I've done more fiddling and it seems like what might be causing the recording position glitch issue is having a 'Vertical Layout Group' on both the 'TextBoxContainer' and its child 'Panel_TextBG' which is a parent of the Super Text Mesh / TMP object.

  It seems to be the only way to get the text and its background wrapping displaying correctly and dynamically though. I've tried messing around with a 'Layout Element' instead for one of the Vertical Layout Groups, but either wasn't using the correct settings in it, or it just didn't quite work - I only got the max value of the background panel, it never shrunk to the smaller text contents.

  Do you know if there's an easier / better way to avoid this double nesting, please?
• mikdog

  October 14

  Also maybe of interest - I don't get the 'recording quick-position glitch' when disabling the Super Text Mesh component, and enabling Text Mesh Pro, on the same game object.

  Kai from STM also helping me to troubleshoot, hoping there's something that works between AC and STM, seeing if there's anything I can do my side to try and adapt to how the STM script works.
• ChrisIceBox

  October 15

  Ultimately it sounds like a case of Unity UI not updating immediately with changes made to the components set through script.

  It may be that a call to ForceUpdateCanvases in the correct place in your script is enough.
• mikdog

  October 15

  Hi Chris, thanks for your reply. Kai suggested a fairly simple solution that seems to work well - he added a custom animation curve that hides the subtitle text initially (to hide the first frame showing it in its original prefab position) and then show it fading in. It's not quite fixing the issue at its root but it seems to work well.

  

  Kicking myself a bit for not thinking of trying that.

  I'll paraphrase some of his response so the info doesn't die with me:

  The issue seems to be... well, AC sends out info directly to a text object (either text mesh pro or unity UI) and doesn't give some kind of event for me to hook into. (text mesh pro does kind of have an event for this I could piggyback off of, but was having trouble with the object actually being recognized by AC as a text output, so... went a different way) So this is why in the add-on script [Mike: the ACWiki one], John opted to use Update(), and just check AC's state. The problem with this is that it basically always introduces a frame desync.

  So it took a while to figure out, but I think the quickest and probably best solution (aside from asking the AC dev to add a hook specifically for me) is doing this [the custom anim curve]:

  I wrote up a ton of new code but it all gave a similar output until I did this, so please try this to start! I think if this doesn't work, I'll either need to contact the AC dev and ask for a custom event to be added, or figure out why TMP wasn't working and use a signal from that... I would really like to get this working without needing a tiny delay.

  I've passed on your mention of ForceUpdateCanvases in case that's useful info for him, thank you.

  Happy to rest the case on this one with the custom anim curve solution, stoked.
  Thanks.