I feel like I’m missing something here but how do you go about making dialogue?
Like for an RPG. Do we just use labels and alerts? I’m sure this has been asked a bunch but I searched and didn’t find anything conclusive on the forums.
For dialogue, alerts can be nice and easy, since it’s already made up for you and all you have to do is click on a button to progress into the next speech. But I usually prefer label since you can change the font and size. Although attempting to use it can be pretty difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Thanks for the reply, ManiacPumpkin (love the name btw).
You say it’s difficult, is there a guide anywhere for dialogue? I looked at the User Guide and it didn’t have much info on how to use labels.
Yeah Dialogue Can Be Tough My Game Has Some Dialogue In It Mostly Just Labels But It Might Help If You Want To Take A Look https://flowlab.io/game/play/1318759
Also Has Buttons With Wording On It
Here’s the description of labels in Flowlabs behavior guide… Also the description needs to be updated since the update for labels:
http://flowlab.io/behavior_handbook/#gui-label
If you want a real challenge, you can use animations like how I did in NYCTOPHOBIA:
http://flowlab.io/game/play/1319512
Actually, It depends on how you use the labels. When I make an intro to a game, I make the label fade into view and then fade out, giving it a more of a professional feel to it. To actually make dialogue, you need to make it so when you press a button or click, the alpha of the label will be set to 100, then you can either make it so you wait and the text will change automatically by changing the current text’s alpha to 0 and making the new text’s alpha to 100, or you can press a button to progress into the dialogue, which I’ve never tried that. I only made it so it automatically progresses instead of Manuel.
The easiest way to make dialogue is through alerts. The next easiest is through using alpha on Text Blocks, which gives it a nice effect (see my Dark Ones game.). Finally, the highest quality talking is through animayed blocks, kind of like Nyctophobia or my Terraria logo.
You can also use an outside program like photoshop or similar to type out your text (making sure youre using a size in pixels that matches your in game dialogue box so you dont have to resize anything. Export as .png from graphics program and import to an animation or object. I know someone above mentioned using alpha to show and hide the dialogue boxes, but I have found it helpful to use a triggered position change instead (text moves into the game playing field and then moves out of frame) so I dont have a bunch of text boxes in my game editor window stacked on top of itself.
I see! So I can use alerts, text blocks, or even animation. I was kind of hoping there was a more elegant built in solution but Ill experiment with these and see which I like best.
The animation route would be the most customizable but at the risk of taking my sanity.
@rinarunine if you find an easy/elegant solution let us know. Every dialogue system Ive built has been cumbersome and tedious.
Just use Alert blocks for simplicity and restrictions, anything else will need work.
@todorrobot sounds like we need a built in feature for it someday. Would really be handy. But I’m sure @grazer already has a lot on his plate.