Dialogue Maker
Learn how to use the Unfolding Engines dialogue system to set up quests, dialogue trees and more.
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Learn how to use the Unfolding Engines dialogue system to set up quests, dialogue trees and more.
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Was this helpful?
Middle mouse button in the main rectangle allows you to move around in the dialogue maker. Using the scroll wheel allows you to vertically move around.
First click on the node you want to add, in this case it is the dialogue text. then click on the start node in the main rectangle. This is green and black rectangle that has the word START on it. Click on it then click a short distance next to it. If done successfully you should have your first node. If you press preview it should now come up with text. To change the text of your text node. You'll need to double click on it and a text box should come up. If you are using fullscreen you may need to tab out and select the message box.
Unfolding's Dialogue uses a tree based system. In that items that are put loaded in the order of how they branched out from the start. So if you have two text nodes on the starting node then it will load the first node put in.
Press Preview and you should see the text you have entered in.
If you select the question nodes on the right then do the same thing on branching the dialogues. It will load all of the questions branching off it and create a dialogue tree. From there you will be able to create branches of dialogue that you can add text responses to or other nodes.
Now save, name it and it should enter into your dialogue database. Select it from the database and you should be able to place the arrow into your game work.
Remember all the names need to end in .ini otherwise unfolding will not load the file into the database.
Unfolding uses a dynamic variable system called flags. In which you can create flags to store states such as quests, states, or anything that uses numbers. This is useful for triggering conditions or storing points, or even currencies or stats.
Set flag node: Used for setting the flag in the players local game save. Used for setting states or variables in your games. Ie it could trigger that you have talked to a NPC before so that it triggers alternative dialogue. Or that you have annoyed an NPC and as result he shows angry dialogue instead of happy.
Set system flag node: Used for setting the flag for every playthrough regardless of the players save. Used for things such as conditions that use multiple playthroughs or options. For example if the player beats the game you could trigger a system flag to say they have won the game. You can set a condition that cheaks if this system flag is set and you can have the player unlock the new content.
If flag node: This checks whether or not a node is a certain variable. You can combine operators to say whether or not if the flags variable is higher or lower then a condition. If it is true then it will go down the node path. If it is not true then it will just ignore this path. You can combine multiple nodes together to make a tree of conditions. It will load the first node that returns true and ignore the rest so make sure the order of your nodes is correct.
The if flag checks both flag types including system. So make sure your names are unique.
The rest of the dialogue nodes are undocumentated, however this gives the basic logic of how the nodes work. I'll document the rest later due to this being the first draft.
You can add the dialogues to different NPCs in your game which is explainedh here.
