NPC Forcing Dialogue Assistance Please

[BadPenney]

It may be possible to make dialogue initiate by console command. I can't say from first hand experience because I haven't done it. I use scripts mostly to get actors to speak, move and emote on cue. First of all there is the quest script that you can attach to the same quest that contains the lines of dialogue and NPC to NPC conversations. That is where I put most of the work in orchestrating the scene.

 

NPC actors can be placed like props, given AI Packages that will make them go places and do things as well as deliver lines of dialogue and emotes. As a director/camera operator then, I like to use a crude sort of mechanical device to call "Action" once the scene is framed and ready to record. I place a unique copy of an electrical switch at the feet of where my player character/camera will be standing when the shoot begins. It has a simple object script that is activated by flipping the switch. The first component of the object script is a timer that I usually set to about 20 seconds. That gives me time to reorient my first person view away from the switch and back to the composition that I want to record. When the timer reaches zero, the object script sets conditions that the quest script recognizes as commands to begin the desired sequence of events; which can be actors speaking, a rolling barrage of mortar bursts, a squad of soldiers rushing a gate, etc. I treat the scene just like a movie set (anything off camera doesn't exist) so switches can be placed off camera and moved, deleted or reprogrammed as needed.

 

I only operate this way for cartoons, not player mods. Those have to be clean and contiguous. Cartoon mods are combinations of throw away variations of a plug-in and save games in my book. I make one foundation mod that holds my scripts and characters. I make special races so that main characters can have clone copies as both NPCs and as player characters. I find that gives me the most flexibility in scene creation. PipBoys can be added to NPCs to make them look like players and disabled on a player character to give the impression that his third person view is that of an NPC. I have found that combining a scripted scene of multiple NPCs (like the assault on the mutants in Bucketheads) while participating as an actor/camera can be great fun. I like to set the scene and do several shoots to get several choices. The process is a controlled accident and some really surprising and interesting results can occur.

 

Another helpful script device that I use for cartoons allows me to control outside lighting easily. If I want my scene to appear to occur outside between 10pm and midnight, then I add a line to the script that resets the time to 10 once it passes midnight. I can waste as much time as necessary before beginning the recording that way without "losing my light".

 

Btw, in case you want more information on scripting for Fallout 3, there are some great tutorials by Cipscis that you should find helpful.

[ALoonwolf]

Is there no way to just select the sound and lip files of an already existing line of dialogue when you are making your own? The only way I can even see all the lines of dialogue is in the dialogue tree, and that doesn't give any filenames, or any way to edit the conditions of that particular line or anything, just the dialogue. And trying to select quest topics for linking to, sometimes the topics are listed, sometimes they aren't and the list is blank. It seems totally random and confusing how the dialogue system works!

 

Eg....

 

Actor Data --> Quest --> NAME --> Topics

Full list of available topics

 

5 seconds later...

 

Actor Data --> Quest --> NAME --> Topics

No topics listed???!??

 

How can doing the exact same thing produce different results?

 

 

...Shutting down the GECK and starting it again usually cures the missing topic problem, and I managed to get access to the individual lines of dialogue by searching for the name of the opening "blanket" topic (which was all I could find previously), then selecting it in the results list, which then gave access to all the individual lines in that category. Now just got to figure out a way to connect them directly to my own dialogue topics...

Edited September 10, 2019 by ALoonwolf