Conversation troubles, neewbie questions

[Cluas]

Hi all, I have many newb questions....

 

Hope to find some experts in here :)

 

I just got started on the nwn2 toolset. Looks great, but compared to Aurora it is very complicated. I managed to make a few areas, and tested different stuff.

My problem is this: I make some conversations, pick the cameras and animations. But when i test, the lips on the NPC are not moving.

The second problem i have, is that PC says something to a NPC but refuses to face the right direction.

 

Can anyone figure this out ? Aren't the NPC's lips supposed to move, whenever they say something ?

And "listener" in the menu, must be the one my PC will face when talking, right ?

 

I DON'T get it !!! Help!!! Please!!! :rolleyes:

Anyone else that liked the good old Aurora better ??

(Sorry for my bad english)

 

 

EDIT: NEVERMIND Found out the lip-sync thing.

 

BUT- I'm having way too much trouble creating anything.

 

Thinking about going back to NWN1 - That was so much more fun.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Cluas

[Tchos]

I don't use lip syncing. I don't use spoken dialogue, so I consider it unnecessary.

 

Please describe the situation you're having with the characters facing each other. You shouldn't need to specify the listener or the speaker if it's a normally initiated conversation between the PC and an NPC. Only if you have a third NPC join in, or if you have 2 NPCs speaking to each other, with no PC interaction.

 

I'm afraid I cannot give solidarity for the Aurora engine, as I have not used it, and I dislike tile-based toolsets in general.

 

What trouble are you having creating things? I've spent the past month creating things (new experience), and it's very enjoyable to me.

[Cluas]

 

What trouble are you having creating things?

 

Hi Tchos, I'm very honored that You took the time to answer :)

 

As for 'facing' problem, i had made a conversation with the pc and 2 npcs- But when the pc should face the 2. pc to talk, he kept looking at the 1. npc ...

No matter what i wrote in the *listener* tag (It's probably just a noob problem, i will try and play around today)

 

As for my frustration with building: The areas takes a LOONG time to make compared to NWN1. I know i have to learn it all over again, but i find it hard to build anything.

But I'm getting better results today than yesterday, so I'm gonna keep trying.

 

I've made a few test areas, and my first quest, very basic. :)

 

I understand your frustration with tilesets, but believe me, NWN1 had a much easier way of drawing tiles. That's why i did this for hours :wallbash:

 

Another reason for my frustration: Found a great plugin, called Legends quests, a helper to make quest really easy. Unfortunately i couldn't get it to work with mysql amd win7.

And that was AFTER i spend two hours reading throught the manual. So another round of :wallbash:

 

- BUT I AM ROLLING NOW !! In the future i hope to build something nice along with other builders.

 

A new question popped up when i read your post: How do you avoid using spoken dialogue in your work ?

 

Thx again Tchos ;)

 

Cheers

[Tchos]

As for 'facing' problem, i had made a conversation with the pc and 2 npcs- But when the pc should face the 2. pc to talk, he kept looking at the 1. npc ...

No matter what i wrote in the *listener* tag (It's probably just a noob problem, i will try and play around today)

 

As for my frustration with building: The areas takes a LOONG time to make compared to NWN1. I know i have to learn it all over again, but i find it hard to build anything.

I understand your frustration with tilesets, but believe me, NWN1 had a much easier way of drawing tiles. That's why i did this for hours :wallbash:

 

Another reason for my frustration: Found a great plugin, called Legends quests, a helper to make quest really easy. Unfortunately i couldn't get it to work with mysql amd win7.

 

A new question popped up when i read your post: How do you avoid using spoken dialogue in your work ?

For the dialogue, try setting the speaker and the listener tag for that specific node where they should turn to face the other. That should work.

 

The Legends plugins are very nice, and some of them work for single-player modules. Unfortunately, the Quests plugin isn't one of them. As far as I understand, quests made with that system are for PWs, and don't work unless the player running the module is also running MySQL, which I doubt most would want to do. I thought the instructional videos on Youtube were a good way to learn how to set up quests in general, though, which could be used to do them manually. There is another quest helper plugin, though, which works for single-player, and that's here:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=nwn2plugins.detail&id=76

 

I only used it in one test, but it looks similar to Legends Quest, and it has a short manual, and some presets. To use it, you'll also need De-frus, to allow you to run plugins that were never updated to the latest toolset version. Or, I compiled a copy for the latest version myself, if you want my copy.

 

I know it's faster, and perhaps easier to create exterior areas with tiles, but the reason I dislike them is that I prefer to be able to create landscapes with natural elevation, and nice texturing. So I find tiles too limiting. I find the interiors of NWN2, being tile-based, are quite limiting as well, but I'm getting around that to some extent with the use of placeable walls, floors, doors and windows.

 

And don't forget the many very nice prefab areas that are available and waiting for builders to add NPCs and quests! Could be an alternative if you don't like to make areas.

 

I'm not sure what you mean about how I avoid using spoken dialogue. I just don't record any, and I use the NWN1-style/party chat conversation box, not the cinematic mode. Like this (in this case, using the party chat style box):

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t8Z7I8FVbOM/T_Iy5Lbre7I/AAAAAAAADaM/UBKn2ol68pc/s320/bcocc%2Bguard%2Bdirections.jpg

 

Personally, I don't like spoken dialogue in my games, and I wish fewer games used it. I also hate the cinematic style of dialogue. In the picture above, I don't see why there would need to be any vocal speech there, anyway. There's a little box in the conversation's properties that you can tick to make the dialogue in this style.

[Cluas]

Ahh I see what you mean with 'spoken' dialogue now ;) For a moment i thought you had no dialogue at all. My bad... I agree with you that there should be NO voice overs. I would only use it for very special stuff - But it was fun to test it, and get somthing to finally work... It's not even as hard as i thought. But i also like the NWN1 style much better.

 

Now, about my problem, I did try to set both the speaker and listener tag. It's no good. My Pc still turns to the wrong npc. I am fighting very hard with this and i will make it work... :confused: can i perhaps get the PC to look at a certain waypoint or something?

 

I have been learning a lot. But still feel very new. Still so much to learn. Luckily i found a few good threads around. And I hope to meet more people like You, Tchos :biggrin: (thank you so much for taking time to help me out).

 

The Legend plugins, yes only for pw's. But i would have liked to at least check it out. Well I've got some good ideas anyway, and i can make my own quests. I hope :whistling:

Edited July 11, 2012 by Cluas

[Tchos]

Here's an idea for your dialogue problem. There's a script called ga_face_target, made to be used in conversations. Just make sure both of your NPCs have unique tags in their properties. For your conversation, when the characters should turn to face the others, go to the Actions tab in the dialogue window, and select ga_face_target from the dropdown menu. Press the "refresh" button, and three fields will appear. The instructions for the script appear in the window below, but all you need to do is put the tag of your speaker in the sFacer field, and the tag of your listener in the sTarget field. sTarget can also be the tag of a waypoint instead of an NPC, if you want.

 

I like to help when I can, so you're welcome. :) Making a module is a learning experience for me, too. And I'm always glad to see more people starting modding, so maybe I can play their mods someday!

 

Also, in case you haven't seen the advice already from elsewhere, save your module as a directory, and load it as a directory. It's more stable that way. And turn off the auto-save function for the same reason.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Tchos

[Cluas]

Hi Tchos,

 

TY again.

AND I just read your dev diary. Great stuff. You must have been working really hard to get it all done. One thing i don't understand is overland maps, i guess i will learn that soon (too)

 

I'm going to try your dialogue advice today.

 

I have been saving as a mod with zero problems. Going to directory, just to see if there is any diference.

 

Kudos, and cheers to you :yes:

[Tsongo]

I know these problems too well, here's what I do..

 

Download Rogue Dao's lip flappers off the vault they are a collection of "sound" files, put them in your override ( make a hak later ) then in the node on the conversation go to sounds open the box type in huma and you will see them ( something like huma_hhf_6seconds ), select the ammount of seconds of lip movements you want and click it into place. You now have moving lips I wouldn't recommend putting them on the PC node as it slows down conversations making it impossible to click through the PC lines

 

The problem with facing should be solved by Tchos's suggestion if not make up this script and change the npc names as you go along ( making a new script for each ) and put it in the actions box. Just copy and paste it into a new script, change the tag of the npc between the "", rename it and press save and compile. Then duplicate it, rename it, change the tag and save and compile for each new npc.

 

//PC always disorientated

//PGB 12/05/07

#include "ginc_actions"

void main()

{

object oPC=GetPCSpeaker();

AssignCommand(oPC,ActionOrientToTag("the tag of your npc",ORIENT_FACE_TARGET));

}

 

 

It's probably my most used script. To avoid using this try as much as possible to make the person you want the PC to address to be the last one that spoke. The speaker and listener part of the conversation node works fine for NPC to NPC but for some reason doesn't work for the PC.

[Tchos]

As a bit of clarification to what Tsongo said, the conversation will not be slowed down if you're using the NWN1-style or party chat box instead of cinematic, since it displays both the NPC's text and your possible responses simultaneously, meaning you don't have to click to advance to the next line (one of the many reasons I prefer the NWN1-style over the cinematic style).

 

Tsongo, you could probably make that script into a generic one so you can enter the NPC's tag in the conversation instead of making a new script for each NPC. Just replace the string with a variable like sNPC, change it to say "void main(string sNPC)" instead of just "void main()", and name the script ga_orient_npc or something with ga_ in front. If you want to be fancy, you could even specify a default NPC tag to use for a commonly-used character, which it would use if you leave the field blank in the conversation box.

[Tsongo]

Good idea I've certainly made a lot of those scripts ! I don't think what I wrote was very clear but the lip flappers do slow down NWN1style conversations too. The problem happens when you select the PC reply and the lip flapper will play for as many seconds as it was set to regardless of what you press. So if the PC said "Yes of course I'd love to drive the evil rats from your basement mr landlord" and you set it to 8 seconds even if you read it in two you'd still be waiting for the other six for the next line to appear after you selected it. NPC's don't have this problem and can be clicked mid lipflap and the conversation advanced.

 

I put them on everything and caused a lot of frustration to fast readers and had to go back and delete the PC ones. Although I didn't notice as I just clicked the reply as soon as it appeared and watched the PC because I knew what they were.

 

One other things with conversations that I do is make sure that the speak trigger is owned by the NPC that will do most of the talking that way the PC will always face them unless somebody else buts in.