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Characters

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Jack Brett edited this page May 20, 2024 · 7 revisions

You can create scenes with dialogues using the Dialogue Order without associating this dialogue with any characters.

However, many narrative based games will utilise characters with multiple portraits (i.e., one character but with mulitple expressions). We can implement this using our Character classes.

Creating Characters

Adding characters to your project is easy, simply:

  1. Select LUTE>Create>Narrative>Character.

characterCreateMenu

  1. A new Character object should be created and visible on the Hierarchy window.
  2. Once this object is selected, you can edit various character properties - we suggest renaming the actual object also to help with clarity in larger scenes with multiple characters.

characterInpsector

  1. You can then change various other properties on the character object inspector and for now we will skip over the portratit properties.

Using Characters in Dialogue

Now we have created a new character, we can use it as a reference in a Dialogue Order:

  1. Create a new Node on your Flow Engine window. Ensure that the new Node will execute when the game starts using the 'Activate By' property.
  2. Add a 'Dialogue' Order to this new Node.
  3. Assign the new character to your Dialogue and then fill in some sample text.

characterOrderInpsector

  1. Head into 'Play Mode' and see the Dialogue pop up with the new character name/colour.

characterDialogueBox

Character's Portraits

By adding one or more portrait images to a character you can assign each of these portraits when defining your Dialogue Order. This is useful for when you have one character that you wish to express multiple expressions for.

Adding a portrait is simple:

  1. Head back to your newly created character from the earlier steps.
  2. In in Inspector, click the plis sign ('+') by the empty portrait list to create a new portrait entry.

characterNewPortrait

  1. Drag or select the new portrait image this new slot. In our case, we only have one simple portrait to add for our character currently. You can also set the direction the image will face or whether the sprite should be flipped to face FRONT or REVERSED.
  2. Head back to your Dialogue Order and then select the portrait that you wish to show when using this dialogue box.

characterOrderPortrait

  1. Head back into Play Mode and see the the character image next to the Dialogue text and character name.

characterPortrait

This is just a very simple example of characters in the LUTE system - you can get a bit more in depth with this if you wish!

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