General Category > Software and games

Dialog editor (or something like that...)

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McCoy:
Mhhh, I would like to post about a program like the topic sais, but this post is for asking for one,  sorry!

I need a program in wich you could add questions & answers to the questions, and that represents the resultant dialog tree graphically, you know, like the windows explorer, but with dialogs: questions linked to answers, and those answers linked to the questions you get after asking the other question and all that. (what a tongetwister...  :-X)

I need it because my scripters (the guys who are making the game story, no the programmers, in fact, i'm the only one programming the game ;)) give me all the things in msword, and when the dialogs are big and messy, is pretty hard to get the trail of it the way they write it in word.

Anyone knows about a program like this?

I thought about making one myself in VB, but it's stupid if there's another one already made...

Hope you understood everything...   :-[

Mnemonic:
Well, I know only the Deus Ex conversation editor (part of the Deus Ex SDK), but it's not exactly what you're looking for; no tree view, it's more like BASIC, lines, labels, GO TO's...

odnorf:
Ok... I am not 100% sure, but I believe that that the editors (the SDK toolkit) for the game "Neverwinter Nights" have an editor that can do exactly that...

(Hm... A program like this is a good idea as a "help tool" for the wme... don't you think Jan? :))

Mnemonic:

--- Quote from: odnorf on July 04, 2003, 09:02:30 AM ---(Hm... A program like this is a good idea as a "help tool" for the wme... don't you think Jan? :))

--- End quote ---

We've been discussing a tool like that with Jeroen some time ago. Not a "help tool" for preparing dialogs, but an editor for direct creating "dialogue files" for WME to use internally. I was analyzing what functionality would be needed, and what would it take to integrate it with the current systems. In the end I decided NOT to create such a tool. While using scripting to design dialogs, you have so many options to incorporate various conditions to affect the dialog flow. If you wanted to create a tool for this, it would be either too limited (compared to scripting) or too messy and hard to use. Also, it might seem the dialogs are just trees, as McCoy mentions above, but it's not always the case. You will find complex dialogs are actually graphs, rather than trees, very hard to dislplay. The DeusEx ConEdit overcomes that by using the BASIC-like structure, but of course it's for a price of worse readability.
I'd like to see the NWN editor, but I don't have the game...

odnorf:

--- Quote from: Mnemonic on July 04, 2003, 09:33:34 AM ---I was analyzing what functionality would be needed, and what would it take to integrate it with the current systems. In the end I decided NOT to create such a tool. While using scripting to design dialogs, you have so many options to incorporate various conditions to affect the dialog flow. If you wanted to create a tool for this, it would be either too limited (compared to scripting) or too messy and hard to use. Also, it might seem the dialogs are just trees, as McCoy mentions above, but it's not always the case. You will find complex dialogs are actually graphs, rather than trees, very hard to dislplay. The DeusEx ConEdit overcomes that by using the BASIC-like structure, but of course it's for a price of worse readability.

--- End quote ---

Yeah... by scripting the dialogues you have complete control over your game that it wouldn't be possible with just a different dialogues file. By scripting you can do anything : play animations, play sounds, change the scene in any way you like, e.t.c.


--- Quote from: Mnemonic on July 04, 2003, 09:33:34 AM ---I'd like to see the NWN editor, but I don't have the game...

--- End quote ---

I'll install it and maybe post a screenshot if I find it tomorrow.

Oh... and I can't really play the game because I am using the KX drivers (www.kxproject.com) for my SoundBlaster Live! and NWN crashes if I don't disable the music/sounds :( And I also can't use the (old & latest) creative drivers because in my system they have HUGE problems when I play mpeg1 & mpeq2 videos (videoCDs, SuperVideoCDs and DVDs). :( I really hate creative's support & software & drivers.

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