Cowboy Hunt Narrative | Nix Narrative

NARRATIVE

ZOLARIS

SOFTWARE:

Unreal Engine 4 | Blueprints | Maya

INSPIRATION:

1st person stealth | RPG | Fallout | Bioshock | Dishonored

JOB TITLE:

Creative Director/ Lead Level designer

TEAM SIZE: 13

DURATION: 8 Months

NARRATIVE

For this project, I was also in charge of recording, editing, and implementing the dialogue for the game. I wanted to accomplish an immersive experience for the player where the dialogue was functional, helped guide the player, and felt natural. This experience included the subtitle text at the bottom of the game HUD, the audio files that correspond with the subtitles, and the audio trigger system to play specific dialogue at the right point within the game.

To accomplish this, I made dialogue systems that played when players interacted with objects and played when players explored certain parts of the map.

I also created an audio system that kept track of previously used dialogue and the currently playing dialogue to ensure dialogue wouldn't overlap.

Finally, I created an NPC system that would change dialogue depending on which missions the player had completed. This system also allowed the player to skip through dialog by pressing "X" without overlapping.

Narrative Event Graph

This is the beginning of the Dialogue System. When the Player interacts with an NPC, based on the NPC's Conversation ID, Dialog is created through the "Dialog Create Function."

Once the correct dialog is created, it returns through the "Game Message function.

The Game message function presents the dialog on the player screen.

Dialogue Create

The function "Dialogue Create" accesses all of the widgets of the Players UI, and presents the Dialog on the UI.

Next it looks up which Dialogue Line and speaker to return using the function "Dialog Get Line" .

This depends on the "conversation ID" and the "line number" the player is on.

Once it finds the correct line, the function returns them and finishes.

Dialogue Get Line (1)

In the function "Dialog Get line", I created a For Each Loop Array to store my Dialog Lines.

Next I have the function retrieve all of my dialog lines from a Data Table created in Excel. (See next step)

Using a Break node, I separate the data table into subsection so my scripts can grab certain parts of it.

Dialogue Data Table

This is my Dialogue data table. It has 5 subsections to return the correct dialogue line.

The "NPC_ID" determines who the player is talking too when they interact.

The "Conversational_ID" determines which conversation that NPC is having with the player

The "Line ID" determines which line is being said.

The "Speaker_ID" and "Dialogue" determines who is speaking and what is said.

Dialogue Get Line (2)

The For each Loop goes through the Data Table to match the correct "Conversational ID", "Line ID."

Once those Two variables match, the "Speaker Name" and "Dialog Line" are added to a return array.

Dialogue Get Line (3)

Once the For Each loop completes, the function checks if the return array has any length or value.

If this is true it returns the dialogue line and speaker. If this is false it hides the UI element and returns the "Current Line" to 0.

Dialog Audio

This functions determines which line the player conversation is on and matches it with an audio files from an array of audio files.

Once the audio file matches the line it is set to the audio component and played.

Audio Triggers

To achieve our Quest Dialogue, we used Audio Trigger boxes around the map.

When a player overlaps with them, the game will play the dialogue associated with that section of the map.

Audio Trigger: Event Graph

The Audio trigger first detects if the player has already come into contact with it.

Next The Audio Trigger calls to the games Audio Manager, and tells it to play the Dialogue audio for that location.

Play Audio

When the Event "Play Audio" is called, it checks the Audio Trigger's "Flag ID"

The Flag ID determines which Dialogue it's suppose to play.

Next it checks if Audio is already playing from another source.

If so, the event stores the next upcoming audio track and waits until the previous audio is finished.

Flag ID

When the Audio is ready to play, the event set Audio to player and determines which dialogue lines need to come up.

This is determined by the Flag ID

Dialogue

The Play Event connects to the player's UI and reveals the dialogue window

In Contrast to the NPC system, the Dialogue is manually entered through "make Literal Text."

There is a manual delay until playing the next text and this continues until the dialogue is complete.

DIALOGUE SYSTEMS

NCP CONVERSATIONS

QUEST DIALOGUE