Adventure Creator - Make 3D adventure games (DEMO, VIDEO, WEBSITE)

Hopefully this week. I apologise for the delay, but I want to make sure it's complete. It won't be NGUI-compatible, but much more powerful than it currently is - rest assured font changes, textures and more will all be much easier once it's out.

Nice suggestion! I will look into it.

NPCs or any other hotspots should never be active during cutscenes - could you elaborate on how this happened?

You can turn hotspots on and off using the Object: Send Message action. When used on an NPC with a Hotspot component, it will enable/disable their interactivity.

 

well I have an hotspot A that serves an object

HotSpot A has 2 interactions

A1-Use -

A1a- inventory check for a card
-if invetory has card - it runs Cutscene B
-if it doesnt it dos a dialoguelay speech


A2-Inventory interaction with card
-camera switch
-object transform (open)
-character move
-object transform (close)
-camera swith

Cutscene B

-camera switch ( NPC X close-up)
-dialogue speech (NPC X speaks)
-Camera swithc (back to main cam)

NPC X
-as animation component (empty)
-as capsule collider
-as rigidbody
-as highligh
-as NPC script
-as hotspot script

NPC X hotspot script

as use interaction - talk icon

NPC X use interaction talk script

-camera switch
-dialogue play speech
-dialogue :start conversation

Issue
When cutscene B is running, NPC X is clicable and if clicked will turn on dialogue conversation

I think it has something to do with the fact that the part (parent) that carries the hotspot script and collider is in the default layer

 

Question/Request

Would it be possible or do you have plans to make a video tutorial on how to correctly add/create custom scripts to adventure creator game engine?

a practical example I would like to upgrade the send message or the visibility script so we can choose and object (or child of object) and be able to activate or deactivate (not just turn invisible)

like if we want to activate props or clothes from the character deactivated child (like when we are creating/choosing custom characters by changing props and clothing)

what would be the best way to do it?

 

As we all know, adventure games are all story telling sort a games, like an interactive book, or better yet an interactive story animated video,

but how about action adventure rpg games, can this also work for these games out of the box?
i am looking for story telling, hack and slash combat, player advancement (level up), skills etc......

is this possible with Adventure creator?

 

Hi Chris, Great work!

One request about localization: you think is too difficult to implement for hotspots and menus?

Thx

Cheers,
Marco

 

If the Speech Action in Cutscene B doesn't have the "Play in background?" checkbox checked you shouldn't be able to even see the cursor while the character's talking, let alone be able to click on anything. Have you modified the code at all? Hotspots are indeed active when they're on the default layer, but only during regular gameplay.

I apologise, but tutorials on making code changes to Adventure Creator is too broad a subject to cover, apart from the information provided in the manual - besides which there are already much better tutorials than I could provide out there.

It certainly is! Though, not "out of the box" - an RPG has too many custom requirements for one to be made without game-specific coding. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty with scripting, Adventure Creator definitely provides a good basis - what with cutscenes, inventory, characters and saving already handled. The scripts are organised sensibly and should be accessible for an experienced coder to amend to their needs. Good luck! Sounds like you have a cool idea.

Thank you I will be getting around to better localisation tools in the near future, as several people have requested them.

 

Just wanted to drop another post here Chris to say thank you for creating this asset. I'm a TOTAL noob to Unity but have began to pick up a lot already from your simple tutorials and great attitude.

Thanks again, you've made the development of Calm Waters something very special now

 

Hi everyone.

Is it possible to make an interaction between 2 objects in the inventory??

 

So Unity 4.3 has been released! How soon do you think we might see the new native 2D features integrated Chris? :0)

 

Chris, about the new feature: Blend Shapes, you know if now is possible use Shape Keys for Character LipSynch Animation in Blender?
Plans for adapt in Adventure Creator?

 

Hi everyone, making very good progress on the 1.16 update - should be submitted (if not released) by the end of the week. It's a bit of a bumper, here are some features soon coming:

• Menu Manager - visual designer for menus
• Cursor Manager - define custom cursors and icons
• Interaction method options - change from the default one-click interface to using a custom menu to choose an interaction type from, either before you click on a hotspot (old school Sierra-style), or after you've clicked on it (Normality / Gemini Rue-style).
• 1st person head bobbing!
• Option to flip 2D frames, to avoid having to make separate left and right 2D animations
• Footstep sounds
• Ability to "flash" all hotspots on a button press
• Ability to zoom camera's FOV with mousewheel in 1st-person mode

Great! I always appreciate feedback. I invite anyone to post screens of their work here - really keen to see how people are making use of it.

Sure - just look for the "Combine events" section in an inventory item's panel in the Inventory Manager. You can attach InvActionLists (scene-independent cutscenes) to as many combinations as you want.

I wouldn't have minded Unity leaving it another week I'm still bogged down with the current 1.16 update, which I will release before looking into native 2D. I'm hoping that the framework laid out for the 2D Toolkit integration will adapt well for the new 2D engine.

I haven't yet had time to look into that feature properly yet, but I will.

 

you know what? this is awesome

 

Is there any way that the 10 second 'camera switch' transition in the Cutscene Editor could be an unlimited custom property?

I'd love a very long camera pan for the opening of my game but 10 seconds isn't long enough and I don't want to be changing cameras as it ruins the feel

 

Great, can't wait for another update, also remember about adding the ability to cancel actions performed by a character (like walking to a marker etc.)

Thanks!

 

AC is brilliant, thanks a lot for developing it Chris!

Any chance you could let us know how native 2D integration is progressing after you're done with 1.16? I would really love to use AC for my game, but with native 2D. If you will be able to finish the integration in the next week or two, I'm happy to wait.

 

Fair enough - I will change this to a float field in the next update.

A trick I ought to mention is that - for cinematics that depend on complex camera movement/timing - you can always parent a GameCamera to a "Dolly rig" that's been animated separately.

I haven't forgotten, but it's quite a difficult problem to solve. I appreciate your continued patience.

Thanks, two weeks sounds about right.

 

Request/question

Do you have plans to add more actions to your current list?

would it be possible to add these actions in the next update

1- custom send message (string) so we can acess other scripts the game might have. (right now we have only pre made options on send message action)

2-add force to click/touch/swipe , some games would benefit or use a more realistic physics interaction (like shotting targets or drag objects)

 

Custom Nav Meshes are really REALLY causing me issues. I'm not 100% sure how to do them for a 3D scene. Any help here or a tutorial would be excellent. It's the only thing holding me back

 

I know your description says I'm able to use custom menus.. but just to be clear.. does that mean I can use something like Coherent UI or NGUI and hook into the adventure game engine using my own menu/hud system?

 

Actually, this is already possible. One of the pre-made options is Custom, and when you choose that you can type in the name of the function you want to call, plus an integer to pass if it requires one.

I'm not quite understanding how you mean. What is it you're trying to make?

Apologies for the delay in a new navmesh tutorial - I will be making a new batch once the more immediate feature requests have been added. I won't be making a tutorial on how to make a custom navMesh model (since that requires a separate 3D tool), but will do one on using Unity's Navigation system. In the meantime, check that your scene's pathfinding method is set to Unity Navigation, place down NavMeshSegments and bake it (Window -> Navigation -> Bake).

I'm afraid not - you will have to use AC's own menu system. However, it's now quite powerful and will hopefully meet the requirements of most.

Just updating the manual and will be submitting the new update shortly.

 

Wow... this is outstanding. Best purchase I've made from the store by far... and I've long been hoping for some middleware for Unity along these lines!

I have a few questions...

1. Is there any possibility of doing character "portraits" for dialogue? Obviously this is more of a retro thing, but would fit in nicely with your 2D support.

2. If one needed a more customized UI what challenges might you face with integration. For a silly example, let's say you want a UI button that makes the player sneeze when pressed. Is that something that could be achieved easily? Basically, how would one link an action or series of AC actions to a UI element?

3. Is the intent to integrate with Mechanim at some point?

4. I see that you're adding new interaction methods. Is this all menu based, or could you do a right-click to select different actions (ala old Sierra)?

5. Any thought of a text parser?

Finally, a (humble) request to bake page numbers into your PDF manual, especially if it keeps growing!

Congrats on this!

 

Thank you very much, I'm glad your satisfied. I always welcome ratings on the store too, good or bad

It'll be possible with the (now submitted) 1.16 release - just create a label and set it's type to "Dialogue Portrait". If the label is on a menu that displays when a character is talking (by setting the Appear Type to WhenSpeechPlays), the label will display the portrait graphic set in the character's inspector.

Again, that's possible with 1.16 - you can attach Menu ActionLists to Buttons that are run when clicked. For deeper-level UI customisation, you can opt to run a function within the MenuSystem script whenever a menu is activated, or element is clicked on.

Hoping so. Perhaps the latest Unity update will allow this, but I will have to see.

Both! You can choose from one of three Interaction methods:

Context Sensitive - the default. One Use interaction and one Look interaction allowed per hotspot - with the cursor changing to an icon based on what you've defined in the Cursor Manager.

Choose Interaction Then Hotspot - change the cursor to a custom icon independently of hotspot. You can do this either by right-clicking to cycle through them (Sierra-style), or by clicking on Interaction elements in a menu. Interaction menu elements are like "button icons" that change your cursor to a particular icon when clicked on. Allows for multiple Use interactions.

Choose Hotspot Then Interaction - also allows for multiple Use interactions, but more streamlined. You click on a hotspot, and the available interactions appear via different icons, including inventory items. This is displayed in a menu, for customisation.

(Cries)

Noted, thanks.

 

Cheers Chris, I've actually done all of that but the actual path-finding seems slightly off when compared to NavMeshes. For example, he may walk in a circle or something random before trying to find his way to the location clicked. Other times it's perfect.

 

One more addition would be very useful, that is a marker spawned in a targeted spot on a navmesh in point&click controls, so you can see where your character is going.

 

Good suggestion!

Hm. Not sure I can comment on that - once you use baked navmeshes, it's actually relying on Unity's own pathfinding algorithm. Still, here's a tutorial:

 

That's excellent! Mine now works fine - Cheers Chris. Any idea on the time scale for the update?

 

I'm missing something, but how can we play cutscenes other than an opening one? For example after some interaction.

 

You're welcome - update is in Unity's hands now, but it usually takes 2-3 working days.

Cutscenes and Interactions are largely the same, feature-wise, but you can call a Cutscene from just about any Action (within an Interaction or otherwise), by changing that Action's "After running" property to "Run Cutscene".

 

I just gave in to all the reviews and features and bought this plugin
Really excited about using it for our new project.

Any ETA on integration with Unity 2D tools?

 

Thanks for your support!
Chris, one more question, I've noticed that character movement with point&click is not very accurate. It can be seen in your demo, but the problem is even bigger in my scene. Character stops like a meter away from his target, node is in front of him but he stops quite far away from it. I tried changing colliders, looking at navmesh but this problem is persistent. Do you have any insight on what could be going on? Thanks!

If I try continuously clicking in one spot, then character will slowly make his way to the exact point I'm clicking at.

 

Hi there!!

Really good work with Unity navmeshes

As native 2D tools are in the works... please consider adding a generic 2D on top of unity 2D tools and 2DToolkit, so it would be easier to implement our own 2D tools from other vendors, like with Spine, or Smooth moves (that it would be 2D in directions, but it can use as standard animator.play(), blend, etc like 3D characters).

Other thing I would like to see is... a 2D transform-moving camera... I now! all the matrix you did (literally!) for camera panning and zooming is great, but if using 2DTK for characters, I would like to use it for backgrounds, characters, and... cameras (for multiresolution and sprite positions), but they have it's own matrix conversion on them so they are not compatible with your 2Dcamera script. Also it would be useful for doing 2D Parallax with multiple cameras...

Also... specify axis for rotation/direction calculation... I would like to say which axis is forward/left/right/back for the direction calculation. I mean, for working on 2D I prefer to have the scene arranged on the XY plane, with a parallel navmesh and the player rigid as kinetic (I wouldnt need gravity), so going "deeper" in the scene would mean going up on Y axis.

At last, consider for a the future... a conversation tree editor. If you try doing a complex branching dialogue (with a few branching childs, like a Monkey Island "Tell me more about the three trials") it will be hard to follow.

And that's it... thank you Chris, for your support and doing a great work with this kit

@Ozzon, surely if you ramp up the acceleration you'll get nearer to the point when stopping, but yep, I would like it better if it would be a bit more accurate when stopping.

 

Thanks for your previous reply, Chris!

What would be your suggestion for an optimized workflow for 2.5D - in a situation where your background images are hand-drawn - and thus each 2.5D background would by necessity need its own discrete pathfinding?

Also in regards to optimization of a 2.5d workflow... the current method demonstrated to have areas of the background overlap the character is easy to understand and doable - but it's definitely a bit on the slower side from a production viewpoint. Might there be a solution that allows one to paint the overlap area in an alpha channel of the background PNG - or something along those lines? Perhaps a custom shader would be necessary on the Unity side?

Don't mean to be greedy (considering using your system vs writing a custom system has already jump-started my project past the first 4 months of planned dev time) but wondering if there are further optimizations that could be considered for the speed of the overall workflow. Especially for 2D/2.5D. The 3D stuff seems pretty killer already.

 

Would someone explain what to do if I have a variable name conflict when I import the Adventure Creator project into my working project? Specifically, i have Hotween installed along with Playmaker, and some scripts that call on a PathType variable in Hotween, but Adventure Creator declares a public Enum PathType,...which then causes me errors...

 

And.. 1.16 is out! Quite a few new features, but the biggest being a new menu system. Changelog on the first post.

Also, the 1.17 update has been submitted, which includes Unity 2D support, the option to have Grid-based inventory systems, Blend Shapes, and the ability to cancel interactions by "clicking off" before the player character reaches the hotspot. The webplayer demo has been updated to show off the later.

This is actually a combination of several factors, the main two being how close the navigation mesh is to the floor, and how closely the player needs to be to the intended target to stop moving (necessary to prevent overshooting if the acceleration is too high).

For the 1.17 update, you will be able to change the game's "Destination accuracy" from a slider within the Settings Manager. For now, you can check out the updated webplayer demo to see how this improves things.

Providing solutions for each and every available 2D asset out there is kind of unfeasible, I'm afraid. Unity's own 2D framework is what I'll be concentrating on from now on, since it works out-of-the-box for everyone. Once Unity's documentation has caught up with the 4.3 update, I'll see what further improvements can be made.

I considered this, but now that Unity's own 2D workflow adopts the same Z-depth direction, it makes sense that that's the standard.

Noted, thanks for the suggestion.

Since the PathType (I'm hoping) is a rarely-used enum in people's games, I've gone and renamed it with an "AC_" prefix for the 1.17 update. This conflict should stop once the update is out.

 

Hey Chris, thanks for a great update and continuous support!

One question, after the update font size for labels is very big, I tried changing the font size in the menu panel and restarted the game, but font doesn't seem to change? Not sure if I'm missing something.

Second thing, is there a chance for an offset for a camera target, so I can focus camera in front of a character? Not a look at, but when the character is moving. I tried working with track freedom and follow speed, but an offset would be a great addition.

Last thing, can we localize labels?

Big Thanks!

 

Not sure if you missed my post above, but would really love your thoughts - especially on how to handle the navmeshes for 2.5D. Would you end up needing to have a separate scene per screen?

 

1.17 is out! Changelog in the usual place

Make sure the Game window is visible and check the Preview checkbox at the top of the Menu Manager - it'll let you see the Menus as you make changes to them. Also be aware that font size is now a per-element setting.

Sorry, I'm not quite sure how you mean. Do you want more control over the camera's Y rotation?

Not yet, but it's a planned feature.

Apologies. Yes, 2.5D games are really intended for pre-rendered backgrounds, so hand-drawn ones will likely require a 2D workflow instead - and a separate scene per background. You could swap out the NavMesh mid-scene, but you'd need to make sure that the player is always within a "shared area" during each transition.

I like your suggestion of "painting" an overlap area, though I'm not sure how that would work in practice. I will have a think on it and see if the workflow can be improved.

 

Let's say I'm using only X Axis for camera, character can move left and right with a little bith of depth, similar to orthographic view but with a camera angle.
I'd like to be able to focus camera a little bit in front of my character, so he is not in a middle any more and I could see more of the level in front of me.

I'd like! I'd like!

 

Ah, I see. Similar to the "height offset" but in X/Z as well. OK, will see to that!

 

I recently purchased this pack and it's great. Thanks Chris. I used to make little adventure games back on the Atari ST with various construction kits and have been after something like this for ages. I started trying to make something with UScript and a few free bits and pieces but came unstuck when it came to inventory manipulation and what to do for conversations. Most of what I found is really more RPG inventory systems, not really suitable for point n click adventures. This seems to do everything I wanted and more.

I have a few things I'm not too clear on yet.

1) Is there a way to skip lines of dialogue by clicking? When I'm testing I don't want to wait for them to print out at normal speed and I'm sure the player would prefer to skip them too.

2) When clicking on hotspots that send the player to a specific marker, it seems to ignore triggers they pass through on the way. I have a switch plate on the other side of a room with a set of triggers to switch to a near camera, but although when I click to walk through, that works ok, if I click on the switch directly, the character walks over through the triggers and the camera doesn't switch. Is that something I'm overlooking?

3) I could do with some guidance on the best way to change scenes/ rooms. I've got a trigger set up to send the player to another scene and that works ok. I'm using an Is Previous Scene on the initial cutscene to check which the previous location is and teleport the player to the correct start.And that's working ok too. But when i go back to the previous scene, all the statuses of all the objects are reset. Do I have to set up all those remember scripts on everything and add a cutscene to restore them for each room? That sounds quite complicated. Is there an easier way?

Thanks again. Great package.

 

Nahhh dont worry!! I meant for us to make our own implementations...

About your camera panning through matrix operation, I'll do my own 2Dfollow script then. I preffer to use a 2DTK camera script because it supports multi-resolution (for each resolution you can define it to be pixel perfect, stretchs, scalings, black bands) and multi-atlases (same sprite, same transform, but automatic atlases change for x1, x2, x4 resolutions). And that's useful for 2D PC/iOS/Android development.

Wouldn't it be solved using a namespace for the kit? :?

 

Hey Chris, sorry for spamming, but I have another suggestion for a feature in AC.
That is a way to move a character by clicking and holding left mouse button, what makes the character follow the point you are holding your mouse cursor at. It would be very useful for movement in areas with a side scrolling.

One more thing, after an update I don't see items popping up in the inventory after I pick them up, I mean they are in the inventory but there is no notification that an item was actually picked up.

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question... but does a scene-per-background sound like a viable workflow for a game with a larger number of screens? I've never done a Unity project with more than 10, and in this case I could see it getting into the hundreds.

In your 2D camera tutorial you just used a simple shape as a navmesh, but this was still using 3D models rather than a still image as the background. How would you do your Navmesh for a drawn 2D image? It seems a much more difficult workflow.

Ultimately all my nagging is just trying to figure out an optimized way of doing 3D or 2D characters on a 2D background. Like I said, the 3D stuff is dead-simple and just killer. Wish I had the budget to do all 3D!!

Your fast updates and friendly help here are enormously appreciated.

 

Hey Chris, I've been playing with the new menu system, it's really nice!

Two things I had a problem with, I can't seem to be able to set spacing after a last dialogue line, below is an example of how it looks in the editor and in the game:




As you can see, in the editor there is a plenty of space under the subtitles but in game it auto resizes and there is no space under subtitles, it would be great if we could control that.

Other thing, is that I'm unable to enter values from a keyboard for some settings, only by using a slider and it's not very precise, that's a very minor thing but if you had a chance it would be a nice fix.
Below is an example:

 

Regarding using Unity's Navmesh - can you use its Navmesh creation (tagging meshes Nav static) and just baking or does one really have to do it all manually, segment by segment? I am trying to do this to a complex area and it's a lot of detail work

And to add to your feature list:

1. A Journal. At first glance it doesn't seem possible to do within the context of the menu system and it's a pretty standard element.
2. Hooks for an alternate GUI such as NGUI. From looking at your code I imagine that this would be a P.I.T.A. but IMO it's pretty important.

 

That's something I've been meaning to ask too.

Baking a NavMesh in Unity is so quick and easy, no matter how complex the geometry in your scene is. Having to manually create the NavMesh Segments in the editor for Adventure Creator is extra (fairly tedious) work, that I'd rather not have to do!

Is it possible to streamline this process somehow? (e.g. Remove the need to create NavMeshSegments when using Unity's built-in pathfinding or auto-generate them based on Unity's NavMesh).

 

I would like to know Adventure Creator's future

If Adventure Creator continue to evolve

Will Adventure Creator make me a game like sims?

 

Since many users of AC will be creating custom actions and other such enhancements, will there be a repository for them like Hutonggames has for Playmaker?

 

@vonchor ... That would be great.

 

It was the Amiga 600 for me, back in the day!

Yes - in the Settings Manager, look for the Speech settings panel, and check "Allow speech skipping".

Triggers will only work when the player passes through them during normal gameplay, to prevent them from interfering with cutscenes. Make sure "Cutscene while moving" is unchecked in your Hotspot's inspector.

Any object with an appropriate Remember script attached will be saved and loaded automatically when you change rooms. The only need for an additional Cutscene is to set up animation states, since they cannot be restored automatically.

If only I'd known about namespaces..

Not sure how you mean - is it similar to the way Touch Screen works? You can still use that method with a mouse pointer, try changing your Input type and see if that's similar to what you have in mind.

How would such a notification appear?

2D adventure engines normally do require one scene per background - it's the same with AGS, for example. I appreciate the added difficulty of having to translate 2D drawings into a 3D space when laying down the NavMesh, but it's a system that allows a consistent workflow for everyone. In your particular case, I would recommend keeping your Scene and Game windows active simultaneously, and temporarily make your main GameCamera active. This way, you can have one eye on your in-game view while building your NavMeshes.

On a side note, I should mention that all of the demo game's graphics were made using Blender, which is open-source and free. I don't know any details of your development progress, but it may be worth blocking out backgrounds in 3D, then tracing over them to have 2D "perspective-correct" backgrounds, which may help you keep several backgrounds in one scene.

There should be a couple of ways you can do this. First, you could increase the padding value in the Menu settings. Second, you could also try placing an empty label underneath the speech line label. Set it's size to manual, but position to aligned - this will make a fixed space underneath it. You may have to give it the same background textures as the other elements, but it should work.

Just widen the inspector window - it should let you enter in values once it's beyond a minimum width.

For Point-and-click games, NavMeshes serve two purposes: receiving raycasts from the mouse to work out the point to walk to, and calculating a path from one point to another. The Mesh Collider method allows one object to do both, but the Unity Navigation method needs Segments to do the first, and the baked NavMesh to do the second. I appreciate that it can be arduous for complex scenes, but Segments are unfortunately required when making a Point and Click game. However, if you are making a direct-control or first-person game, you should be able to bake a NavMesh using the regular Unity workflow and forget about Segments.

I agree that's a good idea - what would be the ideal workflow? One large label that you can add text to?

The current menu system is pretty hard-embedded in the system. Which NGUI features would you be looking to make use of?

For now, I intend to focus on workflow and fixes - better to make sure it does what it advertises well before moving on to other things. Who knows what the future will bring, though!

That's a great suggestion - if anyone would like to post or PM me such Actions, please do so!