Utilities Storyteller 2023. Dialogue , Interaction, and more (Unity Awards Nominee)

Over 3 hours of tutorial recorded, there are a few more hours to record.

waiting for the room setup to be completed before recording more tutorials turned out to be a good choice. Audio quality of recording starting in Tutorial 5 is much better.

 

6 hours or tutorial completed so far.

here is a giant canvas screenshot generated by storyteller for the Detective Bot scene which.

Image seems far too large to be displayed here . view it here https://i.imgur.com/m2ECWP1.jpg


The entire story and development of the story in game is completely unrehearsed so this is a 100% real use case tutorial.



The story sample editor was of great use in this last tutorial where I had to check entire branches of character interaction to see if they flow nicely. This is really exciting stuff

 

Ok Ok last update before final tutorial and sending to the Asset Store , for real this time hahaha

But i just HAD TO add the toggle visibility setting in the timeline and copy paste buttons for quick data transfer for faster development along with a ton more new necessary functions.

I am going to stop now before I get carried away and all other updates will be for Storyteller 2019.3.4


Sending to Unity Either Tomorrow or Saturday

 

All tutorials were remade within the last 24 hours because 7 hours of tutorial video is too long.

Sending all storyteller and game bridge versions to unity in an hour

 

Just waiting for unity to accept the new versions and put them on the AssetStore.


Also Storyteller Asset download size is now just 34MB, 5 times smaller than it was before.

 

Storyteller 2019.3.3 is now on the AssetStore

Game Bridge 2019.1.4 is now on the Assetstore

 

For the next game bridge update. Voice recording and sound effect playback will be controlled by the condition system.

This means.

you can trigger your voice recordings and sound effects whenever you wan them to be triggered , instead of them playing by default when the characters node data is processed in game.

This will make setting up your voice actors voice recordings playback times match up when the start time of your character animation if you want.

 

Update

Game Bridge 2019.1.5 is now released.

Audio playback system has been updated to support playback in two ways.
- optional automatic playback.
- Audio playback based on time as set in a condition system.

 

@C_p_H were you able to open and launch the projects without issue ?

 

Hello,

I just finished upgrading Unity to 2019.2.9f1 and installed the latest version of StoryTeller/GameBridge. I've always had to recreate my tabbed window layout upon each Unity upgrade else Unity will become unresponsive when attempting to reload a layout from a previous installation. I don't believe ST/GB is the cause of that because it has occurred long before I purchased StoryTeller. Unity Tech Support said that there's no limit on how many layout window tabs I can open all at once per project but that appears not to be the case or is unrelated to why Unity corrupts its layouts saved and reloaded from previous versions.

ST 2019.3.3 & BG 2019.1.5 loaded without console errors, however I did need to relink all the character photos.

 

Okay, great . I am not sure why it did that but I will check out that bit. The images should remain intact.

 

Storyteller 2019.4 is complete and will be sent to Unity during the week.


On another note.

I Found one of the very first versions of Storyteller. It is inside of a massive editor tool named the Reality Engine.

It is basically a HUGE unity editor extension full of tools including storyteller.


this tool is a darn monster.

I have released four of the tools you see in the area on the right. If I ever release the entire tool it will come with all our assets with some extra stuff. but that is not guaranteed at all because this asset is huge

 

I recall watching your vid on the Reality Engine some time ago. Because of its vastness I felt it'd be perfect for game devs whom have not already heavily invested time & money on a host of other similar tools in Unity's Asset Store. Your RE would give anyone an all-in-one tool for possibly the best in class workflow money could buy, because they wouldn't need to worry about the integrations enigma that gives current game devs nightmares (like when one of our heavily integrated tools that use to play nice with all other components in our project suddenly becomes deprecated without any notice then we're forced to scrap the project or attempt to strip out the code and find an alternative replacement) for none coders.

 

@C_p_H If i remember correctly , I built the reality engine because i didn't have access to tools that I felt were vert important to me at the time.

I made my first game and finished the game and it has no story and i suck at writing stories on paper or in MS word , so i started creating storyteller.

I made Architect so that I could plan projects nicely but never completed it.

I started working on a Procedural tool, which kind of works but i didn't complete it.

Resource root (Released)

Radar builders (Released)

Dialogue <- now Game Bridge with a dialogue component in it (Released)

also part of the reason why I do not make my assets compatible with other asset publisher tools. I never know if they will depreciate their assets. I have had questions about integrating storyteller with a certain third party asset.


Anyway, I am absolutely terrified of what I will decide to do next. I am releasing tools one by one. and they could take a while to complete Storyteller started in 2017 and was completed January of this year and matured a few months ago.

The first tool was released in 2015. and only 4 of the 12 tools are released with 1 more kind of working

Either way , I am following the list of tools in the Game tools list (the 12 tools) and releasing them one by one.

i will probably work on Procedural or Real Grow next. We will see

 

Regarding making storyteller compatible with 3rd party assets.
Integrating with other publisher assets is too complex, We can only integrate with tools that Unity creates or acquires.

saving your game.

As you know , Game Bridge allows you to put all your Storyteller data into a ScriptableObject

(Storyteller) -> (push data With Game Bridge)->(Scene Data ScriptableObject) -> Game


When it comes to saving your game

Just remember to save the Scene Data ScriptableObject too.

 

It's pretty cool to see how far your developments have come over the years and what inspired you to build them. That's a new level of genius all in its self just to commit ones self and dedicate enough time to see it through.
I loss track of how many times I've hit a brick wall on researching various standard and non-standard CG methods in an attempt to create something new and different that I myself will be motivated enough to want to continue improving upon. Many ideas I've researched have not been invented yet so several of them get shelved until hopefully the tech required to create them exist someday.

I know it sounds kinda cliché but I have no problem praising the hard work of others like yourself because I understand how unbelievably difficult the process of implementing ideas, avoiding distractions and working insanely long hours really is.

Your StoryTeller & GameBridge assets have certainly filled a niche within Unity that I didn't realize I actually needed in order to maintain an organized workflow amongst all the chaos of game building components. I might be revealing my age a little bit when I say this but I certainly realized my brain has limits that I should respect within Unity's environment if I plan to keep my sanity and bring my dream project to reality, meaning I've taken the time to drastically reduce the amount of assets I own to better focus on utilizing fewer more powerful assets to keep my workflow smoother and a lot easier for me to understand. When I realized I needed to do this downsizing it also meant the realization of scrapping my current projects and starting over from scratch but its necessary and I feel it'll be worth it.

Well at least it's not another rage quit this time around!

 

Thank you very much for your support, it is a great help . It would be great to see what you are working on one day , i am sure that it will be great!

certainly good step. I only used one third party assets when creating the Detective Bot example scene. I believe that unity has created and acquired most of the tools that developers need. Its nothing like back in 2012 when there were very few AAA tools.


Hopefully I finally get to work on my own game soon too.

 

New update coming to Game Bridge.

- the Storyboard image push data button is being removed since Dialogue and Character do not use storyboard images . however you may add it back if you want to.

- the over 90 personality traits that each character and their evolution states will be able to be sent to game.
Unitys new AI and Ml package makes the use of the personality value in game quite interesting.

- You will be able to use all character evolution states in game. currently you use you initial evolution state.

 

Short video for persons new to Storyteller.

 

The new versions of Storyteller and Game Bridge are now on the Assetstore.

 

That video doesn't tell me what storyteller do, it tell me where are the stuff if I already know... but what's the end result?

 

I have a full playlist showing setting up a full game with NPC interaction using Storyteller. As of now iti s the newest playlist on out youtube channel.

to keep things simple.

Use in game (requires free game bridge extension)
- Dialogue and interaction
- Cutscenes (scope varies)

All information on game bridge is outlined in the above videos and replies
All of which you can use in game.

 

@neoshaman There are three example game scenes that come included with the asset. Two NPC interaction

-NPC Quest, shows basic interaction with 5 NPCs

-Detective Bot (fully developed scene as shown above) showing how you can use a story to generate interactions at runtime and have story influenced by game and game influenced by story.

and one visual novel example showing how to use predetermined dialogue for something like a dating sim.

 

The new game bridge is on the AssetStore here



As mentioned ,for those of you into AI and Ml ,In this version you have direct access to all your characters personality values.

 

Well if you can emulate versu I'm all for it

 

does all this work with 2d games using the platformer pro 2 engine?

 

I am not familiar with details of that asset.
the Game Bridge assets components (Character and Dialoguer) dont require any complex functions to trigger dialogue and interaction.

Character: requires an OnTriggerEnter function to check if your character entered another characters area. and the conversation or interaction can begin based on whatever other condition you setup.
You also don't NEED to use OnTriggerEnter. just any function which can check if you are about to interact with another characters

Dialoguer: only requires no coding to begin dialogue, you can setup conditions visually in the editor. However you can write a code to trigger dialogue if you want.

 

There is a free evaluation version of Storyteller



For the Evaluation version
HTML export is for full version only.
2 scene Limit.
Single character evolution state limit
watermarked screenshot generation

The next release will allow you to play through Storyteller scene data in game using Game Bridge but NOT actively edit the data, this is for the full version only.

With the Free Evaluation version, I want you to get a good feel of the workflow and some of what to expect before you decide to buy the full version.

 

Currently for cyber week, storyteller and all my other paid assets are ALL 40 % off , yay

 

"Unnecessary corgi mode" is now going to be part of Storyteller until the end of 2019.
This new function is groundbreaking...ly useless.

It turns the little balls you use to visualize your story, into a Corgi image.

Thats all

 

I'm interested in the asset, but I'm currently using adventure creator, dialogue system and articy draft.
Kudos on the project.

 

No problem, you can try the free evaluation version in your free time. The evaluation version has limits and wont allow active game development but you get to try out all interfaces

I hope that your project goes well

 

Storyteller 2020 is coming and it will have a brand new character definition section.

 

Hey I noticed one of the uses for find and replace was for static words; are we able or going to be able to dynamic references for names and quest items, objects, locations, etc? Like %CompanionName% would fill in: Dogmeat, Nick Valentine, etc. Depending on active companion. Instead of checking a bunch of conditionals with separate static dialogues.

 

@Rujash is this for the find and replace in the canvas or the one in Game Bridge ?

For the one in Game Bridge, I would say thst there is definitely a lot if room for improvement and more dynamic functionally.

I can confirm thst there will indeed be updates to these systems. With feedback from you and other users I can reshape the system to be more dynamic.

For your specific example, where would you like to pull those replacement nanes from ? The character history and evolution or a elsewhere?

 

Maybe it just needs to be in-line code in the dialogue. For example: "Hi " + get(player name) + ", how are you and your companion " + get(active.companion.name) + "doing?"

If there's character definitions, and you mean that there's a profile for characters and variables you can set in there, that could be used, like get(player.storyteller.profile.name).

I'm not sure how it'd grab which is the active follower or active player object except by an outside reference, since it's not something storyteller would manage. But if there were a profiler for the game bridge, we could have something like a dictionary with %ActiveCompanion% being linked to get(active.companion.name) in dialogue

 

Ah, yes so replacing the name itself is fine, its the method of fetching the replacement name that we want to make more dynamic . That can definitely be done via code, but i never actually showed that in the tutorials hmmm.

Cool that seems like a fun thing to try to setup.

I will so update the system so that all the character history and evolution states are pushed over along with their personality values.

Here in the Storyteller Scripting API documentation I show how you can access your character and their name and if you look at line 493 in the Character.cs script for example, you will see where text replacement takes placed if current dialogue contains a specific string.

The Scri[ting API doc needs to be u[dated too since the ActiveCharacterDialogueSet no longer holds character data. so that example script on the page would instead look like this.

Code (CSharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using DaiMangou.BridgedData;
3. using System;
4. using UnityEngine.UI;
5. public class ProcessingDataInGame : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     public SceneData sceneData;
8.     [NonSerialized]
9.     public NodeData ActiveNodeData;
10.     public int ActiveIndex;
11.     public ReflectedData TargetReflectedData;
12.     public GameObject TargetGameObject;
13.     // Assuming this function id inside of the Dialoguer.cs script.
14.     void Update ()
15.     {
16.         ActiveNodeData = sceneData.ActiveCharacterDialogueSet[ActiveIndex];
17.         // lets  simply check to see if the ActiveNodeData in game is that of an CharacterNodeData.
18.         if (ActiveNodeData.type == typeof(ActionNodeData))
19.         {
20.             // create a variable to represent this character data
21.             var character = (CharacterNodeData)ActiveNodeData.CallingNodeData;
22.             Debug.Log(character.CharacterName);
23.         }
24.     }
25. }

so you could assign a characters name by script BUT i will just make the system more dynamic so that you don't necessarily have to hard code those functions yourself, this will keep the system reusable.

 

@Rujash
Dynamic "Find and Replace" system is setup for noth the searched word and replacing worrd.

In the next update you should have the ability to

replace :
static keyword with dynamic replacement
static"" with static""
dynamic"" with static""
dynamic"" with dynamic""

by just messing with two toggle buttons


I will still be working on it to make sure it is stable.

 

BTW if anyone finds a bug or something weird, please email me at daimangou@gmail.com

 

For Game bridge extension asset, a new text typing method is coming to the 2020 version.

 

One more thing.

ever used a while loop incorrectly ?
You know what happens , crashes.

In the storyteller canvas, creating n infinite loop is a sure way to cause trouble.
for example . This is a NO NO



Storyteller uses time and time will only flow in in one direction.

if you want o travel back in time . the ONLY way to do so is by using a time loop

 

Storyteller 2020 and Game Bridge 2020 have been released !

 

Major updates coming to both storyteller and Game Bridge 2920.1.5

 

This exact scene is included in the Storyteller 2020.1.5 release. this time you see an example of how when you speak to NPC 1, you see NPC 1 speaking to you from its perspective when it speaks and when you speak you see yourself speaking to NPC1 from a different perspective.

This is of course done without coding.

as a matter of fact it was done only with the General Condition system in the inspector



The NPC has one too with setting in the reverse order.

Also, when the character walks away from the NPC the camera goes back into the regular 3RD person view.

You don't HAVE TO do it this way, This is only one of the many use cases.

 

Storyteller 2020.1.5 . Now Released
Game Bridge 2020.1.5 Now Released

 

I forgot to share this with you here.

here is a very VERY VERY basic example of use in a dating sim.

 

Here are the updates coming in version 2020.1.6

- New Security measures to prevent illegal connections.

- UI display if you have a missing character.

- New Text Editor tool for editing text in unity (ALPHA 0.1)

- Removed Unnecessary Timer from action and dialogue nodes

- Improved media node playback system

- Improved Story sample editor

- Improved Properties window

 

Storyteller 2020.1.6 ha been released




Game Bridge 2020.1.6 has been Released

 

Next up. a new and full length tutorial covering using storyteller and game bridge from package import to full story creation and use in game.

This will be The Getting started with Storyteller 2020.1 tutorial