beginners question on dialogue

Hello, I'm new the forums (and modding Arcanum) and have a question as regards creating dialogue.

Now, having downloaded the AMTUT guide and followed it by the letter I've found myself at a deadend. I create a .scr file and a .dlg file (into their correct directories) as instructed in the tutorial and inputted my text, but when I test the game and try to speak to the character who i;'ve assigned the dialogue to nothing seems to happen - they don't even give me a basic preset response. I've tried this a number of times now on several seperate mods but nothing seems to work. I'm sure its a newbie issue that can be quickly sorted out.

Any of you have any ideas?

thanks in advance.

 

Just checking here: You do have the dialog attached to the character at the dialog check/spot and the correct script number entered in the little script box below the first line?

 

If your answer to rroyo's question is 'yes', then you could copy and paste your test dialogue here and we could check it for any errors.

A good test might be to copy and paste a simple dialogue from AMTUT just to see if you can get it to work and then revise it from there.

 

thanks for the swift reply, gents. The text I'm using is lifted directly from the AMTUT guide word for word, it's the test dialogue with the dwarven shopkeeper. As regards rroyo's response, are you referring to the radio buttons in the script dropdown? I've gone through the procedure described in AMTUT several times now with no joy. I has to be something I'm doing that's preventing it from working as it should.

One thing I'm curious about in particular. When i examine a script file's properties in the scr directory it tells me the file type is a Screen Saver file and not, as you'd expect, a script. Why is it telling me its a screen saver when I've saved it as .scr ? Can I alter the type from Screen Saver to Script?

It's doing my biscuit in trying to get the scripting to work. Thanks for the swift replies so far though, its nice to know there's a network of support out there i can turn to.

 

Nemo - drop me an e-mail. I'll send you a two-line dialog I know works.

As for your directory calling the .scr files screen savers, that is because most of the screen saver programs out there use that extention.
As long as you know what you've got, why worry about it?

 

Hello again all,

I've made some progress. First, rroyo thanks for emailing me that dialogue file, it was gratefully received.

Now, I've managed to imput a working dialogue but it only seems to run if i take one of the original dialogues written for the game, clear its contents, and type my own dialogue in over the top. When i try writing one from scratch unsing word, notepad etc, the computer doesn't seem to recognise it. For example i typed up the AMTUT text as directed but nothing happened. However, after downloading the original Arcanum scripts, cutting the guts of it out (I think it was something random like the Bane of Kree's introduction dialogue) and inserting the AMUTUT text there it worked fine.

Am i getting the procedure for saving dialogue wrong? I honestly can't see how i am...

The current set up is workable but clunky. If there's no other way around it then I'm sure I could probably continue on.

Thanks again everyone for being so helpful, I'd have probably given up if it wasn't for your help.

 

I've been using Sockmonkey for the .scr files and Dialog Editor 2 for the .dlg. So far I've had no trouble getting basic dialogs to work.
Maybe you should try it.

Here it is:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/tools/dlgedit2.zip

 

I too use SockMonkey for the scripts. I do my dialogues in Notepad. Remember it is seven empty brackets to start: {}{}{}{}{}{}{} and then you fill in appropriately from there. I have had no problems with dialogue when using the SockMonkey / Notepad combo.

If you used the 'shell' from the original and it worked, can't you simply gut it and then save an empty version as a template, and then build your dialogues from that template each time? Is that what you're saying is clunky?

 

A quick message to say that, finally - and after a great deal of messing around - I seem to have sorted the dialogue issues i was having Thanks for your help everyone, I most likely would have given up if not for the suggestions given to me on these forums here.

 

Happy to help. And good luck! If you have any other questions just ask. We modders need to stick together.

We're going to resurrect the fantastic gem that is Arcanum! :thumbup: