LDC (Localized Dialogs & Cutscenes) - Powerful and intuitive Dialog System with tons of features!

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LDC: LOCALIZED DIALOGS & CUTSCENES v5.0

Asset Store Link:

LDC Direct Website Link
http://www.mel-georgiou.co.uk

OVERVIEW

The Localized Dialog System is an intuitive and industry proven cutscene-style Dialog UI framework that allows you to create cutscene-style dialogs, visual novels, status messages, objective screens, tutorials, splash screens and more with zero scripting using its easy to use point and click editors! ( You can of course control it via scripting if you want to! )

Its theme is totally customisable with familiar GUISkins ( the Unity standard ) which can even have different themes for each language you are using. It has built-in support for 10 languages and allows you access to the localization class elsewhere in your own scripts.

Even better, it is resolution independent making it perfect for cross platform development! Easily build a Dialog thread in minutes and know it will work on ANY platform including Mobile, Web and Desktop!

This is the ideal time-saving solution for beginners and advanced users alike!

HIGHLIGHTS

- Totally rewritten in C#! :slight_smile:

  • Single package support for Unity 4.7.2, 5.x and Unity 2017.x!
  • Create powerful dialog screens with LDC’s easy to use custom editors - NO scripting!
  • Create and Update your dialogs with Google Spreadsheets! Great for working in teams!
  • Supports single and dual button customizable dialogs!
  • Create fully custom multiple choice style dialogs!
  • Customizable Data Entry Screens!
  • Create Password Entry Screens!
  • Create Title Screens!
  • Create Fully Custom Popup screens with animated backgrounds, buttons, size, opacity and more!
  • One-Click Translations into 9 languages!
  • Full Screen Animated Actor Background Layers!
  • Faster workflow with the optional “Dialog Library” to centralize images for your Animations, Actors, Icons and Scenes!
  • Resolution Independent UI works on all platforms ( tested on iOS, Android, PC, Mac, and Flash )!
  • Token System with built-in Actions and scripting API!- File-Management system that can automatically save and load your tokens without scripting!
  • Visually Script Navigation using the all new LOGIC Screen!
  • Deep Integrated Support Of PlayerPrefs ( actions and conditional logic )!
  • Create transitions with Fades Motion!
  • Sequence other events! Create and delete GameObjects and more with built-in “Actions”!
  • Custom Audio Channels with built-in Actions to Stop, Play, Fade In and Fade Out!
  • Detailed control over UI fades, motion, shadows and more!
  • Easily modify UI themes with Unity’s GUISkins!
  • Supports Touch, Keyboard, Mouse and even joystick input!
  • Fully documented!
  • Full Source Code Included - No DLLS!
  • Supports PlayMaker and uSequencer out of the box!
  • Localization API supports English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian!

INTRODUCTION VIDEO

TUTORIAL - BASICS

If you guys are interested in how this system works, feel free to watch the tutorial below! It goes over pretty much all the basics and the features of version 1.0. This includes, project setup, creating simple one screen dialogs, multi-screen dialogs, dialogs with user choice, localization management, and some notes about customizing the UI!

NOTE: This video was made at the time of the version 1.0 release (November 2012), quite a few things have changed, and countless new features, tweaks and time-savers have been added since! But do watch this video in order to understand the core-concepts of the system - such as navigation, as this has remained the same!

ADVANCED TUTORIAL - v2 FEATURES

Finally! Version 2 has been approved on the Asset Store! =)

Here is the first video of a 3 part tutorial that goes through the new features including the Library, Tokens, Data Entry, Multiple Choice Dialogs, Background and Actor Layers, Custom Audio and more tips and tricks!

VERSION 2.0 - COMIC TECH DEMO

Here is a tech demo showcasing some of the new features in v2.0! Feel free to check it out below!

PLAY THE v2.0 COMIC / VISUAL NOVEL DEMO

Disclaimer: It uses fan art from the Warhammer40k universe and a bunch of other bits and pieces that I found scattered around online. I openly admit to not creating those assets, I’m just a fan of the warhammer universe and wanted to create a demo! lol :slight_smile:

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VERSION 2.1.1 - FPS TECH DEMO

Here is a tech demo showcasing the plugin inside of an FPS style game.

MAC USERS: If you are playing on Safari 6 in OS X, there is a bug in the Unity Web Player / Safari which messes up the movement. You can right-click and select full-screen as a workaround until the bug is rectified. ( Just bare in mind that the LDC plugin does NOT cause this! :slight_smile: )

PLAY THE v2.1.1 FPS TECH DEMO

VERSION 3.8 - ADVENTURE CONCEPT DEMO

Here is a tech demo showcasing the plugin inside of an Adventure / Mystery game. Also sports a new fantasy style skin! :slight_smile:

PLAY THE ADVENTURE DEMO

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Hope you guys find this useful! :slight_smile:

Cheers!

  • Mel
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While i’ll keep your asset in mind if i ever need this you . . . just made me buy ninja guy HD lol!

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haha I guess that’s a good thing! … Thanks for posting! =)

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… Happy to announce this is now LIVE in the Assetstore! =) … Do a search for “Localization Dialog”!

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Interesting, but why locked to 10 specific languages? I need support for Norwegian.
Also, how dependent is it on the native GUI system? Would it be a quick fix to hook it into NGUI?

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Hi MentalFish,

Thanks for your interest! =)

The reason why it’s built that way is because the plugin is cross-platform. Language codes can differ on different devices / platforms and this implementation allows us for a one-click option to make things incredibly simple to use - the primary design goal of the plugin was to make it so that in most cases, you wouldn’t even need to do any extra programming at all.

It’s not too difficult to add additional languages. If you purchase the plugin, send me a copy of your receipt and I’ll add Norwegian into the next update for you. =)

As for NGUI, I’m not entirely sure how that works to be honest. The plugin is quite invested in the Unity GUI system, so not sure how possible that is. Usually, when conversations / dialogs are being presented on screen, it’s normal for your other UI elements to fade out / disable, which keeps the UI clean. The system works very well even with the oldest mobile devices so there shouldn’t be a problem if you’re worried about performance.

Hope that helps!

  • Mel
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Interesting! I wasn’t aware that this was available.

It’s a shame this system only has yes/no selections. A customizable multi-choice system would be useful for the developers of Visual Novels.

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Awesome suggestion, Nixter!

On the wish-list for v2 of the system! =)

Do you think that 3 custom choices per screen would be enough?

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Wouldn’t it be better to let the game designer determine that? For phone games, 3 would probably be the realistic limit due to the screen size. But for a PC monitor or Retina Display tablet, the game could easily fit more. Also, I imagine most developers would want the options vertically positioned (instead of horizontally as the No/Yes choices are presently).

Since you are open to feedback, let me give you some more: :sunglasses:

Tweening controls - The tweening effect needs an On/Off switch as well as a Tween type and duration controls.

Next Button - Some developers will not want a next button for some dialogues. Since you have auto-progression, the next button may be redundant. A check box to disable and one to remove visibility of the next button would be useful.

Texture Positioning - X/Y position for textures.

Texture Abstraction / Character Tab - Instead of setting a new texture and a new character name for each dialog, create a cast of characters with a character tab. Each character could have multiple Textures to represent them in different states (happy/sad/angry). Then have a dropdown list for each dialog indicating which character is the owner of the dialog and a second drop down to indicate their Texture state.

Texture Retaining / Deleting - Visual Novels, unlike RPGs, often show two characters in conversation, one on each side of the screen. Instead of automatically deleting the Texture belonging to the Dialog, allow it to be retained in memory. Each dialog could then clear the last Texture or clear all Textures, allowing states to be changed and characters to enter and exit the scene. You could hard code this for two textures, but again you would be limiting what developers could do with it. I guess this could be done with the Actions tab, but if you are going to have character portraits as part of your system, then you might want to build for multi-character scenes.

Don’t worry. No one’s expecting you to recreate Ren’Py for Unity! :slight_smile: Just some ideas to make your clean and intuitive system have some Visual Novel functionality.

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Hi Nixter,

Thanks for your feedback, some really great suggestions here. Visual Novels weren’t even on my mind as I was designing the system, but its promising to see that I can cater to a whole new group of users. =)

Multiple Choice Answers
Custom vertical selections will definitely be in the next big update (v2.0). Keeping the UI cross platform is one of the main objectives of this plugin, so some more thought would be needed here. Perhaps 4 on-screen choices, allowing the developer to setup the 4th choice to say something like “more choices…” (this could be renamed), then a 2nd screen could be setup with more choices. This would give a total of 6 REAL choices across 2 screens, but you could keep doing the same thing to add more choices to additional screens if you needed to. Not the final answer as more thought is definitely needed. Although, this would be a way to guarantee functionality across desktop and mobile.

Tweening Controls
This already exists! =) If you check out the DialogUI component (which is created along with the DialogUI GameObject), you will find this screen below, giving you the ability to change the duration of the transitions, as well as turn the tweening on and off for the portraits and the buttons. You also get the option of setting up a Audio filepath prefix (allowing you to locate audio files more conveniently).

Next Button
Very true. In fact, the first version of this plugin (used internally for Ninja Guy) had this option. After our beta-tests, people told us they got fed up of listening to the same dialog over and over (if they were repeating the same level) and wanted a way to skip through cutscenes quickly, so we added the Next button purely for that reason! =)

Haha, a bit of backstory there, but yes, I’ll bring this functionality back in the next update. =)

Texture Positioning
You can currently do this globally by modifying the GUISkins (using content offsets).

Character Cast
Love this idea. Added to the wishlist, hopefully we’ll see it before or on v2.0.

Texture Retaining / Deleting
I’ll look more into this one. Was trying to google around for an example of this and I couldn’t find one. Most screenshots I saw showed either a single character talking per phrase, or no portraits at all! … Admittedly, I’m not an expert in Visual Novels so I may well have missed it! lol

  • Mel
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The concept of this is very useful - congrats on your Asset Store product!

I would suggest you consider supporting arrarys for the languages and button choices etc., similar to how Unity supports arrays for some of its items.

This would eliminate folks complaining about “language is missing…” or “not enough choices…”.

Also in this day and age of NGUI etc., I don’t know if folks will want to use anything that goes back to Unity’s default GUI system?

Otherwise congrats on your new product release!

-Will

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Thanks for your feedback Will, it’s most welcome. =)

I totally agree with the Language Arrays and I’ll give this some more thought. I’ll probably end up creating a friendly UI for the Localization Component allowing users to create NEW additional languages in a simple way using the editor (there are many complexities to consider, as the plugin uses different GUISkins per language, so a lot of dynamic handling will have to take place in the background).

I appreciate that many users are heavily invested in NGUI, but at the moment I still believe it’s best to offer a plugin that’s totally self-contained. Also, Unity’s GUI system has seen some substantial improvement in Unity4, with lots more to come apparently. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing stopping users from using NGUI for everything else, and keeping this system purely for cutscenes, etc.

Anyway, additional language arrays are now added to the wish list! =)

  • Mel
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Glad you already have most of the suggestions already implemented. I agree with WillBellJr, arrays are the way to go with languages and multiple choices.

I’m actually not that familiar with Virtual Novels. I’m more of an RPG player. I found some examples of VNs online with multiple characters, but 80% or more just had a single character so I withdraw my suggestion.

On the subject of Tweening, you may want it to be controlled by each individual dialog. Then you would be able to implement a system like the Borderlands Voice Overs. The first dialog node could TweenIn and the last one would TweenOut, and you could do this when characters switch.

You may also want a TextVisible checkbox in the Dialog UI. It would globally turn off all the text, while keeping the voice-overs. This would allow players to use a “Subtitles ON/OFF” setting like Borderlands uses.

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Hi Nixter,

Really appreciate the feedback! =)

Per Screen Tweening is an interesting idea. Makes a lot of sense! Also, the subtitles ON/OFF idea is also a valid one! They’re also on my updates list!

I’ve already started on some of the updates and I’m hoping to get the new version out by the weekend! Hopefully we’ll see some of the smaller suggestions implemented quickly! =)

  • Mel
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Just to keep everyone in the loop for what’s coming this week …

Dialog Styles
The Biggest change is that all Dialogs are now setup using a “Dialog Style” … This will facilitate the new features that we’ve discussed in previous posts.

We already had the “Standard Next Button” and the “Standard Yes Or No” modes which you could previously select by using a checkbox in the Navigation tab. Now, these modes plus an additional 2 new ones will be setup in the main “Dialogs” tab. The new Custom Single / Two Button modes will allow you to freely rename the existing buttons and this can be done on a per screen basis. NOTE: The multiple-choice dialog style that we’ve talked about previously will be a feature that comes later!

Global UI Controls
Another welcome collection of features is the ability to pretty much have control over EVERY single aspect of the UI’s motion, transitions, etc.

You can see that in the DialogUI component, you now have an “Options” class that allows you to control fades, transitions, shadows, backgrounds, as well as totally hide text and buttons from the system. You’ll find that you have a vast amount of control here! =)

Streamlined Navigation tab with all new screen-level UI options
We now have far more control over the UI with all new screen-level controls, as well as a streamlined interface based on the Dialog Style that you’ve chosen from the Dialogs screen.

The first new option that’s available for the “Standard Next Button” style is the ability to hide the “Next UI Button” on a per-screen basis.

Also, a very cool new feature (in my opinion anyway! lol) is the ability to Stop the icon / portrait from fading in or out. This will allow you to show the same character / icon for multiple screens with all the UI elements fading in and out except for the picture. This wasn’t possible in the previous version and makes things looks way cooler, especially for characters talking across multiple screens! =)

Other Notes

As well as some code and memory improvements (especially for mobile), I’ve got pretty much everything working and implemented, with only the 2 new custom Dialogs to finish … It’s looking good for a release this week!

After this update, I’ll be attempting to add a Cast solution as suggested by Nixter, but I don’t have an exact timescale for when that will be ready just yet. I’m hoping pretty soon!

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I’ll do my best to keep improving the software! I’m sure many of you will find many of your suggestions in the above list of new features!

I Hope you guys are interested in the new update and find it useful! =)

  • Mel
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bookmarked

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The new Dialog Styles in Action …

Here’s an example of the custom 2 button mode working in the editor:


NOTE: I have no idea why you’d use gold to purchase sci-fi weapons! LOL :slight_smile:

The Screen Tab

In the Screen tab of the inspector, the above would be setup like this:

How Custom Buttons Are Localized

Usually, the standard Dialog-Style buttons are automatically localized for you. But with the custom styles, you can localize these buttons in the Localize tab of the inspector, like this:


The editor even helps you out by reminding you what you’ve called the custom buttons, and this is also updated in the Navigation tab when setting up the flow of the conversation! :slight_smile:

The plugin is in testing at the moment, and should be available soon! =)

  • Mel
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v1.1.1 is now approved and available on the Unity Asset Store! :slight_smile:

More cool features and updates soon! =)

  • Mel
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Does it have Translation inside of it or do we have to go and translate it ourselves? If its translate elsewhere, then you could just make a few WWW statements that return the string for the translated version.

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Hi laakerules,

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to post! :slight_smile:

At the moment you must translate elsewhere but that’s a great suggestion! I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that google translate didn’t have a public API (at least not a free one)? I’ll definitely look into this some more and add it to the wishlist if I can find a free service that supports this!

  • Mel