Adventure Creator Manual

User Manual:

Open the PDF directly: View PDF .
Page Count: 179 [warning: Documents this large are best viewed by clicking the View PDF Link!]

INTRODUCTION
1.0 - SETTING UP
2.0 - INPUT AND NAVIGATION
3.0 - CREATING CHARACTERS
4.0 - CAMERA PERSPECTIVES
5.0 - INTERACTIONS
6.0 - INVENTORY
7.0 - VARIABLES
8.0 - MISCELLANEOUS SCRIPTS
9.0 - SAVING AND LOADING
10.0 - SPEECH MANAGEMENT
11.0 - MENUS
12.0 - INTEGRATING NEW CODE
13.0 – HOW IT WORKS

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 1

User Manual

v1.57

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 2

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................6

1.0 - SETTING UP.............................................................................................................7

1.1 - PREREQUISITES.................................................................................................7

1.2 - RUNNING THE DEMO GAMES...........................................................................8

1.3 - THE ADVENTURE CREATOR WINDOW............................................................9

1.4 - PREPARING A 3D SCENE.................................................................................11

1.5 - PREPARING A 2D SCENE.................................................................................13

1.6 - UPDATING ADVENTURE CREATOR................................................................15

1.7 - MINIMALLY IMPORTING ADVENTURE CREATOR.........................................16

2.0 - INPUT AND NAVIGATION......................................................................................17

2.1 - OVERVIEW.........................................................................................................17

2.2 - POINT AND CLICK CONTROL..........................................................................18

2.3 - DIRECT CONTROL............................................................................................19

2.4 - FIRST-PERSON CONTROL...............................................................................21

2.5 - DRAG CONTROL...............................................................................................23

2.6 - STRAIGHT-TO-CURSOR CONTROL................................................................24

2.7 - ULTIMATE FPS INTEGRATION.........................................................................25

2.8 - KEYBOARD AND CONTROLLER SETUP.........................................................26

2.9 - TOUCH-SCREEN INPUT...................................................................................27

2.10 - OUYA INTEGRATION.......................................................................................28

2.11 - MESH COLLIDER PATHFINDING...................................................................29

2.12 - UNITY NAVIGATION PATHFINDING...............................................................30

2.13 - POLYGON COLLIDER PATHFINDING............................................................31

2.14 - ACTIVE INPUTS...............................................................................................33

2.15 - INPUT DESCRIPTIONS...................................................................................34

3.0 - CREATING CHARACTERS....................................................................................38

3.1 - INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................38

3.2 - THE PLAYER......................................................................................................40

3.3 - NPCS...................................................................................................................42

3.4 - CHARACTER MOVEMENT................................................................................43

3.5 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (LEGACY)...............................................................45

3.6 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (SPRITES UNITY)..................................................47

3.7 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (MECANIM)............................................................49

3.8 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (SPRITES 2D TOOLKIT)........................................51

3.9 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (SPRITES UNITY COMPLEX)...............................52

3.10 - HEAD TURNING...............................................................................................54

3.11 - PRECISION MOVEMENT.................................................................................55

4.0 - CAMERA PERSPECTIVES.....................................................................................56

4.1 - INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................56

4.2 - 3D CAMERAS.....................................................................................................57

4.3 - ANIMATED CAMERAS.......................................................................................58

4.4 - 2D CAMERAS.....................................................................................................59

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 3

4.5 - 2.5D CAMERAS..................................................................................................60

4.6 - CUSTOM CAMERAS..........................................................................................61

4.7 - SIMPLE CAMERAS............................................................................................62

4.8 - VR CAMERAS.....................................................................................................63

4.9 - THIRD-PERSON CAMERAS..............................................................................64

5.0 - INTERACTIONS......................................................................................................65

5.1 - INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................65

5.2 - ACTIONS AND ACTIONLISTS...........................................................................68

5.3 - HOTSPOTS.........................................................................................................80

5.4 - CUTSCENES......................................................................................................82

5.5 - SKIPPING CUTSCENES....................................................................................83

5.6 - TRIGGERS..........................................................................................................84

5.7 - CONVERSATIONS.............................................................................................85

5.8 - ACTIONLIST ASSETS........................................................................................87

5.9 - ARROW PROMPTS............................................................................................88

5.10 - SOUNDS...........................................................................................................89

5.11 - MUSIC...............................................................................................................90

5.12 - CONTAINERS...................................................................................................91

5.13 - ACTIONLIST PARAMETERS...........................................................................92

5.14 - DRAGGABLE OBJECTS..................................................................................94

5.15 - PICKUP OBJECTS...........................................................................................96

5.16 - CUSTOM CURSORS........................................................................................97

5.17 - QUICK TIME EVENTS......................................................................................98

6.0 - INVENTORY............................................................................................................99

6.1 - DECLARING INVENTORY ITEMS.....................................................................99

6.2 - INVENTORY HANDLING..................................................................................100

6.3 - MANAGING INVENTORY IN-GAME................................................................102

6.4 - CRAFTING........................................................................................................103

6.5 - INVENTORY PROPERTIES.............................................................................104

7.0 - VARIABLES...........................................................................................................105

7.1 - DECLARING VARIABLES................................................................................105

7.2 - MANAGING VARIABLES IN-GAME.................................................................107

7.3 - LINKING WITH PLAYMAKER VARIABLES.....................................................108

7.4 - LINKING WITH OPTIONS DATA......................................................................109

7.5 - VARIABLE PRESETS.......................................................................................110

7.6 - SCENE ATTRIBUTES.......................................................................................111

8.0 - MISCELLANEOUS SCRIPTS...............................................................................112

8.1 - SHAPEABLE.....................................................................................................112

8.2 - MOVEABLE.......................................................................................................113

8.3 - PARALLAX 2D..................................................................................................114

8.4 - LIMIT VISIBILITY..............................................................................................115

8.5 - ALIGN TO CAMERA.........................................................................................116

8.6 - PARTICLE SWITCH..........................................................................................117

8.7 - LIGHT SWITCH.................................................................................................118

8.8 - SPRITE FADER................................................................................................119

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 4

8.9 - TINT MAPS.......................................................................................................120

9.0 - SAVING AND LOADING.......................................................................................121

9.1 - OVERVIEW.......................................................................................................121

9.2 - SAVING INDIVIDUAL OBJECTS......................................................................123

9.3 - AUTOSAVING...................................................................................................126

9.4 - OPTIONS DATA................................................................................................127

9.5 - HOW THE DEMO DOES IT..............................................................................128

9.6 - LOADING SCREENS........................................................................................129

9.7 - IMPORTING SAVES FROM OTHER GAMES.................................................130

9.8 - SAVE PROFILES..............................................................................................131

10.0 - SPEECH MANAGEMENT...................................................................................132

10.1 - AUDIO FILES..................................................................................................132

10.2 - MANAGING TRANSLATIONS........................................................................134

10.3 - SCRIPT SHEETS............................................................................................136

10.4 - SPEECH TOKENS..........................................................................................137

10.5 - FACEFX INTEGRATION................................................................................138

10.6 - LIP SYNCING..................................................................................................139

10.7 - FACIAL EXPRESSIONS.................................................................................142

11.0 - MENUS................................................................................................................143

11.1 - OVERVIEW.....................................................................................................143

11.2 - MENU ELEMENTS.........................................................................................146

11.3 - UNITY UI INTEGRATION...............................................................................149

11.4 - MENU SCRIPTING.........................................................................................151

11.5 - SCENE-BASED MENUS................................................................................152

12.0 - INTEGRATING NEW CODE...............................................................................153

12.1 - SUPPORTED THIRD-PARTY ASSETS.........................................................153

12.2 - CUSTOM SCRIPTS........................................................................................156

12.3 - CUSTOM ACTIONS........................................................................................157

12.4 - CUSTOM PATHFINDING...............................................................................158

12.5 - CUSTOM ANIMATION ENGINES..................................................................159

12.6 - CUSTOM MOTION CONTROLLERS.............................................................160

12.7 - COMMON FUNCTIONS AND VARIABLES....................................................161

12.8 - CUSTOM SAVE DATA...................................................................................165

12.9 - REMAPPING INPUTS....................................................................................166

12.10 - CUSTOM EVENTS.......................................................................................167

12.11 - INTEGRATING OTHER GAMEPLAY...........................................................168

12.12 - CUSTOM INTERACTION SYSTEMS...........................................................169

13.0 – HOW IT WORKS................................................................................................172

13.1 - OVERVIEW.....................................................................................................172

13.2 - MANAGERS....................................................................................................173

13.3 - PATHS.............................................................................................................174

13.4 - PLAYER CONTROL........................................................................................175

13.5 - GAME DEBUGGING.......................................................................................176

13.6 - PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMISATION.........................................................177

13.7 - VERSION CONTROL AND COLLABORATION.............................................179

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 5

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 6

INTRODUCTION

Adventure Creator is a toolkit for Unity that provides full functionality of an adventure

game engine – navigation, inventory, characters, conversations, cutscenes, saving and

loading and more are all possible without coding. If you want to customise the interface

or integrate the kit with other systems, you will have to dive into the framework, but the

code is clean and intuitive.

Adventure Creator can be used to make 2D, 2.5D and 3D adventure games.

If you supply the graphics and animation, Adventure Creator can be told what to do with

it. If you're new to Unity, it's advisable that you get to grips with the basics of the Unity

interface first, since Adventure Creator is tightly integrated into it. This manual assumes

a working knowledge of Unity's interface and basic concepts. The Unity website

provides an excellent introduction to the interface at unity3d.com/learn.

Once you've imported the Adventure Creator package, you'll find a new option under

Unity's top menu. Choose Adventure Creator → Editors → Game Editor to bring up

the main interface and dock it in a vertical space. You'll need it handy for much of your

game's development.

Three demo games have been created to demonstrate many of the kit's features in

simple ways. They are available to play in a browser at adventurecreator.org.

The base Adventure Creator package includes the full source to the 2D and 3D demo

games. It's a good idea to spend some time studying them, as this manual makes a

number of references to it to demonstrate the various steps to creating an adventure

game. Refer to section 1.2 for instructions in setting up the demo.

The Physics Demo's source is available as a separate package, and can be

downloaded for free on the Adventure Creator website: adventurecreator.org.

When you are ready to begin making your own game, you can use the included New

Game Wizard to handle the first steps for you, which is found in Adventure Creator →

Getting started → New Game Wizard.

This manual also offers an insight into the way Adventure Creator works, from a coding

perspective, so that if you want to extend it, you've got a head start.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 7

CHAPTER I: THE BASICS

1.0 - SETTING UP

1.1 - PREREQUISITES

Adventure Creator makes use of a few inputs and layers that will need to be defined

before your game will run properly. When you install the asset, it will attempt to detect

these and ask if it can make any changes needed automatically.

If you would prefer to do this manually, the following Layers must be present:

•NavMesh

•BackgroundImage

•DistantHotspot

These layers can be added by going to Edit → Project settings → Tags and Layers in

the top toolbar.

And the following Input must also be present:

•Menu

This can be added by going to Edit → Project settings → Input.

It will likely be that other inputs are required, based on your chosen control method (see

section 2.0 for a rundown of the various requirements). A list of available or required

inputs can be shown within the Settings Manager, once you've created one (see section

1.3).

Adventure Creator supports both 3D animation via Unity's Legacy and Mecanim

systems, as well as 2D animation via either 2D Toolkit or Unity's own 2D framework.

For 2D Toolkit support, a preprocessor define must be set - refer to section 3.6 on how

to do this.

It's also important to keep objects on the correct layer. Most objects, unless stated

otherwise, should be moved to the Ignore Raycast layer, especially if you intend to

make a Point and Click-style game, as you don't want scene geometry to interfere with

your interface. However, do not do this if you are making a game with Ultimate FPS.

You will also need a References file and manager assets. These assets are specific to

your game. The default managers refer to the demo game's set, so in order to create

your own game, you will also have to create your own set of managers. Refer to

section 1.3 for more on managers.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 8

1.2 - RUNNING THE DEMO GAMES

Adventure Creator comes with two simple demo games – a 3D game and a 2D game –

that show off the basic workflow involved.

Both demo games can be loaded by going to Adventure Creator → Getting started from

the top toolbar, and selecting the the game you want to play. When selected, the set of

Managers for that game (see section 1.3) will first be loaded, and you will then be

prompted to allow the appropriate scene to be loaded. If you wish to load the scenes

manually, you can find them in Assets → AdventureCreator → Demo → Scenes, and

Assets → AdventureCreator → 2DDemo → Scenes.

If you have not made any changes to Adventure Creator since installing it, refer to the

previous section and assign the layers and input axes as described.

If you have problems running the demo games, check that the main Adventure Creator

window is referring to the correct managers. Refer to section 1.3 for details on how to

do this.

To keep things straightforward, both demos are designed to be played using the Point

And Click movement method, but it can be updated easily if you want to play it in Direct

(cursor key-driven) or First Person methods (3D Demo only). You can change the

game's movement method easily enough within the Settings Manager, though you will

need to do a bit more to make the scene release-ready. Refer to section 2.0 for a

rundown on what you'll need to do.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 9

1.3 - THE ADVENTURE CREATOR WINDOW

Adventure Creator makes use of eight “managers” that each store data for a different

aspect. These managers are created and accessed within the main Adventure Creator

window (Adventure Creator → Game editor in the top toolbar). They are required to

properly run a game made with Adventure Creator. You can tab between each

manager from the top of the window. The following is a list of what each manager

provides control over:

Scene manager – Handles scene-specific settings, such as the player's default

position, and also provides an editor for handling and creating prefabs, like

Hotspots and Markers.

Settings manager – Handles project-wide settings, such as the player's prefab,

the game's control style, and cursor settings.

Actions manager – Defines the list of actions available to cutscenes and

interactions.

Variables manager – Manages a list of user-defined integers and booleans that

can be used for game logic throughout the project.

Inventory manager – Manages a list of items that the player can pick up, as well

as the responses for inventory interactions.

Speech manager – Lists the spoken lines written in the game, assigning each

one a unique ID for audio files, and manages subtitle translations.

Cursor manager – Manages cursor settings, and the available icons when

interacting with objects and NPCs.

Menu manager – Provides a visual editor for managing menus, with options for

both their display and functionality.

Each manager is a separate asset file. By default, a set of “demo” managers are

referred to by the main Adventure Creator window, as these contain inventory items,

variables and other data required by the demo.

To make a new game, you can use the included New Game Wizard to create a new set

of managers and quickly define your game's main settings. You can bring up the wizard

from Window → Adventure Creator → New Game Wizard. These managers will be

listed inside a “ManagerPackage” asset file. For convenience, you can bulk-assign your

managers by double-clicking this file.

Alternatively, you can manually create and assign your manager files. Each manager

asset is referenced at the top of its respective tab in the main Adventure Creator. If you

remove the reference (by selecting the reference field and pressing backspace), you will

be asked to create a new manager asset.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 10

Click the “Create new” button, and Adventure Creator will create – and automatically

reference – a new manager asset. It will attempt to create this asset file inside Assets

→ AdventureCreator → Managers, so ensure that this directory exists. Note that in

order to run the demo, you must first switch each manager reference back to its “Demo”

counterpart.

While you familiarise yourself with Adventure Creator, it may be helpful to rely on some

of the Demo managers as you build your game – particularly the Menu, Actions and

Cursor Managers.

The main Adventure Creator window stores its links to these manager asset files inside

a file called References. This file MUST be placed in a folder called Resources in

order to work properly. If such a file is not present, you will receive a prompt to

automatically create one when you call up the main Adventure Creator window.

Adventure Creator will attempt to create the file inside Assets → AdventureCreator →

Resources, so ensure that this directory exists.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 11

1.4 - PREPARING A 3D SCENE

With the managers defined (see section 1.3), open the Adventure Creator window and

click on the Settings tab, and set your Camera perspective (found underneath

Camera settings) to 3D. Then change to the Scene tab, from where you can create

the GameObjects needed for an adventure game.

With a new scene, the top of the Scene Manager will have two Organise room objects

buttons: With folders and Without folders. Both of these buttons will set up your

scene to be useable by Adventure Creator – the only difference is whether or not

“helper” folders (identified with underscores) will also be created to help keep things

organised. These folders are not necessary, but are helpful, so it's recommended to

click With folders. As you use the Scene Manager to create Hotspots, Conversations

and other Adventure Creator prefabs, it will place them into the relevant folders

automatically.

Adventure Creator will require its own MainCamera prefab – if it detects that another

camera is present, then it will ask you if you would like to replace it completely, or

attempt to convert it into a camera that Adventure Creator can use.

You will notice a blue arrow has appeared at the centre of the scene. This is our

PlayerStart object, which marks the default position and rotation of our player when the

scene begins. This is our default PlayerStart because it has been set automatically by

the Scene Manager, underneath Scene Settings. We can have multiple PlayerStart

objects in a scene, so that the player can begin at different points depending on which

scene they just came from. The Previous Scene variable in the PlayerStart's inspector

dictates which scene the player must have travelled from for this PlayerStart to be used.

If no appropriate object is found, or if the game is started from this scene, the default will

be used instead.

If you wish the Player's position upon entering a new scene to be based on their

position in the previous scene, you can define a Relative Marker when using the

Scene: Switch Action. A tutorial on using this feature can be found online here.

We will want to build the set that will form the backdrop to our scene. The

_SetGeometry folder is the intended place for it. Be sure to move this geometry onto

the Ignore Raycast layer, to avoid unwanted interference with the interface – the game

“discovers” hotspots and other interactive objects by seeking out objects on the Default

layer.

With the set in place, we now need to define the space that the player can move

around. Even in a Point And Click-style game, we need to place a floor down to stop

the player from falling through the scene. Click CollisionCube, and a blue cube will be

created in the scene. Manipulate the cube's transforms so that the top face covers the

set's floor. It can extend beyond the floor in the X and Z directions – this object is purely

a “barrier” to prevent the player from falling.

Now we will want a Navigation Mesh, or NavMesh. NavMeshes are 3D geometry that

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 12

dictate where the player can navigate to inside the set. You can either supply a custom

mesh made inside a separate 3D application, or use Unity's Navigation tools to bake a

NavMesh directly inside your scene. Refer to sections 2.11 to 2.13 for more on both

types of NavMesh creation.

If we want to play a cutscene or run some kind of logic when the scene begins, we

create a Cutscene prefab and refer to it in the Cutscene on start field, just under the

Default NavMesh field. See section 5.4 for more on Cutscenes. In the Settings

Manager, we can use the ActionList on start game field to define an ActionList asset

that runs when the game begins, before the scene-specific Cutscene. See section 5.8

for more on ActionList assets.

We also need to define our initial camera, or GameCamera. GameCameras are

separate from our MainCamera, in that they dictate the available positions that our

MainCamera can take. Only the MainCamera is active throughout the scene, but it will

copy its associated GameCamera's position, rotation and field of view. Choose

GameCamera in the Scene Manager and then Add new, and position the newly-

created camera to a point you're happy with. Next, find your default PlayerStart object -

you can do so quickly by clicking on the Default PlayerStart field to highlight it. In the

PlayerStart inspector, click the Camera On Start field and select your new

GameCamera. When the scene begins, the player will appear at this PlayerStart, and

the MainCamera will appear at this GameCamera.

When making a 3D scene, we also have the option of using a traditional third-person

camera, which follows and rotates around the Player dynamically. From the Scene

Manager, click GameCameraThirdPerson, followed by Add new, to create one and

set it up in the Inspector. Based on your settings, additional input axes may be required

– these will be listed in the Inspector for you. For more information on third-person

camera, see Section 4.9.

Lastly, we need to define our player prefab, and set our control options. You can define

these things in the Settings Manager. Click the Settings tab and change the options to

your liking. For details on how to set up a Player prefab, see sections 3.0. Do not place

the Player prefab into the scene – Adventure Creator will do this for you when the game

starts.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 13

1.5 - PREPARING A 2D SCENE

This section only deals with the workflow specific to a game in 2D, so be sure to read

the previous section beforehand – even if you are not making a 3D game.

To begin making a 2D game, first go to the Settings Manager and set the Camera

perspective to 2D. A new pop-up will appear called Moving and Turning. This field

determines how the cameras, sprites, Hotspots and Navigation Meshes relate to one

another, and is very important. It can take the following values:

Unity 2D – The game is played in Unity's own “2D” view with orthographic cameras,

and Characters move purely in the X/Y plane – and scaled automatically to create a

depth effect. The game makes use of 2D physics components like Box2D and Polygon

Colliders, rather than their 3D equivalents. The designer can make use of Polygon

Collider pathfinding.

Top Down – The game is played in the X/Z plane, and the camera looks down “from

above”. Characters move purely in the X/Z plane – and scaled automatically to create a

depth effect. 3D physics components are required, but the designer can make use of

Unity's built-in Navigation pathfinding.

World Space – The game is played with perspective cameras, with the main

“background sprite” behind all Characters. Characters move in 3D space, with no need

for “cheating” a depth effect.

Local Space – Similar to World Space, only Characters will move and turn according to

a Marker's position on-screen, rather than its position in 3D space.

The default setting of this field is Unity 2D, which means you work with Unity's own “2D”

view in the X and Y co-ordinates, and this is the recommended way of working.

Adventure Creator's 2D scene (found in Assets → AdventureCreator → 2D Demo →

Scenes → Park) relies on a Unity 2D workflow.

In both Unity 2D and Top Down modes, Characters do not move closer to or further

away from the camera. To create a sense of depth, and to position Characters in front

of and behind scene objects appropriately, a Sorting Map is used to draw objects in the

correct order, regardless of their distance from the camera. A Sorting Map can cause

Characters to shrink when moving upwards (in screen-space), and be displayed behind

objects beneath them.

A Sorting Map automates the sorting order of any GameObject's Renderer component

when the FollowSortingMap script is attached to it. Check the 2D Demo scene to see

this in action – the Scene Settings (within the Scene Manager) has a SortingMap object

defined, and this object (which can also be created from the Navigation panel below)

defines how position affects a Renderer's sorting. This particular sorting map is set to

affect a sprite's Order in layer, but it could be used to affect Sorting layer instead. For

the Player Character to then be affected by the sorting map, the FollowSortingMap

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 14

component is added to the Player prefab's Sprite Child (found within Assets →

AdventureCreator → 2D Demo → Resources → Brain2D → Sprite).

A Sorting Map can also be used to adjust a Character sprite's scale and movement, by

checking the appropriate boxes in its Inspector. Scaling can either be Linear – by

assigning scale values to each area boundary and having the character interpolate

between them – or rely on an Animation Curve to determine the scale change from the

top to the bottom of the Sorting Map.

By default, all FollowSortingMap components will follow the Default SortingMap, as

set in the Scene Manager. However, a FollowSortingMap can be assigned to follow any

SortingMap in the scene – either by modifying its Inspector, or by using the Character:

Change rendering Action (see Section 5.2).

Since Unity 2D and Top Down modes effectively “fake” perspective this way, you may

wish for your Characters to move vertically more slowly than horizontally (in screen-

space). Within the Settings Manager, you can adjust the Vertical movement factor

slider to do just this. This factor can also be overridden per-scene within the Scene

Manager.

Your choice of Moving And Turning will affect which pathfinding methods are available

to you. Unity 2D can make use of Mesh Collider and Polygon Collider, while the others

can make use of Mesh Collider and Unity Navigation. The 2D Demo's Park scene

makes use of Polygon Collider-based pathfinding, which allows you to define an

arbitrary shape using the Polygon Collider 2D component. You can learn more about

manipulating Polygon Colliders on the Unity website here.

While Unity 2D and Top Down fake perspective, you can also opt to have your

Characters move in 3D space instead, just as they would in a regular 3D scene, with

World Space and Screen Space.

In both of these modes, the camera assumes that it is working in the X/Y plane (the

same that the Scene window's “2D” button switches to). Characters do not share the

same depth as the geometry, but instead move around the scene in 3D space. For this

reason, NavMeshes must also be laid out in 3D space.

As with a regular 3D scene, World Space mode causes Characters to refer to the exact

3D position of Markers and Hotspots when moving and turning. Screen Space mode,

however, causes Characters to refer to their position on-screen instead. For example, if

a Hotspot is closer to the camera than the Player, but raised such that it is vertically

above the Player on-screen, the player will look “behind” himself when set to turn

towards it. And when the Player is told to walk to a Marker, he will instead look to the

Marker's apparent position on the NavMesh as “seen” by the camera. This allows you

to give all Hotspots and Markers the same z-depth as the set geometry, allowing you to

work almost entirely in the 2D view once a NavMesh has been set up. Note that

PlayerStart objects and Markers used to teleport Characters must still be placed in the

correct position in 3D space.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 15

1.6 - UPDATING ADVENTURE CREATOR

Adventure Creator is frequently updated with new features, and it's a good idea to

download the latest update when it becomes available.

You can update Adventure Creator from your Unity Asset Store account. Choose

Windows → Asset Store from the top toolbar, then click on the Download Manager

icon at the top.

Upon updating, Adventure Creator will revert the manager asset references (see section

1.3) to the Demo game's set. You can avoid this by not importing the References asset

when you import the update – the References asset is found in your Assets →

AdventureCreator → Resources folder.

If the manager asset references are replaced, however, it is simple to change them

back to your own game's: if you used the New Game Wizard to create your managers, a

ManagerPackage asset file would have been created in your game's folder. Simply

select the asset, and either double-click on it, or click on Assign managers within its

Inspector to re-assign your own game's manager asset files.

The contents of each update are listed within the changelog file within the root

AdventureCreator folder. At the top of each version's release notes is the Upgrade

notes section, which describes any change made to Adventure Creator that may affect

your game or you need to be aware of. It is a good idea to read these notes thoroughly

after updating.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 16

1.7 - MINIMALLY IMPORTING ADVENTURE CREATOR

Adventure Creator's package size is quite large, as it includes both the 2D and 3D

Demo game source files. However, these demo files are not technically necessary for

Adventure Creator to compile, and can add unnecessary disk space to your project (and

build) once you no longer need them. It is, however, necessary to import the full

Adventure Creator package when using it for the first time.

When you use the New Game Wizard (see Introduction), you are given an option about

your game's interface. If you choose to use the default UI system for your game, then

your Menu and Cursor Managers (see section 1.3) will make use of certain graphics

and ActionLists used by the Demo game. If this is the case, the following folders will

still be required:

/Assets/AdventureCreator/Demo/InvActionLists

/Assets/AdventureCreator/Demo/MenuActionLists

/Assets/AdventureCreator/Demo/UI

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 17

2.0 - INPUT AND NAVIGATION

2.1 - OVERVIEW

Adventure Creator comes with four available movement methods: Point And Click,

Direct, First Person, and Drag. You can choose between them in the Settings Manager.

Note that the movement method only affects how the player can navigate the scene –

interacting with hotspots and characters is still dependent on your game's Interaction

method – see section 5.1.

Three input methods are also available: Mouse And Keyboard, Keyboard Or Controller,

and Touch Screen. The axes that you must define in the Input Manager are very

specific. The following sections detail which axes are needed for each setting.

The Settings Manager will list your game's available Input Axes based on the settings

chosen. If the Assume inputs are defined? option beneath this list is checked, these

Inputs will be required, but performance to the game will be increased.

Pathfinding is an essential part of any adventure game. When the Player character

moves around a scene during a Point And Click game, or when characters are moving

as part of a Cutscene, pathfinding algorithms are used to determine a path from one

point to another. Adventure Creator provides two methods of pathfinding: Unity

Navigation, and Mesh Collider. The pathfinding method can be set on a per-scene

basis within the Scene Manager, under the Scene Settings panel. These methods are

explained in sections 2.11 to 2.13.

By default, characters will make one path calculation before moving to a set point in the

scene. However, the Settings Manager's Pathfinding update time (s) value can be

used to enforce regular recalculations as they move.

Be aware that Adventure Creator's functions for detecting input can be overridden by

using delegates, allowing you to create or integrate a custom input manager. More on

this topic can be found in section 12.9.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 18

2.2 - POINT AND CLICK CONTROL

Point And Click control is the default movement method. Most adventure games, like

Monkey Island and The Longest Journey are controlled in this way. If you left-click your

cursor in the scene but not over an interactive object, the player will make their way

there. For Context Sensitive interactions (see section 5.1), double-clicking will make the

player run if they are able to, but this can be changed to make the interaction run

instantly, as a per-Hotspot setting.

To make a traditional mouse-driven point and click game, you do not need to define any

axes beyond the Menu key described in section 1.1. However, you can also use the

Input buttons InteractionA and InteractionB in place of the left- and right-mouse

buttons respectively. To disable mouse movement and rely on these Input buttons

completely, uncheck Left and right mouse clicks have default functionality? in the

Settings Manager.

This style makes heavy use of pathfinding to move the player around the scene, so it's

essential that your Player prefab has the Paths component attached. You will need to

define a NavMesh for every scene – see sections 2.11 to 2.13 for more information.

If you are making a 3D game that involves gravity, you will also need to create at least

one collider in every scene to act as a floor. This can be done easily using Collision

Cubes (see section 1.4).

There are several options related to how the player's destination when clicking is

determined. The NavMesh search % (in the Settings Manager) allows you to choose

how far from the cursor the game will search for a NavMesh, if one was not clicked on

directly. If this is greater than zero, you can use the NavMesh search direction to

determine if the search is conducted radially outward from the cursor, or straight down.

You can optionally supply a Click marker prefab (also in the Settings Manager), which

appears in the scene when you click, at the player character's intended destination.

The demo game makes use of the default ClickMarker prefab, found in

AdventureCreator → Prefabs → Navigation.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 19

2.3 - DIRECT CONTROL

Direct control allows you to control the player's movement directly, with either the

keyboard or a controller. Telltale's The Walking Dead is a recent example of a game

that employs this movement method.

For non-Touch Screen input, the Horizontal, Vertical and Run axes must be defined in

the Input Manager for Direct control to work. ToggleRun and Jump are also valid,

though Jump is only available for 3D Characters. Unity should have already defined the

first two by default upon starting a new project. If not, refer to Unity's documentation on

how to set them up. The Run button (or axis) should be a keystroke, such as left shift,

that you can hold down to make the player run.

If you want the intensity of the Horizontal or Vertical axes to affect the player's speed,

check Input magnitude affects speed? in the Settings Manager. And checking

Account for player's position on screen? will cause pressing “down” (for example) to

result in the player walking towards the camera, rather than just away from the camera's

point of view.

By default, the Player will turn naturally as they move, according to the “Turn speed”

defined in their Inspector. However, checking Turn instantly when under player

control? in the Settings Manager will enable snap-turning – an effect that works best

with 2D games.

Also for non-Touch Screen input, you can choose if movement keys direct the player

relative to the camera, or relative to the character (also known as “Tank controls”). And

if it's relative to the camera, you can also opt to limit movement to 4 or 8 directions,

rather than letting the player move in any direction. Note that if the camera cuts to a

different angle, the player character will continue moving in his original direction until the

user moves the input direction – this prevents the player moving in an unintended

direction if the angle changes sharply.

For Touch Screen input, Direct control works by touching on the screen and dragging

without letting go, similar to how Telltale's Tales Of Monkey Island plays. The drag

distances required to make the Player character walk and run can be set in the Setting

Manager.

When creating interactions and moving the player in cutscenes, you will probably need

to make use of pathfinding, even if you are not making a Point And Click game, so

follow the same steps to create a NavMesh, assign a Paths component to the Player

prefab, and add a CollisionCube floor as outlined in the previous section.

When under Direct control, the player does not take notice of the NavMesh. Instead,

the player is bounded by CollisionCube and CollisionCylinder objects, which act as

invisible walls to prevent the player from clipping through the set. Use the Scene

Manager to populate the scene with these colliders. To avoid clutter, you can also use

the Scene Manager to hide these objects once you've finished placing them. Click Off

next to Collision under the Visibility section to hide them. The same can be done with

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 20

Hotspot and Trigger objects.

Try adding CollisionCubes to the demo scene in such a way that they cover the walls

and props, and switch the movement method to Direct. Without the collision objects,

the player will still be controlled by the horizontal and vertical keys, but will clip through

the set geometry.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 21

2.4 - FIRST-PERSON CONTROL

First-Person control lets you navigate your game from the player character's point of

view. Technically, it is an extension of direct control, meaning you should first follow the

steps explained in the previous section – it requires Horizontal, Vertical and Run axes

to be defined (if non-Touch Screen input), CollisionCube objects to be placed in the

scene, and – optionally – a NavMesh to be created, if you wish to control player

movement during Cutscenes. ToggleRun and Jump are also valid axes.

For non-touch screen input, you can either rely on the mouse for turning (free-aiming) or

opt to move and turn solely with the keyboard. The latter is chosen by setting the

Direct movement type (under Movement settings in the Settings Manager) to Tank

Controls.

Otherwise, you will need to define a ToggleCursor axis. This button will let you toggle

between using the cursor to move around the screen, and using it to turn the Player

character's head.

Two additional axes need to be defined in your Input Manager: CursorHorizontal and

CursorVertical. Set the Axis fields to X axis and Y axis respectively, and both Types

to Mouse Movement. You will need to play with the numerical settings to discover

what works best for you, but a Dead setting of 0.001 and Sensitivity of 0.02 have been

found to give good results. These axes are used to control first-person free-aiming –

the smoothness of which can be controlled with the Free-aim acceleration factor in the

Settings Manager.

First Person control also works with Touch Screen input by dragging a finger on the

screen. The drag distances required to make the Player character walk and run can be

set in the Setting Manager, under Movement settings. The First person movement

field under Touch Screen settings allows you to choose how exactly you move in first-

person – for example, using one finger to turn, and two fingers to move.

Touch Screen input can also work with First Person control in the same way as Direct

control. The drag distances required to make the Player character walk and run can be

set in the Setting Manager. You can also set touch-dragging to affect just the Player's

direction, rather than position, in the Movement settings panel. Here, you can also

control the jump speed.

A camera that acts as the player's point of view must also be created. This must be a

child object of the Player prefab. Drag your Player prefab into a scene, attach a regular

camera as a child (GameObject → Create Other → Camera) and position it inside, or

just in front of, the player's head. Add a First Person Camera script, and tag the object

as FirstPersonCamera. This camera will be now used during normal gameplay.

Update the prefab (click Apply in the Prefab settings), and remove the Player from the

scene.

The First Person Camera inspector gives various options, allowing for head-bobbing

when moving, and the ability to zoom in and out using the mouse wheel. Note that for

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 22

the latter feature, the Mouse ScrollWheel axis must be defined in the Input Manager.

This axis requires values of 1000, 0, 0.1 for Gravity, Dead and Sensitivity respectively, a

Type of Mouse Movement, and the Axis set to 3rd.

The demo's player prefab, Tin Pot, comes with such a camera already attached.

Navigate to Assets → AdventureCreator → Demo → Resources → Tin Pot in your

Project window to see it.

This camera will always be the “active” one during normal gameplay – you can still

switch the camera during Cutscenes, but once a Cutscene ends the First Person

camera will be reverted to automatically. This camera is also used during

Conversations (see section 5.7), but this can be changed with the Run Conversations

in first-person? option in the Settings Manager.

If you wish to disable the First Person camera temporarily during gameplay (for a fixed-

perspective close-up, for example), you can use the Engine: Manage systems Action

to change the Movement method to None temporarily.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 23

2.5 - DRAG CONTROL

Drag control acts much like Direct control when Touch Screen is used as an input, only

it is better equipped for mouse and keyboard input. In this mode, the player can

navigate a scene by clicking and dragging while holding the mouse or button down.

The drag distances required to make the Player character walk and run can be set in

the Setting Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 24

2.6 - STRAIGHT-TO-CURSOR CONTROL

Straight To Cursor control causes the Player to move towards the cursor whenever the

mouse button (or tap, for Touch Screens) is held down.

If a non-zero Pathfinding update time is set in the Settings Manager, then the player

may attempt to navigate via pathfinding by this frequency. Otherwise, no pathfinding

will occur, and the player will move directly towards the cursor.

The Run threshold determines how far away the Player must be to start running, and

how closely the Player will follow the cursor - use higher values if the Player starts

circling the cursor continuously.

With the Single-clicking also moves Player? option, you can also determine whether

or not a single-click will cause the Player to move – much like regular Point And Click

movement. The Click/hold separation slider determines how long a click must be held

before it is recognised as a “hold” and the Player will stop moving when released.

If your Player does not move via pathfinding, they will only ever move in a straight line.

Therefore, unless you want pathfinding in Cutscenes or for NPCs, you do not need to

set up a Navigation method for your scenes. You simply need a Collider that is able to

"receive" the mouse clicks / button presses. A Collision Cube, that marks out the floor

and placed on the Default layer, will suffice.

If you require the Player to pathfind their way to the cursor in a more traditional

adventure style, use Point And Click movement instead.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 25

2.7 - ULTIMATE FPS INTEGRATION

Adventure Creator can make use of the Ultimate FPS asset, which is a separate

package available on the Unity Asset Store, and a popular choice for those making First

Person games.

Like Adventure Creator, Ultimate FPS is a Complete Project asset, so it will overwrite

your Inputs, Tags and Layers settings when you import it. Since it has more changes to

make than Adventure Creator, it is advised to import it first, let it overwrite your settings,

then import Adventure Creator, and make the required settings changes manually

(following the steps in section 1.1).

Integrating UFPS with Adventure Creator comes down to three key steps:

1. Set your game's Movement method (in the Settings Manager) to First Person.

2. Add the UltimateFPSIsPresent scripting define symbol to your game's Player

settings. You can find this field in Edit → Project Settings → Player.

3. Add the UltimateFPSIntegration components to your UFPS character. This

script will add other components it requires automatically.

Alternatively, ready-made player prefabs are available on Adventure Creator's website

here.

Just as with regular First Person movement, the mouse cursor can be locked (allowing

free-aiming), and unlocked (allowing menu navigation but preventing camera rotation).

The default state of the cursor can also be set within the Settings Manager.

When a Menu that pauses the game is enabled, the mouse cursor is automatically

unlocked. The cursor lock can be toggled automatically by the player when the

ToggleCursor input button is triggered. Additionally, the Player: Constrain Action can

be used to disable free-aiming at any time.

The integration script, however, is isolated from the rest of Adventure Creator. This

means that, should you need to amend the way the two assets work together, you can

do so by duplicating the script and instead working with an amended copy. The original

UltimateFPSIntegration.cs script can be found in

/Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/Static.

If your UFPS player includes a HUD, you will write a simple custom script that control its

display according to your gameState enum, which can read with

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler.gameState. The Scripting Guide provides a full list of

AC's public variables and functions.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 26

2.8 - KEYBOARD AND CONTROLLER SETUP

All four movement methods can be used with either a keyboard or a controller. Each

requires a Menu button, and Horizontal and Vertical axes. To play your game using

an XBox controller, set the Menu button to joystick button 9, and the Horizontal and

Vertical Axes to X axis and Y axis respectively, and their Type to Joystick Axis. To

allow for First Person toggling between cursor modes, declare an axis called

ToggleCursor (as explained in 2.4), and set its Positive button to joystick button 19.

You also need to define your cursor input. Create two more axes called

CursorHorizontal and CursorVertical, setting the Axis to 3rd axis and 4th axis, and

both Types to Joystick Axis. The speed of the cursor can be adjusted in your scene's

GameEngine object – the PlayerInput component's Cursor move speed value.

Finally, you need to define your A and B buttons – the controller equivalent of a mouse's

left and right clicks. Create two buttons: InteractionA and InteractionB, set the

Positive Buttons to joystick button 16 and joystick button 17 (for an XBox controller),

and the Types to Key or Mouse Button.

To play your game with a keyboard, define all of the above input axes, but set the type

of each to Key or Mouse Button, and the positive and negative buttons to your desired

mapping.

When it comes to navigating Menus, by default this occurs by using the cursor during

normal gameplay, and with the Horizontal/Vertical axes when the game is paused or a

Conversation (see section 5.7) is active. The former can be changed using the Engine:

Manage systems Action, and the latter can be changed at the top of the Menu

Manager. Note that if you enable axis-based navigation of Menus during gameplay, you

may also need to disable the Movement and Interaction systems as they may also

make use of those inputs.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 27

2.9 - TOUCH-SCREEN INPUT

Adventure Creator can be used to make games for iOS and Android platforms, using all

four movement methods. By default, interacting with Hotspots in Touch Screen mode is

a two-step process: touching a Hotspot once will highlight it, and touching it again will

interact with it. Touching away from a highlighted Hotspot will de-select it. You can

disable this feature, and revert back to one-touch interactions, from the Touch Screen

settings section of the Settings Manager.

In Context Sensitive interaction mode (see section 5.1), objects are examined by

placing a second finger down on the screen while the first finger is still touching. You

can simulate this effect in the Unity Editor by right-clicking on a Hotspot while the left

mouse button is held down.

In Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode (see section 5.1), your game will need to

make use of an Interaction menu that appears once a Hotspot is selected, which

contains a list of Interaction icons. By default, selecting a Hotspot and then an

Interaction icon requires two separate taps, but this can be reduced to a tap, hold, and

release by checking Trigger interactions by releasing tap?.

By default, the cursor position will always be same as the touch position (or first touch

position, if multiple touches are made). Optionally, the cursor can be dragged instead

by dragging with a finger – its position will remain relative to the touch position instead.

To enable this feature, check the Drag cursor with touch? box within the Settings

Manager.

When it comes to Menus (see section 11.1), elements are normally activated at the

beginning of a touch. However, Menus that pause the game when enabled can instead

respond to the release of a touch, by checking Release touch to interact with pause

Menus?, also in the Settings Manager. Note, however, that this won't apply to Menus

that rely on Unity UI (see section 11.3).

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 28

2.10 - OUYA INTEGRATION

Adventure Creator can be used to make games for the OUYA, which is a console based

on the Android platform.

To deploy your game to the OUYA, you must first add the “OUYAIsPresent”

preprocessor define to your Player Settings. To do this, choose Edit → Project Settings

→ Player from the top toolbar, in the Configuration section, enter OUYAIsPresent in the

Scripting Define Symbols textbox for your chosen platform.

Next, you must add the OuyaIntegration script component to any scene that you wish

to be able to make use of the Ouya controller in. It is recommended that you add this to

a new GameObject, make it a prefab, and then add this prefab to all your game's

scenes.

Adventure Creator's OUYA integration automatically maps the OUYA's controller to the

most commonly-used Input axes and buttons:

OUYA button Associated Adventure Creator input

Left stick Horizontal, Vertical (axes)

Right stick CursorHorizontal, CursorVertical (axes)

O InteractionA

U Jump

Y EndCutscene

A InteractionB

L1 Run

R1 ToggleCursor

R3 FlashHotspots

Menu Menu

The OuyaIntegration script, however, is isolated from the rest of Adventure Creator.

This means that if you need to change the controls, you can do so easily by duplicating

the script and instead making use of a modified version. The original

OuyaIntegration.cs script can be found in /Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/Static.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 29

2.11 - MESH COLLIDER PATHFINDING

Mesh Collider-based pathfinding is the default pathfinding method, and involves

creating custom 3D meshes to mark out the area over which characters can walk.

Because of the need for mesh creation, it is harder to set up than the Unity Navigation

method (explained in the next section), but is dynamic – different NavMeshes can be

swapped out when the layout of the scene changes.

Once the Pathfinding method field in the Scene Manager has been set to Mesh

Collider, the Navigation panel will allow you to create a NavMesh prefab.

Whether you have multiple NavMeshes in your scene or just one, you must always

declare the default inside the Scene Manager (the first tab in the main Adventure

Creator window). Doing so will ensure your active NavMesh is on the correct layer,

known as “NavMesh”. Note that Navigation Meshes may not work if their GameObject

is set to a non-zero rotation.

You must then assign a mesh to the NavMesh prefab by assigning a custom mesh to

the Mesh Collider component's Mesh field.

Such a mesh is an invisible mesh that, looking top-down over the scene, marks out the

floor space that can be walked on. It need not stick rigidly to the floor in the Y-axis, but

it's recommended to keep it close. It's also recommended to reduce the mesh's vertex

count to its bare minimum, since Adventure Creator's pathfinding algorithm refers to

these vertices when calculating a path.

While this algorithm does take other objects, such as CollisionCubes, into account when

calculating a path, it may occasionally give unexpected results, so it's best to have

multiple NavMeshes in your scene if your scene layout is going to change. For

example, if a scene involves two rooms separated by a door that can be both open and

closed, you should create three NavMeshes: one for each room, and another that

contains both rooms with the connection between.

The demo scene provides another example. In the scene's Hierarchy, _Navigation →

_NavMesh contains two NavMeshes: one for when the barrel is standing to the side, the

other for when the barrel is tipped over in the middle of the room. Click on each object,

with the Mesh Collider component open to see the difference between the two.

Navigation Meshes can be made visible when not selected via the Scene Manager's

Visibility panel. Provided your scene has an active NavMesh with a Mesh Renderer

component, it can be shown and hidden using the On and Off buttons.

If you are creating a game of very large scale, you may find that you need to increase

the size of the NavMesh ray length, which you can adjust inside the Settings Manager.

You can also adjust the NavMesh Search %, to change the vertical distance (as a

percentage of the Screen's height) that the cursor will search beneath it for a walkable

area.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 30

2.12 - UNITY NAVIGATION PATHFINDING

Unity Navigation-based pathfinding relies on Unity's built-in NavMesh tool. It is easier to

set up than Mesh Collider-based pathfinding, but isn't dynamic – the area over which

characters in a scene can walk must be fixed.

Once the Pathfinding method field in the Scene Manager has been set to Unity

Navigation, the Navigation panel will allow you to create a NavMeshSegment prefab.

By placing down NavMeshSegments and positioning them over your set's floor, you can

mark out the area in which characters can move. The Scene Manager's Visibility panel

lets you hide and show such segments. The StaticObstacle prefab is also available in

the Navigation panel – this can be used to define areas in which characters cannot

walk.

When you have laid out the segments, open the Navigation window by clicking on

Window → Navigation within the main menu, and click the Bake button. The newly-

created NavMesh will be represented by a blue area. You can adjust how rigidly the

NavMesh follows your segments with the Radius and Height values in the Bake tab –

just make sure that the NavMesh itself is slightly above the floor itself.

Done correctly, Adventure Creator will then make use of this NavMesh when pathfinding

is required – but be sure not to delete the original NavMeshSegment prefabs, as these

are also used by the engine.

Note: You do not necessarily need to use NavMeshSegment prefabs in order to build

your NavMesh – this is just a convenience. If you are not making use of point-and-click

movement (see Section 2.2), then a baked NavMesh using Unity's Navigation tab is

enough. In order to use point-and-click movement, colliders that mark out the

NavMesh's area must be placed on the NavMesh layer and marked as Navigation

Static – this is all the NavMeshSegment prefab really is, and can be replaced with

custom collider(s) if desired.

If you are creating a game of very large scale, you may find that you need to increase

the size of the NavMesh ray length, which you can adjust inside the Settings Manager.

You can also adjust the NavMesh Search %, to change the vertical distance (as a

percentage of the Screen's height) that the cursor will search beneath it for a walkable

area.

If you prefer, you can also make use of Unity's own NavMeshAgent component to move

characters around a NavMesh. To do this, simply add the component, as well as the

NavMeshAgentIntegration script. This script will give control to the NavMeshAgent

instead. This script is isolated from the rest of Adventure Creator – meaning you can

amend it (or a duplicate of it) to tailor it to your specific needs without causing undesired

problems elsewhere.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 31

2.13 - POLYGON COLLIDER PATHFINDING

Polygon Collider-based pathfinding is only a valid option when making a “Unity 2D” 2D

game (see section 1.5). Like Mesh Collider pathfinding, it involves the creation of a

custom NavMesh, only it can be created directly in the Unity editor. And also like Mesh

Collider pathfinding, it is dynamic – different NavMeshes can be swapped out when the

layout of the scene changes.

Once the Pathfinding method field in the Scene Manager has been set to Polygon

Collider, the Navigation panel will allow you to create a NavMesh2D prefab.

Whether you have multiple NavMeshes in your scene or just one, you must always

declare the default inside the Scene Manager (the first tab in the main Adventure

Creator window). Doing so will ensure your active NavMesh2D is on the correct layer,

known as “NavMesh”.

You must then modify the shape of the Polygon Collider (represented in the Scene View

by a green pentagon) to mark out the area that Characters can move. It's

recommended to reduce the number of points to its bare minimum, since Adventure

Creator's pathfinding algorithm refers to these vertices when calculating a path.

To create “holes” in your NavMesh, you can define additional Polygon Colliders in the

NavigationMesh Inspector that will be subtracted by the main NavMesh at runtime. This

can be useful if your scene includes e.g. a tree that the Player can walk around.

This method can also be used to add walkable areas together – if the “hole” Polygon

Collider overlaps the boundary of the original NavMesh, then it will be added onto the

NavMesh instead – rather than being subtracted.

You can add and remove holes to your NavMesh in-game by using the Scene: Change

setting Action (see section 5.2).

While this algorithm does take other objects, such as CollisionCubes, into account when

calculating a path, it may occasionally give unexpected results, so it's best to have

multiple NavMeshes in your scene if your scene layout is going to change. For

example, if a scene involves two rooms separated by a door that can be both open and

closed, you should create three NavMeshes: one for each room, and another that

contains both rooms with the connection between.

In the Settings Manager, you can also adjust the NavMesh Search %, to change the

vertical distance (as a percentage of the Screen's height) that the cursor will search

beneath it for a walkable area.

Note that you may encounter problems if your NavMesh's scale is too small, which may

be the case if you are using low-resolution (e.g. 320x240) backgrounds. You can easily

tell if your scale is wrong by looking at the white squares that break up a Character's

path when pathfinding – they should be tiny dots in the Scene window compared with

the rest of the scene. If they are overly large, your scene is likely too small and you will

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 32

have to scale up your geometry. You can easily scale up your scene sprites by

reducing the Pixels to Units setting when importing sprites.

If you have multiple characters moving around at once, then you can use the Character

evasion setting on the Navigation Mesh component to have them attempt to move

around each other. Be aware that this will have an impact performance, and when

building to mobile platforms, it is strongly recommended to set this option to None.

Evasions work by generating “holes” in the NavMesh around characters - further options

are provided to control the shape of these holes.

For a further performance boost, you can lower the Accuracy slider. The optimal value

of this slider will depend on your game's scale, NavMesh size, and target platform, but

should generally only be set below 1 if you experience slowdown when pathfinding.

If you wish to have isolated spots on your NavMesh (i.e. another area that is

unaccessible via the main NavMesh), you can add additional PolygonCollider2D

components (with Is Trigger checked) onto the base NavMesh GameObject. These

colliders must be kept separate from one another, and note that the character evasion

and hole features mentioned above will only apply to the first collider on the NavMesh.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 33

2.14 - ACTIVE INPUTS

Active Inputs are a series of pre-defined Input buttons that, when pressed during a

particular game-state (i.e. during gameplay, or in a cutscene) triggers an ActionList

asset (see section 5.8). This is useful if, for example, you want to switch to a menu

screen that's in a separate scene when you press the "Escape" key.

To access the Active Inputs Editor window, choose Adventure Creator -> Editors ->

Active Inputs from the top toolbar. You can then define how many Active Inputs you

want. Each Input requires a button name (which must be defined in Unity's Input

Manager), which state that the game must be in for it to register, and the ActionList to

run when it is triggered. If you wish for an Active Input to work during multiple game

states (i.e. during both gameplay AND cutscenes) you must define two separate Inputs -

one for each state.

Note that your list of Active Inputs is stored within the Settings Manager asset. If you

change your Settings Manager, any Active Inputs previously defined will no longer be

present.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 34

2.15 - INPUT DESCRIPTIONS

Adventure Creator makes use of a number of different inputs that need to be defined in

Unity's Input Manager (Edit -> Project settings -> Input). What inputs will be used,

however, depends on how your game is played, and what settings you've chosen.

A full list of inputs available to your game can use can be found within the Settings

Manager. The following is a list of each possible input, and what it is used for:

Horizontal

Type: Axis

Moves the player depending on the chosen Movement method, as well as

navigate menus with a keyboard/controller.

Vertical

Type: Axis

Moves the player depending on the chosen Movement method, as well as

navigate menus with a keyboard/controller.

InteractionA

Type: Button

Acts in the same way as a left-click. It is used to click on Hotspots, Menu

elements and NavMeshes.

InteractionB

Type: Button

Acts in the same way as a right-click. It is used to examine Hotspots when using

Context Sensitive interactions.

CursorHorizontal

Type: Axis

Moves the cursor along the screen's X-axis when free-aiming or using a

controller.

CursorVertical

Type: Axis

Moves the cursor along the screen's Y-axis when free-aiming or using a

controller.

ToggleCursor

Type: Button

Toggles the cursor's "locked" state on and off during gameplay. When the cursor

is locked, it is placed in the centre of the screen and cannot be moved. When

used in a first-person game, locking the cursor allows the player to free-aim.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 35

Run

Type: Button/Axis

When held down, causes the player to run when moving, depending on the

chosen Movement method.

Jump

Type: Button

Causes a 3D player to jump, depending on the chosen Movement method.

Mouse ScrollWheel

Type: Axis

Zooms a first-person camera in and out.

CycleHotspots

Type: Axis

Cycles the highlighted Hotspot when the Hotspot detection method is set to

Player Vicinity.

CycleHotspotsLeft

Type: Button

Cycles the highlighted Hotspot left when the Hotspot detection method is set to

Player Vicinity.

CycleHotspotsRight

Type: Button

Cycles the highlighted Hotspot right when the Hotspot detection method is set to

Player Vicinity.

CycleInteractions

Type: Axis

Cycles the highlighted Interaction when the Interaction method is Choose

Hotspot Then Interaction.

CycleInteractionsLeft

Type: Button

Cycles the highlighted Interaction left when the Interaction method is Choose

Hotspot Then Interaction.

CycleInteractionsRight

Type: Button

Cycles the highlighted Interaction right when the Interaction method is Choose

Hotspot Then Interaction.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 36

CycleCursors

Type: Button

Cycles through the next available cursor type when the game allows for it. This

is either when the Interaction method is Choose Interaction Then Hotspot, or

when it's Choose Hotspot Then Interaction and Select interactions by is set to

Cycling Cursor And Clicking Hotspot.

CycleCursorsBack

Type: Button

Cycles through the previous available cursor type when the game allows for it.

This is when the Interaction method is Choose Hotspot Then Interaction and

Select interactions by is set to Cycling Cursor And Clicking Hotspot.

FlashHotspots

Type: Button

Briefly flashes all Hotspots in the scene, provided that they have a Highlight

component correctly assigned. This can be used to make the player aware of all

interactive objects in a scene.

SkipSpeech

Type: Button

Skips the current speech or subtitle. Depending on the chosen options, this can

instead advance a scrolling-subtitle to the end first.

EndCutscene

Type: Button

Skips the current set of gameplay-blocking ActionLists. All Actions that would

have been run are still called - but are done so instantly. An ActionList can be

halted either via scripting or through the ActionList: Kill Action. ActionLists that

are set to Run In Background are ignored.

EndConversation

Type: Button

Ends the current Conversation. Note that this will not result in any "exiting"

sequence, such as the player saying goodbye. Such a sequence is created via a

Conversation's Dialog Option ActionList.

DialogueOption[1-9]

Type: Buttons

Chooses a dialogue option, when a Conversation is active. Each option is

mapped to a separate input: DialogueOption1, DialogueOption2, etc.

ThrowMoveable

Type: Button

Throws the current PickUp object, if it allows for it - see Section 5.15. Holding

down this button will increase the throwing force when released.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 37

RotateMoveable

Type: Button

Rotates the current PickUp object, if it allows for it - see Section 5.15. Rotation

will be possible while this button is held down.

RotateMoveableToggle

Type: Button

Rotates the current PickUp object, if it allows for it - see Section 5.15. This

button will toggle the ability to rotate on and off.

ZoomMoveable

Type: Axis

Zooms the current PickUp object towards or away from the camera, if it allows for

it - see Section 5.15.

The list of available inputs will also include any Active inputs (see Section 2.4), and

inputs mapped to Menus with an Appear type of On Input Key (see Section 11.1).

Not that an input does not necessarily need to be listed in Unity's Input Manager for it to

be used by AC: it can also be simulated via Menu clicks. Menu Buttons have the option

to simulate input (see Section 11.2), and can therefore be used to map inputs to an on-

screen UI. This can be used, for example, to provide an on-screen button to skip a

Cutscene, or a joystick when playing on mobile devices.

Inputs can also be remapped via scripting: see Section 12.9.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 38

3.0 - CREATING CHARACTERS

3.1 - INTRODUCTION

Two types of characters are supported in Adventure Creator: the Player, and NPCs.

The steps involved to create either type is largely similar, and the differences are

detailed in the following section. This section will cover the elements that all Characters

must have.

The quickest way to get characters into your game is to use the Character Wizard,

which can be opening from Unity's top toolbar, under Adventure Creator → Editors →

Character wizard. The wizard can be used to add the necessary scripts and

components onto a model or sprite, but the components themselves will still need

tweaking afterwards – for example, colliders will need to be resized and animation

properties will need to be correctly set. The components necessary are covered below.

NPCs require the NPC script, while the Player character requires the Player script

attached to its GameObject. The inspectors for both the Player and NPC scripts are

identical, and have fields grouped into sub-panels: Standard animations (either 2D or

3D, depending on the chosen animation engine), Movement values, Physics settings

and Dialogue settings.

The first field you should set for any new Character is its Animation engine. Adventure

Creator supports both 3D animation via Unity's Legacy and Mecanim systems, as well

as 2D animation via either 2D Toolkit or Unity's own 2D framework.

Regardless of animation engine, most Characters will require the following components:

•Audio Source – Needed for speech audio; no audio clip required

•Collider – A Capsule works best for 3D, and a Circle for “Unity 2D” 2D mode

•Rigidbody – With the three rotation axes locked (or a Rigidbody2D for Unity 2D

games)

•Paths – Required for pathfinding around the scene; no additional tweaking

required

Characters can still move without a Rigidbody, which can be processor-intensive if your

game features many of them. Consider removing them from NPCs, and Players that do

not need to pass through Triggers, or move vertically in the scene. You can also use a

Character Controller in place of a Rigidbody and Capsule Collider, giving you the

ability to limit a Player's slope limit, for example.

Even with a Rigidbody, a characters use of it is optional. As Rigidbody-based

characters are moved by applying forces to them in FixedUpdate, it is advisable to give

them Interpolation for smooth movement.

Refer to section 3.5 for details on how to set up a character for 3D animation, and

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 39

sections 3.6 and 3.7 for 2D animation. Movement values are typical speed factors for

walking, running, turning, accelerating and decelerating. The Dialogue settings panel

provides a field for a portrait graphic, which will be displayed when a character talks if

the subtitles menu contains a Graphic element of type Dialogue Portrait, and a text

colour, which will be used if the game's subtitles menu element allow it.

The Rigidbody settings panel offers some handy options regarding the Character's

physics. If a scene's floor contains no variations in height, the Ignore gravity?

checkbox can be used to omit the need for a Collision-based floor – the 2D Demo

Player Character, Brain2D, makes use of this feature. Conversely, if a Character is

expected to move on particularly steep slopes, the Freeze when Idle? checkbox can be

used to stop them from sliding downward when standing still.

A Character's inspector also provides fields for audio clips that play when moving – to

make audible footsteps, for example. So that a Character can speak aloud at the same

time, however, a separate “Sound child” must be provided to allow for a second Audio

Source. Add an empty GameObject to your Character's prefab (GameObject → Create

Empty), and add both the Audio Source and Sound components. Set the Sound

inspector's Sound type to SFX, and finally drag this child object into the Character's

Sound child field. An example Character set up in this way can be found in Assets →

Adventure Creator → Demo → NPCs → Brain.

The Character: Animate action can be used to change a Character's footstep sounds

mid-game, however for the change to be registered by the save game files, be sure to

make the filenames unique and place them in your game's Resources folder.

For greater control over footstep sounds, for example by playing one randomly from a

pool of clips, attach the Footstep Sounds component to the character instead – this

can be set to play sounds automatically as the character walks, or via Animation Events

as part of Unity's animation system.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 40

3.2 - THE PLAYER

If your game's Movement method (in the Settings Manager) is anything other than

None, then you will need to define a Player. Even if the game is purely first-person, and

the player is never seen, a prefab still needs to be created. Follow the steps outlined in

the previous section before continuing, being sure to add a Player script to the

Character.

Your game's player character is defined in the Settings Manager (from the main

Adventure Creator window). The Player prefab is created by the GameEngine object at

runtime – it need not be present in the scene when you start the game.

The Player prefab must be tagged as Player, but its name need not be such. Only the

root object should be given this tag, while both the root object and any children should

be placed in the Ignore Raycast layer.

You will also need to attend to the Player's animation settings – refer to section 3.5 for

3D animation, or sections 3.6 and 3.7 for 2D animation.

Once your Player prefab is ready, assign it as the Settings Manager's Player field to

have it appear automatically in the scene. The demo's player character, Tin Pot, is

available for study in Assets → AdventureCreator → Demo → Resources.

Alternatively, you can rely on “local” Players by placing a Player object in the scene file

itself. This is useful if you need to attach GameObjects to the Player's Hierarchy in

certain scenes, for example. Note that when AC loads such a scene, the Player prefab

assigned in the Settings Manager will be ignored while that scene is open – and will

only appear again once that scene is left.

Most games involve only one Player prefab, however it is also possible to have a game

that involves several Player characters, that you can switch between in-game. Within

the Settings Manager, set Player switching to Allow, and you will be able to define

multiple Player prefabs, as well as the default. The Player: Switch Action can then be

called during gameplay to change the current active Player.

Note, however, that only one Player prefab can be present in the scene at a time – if

you wish to have two Player characters present together, you must use the Player:

Switch Action's ability to “swap out” the inactive Player prefab with an NPC prefab that

has the same model and animation set.

Upon switching, Adventure Creator will load any pre-existing data that might be stored if

the character was already controlled beforehand. This includes their inventory, position,

and active camera.

The ability to switch Player prefabs is also useful for giving your Player character

costume changes. A different character model can be used by a different prefab, and

swapped out as needed. When this is the case, you will likely want your prefabs to

share the same Inventory. To allow this, just click the Share same Inventory?

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 41

checkbox in the Settings Manager when Player Switching is set to Allow.

Note that it is not recommend to use “local” Players (as described above) together with

player-switching – you should instead rely on one method or the other to change your

Player's appearance.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 42

3.3 - NPCS

NPCs are computer-controlled characters that the player can interact with in the game.

They can walk, run, speak, and be animated just as the player can, but require a little

more work to place in the game.

Begin by following the steps in section 3.1, giving the Character an NPC script, and then

making sure the NPC is untagged. It is a good idea to make your NPC a prefab, so that

it can be re-used in other scenes.

If you intend to make the NPC interactive, you'll need to add the Hotspot component,

as well as a Collider component with Is Trigger? Checked.

IMPORTANT: If your NPC is sprite-based, these components should be placed on the

sprite itself. If your NPC is a 3D model, they should instead be placed on the root

object. It is also necessary to move the Hotspot object onto the Default layer.

The optional Highlight script will make the character brighter when the cursor is over

them – find the Object to highlight field in the Hotspot inspector, and select the NPC.

For more on using the Hotspot inspector to create NPC interactions, refer to section 5.3.

You will also need to attend to the NPC's animation settings – refer to section 3.5 for 3D

animation, or sections 3.6 and 3.7 for 2D animation.

NPCs in the scene can be manipulated in-game using Actions, and with the Hotspot

script, they can be interacted with in the same way Hotspot prefabs are. For full

instructions, refer to section 5.0.

When a scene features NPCs – particularly ones that move around – the player may

occasionally find themselves stuck because an NPC is in their way. To prevent this,

NPCs can be made to keep away from the player if they get too close. In the NPC

inspector, check Keep out of Player's way?, and set the minimum distance that they

should keep between themselves and the player.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 43

3.4 - CHARACTER MOVEMENT

Interactions, Cutscenes, Dialogue Options and Triggers can all be used to control a

character's movement, and also restrict a player's movement during gameplay.

Characters can both walk and run. The Minimum run distance on a Player / NPC

Inspector controls the minimum distance between the character and its target required

for running to be possible.

Characters can move in two ways: by dynamically pathfinding their way between two

points, or by following a pre-determined route designed in the Scene view. Both of

these methods involve the Paths script.

Any character you wish to pathfind to somewhere must have the Paths script attached

to their GameObject. A NavMesh must also be defined in the scene: refer to the earlier

sections 2.11 to 2.13 for more. The Character: Move to point Action can then be used

to make the character navigate the scene. See section 5.2 for more on Actions. If a

Character wants to pathfind but no NavMesh is set, they will simply move in a straight

line directly to their destination. This Action can also be used to make Characters float

to their destination (temporarily, if they normally obey gravity), allowing for scenes that

take place in space or underwater.

To make a character move along a pre-set path, you first need to create that path as a

separate object. From the Scene Manager, click Path under the Navigation panel. If

you don't see that button available, make sure you have set up your scene correctly –

see section 1.4.

Once you have created a new Path object, you should see a blue circle appear at the

origin of your scene. The blue circle represents the starting point of your path. Move it

to an appropriate place in your scene. Then use the Paths inspector to create your

path: clicking Add node will make another transform gizmo appear close to the blue

circle, with the number 1 appearing below it. This means it is the first node, or path

point, beyond the starting point. A blue line connects nodes together, allowing you to

visualise the path your character will take.

Note that the the elevation of a path's nodes are unimportant unless you check the

Override gravity? box in the Paths inspector. Doing so will cause the character to

move to each node's point on the Y-axis, as well as the X and Z. This is useful if you

want a character to fly, for example. You can also make the character walking along

this path wait for a time at each node, by supplying a Wait time.

For greater control, you can also run a Cutscene (see section 5.4) or ActionList asset

(see section 5.8) when a Character reaches each node. The Character involved can be

sent as a parameter to this ActionList if parameters are enabled (see section 5.13).

Once you have set up your pre-determined path, you can use the Character: Move

along path Action to move either the player or an NPC along it. Again, see section 5.2

for more on Actions.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 44

Because object scaling varies from game to game, you may need to adjust the

Destination accuracy slider in the Settings Manager. This slider determines how

“close is close enough” when it comes to determining if a Character has reached their

destination. This is visualised as a yellow sphere gizmo by the Character's feet in the

Scene window.

Predetermined paths can also be used to restrict player movement during gameplay.

You can use the Player: Constrain Action to assign a Paths object to the player, which

will mean the player can only move along that path. Note that this feature only works

with the Direct and First Person movement methods.

For coders, a Character's path is determined by their activePath variable. If a Character

is pathfinding, this activePath will refer to their own Paths component. The targetNode

and prevNode integers are used to determine where on the path a character is, and in

which direction they are travelling. When they reach a node, a function in the Paths

script returns the next node number they should aim for.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 45

3.5 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (LEGACY)

If your Character engine is set to Legacy (see section 3.1), make sure that your

animation files have been imported as such. Next, attach an Animation component to

your Character. The Animations array ought to be cleared, since the Character script

will replace them with its own set at runtime.

Note: If your game is using Top-Down 2D (see section 1.5) combined with 3D

Characters (as in Runaway or The Longest Journey, for instance), your Animation

component needs to be a child object of the Character, and must be set as your

Animation child in the Character's inspector. Also be aware that in order for 3D

models to work correctly with sprites and Sorting Maps, they may need shaders that

have “ZWrite Off” set to them.

When using Legacy animation, the inspector for both the Player and NPC scripts will

contain panels called Standard 3D animations and Bone transforms. Standard

animations (Idle, Walk, etc.) are played automatically when appropriate. Note that the

turning animations are only played when the character is turning on the spot. If an

animation is missing, the character will still move even if they are not animated.

The bone transform fields are required for custom animations. The first four of these

(Upper body, neck, left arm and right arm) are used as mixing transforms (that is, to

isolate animations to specific body parts) when using the Character: Animate Action.

The two hand bones are used as reference when instructing a Character to hold an

object, via the Character: Hold object Action.

When you play a custom animation on a Character, you can define an animation layer

for it to be played on, from the base layer at the bottom, to the mouth layer at the top.

By keeping your animations on separate layers, you can mix them together to create

new animations. The demo provides a good example of this when Brain talks to the

player while in his chair. He is playing his idle animation on the Base layer, turning his

head left on the Neck layer, bobbing his head on the Head layer, changing his

expression on the Face layer, and moving his lips on the Mouth layer. It's generally a

good idea to only play one animation per layer at any one time.

The Character: Animate Action can also stop animations, change the standard

animations, and reset a Character to idle. It also takes care of removing old animations

that are no longer playing in the Character's Animation component.

When you select a custom animation to play, you can also choose if that animation is

blended with or added on top of existing animations. If you are having trouble getting

an additive animation to play properly, make sure that all keyframed bones in that

animation start from their rest position.

The Dialogue: Play Speech Action also allows for two more animations: Head and

Mouth. These fields act as shortcuts to play custom animations in the correct way. The

Head animation is used to vary a character's head motion as they say a line, for

example a nod if they are agreeing with something. This is an Additive animation

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 46

played once on the Head layer. The Mouth animation is used to let the character

animate their lips as they talk. You can either supply a generic “talking” animation, or a

line-specific lip-sync animation. This is a Blend animation played once on the Mouth

layer.

Adventure Creator also features a number of ways to animate your Character lip-

syncing, including making use of FaceFX, and these are covered in sections 10.5 and

10.6).

To animate expressions on your Characters by using blend shapes, you can use of the

Object: Blend shape Action in conjunction with the Shapeable script. The Shapeable

script is covered in section 8.1.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 47

3.6 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (SPRITES UNITY)

Adventure Creator can rely on Unity's own 2D framework for character animation by

setting the Character engine field in the Settings Manager. Unity's built-in 2D

framework uses a variant of the Mecanim system. For that reason, you must be familiar

with using the Animator component and window. You can read up on the Mecanim

system from the official Unity documentation.

To create a 2D character, you will need to make a "Sprite child" object that holds your

character sprite. Add an Animator component to an empty GameObject - this will be

your Sprite child. You can either then add a Sprite Renderer component to this Object,

or attach multiple Sprite Renderers as child Objects for layered animation (such as the

"hero" character in Unity's own 2D example project). Assign your Animator component

a Controller, and set up your animation clips using the Animation and Animator

windows.

To create an animation clip, select your Animator component, and dock the Animation

window. Create a new clip, rename it, and drag the clip's individual frames onto the

Dope Sheet. Adjust the samples value to affect playback speed, and then drag the

clip's asset file into the Animator window. For standard animations (explained below),

you do not need to deal with Transitions or Parameters, as Adventure Creator will play

the appropriate animations automatically.

2D Characters have four standard animation types that play automatically: Idle, Walk,

Run, and Talk. The names of these animations are entered manually into the inspector.

2D Characters can face either four or eight directions, depending on the inspector's

Diagonal sprites? checkbox. Such directions are determined via suffixes in your sprite's

animation names. For example, if a Character's walk animation is “Walk”, the walk-right

animation should be named “Walk_R”, and walk-left animation “Walk_L”. The following

suffixes to the animation names are understood by Adventure Creator:

•_R → Right

•_L → Left

•_U → Up

•_D → Down

•_UR → Up-right

•_UL → Up-left

•_DR → Down-right

•_DL → Down-left

If your left- and right-facing sprites are merely mirror images of each other, you only

need supply one or the other. Within a 2D character's “Standard 2D animations panel”,

set the Frame flipping value to Left Mirrors Right to only rely on right-facing

animations, or Right Mirrors Left for the opposite. By default, this option will only affect

standard animations, such as Idle, Walk and Run – to make it affect custom animations

as well, check Flip custom animations?.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 48

If you need help keeping track of which animations are required for your character,

based on the options you've chosen, you can open up the List expected animations?

foldout box in the character's Inspector to see a full breakdown.

If your animation clips rely on sprite transforms, rather than swapping out frames, you

can use the Crossfade between states? checkbox to smooth transitions.

If you are going for a retro effect, you can use the Only move when sprite changes?

checkbox so that the character's movement is less smooth – which can be useful when

working with low-resolution sprites. This is equivalent to Adventure Game Studio's

“Anti-glide mode”.

The Character: Animation Action alters when Characters use the Unity 2D framework,

but note that when playing non-standard animations, you may need to add Transitions

to your Animation Controller to properly control how the animation finishes playing. The

Dialogue: Play Speech Action is given additional animation options, allowing playback

of animations on varying layers.

To handle collision, you should add a Circle Collider at the base of your Character's

root object (that is, it covers the feet), making sure it's not a trigger. If you are making

an NPC that is clickable, you will need to add a second collider, a Box Collider 2D,

onto the sprite child, as well as the Hotspot script (see section 5.3).

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 49

3.7 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (MECANIM)

Support for Mecanim in Adventure Creator is intended for designers who wish for

greater control over their animation than that which Legacy provides. While Legacy

animation allows designers to simply “give” Adventure Creator an animation and specify

how and when to play it, Mecanim leaves the handling of animations up to the designer,

while giving Adventure Creator control over certain parameters in the Character's

Controller.

Players and NPCs running with Mecanim require an Animator component. This should

generally be placed on the root GameObject, but it can be assigned to a child object if

necessary. Their Inspectors will have a new panel: Mecanim parameters. To move a

Character in the scene, Adventure Creator requires that their Animation Controller has a

float parameter that determines their movement speed. By default, the name of this

parameter is “Speed”, but this can be changed in the Inspector's Move speed float

field.

Note: If your game is using Top-Down 2D (see section 1.5) combined with 3D

Characters (as in Runaway or The Longest Journey, for instance), your Animator

component needs to be a child object of the Character, and must be set as your

Animator child in the Character's inspector. Also be aware that in order for 3D models

to work correctly with sprites and Sorting Maps, they may need shaders that have

“ZWrite Off” set to them.

A bool parameter is also required, which is set to true when the Character is speaking.

By default, the name of this parameter is “IsTalking”, but this can be changed in the

Inspector's Talk bool field. When using the Dialogue: Play speech Action, you can

also define a specific head and mouth animation to play, provided that the animation is

already in your Mecanim FSM. The layers on which the head and mouth animations

are played on are set in the Character's Inspector.

When a Character is standing still, their assigned Move speed float parameter is set to

zero. When they are made to walk or run, this parameter is set to their Walk speed

scale and Run speed scale respectively – both of which are defined in the Inspector's

Movement settings. With this knowledge, a designer can set up an FSM inside their

Controller to play Idle, Walk and Run animations accordingly. Turning can also be

catered for, by supplying a Turn float parameter. This will be set to -1 and +1 when the

Character turns left and right respectively.

One of the biggest advantages with Mecanim characters is the ability to rely on root

motion, which allows for more natural movement when walking around a scene. To

enable this, just check Apply Root Motion on your Character's Animator component,

as you would normally. You can also choose how much influence the system has over

the Character's turning: when the Root motion turning slider is set to zero, then the

Character script will handle all turning manually; when set to one, then all turning will be

expected to be performed by the Mecanim controller.

For more natural movement still, you can also check Slow movement near wall

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 50

colliders?, which will cause the Character to stop moving when facing a wall (or any

Collider on a layer you choose). This is most suited to Direct control games (see

section 2.3).

Mecanim-based Characters can also be animated according to their vertical speed, to

allow for custom animations when falling, or climbing stairs. The Vertical movement

float parameter outputs any change in a Character's position along the Y-axis.

As with Legacy animation, a Mecanim-based Character can also be assigned left and

right hand bones, for use with the Character: Hold object Action.

The Character: Animate Action can be used by Mecanim-based Characters to change

the value of any parameter in their Controller. It can also be used to change which

parameter is used as the Move speed float and Talk bool. By changing these, it is

possible to “redirect” the Controller to play different “standard” animations, such as

Walking and Talking.

Adventure Creator also features a number of ways to animate your Character lip-

syncing, including making use of FaceFX, and these are covered in sections 10.5 and

10.6).

To animate Characters using blend shapes, you can use of the Object: Blend shape

Action in conjunction with the Shapeable script. The Shapeable script is covered in

section 8.1.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 51

3.8 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (SPRITES 2D TOOLKIT)

2D Toolkit is a separate Unity asset that provides sprite functionality, and is available for

purchase at www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit. Support for it can be enabled via the

Animation engine field in the Player and NPC Inspectors. You will then be prompted

to define the “tk2DIsPresent” preprocessor. This can be done by:

•Opening the Player Settings, and entering tk2DIsPresent into the Scripting

Define Symbols field for your game's platform.

To create a 2D character, set up a sprite and animation library using 2D Toolkit (refer to

2D Toolkit's own documentation on how to do this), and add the animated sprite as a

child of the Character prefab. Then, drag the sprite object into the Character's Sprite

child field in the Player or NPC inspector. Note that 2D Character sprites should have

an Anchor of Lower Center.

2D Characters have four standard animation types that play automatically: Idle, Walk,

Run, and Talk. The names of these animations are entered manually into the inspector.

2D Characters can face either four or eight directions, depending on the inspector's

Diagonal sprites? checkbox. Such directions are determined via suffixes in your

sprite's animation names. For example, if a Character's walk animation is “Walk”, the

walk-right animation should be named “Walk_R”, and walk-left animation “Walk_L”. The

following suffixes to the animation names are understood by Adventure Creator:

•_R – Right

•_L – Left

•_U – Up

•_D – Down

•_UR – Up-right

•_UL – Up-left

•_DR – Down-right

•_DL – Down-left

If your left- and right-facing sprites are merely mirror images of each other, you only

need supply one or the other. Within a 2D character's “Standard 2D animations panel”,

set the Frame flipping value to Left Mirrors Right to only rely on right-facing

animations, or Right Mirrors Left for the opposite. By default, this option will only affect

standard animations, such as Idle, Walk and Run – to make it affect custom animations

as well, check Flip custom animations?. Note that all animations must be present

inside the same animation library.

The Character: Animation Action is altered when Characters use the 2DToolkit

engine, but functionality is the same. You can stop and start custom animations by

name, altering their wrap mode as needed. The Dialogue: Play Speech Action also

removes animation options, since talking animations are played automatically.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 52

3.9 - CHARACTER ANIMATION (SPRITES UNITY COMPLEX)

Much like how the Mecanim integration is designed to give 3D game designers greater

control than Legacy, Sprites Unity Complex is designed to give 2D game designers

greater control than Sprites Unity, allowing for smooth transitions between animations –

such as Broken Sword-style animated transitions from one walking direction to another.

Rather than requiring the names of animation clips for Adventure Creator to

automatically call upon, Sprites Unity Complex leaves the handling of animations up to

the designer, while giving Adventure Creator control over certain parameters in the

Character's Controller – this allows the designer to make use of them however they like.

To create a 2D character, you will need to make a "Sprite child" object that holds your

character sprite. Add an Animator component to an empty GameObject - this will be

your Sprite child. You can either then add a Sprite Renderer component to this Object,

or attach multiple Sprite Renderers as child Objects for layered animation (such as the

"hero" character in Unity's own 2D example project). Assign your Animator component

a Controller, and set up your animation clips using the Animation and Animator

windows.

To create an animation, select your Animator component, and dock the Animation

window. Add a new clip, rename it, and drag the clip's individual frames onto the Dope

Sheet. Adjust the samples to affect playback speed, and then drag the clip's asset file

into the Animator window.

Character with Sprites Unity Complex have a new panel in their Inspector: Mecanim

parameters. To move a Character in the scene, Adventure Creator requires that their

Animation Controller has a float parameter that determines their movement speed. By

default, the name of this parameter is “Speed”, but this can be changed in the

Inspector's Move speed float field.

When a Character is standing still, their assigned Move speed float parameter is set to

zero. When they are made to walk or run, this parameter is set to their Walk speed

scale and Run speed scale respectively – both of which are defined in the Inspector's

Movement settings.

The direction that a Character faces is also output in the form of the Direction integer.

The value that it takes depends on the Character's facing direction: (note that the final

four are only available if the Diagonal sprites option is checked)

•0 – Down

•1 – Left

•2 - Right

•3 – Up

•4 – Down-left

•5 – Down-right

•6 – Up-left

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 53

•7 – Up-right

For greater control, the angle (in degrees) can be output to the Angle float parameter.

This angle is zero when the Character faces down, and increases to 360 as the

Character rotates clockwise.

When a Character talks, the Talk bool parameter is set to true. Turning can also be

catered for, by supplying a Turn float parameter. This will be set to -1 and +1 when

turning left and right.

If you are going for a retro effect, you can use the Only move when sprite changes?

checkbox so that the character's movement is less smooth – which can be useful when

working with low-resolution sprites. This is equivalent to Adventure Game Studio's

“Anti-glide mode”.

For more natural movement, you can check Slow movement near wall colliders?,

which will cause the Character to slow their movement when facing a wall (or any

Collider on a layer you choose). This is most suited to Direct control games (see

section 2.3).

To act as an example, an additional 2D player prefab that makes use of Sprites Unity

Complex mode can be found in

/Assets/AdventureCreator/2DDemo/Resources/Brain2D_SpritesUnityComplex.

This prefab can be dropped into a 2D game's scene and be made to stand, speak and

walk in 8 directions.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 54

3.10 - HEAD TURNING

To increase realism when making 3D games, we may sometimes wish for our

Characters to turn their heads to look at specific objects - rather than turning their entire

bodies. This is possible when using both the Legacy and Mecanim animation engines.

If you are using Unity 5 (Free or Pro) or Unity 4 Pro, and your Character has a

Humanoid Mecanim rig (as set in the Rig settings of their model file), then you can

make use of automatic IK head turning – just check IK head-turning? within the

Character's Inspector. By default, the character's Capsule Collider will be used to

estimate the Character's height, but you can set this explicitly by defining the

Character's Neck bone transform in their Inspector.

Otherwise, four animation clips are required: one each for looking up, down, left and

right. When creating these clips for a Legacy-based Character, these clips should

animate just the head, start in the rest position and end in the extreme position. These

clips can then be assigned in the Character's Inspector. A Neck bone should also be

supplied, to isolate the animations from the rest of the body - the demo game's Tin Pot

Character provides an example of this.

For Mecanim-based Characters, you can update your FSM with two float parameters

that determine the head's Yaw (left-and-right) and Pitch (up-and-down) rotation offset.

The names of these parameters must be determined within the Character's Inspector.

The 3D demo game's Player prefab, TinPot, makes use of this method – and can be

found in /Assets/AdventureCreator/Demo/Resources.

Characters will turn their heads sideways by a maximum 60 degrees sideways, and 30

degrees up and down.

Once the animations have been properly integrated, you can make a Character face an

object by using the Character: Face object Action, and setting Face with to Head. A

Character will continue to face the supplied GameObject until the Action is run again

with Stop looking? checked.

The Player Character can also be made to face the active Hotspot - from the Settings

Manager, check Player turns head to active? underneath Hotspot settings. This can

be temporarily disabled mid-game using the Player: Constrain Action. By default, the

Player will turn to face the Hotspot's centre, but you can override the position by

defining a Centre point (override) within the Hotspot's Inspector. This option will affect

all Hotspots by default, but individual Hotspots can be ignored by this feature from their

Inspectors.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 55

3.11 - PRECISION MOVEMENT

As with many engines, when characters in Adventure Creator move along a path, they'll

determine whether their destination is reached or not according to their distance from it.

If they are within a pre-set threshold, then they'll be considered "close enough" and will

stop moving. This is typical of 3D game engines, where it is often impossible to attain

an “absolute zero” difference between the character and their intended destination.

You can amend this threshold via the Destination accuracy slider in the Settings

Manager. Lower values will allow characters to not have to be so close to their targets,

and higher values will require them to be much closer. The larger your game's scale is

(compared to Unity's base scale), the lower you'll generally want this value to be. You

may need to experiment a little to get the right value, but the default of 0.8 is generally

fine for most games.

If you require precision in your movement, you will need to raise this value. Be aware,

however, that this may bring about "overshooting" if this is too high - especially if your

character's deceleration value is too low (meaning they take too long to slow down). If

you ramp this value all the way up to 1, however, you can enable the Attempt to be

super-accurate? setting beneath it. This setting will force characters to land on the

exact point they are supposed to, but will come with a "sliding" effect that may be

obvious under certain circumstances. The list below outlines some steps you can try to

reduce this effect and attain more natural, precise movement:

•If you are using Mecanim's root motion feature, then make use of a Blend Tree to

scale movement speed with animation speed. This will allow the character to

slow down more naturally as they approach their target.

•If a character overshoots when running, increase their Minimum run distance

value. If a character is running this far from their target, they'll slow to a walk.

•The Deceleration value affects at what point a character begins to slow down -

lower values will cause them to slow down sooner. If you find that the character

slows down so prematurely that they can't reach their destination, try raising this

value. Note that a value of 0 will cause it to copy the Acceleration value.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 56

4.0 - CAMERA PERSPECTIVES

4.1 - INTRODUCTION

As you create your game, you will place many cameras down in your scene. Most of

these will be GameCameras, which are never used directly to view your game from, but

rather are used as “reference points” for the main camera. The MainCamera prefab

attaches itself to whichever GameCamera is currently active, and copies its position,

rotation, field of view, orthographic type and other camera properties.

Since GameCameras are merely used for the MainCamera's reference, and do no

rendering themselves, any image effect scripts you want to make use of must be added

to the MainCamera GameObject in your scene. If you want to alter a script's values

based on which GameCamera is “active”, you can attach a simple script to the

MainCamera that reads its attachedCamera variable and acts accordingly.

Adventure Creator allows for 2D, 2.5D and 3D adventure games, but also for

combinations: for example, a 3D game in which the characters are all sprites, or a

sidescrolling game in which the characters are 3D models. The camera perspective

that your game takes is defined in the Camera settings panel within the Settings

Manager.

This setting affects which GameCamera prefabs are available within the Scene

Manager. However, you can still use any type of GameCamera in your game,

regardless of the perspective setting you've chosen – just drag them manually from

AdventureCreator → Prefabs → Cameras into your scene hierarchy.

Each type of GameCamera comes with different settings, and these will each be

explained in the following sections.

For all camera and perspective types, Adventure Creator also provides widescreen and

letterboxing support. Also in the Settings Manager's Camera settings panel is the

option to Force aspect ratio. When checked, you can manually set your game's

aspect ratio, regardless of the resolution of your game's build. A ratio of less than one

will cause a Letterbox effect, while a ratio greater than one will cause a Widescreen

effect. Black borders will be created to fill the screen, and the Cursor and Menus will be

prevented from entering them.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 57

4.2 - 3D CAMERAS

3D cameras, or GameCameras, are the default camera type in Adventure Creator, and

provide the biggest amount of control over their movement in 3D space. Position, spin,

pitch and field of view can all be controlled independently by unchecking the Lock?

Toggle beside each.

When at least one axis is unlocked, a panel to affect the camera's target appears in the

Inspector. By default, this is the player, but other GameObjects can be used instead if

the Target is player? checkbox is unchecked. The speed at which the camera follows

its target can also be controlled.

When an axis becomes unlocked, the method by which that axis is affected can be set.

For example, the X-axis position can be set to react to the target's X-axis position, Z-

axis position, position across the viewport or position away from it. The way in which

this “input” results in the axis' final position depends on the Influence and Offset values,

and limits can be set using the Constrain panel.

The Side scrolling option allows the camera to behave like a more traditional 2D

adventure game camera, in which the camera only moves when the player nears the

edge of the screen.

The spin rotation panel has an additional option: Look At Target, with a height offset,

which is a simple way of ensuring the camera is always centred on the target.

To determine the best values for a GameCamera's inspector, it is often easier to tweak

them while the game is running, copy their values (via the cog icon to the top-right of the

inspector), and paste them back in once the game has been stopped.

GameCameras also have a Cursor influence panel, which allows the camera to

appear to subtly “follow” the player's cursor around the screen.

Though their default projection is Perspective, GameCameras can also be set to

Othographic. It is important, however, that the scene's Navigation Mesh is always

visible to the camera if you are making a Point And Click game – if you are making one

with Orthographic camera, be sure to rotate them downward so that they can see the

NavMeshes.

If you are using Unity Pro, you can make use of post-processing features such as

depth-of-field. GameCameras have a Depth of field setting that you can call upon in

such post-processing scripts. The focal distance can either be set manually, or tied to

the camera's target object. A custom script can call upon the focal distance with this

simple command, which will return the value as a float:

AC.Kickstarter.mainCamera.GetFocalDistance ();

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 58

4.3 - ANIMATED CAMERAS

The GameCameraAnimated prefab is an alternative to the regular GameCamera, and

only listed in the Scene Manager when your game's perspective is set to 3D (in the

Settings Manager). It is a Camera that can play back a Unity-made animation when

made active. This allows for more dynamic and interesting camerawork during

Cutscenes, for example.

Additionally, a GameCamerAnimated can be made to play a fixed frame from an

animation based on its Target's point along a Path. A Path is a prefab that describes a

series of nodes, and is also available in the Scene Manager. When the Camera's

Target is at the start of the assigned Path, the Camera will play the first frame of the

animation. When the Target is at the end of the Path, the Camera will play the last

frame, and in-between frames will be interpolated appropriately. This allows for

controlled camerawork as the Player moves along a specific section of floor, and will

familiar to players of the God Of War series of games.

Do be aware, however, that such Paths must be kept to one side of the Target at all

times, and the nodes must be positioned such that the reflex angles (> 180 degrees)

between them must face the Target. If the Path were to be used for a corner, for

example, the bird's eye view should look like this:

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 59

4.4 - 2D CAMERAS

The 2D camera, or GameCamera2D, provides fewer options than its 3D counterpart,

but emulates the behaviour of traditional 2D adventure game cameras, whether the set

is actually in 2D or not. Note than in order to work properly, a GameCamera2D must be

facing the forward Z axis – if it is not, a button will appear in its inspector to correct its

rotation.

GameCamera2D's do not physically move in the Scene. Rather, their projection

matrices change – they “pan” across the screen yet the perspective remains the same.

3D sets will appear to be in 2D, and 2D backgrounds can be used in their place.

Traditional 2D adventure games can be created by combining sprite-based characters

and objects with 2D cameras.

A GameCamera2D can move horizontally and vertically, or be locked in either direction.

When at least one axis is unlocked, options to control the camera's target will appear,

as with the GameCamera in the previous section.

In either direction, the Track freedom variable determines how far, in Unity co-

ordinates, the target must move from the camera's percieved centre before the camera

begins to follow – a freedom of zero will keep the target in the centre of the screen. As

before, the camera's movement can be constrained. Even when the game is not

running, the Offset variable can be used to position the camera's perceived centre, so

that appropriate constrain values can be determined.

As the GameCamera2D pans around your scene, you may want to have foreground

and background elements panning at different speeds, to achieve a depth effect. To do

this, attach a Parallax2D script to any GameObject to make it move with the camera.

The depth value controls its panning speed – background objects should have positive

values, while foreground objects should have negative values.

If you are using Unity 2D as your game's perspective, the Scene Manager will provide

another 2D camera type: GameCamera 2D Drag. This camera can be used to pan

horizontally or vertically by clicking and dragging with a mouse, or by touching and

dragging on a touch-screen. As clicks will still be used to initiate player movement, this

camera type is recommended for games that do not make use of Point And Click

movement.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 60

4.5 - 2.5D CAMERAS

The 2.5D camera, or GameCamera25D, facilitates the development of games that use

pre-rendered backgrounds with (traditionally) 3D characters. Such cameras are fixed,

and cannot move, but are useful because they can have background images assigned

to them, which play underneath the rest of the scene's geometry, and are not kept in

scene space. This allows a scene to have many cameras in a 2.5D game, without

having to keep track of an equal number of background planes.

Such background images require a little more set-up, however. A BackgroundCamera

prefab must exist, and each background image is stored within a separate

BackgroundImage prefab.

When the Camera perspective option in the Settings Manager is set to 2.5D, the Scene

Manager will be altered to allow for these prefabs. Clicking Organise room objects will

now see to it that the BackgroundCamera prefab is created automatically, and

BackgroundImage appears as an available prefab in the new Set geometry panel.

It is required that the MainCamera and the BackgroundCamera have the correct

Culling Masks. First, ensure that the BackgroundImage layer has been defined in the

Tags manager (as described in section 1.1). Then, find the MainCamera's Culling

Mask, and uncheck this layer, causing the popup box to appear as “Mixed ...”. Finally,

find the BackgroundCamera, and set the Culling Mask to nothing but the

BackgroundImage layer.

Background images are assigned to their own BackgroundImage prefab via the Texture

field in the GUITexture inspector. It is these BackgroundImage prefabs that are

assigned to the GameCamera25Ds. When a GameCamera25D has been assigned a

BackgroundImage prefab, a button labelled Set as active appears in its inspector.

Clicking this allows you to preview its view, plus the background image, in the Game

Window when the scene is not running.

It is recommended to make use of the Force aspect ratio? Option in the Settings

Manager when working with background images, as this will ensure that they are

proportionally correct. When working, be sure to have your Game Window's

perspective set to match your chosen aspect ratio.

When handling scene sprites in 2.5D games, you can add SceneObstacle prefabs

within the Scene Manager. This prefab type contains the Align To Camera script

component to position them correctly. More on this component can be found in section

8.5.

It may be necessary to only show certain GameObjects when a particular camera is

active. Simply add the LimitVisibility script component to an object, and you can limit

its visibility by camera. This works for both mesh objects and Unity sprites.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 61

4.6 - CUSTOM CAMERAS

Although Adventure Creator is equipped with a wide variety of camera types, it may be

that you require or prefer to use a custom camera type in your scene – for example, a

camera-based asset from Unity's Asset Store.

Adventure Creator makes it simple to incorporate such cameras. Bear in mind that the

only active Camera within your scene should generally be the MainCamera prefab –

even when custom cameras are involved. To that end, be sure to disable your custom

camera's Camera component – Adventure Creator will still read its values, but there

won't be a conflict in rendering.

Next, simply attach the “_Camera” script component to your custom camera's

GameObject (this is also known as the “Basic Camera” if navigating the Add

Component menu. Your camera can then be referenced by Adventure Creator's

various camera-based Actions, and the ability to set it as the “Default camera” within the

Scene Manager.

By default, the camera is assumed to be 3D, but Is for 2D game? can be checked if

not.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 62

4.7 - SIMPLE CAMERAS

A SimpleCamera, as listed in the Scene Manager when making a 3D game, is the most

simple – and the least processor-intensive – of all camera types. It cannot be moved in-

game, but if you use it purely for still shots, then it will save more memory than the

regular GameCamera prefab.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 63

4.8 - VR CAMERAS

While Adventure Creator isn't geared towards VR experiences, its still possible to allow

a scene to be viewed through a VR camera, using Unity's VR tools included with Unity

5.1.0 and above.

To allow your scene to be viewed through a VR camera, the MainCamera object in your

Hierarchy must be split into two objects: The MainCamera component on the base,

tagged as MainCamera, with the Camera component itself attached as a child object.

A VR-ready MainCamera prefab is available for you to use in your scene. First, delete

the existing MainCamera object in your Hierarchy, and then drag in MainCameraVR

from your Project window. The MainCameraVR prefab can be found in Assets /

AdventureCreator / Prefabs / Camera.

You may also wish to incorporate a 3D cursor into your game, as opposed to an icon-

based one. You can do this by overriding the PlayerInput script's mouse position with

an InputMousePositionDelegate (see this tutorial for more on input delegates). A pre-

written 3D cursor script is already included with Adventure Creator – simply add a mesh

GameObject to the scene, and add the World Space Cursor Example component. It

is fully documented and can be modified to suit the needs of your own game.

If you wish to make a VR game that can be played completely with the camera (i.e. no

cursor clicks), you can use custom events (see section 12.10) to detect when the

mouse is over Hotspots and Menus, and interact with them through script if it remains

over them for a set time. Such a script is already included with Adventure Creator –

simply add a new GameObject to the scene, and add the Click By Hovering Cursor

Example component. This can be used in conjunction with the World Space Cursor

Example mentioned above.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 64

4.9 - THIRD-PERSON CAMERAS

The third-person GameCamera is a special type of 3D GameCamera that allows for a

more traditional, over-the-shoulder, viewpoint when following the player. The Game

Camera Third-person camera type is listed in the Scene Manager.

Such a camera can be found in the 3D Demo, though it is not activated by default. To

activate it, load the 3D Demo game's Managers (see Section 1.2), load the Basement

scene, and go into the Variables Manager. In the list of Local variables, set the value of

Third person camera to True.

A third-person GameCamera will maintain a set distance from its target - by default, the

Player. Additional options allow you to zoom in and out with the mousewheel, as well

as prevent collisions with the wall. When Detect wall collisions? is checked,

additional options allow you to configure what layer these colliders will need to be on -

this can be the Default layer, or a separate layer dedicated for this.

This camera type can change its spin and pitch rotations independently. When either

rotation type is unlocked, an Input axis must be defined that will be used to control it.

The mouse cursor, for example, can be used to turn it by mapping in the Mouse X and

Mouse Y inputs respectively (provided that these default Inputs are still listed in your

Input Manager).

You can also manually set the rotation of this camera by using the Camera: Rotate

third-person Action. This allows you to turn the camera manually as part of a

cutscene.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 65

5.0 - INTERACTIONS

5.1 - INTRODUCTION

The core of any adventure game involves interacting with the game world by clicking on

objects and characters. In Adventure Creator, you lay down Hotspots, which in turn run

interactions when clicked on.

Hotspots shine one at a time as the cursor hovers over them, but if you define an Input

axis called FlashHotspots, you can use it to briefly illuminate all hotspots on the screen

during gameplay.

Hotspots and interactions are detailed in the sections that follow, but first it is important

to choose your game's Interaction method, as this will affect your Hotspots' inspectors

and Cursor Manager.

The Interaction method is set within the Settings Manager, underneath Interface

settings, and can be set to the following: Context Sensitive, Choose Interaction

Then Hotspot, Choose Hotspot Then Interaction, or Custom Script.

Context Sensitive is the default Interaction method, and allow Hotspots to have single

Use and Examine interactions, as well as multiple Inventory interactions. When playing

a game, you activate hotspots by hovering over them, and either left-click to run the Use

interaction, or right-click to run the Examine interaction.

Alternatively, a right-click can be used to toggle between “Use” and “Examine” mode,

which is then always triggered with a left-click. This option is enabled by setting the

Cursor Manager's When Use and Examine interactions are both available field to

Right Click Cycles Modes.

Though multiple Use interactions can exist on a Hotspot, only the first active interaction

will be registered – the Hotspot: Change interaction Action can be used to disable

and enable specific Use interactions (see section 5.2).

When you create a Use interaction, you can optionally supply an icon to display when

the mouse hovers over it, to give the player a sense of what their clicking will result in –

for example, you can set a “talk” icon to display when the player hovers their cursor over

an NPC. The Cursor Manager is used to define these icons – you can add, remove and

set textures, as well as choose which icon serves as the Examine icon when no Use

interaction is available. The Cursor Manager is also used to define the default cursor,

an optional “Cutscene” cursor, as well as store a few other cursor-related settings.

Icons can also be animated, by supplying a texture with multiple “frames” of equal size.

The number of rows, columns, and frames must be explicitly stated.

The Choose Interaction Then Hotspot method allows a hotspot to have multiple Use

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 66

interactions, but no Examine interactions. The player first chooses a cursor “mode”

based on the icons defined in the Cursor Manager, and then clicks on a Hotspot. The

Hotspot will then run its defined Use interaction with an associated icon that matches

the cursor. To change the cursor mode, the player can either right-click to cycle through

available icons, trigger the CycleCursors input button, or select one via a list in a Menu

(see section 11.1 for more on Menus). This allows for an interface similar to those used

in early 90s Sierra games, such as Kings Quest V. If the player uses a Hotspot in a way

that is not defined, a fallback “unhandled” interaction can be set in the Cursor Manager.

This method can also be used to recreate the classic “nine verb” interface made popular

by LucasArts. Each icon listed in the Cursor Manager can be mapped to an input

button – the appropriate name is listed automatically. If an input button of the expected

name is pressed during gameplay, the associated icon will be selected automatically.

Specific icons can also be chosen to act as “use” and “give” inventory interactions: see

section 6.2.

The Choose Hotspot Then Interaction method is similar to the previous, only an

interaction is chosen from a list of available types once the Hotspot has first been

selected. There are a number of ways that an interaction can be chosen. By default,

this is done by clicking a Menu that appears once a Hotspot has been clicked on. On

this Menu, there is a list of available interactions to choose from. Inventory items can

also be selected in this way. Such a Menu must have an Appear Type of On

Interaction - see the Demo Manager's Interaction Menu for an example of how to set

this up. With this method, Inventory items can also have multiple interactions

associated with them.

The way in which interactions are chosen is set with the Select Interactions by setting

in the Settings Manager. The default method, Clicking Menu, is described above.

Cycling Menu And Clicking Hotspot also involves an Interaction Menu, only here the

Interactions are chosen by pressing Inputs rather than hovering over them with the

cursor. The buttons CycleInteractionsLeft and CycleInteractionsRight, and axis

CycleInteractions, let you cycle through the various interactions available, and the

selected interaction will run when the Hotspot is clicked on. The final option, Cycling

Cursor And Clicking Hotspot, removes the need for a Menu, and simply changes the

Cursor icon to represent the selected interaction. The right-mouse-button, or

CycleCursors input button, can be used to cycle through the various interactions (and

CycleCursorsBack will cycle in reverse). Optionally, the cursor can be cycled

automatically once an Interaction is run.

When the Interaction method is set to Choose Hotspot Then Interaction, you are also

given the option for Inventory interactions to either behave in the same way (that is,

define multiple interactions per item that the player chooses from), or to act as they do

when the method is set to ContextSensitive. This option is also given to Hotspots that

only have a single “Use” Interaction defined.

When the Interaction method is set to Custom Script, interactions are only conducted

through scripting. See Section 12.12 for more information.

The way in which Hotspots are detected can also be modified, via the Hotspot

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 67

detection method field in the Settings Manager. By default, this is set to Mouse Over,

which uses the cursor's position to highlight Hotspots underneath it. This can be

changed to Player Vicinity, which causes a Hotspot to be highlighted when it enters a

Trigger volume attached to the player. Combined with a Movement method of Direct,

and an Input method of Keyboard or Controller, it is possible to make a game with

similar controls to Grim Fandango.

If the Hotspot detection method is set to Player Vicinity and the Input method is set

to either Direct or First Person, then you can additionally set the Hotspots in vicinity

setting, which determines if the selected Hotspot is simply the one closest to the Player,

or if the Player can cycle through multiple Hotspots in the vicinity. If the latter is chosen,

you can use the Input buttons CycleHotspotsLeft and CycleHotspotsRight, as well as

the Input axis CycleHotspots, to allow the player to cycle through the available

Hotspots.

To create a Player Vicinity trigger object, add an empty GameObject to your Player

prefab as a child object. Leave it untagged, and move it to the Ignore Raycast layer.

Then add the Sphere Collider (or a Circle Collider 2D if your game is in Unity 2D

mode) and Detect Hotspots components, and position the sphere collider such that its

centre is slightly in front of the player, and radius extends a few feet outward. Then

check the Is Trigger? checkbox, and re-apply the prefab. Finally, assign the

GameObject as the Hotspot detector child in your Player prefab's Inspector.

The demo player character, Tin Pot, contains such a trigger for examination. It can be

found in Assets → Adventure Creator → Demo → Resources.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 68

5.2 - ACTIONS AND ACTIONLISTS

Actions are at the core of any interaction in Adventure Creator. They are singular

events, each performing a specific task, such as giving the Player an Inventory item,

and making an NPC talk.

ActionLists are chains of Actions. Every time the player clicks on a Hotspot in the

scene, walks through a Trigger mesh, begins a Cutscene, or clicks on a dialogue option

in a Conversation, an ActionList is run.

Some Actions act as logic gates, allowing different Actions or ActionLists to be run

conditionally. For example, when the player tries to buy something from a shop, we can

use the Inventory: Check Action to determine if they have enough money.

The Actions available to you during development can be modified by using the Actions

Manager. Each Action can be clicked on to display a description and other information,

as well as give the ability to choose a “default” Action. The standard actions available

are:

ActionList: Check running

Queries whether or not a supplied ActionList is currently running. By looping the

If condition is not met field back onto itself, this will effectively “wait” until the

supplied ActionList has completed before continuing. Can also query if the

ActionList this is placed in is currently being skipped (see section 5.5).

ActionList: Check parameter

Queries the value of a parameter sent to the parent ActionList by the ActionList:

Run and ActionList: Set parameter Actions. Parameters are covered in section

5.13.

ActionList: Comment

Stores text for editor display only, which is useful for keeping track of complex

lists. The comment text can optionally be sent to the Console window when the

Action is run.

ActionList: Kill

Instantly stops a scene or asset-based ActionList from running.

ActionList: Pause or resume

Pauses or resumes an ActionList. When instructed to pause, any currently-

running Actions will first be completed. If you wish to save the pause-state of a

scene-based ActionList, you must add a Constant ID component (see section

9.2). To save the pause-state of an ActionList asset, you must give it a unique

name and place it in a Resources asset folder.

ActionList: Run

Runs any ActionList (either scene-based like Cutscenes, Triggers and

Interactions, or ActionList assets). If the new ActionList to be run has parameters

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 69

(see section 5.13), then can be set within this Action.

ActionList: Run in parallel

Runs any subsequent Actions (whether in the same list or in a new one)

simultaneously. This is useful when making complex cutscenes that require

timing to be exact.

ActionList: Set parameter

Sets the value of a single parameter of an ActionList, either manually or by

copying the value of a Global Variable. To set the value of all parameters at

once, use the ActionList: Run Action. Parameters are covered in section 5.13.

Camera: Crossfade

Crossfades the camera from its current GameCamera to a new one, over a

specified time.

Camera: Fade

Fades the camera in or out. The fade speed can be adjusted, as can the overlay

texture – this is black by default.

Camera: Rotate third-person

Rotates the “GameCamera Third Person” (available in 3D games) to a fixed

angle – either in World Space or relative to its target.

Camera: Shake

Causes the camera to shake, giving an earthquake screen effect. The camera

can translate, rotate, or both.

Camera: Split-screen

Displays two cameras on the screen at once, arranged either horizontally or

vertically. Which camera is the “main” (i.e. which one responds to mouse clicks)

can also be set.

Camera: Switch

Moves the MainCamera to the position, rotation and field of view of a specified

GameCamera. Can be instantaneous or transition over time.

Character: Animate

Affects a Character's animation. Can play or stop a custom animation, change a

standard animation (idle, walk or run), change a footstep sound, or revert the

Character to idle. This Action can be used to change a Character's footstep

sounds mid-game, however for the change to be registered by the save game

files, be sure to make the filenames unique and place them in your game's

Resources folder.

Character: Change rendering

Overrides a Character's scale, sorting order, sprite direction or Sorting Map. This

is intended mainly for 2D games.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 70

Character: Face direction

Makes a Character turn, either instantly or over time, to face a direction relative

to the camera – i.e. up, down, left or right.

Character: Face object

Makes a Character turn, either instantly or over time. Can turn to face another

object, or copy that object's facing direction.

Character: Hold object

Parents a GameObject to a Character's hand transform, as chosen in the

Character's inspector. The local transforms of the GameObject will be cleared.

Note that this action only works with 3D characters. If the GameObject is a

prefab, and not present in the scene at runtime, it will first be instantiated.

Character: Move along path

Moves the Character along a pre-determined path. Will adhere to the speed

setting selected in the relevant Paths object. Can also be used to stop a

character from moving, or resume moving along a path if it was previously

stopped.

Character: Move to point

Moves a character to a given Marker object. By default, the character will

attempt to pathfind their way to the marker, but can optionally just move in a

straight line.

Character: NPC Follow

Makes an NPC follow another Character, whether it be a fellow NPC or the

Player. If they exceed a maximum distance from their target, they will run

towards them. Optionally, they can be made to move to random points around

the Character they are following, as opposed to simply getting close. Note that

making an NPC move via another Action will make them stop following anyone.

Character: Rename

Changes the display name of a Character when subtitles are used.

Character: Switch portrait

Changes the “speaking” graphic used by Characters. To display this graphic in a

Menu, place a Graphic element of type Dialogue Portrait in a Menu of Appear

type: When Speech Plays. If the new graphic is placed in a Resources folder, it

will be stored in saved game files.

Container: Add or remove

Adds or removes Inventory items from a Container.

Container: Check

Queries the contents of a Container for a stored Item, and reacts accordingly.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 71

Container: Open

Opens a chosen Container, causing any Menu of Appear type: On Container to

open. To close the Container, simply close the Menu.

Dialogue: Play speech

Makes a Character talk, or – if no Character is specified – displays a message.

Subtitles only appear if they are enabled from the Options menu. A “thinking”

effect can be produced by opting to not play any animation.

Dialogue: Rename option

Renames a Conversation's dialogue option label.

Dialogue: Start conversation

Enters Conversation mode, and displays the available dialogue options in a

specified conversation. Optionally, the Actions that are run once an option is

chosen can be overridden here – otherwise, the ActionList will end when this is

run.

Dialogue: Stop speech

Ends any currently-playing speech instantly, whether it be background, blocking,

or both. Can be limited to stop speech spoken by specific characters, as well as

narration.

Dialogue: Wait for speech

Waits until a particular character has finished speaking. This is most useful when

the line in question has been set to play in the background.

Dialogue: Toggle option

Sets the display of a dialogue option. Can hide, show, and lock options.

Engine: Change timescale

Changes the timescale to a value between 0 and 1. This allows for slow-motion

effects.

Engine: Check platform

Queries the platform that the game is running on or being built for, which is useful

when creating platform-specific content.

Engine: End game

Ends the current game, either by loading an autosave, restarting or quitting the

game executable.

Engine: Manage systems

Enables and disables individual systems within Adventure Creator, such as

Interactions. Can also be used to change the “Movement method”, as set in the

Settings Manager, but note that this change will not be recorded in save games.

Engine: Wait

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 72

Waits a set time before continuing.

Engine: Play movie clip

Plays a MovieClip texture. By default, the MovieClip will be played full-screen,

but on desktop platforms you also have the option of playing the MovieClip on a

specific object and material in the scene. If used in Unity 5.6 or later, you also

can use this Action to control playback of Unity's new Video Player component.

Hotspot: Change interaction

Enables and disables specific Interactions on a Hotspot.

Hotspot: Check interaction enabled

Checks if a specific Interaction on a Hotspot is currently enabled.

Hotspot: Enable or disable

Turns a Hotspot on or off. To record the state of a Hotspot in save games, be

sure to add the RememberHotspot script to the Hotspot in question.

Hotspot: Rename

Renames a Hotspot, or an NPC with a Hotspot component.

Input: Check

Checks to see if the Player is pressing a mouse key, touching the screen, or

pushing a button/axis as defined in Unity's Input Manager at the time it is run.

Run this continuously by looping it onto itself to create QTEs and other

sequences that require a specific key to be pressed to continue gameplay.

Input: QTE

Initiates a Quick Time Event for a set duration. The QTE type can either be a

single key-press, holding a button down, or button-mashing. The Input button

must be defined in Unity's Input Manager. For more on Quick Time Events, see

section 5.17.

Inventory: Add or remove

Adds or removes an item from the Player's inventory. Items are defined in the

Inventory Manager. If the player can carry multiple amounts of the item, more

options will show.

Inventory: Check

Queries whether or not the player is carrying an item, or how many items in total

they currently hold.

Inventory: Check selected

Queries whether or not the chosen item, or no item, is currently selected.

Inventory: Crafting

Either clears the current arrangement of crafting ingredients, or evaluates them to

create an appropriate result (if this is not done automatically by the recipe itself).

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 73

Inventory: Select

Selects a chosen inventory item, as though the player clicked on it in the

Inventory menu. Will optionally add the specified item to the inventory if it is not

currently held.

Menu: Change state

Provides various options to show and hide both menus and menu elements.

Menu: Check num slots

Queries the number of slots that a given Menu Element has. This can be used

on an “Inventory Box” Element, for example, to determine how many Inventory

items the Player is carrying.

Menu: Check state

Queries the visibility of menu elements, and the enabled or locked state of

menus.

Menu: Set Input Box text

Alters the text within an “Input Box” Menu Element (see section 11.2). The new

text can either be entered within the Action itself, or taken from a String Global

Variable (see section 7.1).

Menu: Set Journal page

Changes the selected page Journal (see section 11.2) to a specific index.

Moveable: Check held by player

Queries whether or not a Draggable or PickUp object is currently being

manipulated.

Moveable: Check track position

Queries how far a Draggable object is along its track.

Moveable: Set track position

Moves a Draggable object along its track automatically to a specific point. The

effect will be disabled once the object reaches the intended point, or the Action is

run again with the speed value set as a negative number.

Object: Add or remove

Instantiates or deletes GameObjects within the current scene. To ensure this

works with save games correctly, place any prefabs to be added in a Resources

asset folder.

Object: Animate

Causes a GameObject to play or stop an animation, or modify a Blend Shape.

The available options will differ depending on the chosen animation engine.

Object: Blend shape

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 74

Animates a Skinned Mesh Renderer's blend shape by a chosen amount. If the

Shapeable script attached to the renderer has grouped multiple shapes into a

group, all other shapes in that group will be deactivated. See section 8.1 for

more on the Shapable script.

Object: Call event

Invokes a public function present on another GameObject.

Object: Change material

Changes the material on any scene-based mesh object.

Object: Change Tint map

Changes which Tint map a Follow Tint Map component uses, and the intensity of

the effect (see section 8.9).

Object: Check presence

Use to determine if a particular GameObject or prefab is present in the current

scene.

Object: Check visiblity

Use to determine if a particular GameObject is visible, either at all in the current

scene, or within the view of the currently-active camera.

Object: Fade sprite

Fades a sprite in out out over a set time. The sprite in question must have the

SpriteFader component attached to it. To save the state of a sprite's fade, give it

the RememberVisibility component.

Object: Highlight

Gives a glow or continuous pulse effect to any mesh object with the Highlight

script component attached to it. Can also be used to make Inventory items glow,

making it useful for tutorial sections.

Object: Send message

Sends a given message to a GameObject. Can be either a message commonly-

used by Adventure Creator (Interact, TurnOn, etc) or a custom one, with an

integer argument.

Object: Set parent

Parent one GameObject to another. Can also set the child's local position and

rotation.

Object: Teleport

Moves a GameObject to a Marker instantly. Can also copy the Marker's rotation.

The final position can optionally be made relative to the active camera, the

player, or any GameObject in the scene. For example, if the Marker's position is

(0, 0, 1) and Positon relative to is set to Relative To Active Camera, then the

object will be teleported in front of the camera.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 75

Object: Transform

Moves, rotates or scales a GameObject over time, or copies the Transform of a

Marker in the scene. The GameObject must have a Moveable script attached.

Object: Visibility

Hides or shows a GameObject. Can optionally affect the GameObject's children.

Player: Check

Queries which Player prefab is currently being controlled. This only applies to

games for which Player switching has been allowed in the Settings Manager.

Player: Constrain

Locks and unlocks various aspects of Player control. When using Direct or First

Person control, can also be used to specify a Path object to restrict movement to.

Player: Switch

Swaps out the Player prefab mid-game. If the new prefab has been used before,

you can restore that prefab's position data – otherwise you can set the position or

scene of the new player. This Action only applies to games for which Player

switching has been allowed in the Settings Manager. Unless all Players share

the same inventory (as set in the Settings Manager), you can also opt to transfer

the previous Player's inventory onto the new Player.

Save: Check

Queries whether or not saving is currently possible (to aid in the display of a

“Save” Menu Button, for example), whether or not a particular save slot is filled,

whether a particular profile exists (see section 9.8), or how many profiles or save

game files have been created (to aid in the display of a “Continue game” Button,

for example).

Save: Manage profiles

Creates, renames, deletes and switches save-game profiles, if they're enabled

(see section 9.8). If the ActionList that contains this Action has an Integer

parameter (see section 5.13), then it can be set when called from a Button Menu

Element.

Save: Manage saves

Renames and deletes save game files, as referenced by the slot index number of

a SavesList Menu Element (see section 11.2). If the ActionList that contains this

Action has an Integer parameter (see section 5.13), then it can be set when

called from a Button or SavesList Menu Element.

Save: Save or load

Allows you to load, continue the last-recorded, or save, a save-game file. Note

that saving will not be permitted if any gameplay-blocking ActionList other than

the one that contains this Action is running, or if a Conversation is active. The

Save: Check Action can be used to determine if a save will succeed beforehand.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 76

This Action can also be used to optionally load a game selectively, i.e. only

certain elements, such as inventory or variables.

Scene: Add or remove

Adds or removes a scene without affecting any other currently-open scenes

(Unity 5.3+ only). If a scene is added, it will be added as a sub-scene and the

“active” scene will be unchanged. This is designed to provide the possibility of

open-world adventures, and thus the new scene's PlayerStart(s) will be ignored

when it is loaded. If this Action is used to remove the “active” scene, then the

first-available sub-scene will become the new active scene. Be sure not to use

local Player prefabs (i.e. those that live in a scene file) when using this feature.

Scene: Change setting

Changes any of the following scene parameters: NavMesh, Default PlayerStart,

Sorting Map, Tint Map, Cutscene On Load, Cutscene On Start, or Cutscene On

Variable Change. When the NavMesh is a Polygon Collider, this Action can also

be used to add or remove holes from it.

Scene: Check

Queries either the current scene, or the last one visited.

Scene: Check attribute

Queries the value of any of the pre-defined attributes in the main scene that's

open. Attributes are created and manager in the Scene Manager (see section

7.6).

Scene: Switch

Moves the Player to a new scene. The scene must be listed in Unity's Build

Settings. By default, the screen will cut to black during the transition, but the last

frame of the current scene can instead be overlaid. This allows for cinematic

effects: if the next scene fades in, it will cause a crossfade effect; if the next

scene doesn't fade, it will cause a straight cut. If asynchronous loading is

enabled (see section 9.6), this Action can also be used to preload a scene only,

so that loading time is reduced when it is next opened.

Sound: Change footsteps

Changes the AudioClips used by a character's Footstep Sounds component.

The Footstep Sounds component is a separate sound system to the one given in

the Player/NPC components, and allows for greater control over when and how

such sounds are played.

Sound: Change volume

Alters the 'relative volume' of any Sound object. Be sure to add the

RememberSound component to any Sound object whose volume changes you

wish to be saved.

Sound: Play

Triggers a Sound object to start playing. Can be used to fade sounds in or out.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 77

Sound: Play music

Handles the playback of a music track listed in the Music Storage window. For

more about this Action, see section 5.11.

Sound: Play one-shot

Plays an AudioClip once, and without the need for a Sound object or

AudioSource component. The sound will be treated as SFX, and its volume will

be set as such. Though easier to use than the “Sound: Play” Action, sounds

triggered with this Action will not be able to fade or be interrupted.

Sound: Set Mixer snapshot

Unity 5 only. Transitions to a single or multiple Audio Mixer snapshots.

Third-Party: Cinema Director

Runs a Cutscene built with Cinema Director. Note that Cinema Director is a

separate Unity Asset, and the CinemaDirectorIsPresent preprocessor must be

defined for this to work (see section 12.1).

Third-Party: PlayMaker

Calls a specified Event within a PlayMaker FSM. Note that PlayMaker is a

separate Unity Asset, and the PlayMakerIsPresent preprocessor must be defined

for this to work (see section 12.1).

Variable: Assign preset

Bulk-assigns all Global or Local Variables to pre-determined values. See section

7.5 for more on Variable presets. Optionally, Variables linked to Options Data

(see section 9.4) can be ignored.

Variable: Check

Queries the value of both Global and Local Variables declared in the Variables

Manager. Variables can be compared with a fixed value, or with the values of

other Variables.

Variable: Check random number

Picks a number at random between zero and a specified integer – the value of

which determines which subsequent Action is run next.

Variable: Copy

Copies the value of one Variable to another. This can be between Global and

Local Variables, and AC will attempt to convert the value in question if the two

Variables are of different types (e.g. Integer to a Float).

Variable: Pop Up switch

Uses the value of a Pop Up Variable to determine which Action is run next. An

option for each possible value the Variable can take will be displayed, allowing

for different subsequent Actions to run.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 78

Variable: Run sequence

Uses the value of an integer Variable to determine which Action is run next. The

value is incremented by one each time (and reset to zero when a limit is

reached), allowing for different subsequent Actions to play each time the Action is

run.

Variable: Set

Sets the value of both Global and Local Variables, as declared in the Variables

Manager. Integers can be set to absolute, incremented or assigned a random

value. Strings can also be set to the value of a MenuInput element (see section

11.2), while Integers, Booleans and Floats can also be set to the value of a

Mecanim parameter. When setting Integers and Floats, you can also opt to type

in a formula (e.g. 2 + 3 *4), which can also include tokens of the form [var:ID] to

denote the value of a Variable, where ID is the unique number given to a Variable

in the Variables Manager. Note that formulas do not currently work on the

Windows Phone 8 platform.

Most Actions have an After running field. With this, you can choose what happens

after an Action has been performed. You can use this to stop the ActionList, skip to

another Action within that ActionList, or run a different Cutscene. Note that if a

Cutscene is run, the ActionList from which it was called from will cease. To call another

ActionList and have it run in parallel, use the Engine: Run ActionList Action instead.

To aid in testing, ActionLists can be run at any time while the game is running – just

click Run now at the top of the Inspector. Actions can also be set to pause the Unity

Editor just before they are run – allowing you to debug any problems more easily. This

is done via the Toggle breakpoint option in an Action's context menu:

Actions can be deleted, copied, re-arranged, disabled and more via a context menu

accessed via the top-right button on each Action inspector. A “node layout” window of

any ActionList can be displayed by clicking the ActionList Editor button at the top of

the Inspector (also available via the icon in the Hierachy window). This window is

designed to help make complex ActionLists easier to follow: Actions appear as nodes,

which you can re-arrange and re-connect to one another by dragging “wires” from

output sockets on the right to input sockets on the left. You can select multiple Actions

at a time by dragging a box around them (hold the Shift key to add newly-selected

Actions to the existing), and manipulate them in bulk by right-clicking to bring up a

context menu.

When editing an ActionList within the ActionList Editor, comments can also be written

above an Action. To enable comments on an Action, click on the cog to the top-right of

the Action and select Toggle comment. Comments will be visible even if the Action

itself is collapsed, allowing you to get an overview of what an ActionList does even if all

the Actions are collapsed.

By default, Actions are designed to be arranged vertically (clicking “Auto-arrange” will

arrange them neatly this way). However, you can arrange them horizontally if you

prefer – choose your desired arrangement at the top of the Actions Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 79

The ActionList Editor also can be locked to a particular ActionList: click the yellow

padlock icon to the bottom-left of the window, and it will lock itself to the ActionList it is

currently viewing. Clicking the icon again will unlock it. Properties of the ActionList can

be toggled by clicking the button to the bottom-right of the window.

By default, only one instance of the ActionList Editor can be open at once: if you open a

new one, it will replace any existing windows. However, it is possible to allow for

multiple instances of the window – allowing for separate windows that display separate

ActionLists at once. Enabling this feature can be done from the top of the Actions

Manager.

For coders, an ActionList (and by extension, a Cutscene, Interaction, Trigger and

DialogueOption script) is run by calling its Interact function. The following sections will

describe the various ways in which ActionLists are used.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 80

5.3 - HOTSPOTS

Hotspots are used to create ways for the player to interact with the scene. We can

position and scale Hotspot prefabs over geometry, and define Interactions for them that

run when clicked on. Hotspots need to be on the Default layer to be recognised by the

control scripts.

To create a Hotspot, open the Scene Manager and click Hotspot under the Logic panel,

followed by Add new. A yellow cube will appear at the scene origin, marking the region

that the mouse cursor must hover over in order to select it. The name of the Hotspot is

what will appear as the label when selected, but you can override this with the Label (if

not object name) field in the Hotspot inspector – this is useful for differentiating

multiple hotspots with the same label – an example being the two Barrel Hotspots in the

demo.

Transform the Hotspot until it is in a sensible place – typically covering a piece of set

geometry that you want the player to interact with. If you have a MeshRenderer object

selected before the Hotspot is created, the Scene Manager will give you an option to

have the Hotspot surround it automatically. You can make an object glow when the

Hotspot is selected by adding a Highlight script to it, and then referring to it from the

Hotspot's Object to highlight field in the Hotspot inspector. The Highlight script will

also affect GUITexture components attached to the same GameObject. If you wish to

implement a custom highlight, rather than the default brightening effect, you can disable

the effect and call the Highlight script's GetHighlightIntensity function in a custom

script. Events can also be set to trigger when a highlight is enabled or disabled.

Within the Hotspot's inspector, you can define its associated interactions by using the

panels at the bottom. Click the + icon in the Use interaction panel, and a new

interaction slot will be created, as shown by the panel that appears underneath. The

Use interaction is called when the player left-clicks on the Hotspot with the mouse (or

presses the InteractionA input). Unless your Interaction method (see section 5.1) is

set to Context Sensitive, you can define multiple Use interactions.

The Interaction field is a reference to the Interaction ActionList that will run when the

player “uses” the hotspot. You can create an Interaction object from the Scene

Manager, but it is easier to click Auto-create to the right of the Interaction field. Doing

so will create, rename, and link a new Interaction object within the scene, which you can

then select and modify to define what happens when the Interaction runs.

This new Interaction object is an ActionList. One Action will have been created

automatically – the default Action as defined in the Actions Manager. You can change

this Action, modify its settings (such as its colour when displayed in the ActionList

Editor), and add, remove and re-arrange other Actions.

Back to the Hotspot inspector: the Icon field in the Use interaction panel lets you to

choose the display icon that the cursor changes to when selected, provided the Settings

Manager allows for cursor changes. Cursor settings are kept in the Settings Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 81

The Player action field dictates what the Player character does before this interaction is

run, e.g. turn to face the hotspot, or walk towards it. The Player can be made to walk to a

specific Marker if this is set to Walk To Marker, but a Marker object must also be

defined, further up in the Hotspot inspector. You can create a new Marker from the

Navigation panel in the Scene Manager.

If the Interaction method is set to Context Sensitive, you can also define an Examine

interaction, which runs when the player right-clicks. You can also have multiple

Inventory interactions, with each Inventory interaction handling the use of one type of

item on the object.

When you create an Inventory interaction, a drop-down box will appear in the panel

where you can choose which inventory item is associated with it. If you want to create a

default response (i.e. “I can't use that there!”) to using an inventory item on a hotspot

without creating the same interaction multiple times, you can define an Unhandled

event in the Inventory Manager. This is described further in section 6.0.

Hotspots can be turned on and off using the Hotspot: Enable or disable Action. A

Hotspot is declared “on” only if it is on the Default layer. Additionally, you can limit a

Hotspot's interactivity by assigning a GameCamera in the Inspector's Limit to camera

field. When assigned, the Hotspot will only be active if the chosen camera is also

active.

If you are creating a game of very large scale, you may find that you need to increase

the size of the Hotspot ray length, which you can adjust inside the Settings Manager.

By default, scene-based Interaction prefabs are used to handle what happens when a

Hotspot is clicked on, but there are alternatives. Setting the Hotspot's Interaction

source to Asset File allows you to call ActionList assets instead. This is useful for

building game logic when you don't have access to the scene, for example when

building a game as part of a team.

The Interaction source setting can also be set to Custom Script. You will then be

able to send a message to a GameObject of your choice. This is useful if you wish to

hard-code your interactions instead of relying on Actions.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 82

5.4 - CUTSCENES

A Cutscene is an ActionList object that is run when an Action triggers it. They are

created by clicking the Cutscene button under the Scene Manager's Logic panel,

followed by Add new. Cutscene objects are invisible and cannot be interacted with

directly by the player – their position is unimportant.

Cutscenes can be used to make cinematics in your game, change objects or variables

instantaneously, and run other Cutscenes conditionally.

For example, the demo scene features a cutscene called OnStart, which is run when

the scene is started. This cutscene simply checks the state of the variable Played

intro, and acts accordingly. If the boolean is true, it plays the opening cinematic: the

Cutscene named Intro1. If it is false, it moves Brain onto the chair and plays OnLoad,

which sets up the room to its post-introduction state (knocking over the canvas, for

example). This is useful for debugging – by changing the state of Played intro within

the Variables Manager, you can either watch the opening cutscene or skip to the main

section of gameplay.

Nearly all Actions can call Cutscenes after running. The Scene Manager contains three

further Cutscene fields: On start, On load, and On variable change. On start is run

when the scene begins – whether by entering from another scene, or by starting the

game from that scene. On load is run when a scene is loaded thanks to a loaded

saved-game, regardless of whether or not the player was in that scene when the saved-

game was loaded. On variable change is run whenever a Variable (as defined in the

Variables Manager) has been altered. Note that this Cutscene will only run once the

ActionList that contained the variable change has completed.

Cutscenes, like Interactions and Triggers, will pause gameplay by default when they

run. If you wish to make a particular ActionList run during gameplay instead, simply

choose Run In Background in the When running pop-up box.

The Cutscene inspector also features two more fields that separate it from the

Interaction and Trigger inspectors: Start delay and Auto-save after running. The

latter will create a saved game after it is run – see section 9.3. The Start delay

determines the time (in seconds) that the Cutscene will wait before running its Actions.

If a Kill message is sent to a delayed Cutscene (using the Object: Send message

Action), the cutscene will not run when the time runs out. This feature can be used to

create timed sequences in your game.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 83

5.5 - SKIPPING CUTSCENES

Cutscenes – and all scene-based ActionLists – can be set to be skippable by the player.

When made so, the player can skip the ActionList by pressing the EndCutscene input

button, as defined by the Input Manager.

Skipping an ActionList still causes any game logic to execute: Variables will still be

changed, Inventory items will still be added or removed, and objects will still be moved

to their expected “end” position. However, additional work may be required if your

ActionList involves playing non-Legacy animations.

Because some animations may be intended to continue playing once the Action finishes

– or continue to another FSM state in Mecanim, they must still be played when an

ActionList is skipped. Therefore, it is necessary to end your ActionList with Actions that

place your objects and Characters in their correct animation state. For instance, if the

Player waves during a Cutscene before returning to Idle, you should end your ActionList

with an additional Character: Animate Action that specifically returns the Player to the

Idle animation, even if this happens naturally when the ActionList plays normally.

Note, however, that this will not stop trigger parameters from being invoked, if a

previous such Action does this. Therefore, the Character: Animate Action has an

option to ignore invoking trigger parameters when an ActionList is skipping.

The 2D Demo's Park scene contains examples of this necessity: the “Intro2” Cutscene

ends by playing the BirdHide animation on the Bird NPC, even though this animation is

played by the FSM when the Cutscene plays uninterrupted.

Note that these additional steps are unnecessary for Legacy animation Actions: they will

be skipped as expected.

Also to note, if your ActionList makes use of any ActionList: Run in parallel Actions:

although the list will be skipped instantaneously, chains of Actions defined by the

parallel Action will be skipped in order, and each chain to completion before the next

chain is skipped.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 84

5.6 - TRIGGERS

A Trigger is an ActionList that runs when an object passes through it. By default, it will

only respond to the Player, but it can also be set to react to pre-determined objects, any

object with a specific component, or any object with a specific tag. Similar to the

Hotspot prefab, a Trigger must be positioned in the Scene view appropriately. Triggers

can be created using the Scene Manager underneath the Logic panel.

The Trigger inspector contains a Type field. This is used to make the Trigger run either

whenever the object is inside it (Continuous), when the object enters it for the first time

(On enter), or when the object exits its space (On exit). The Continuous option is

generally the more reliable, but more processor-intensive.

By default, Triggers will only work during regular gameplay to prevent unwanted

behaviour during cutscenes. However, each Trigger can be changed to work during

cutscenes if you prefer.

The 3D demo makes use of Triggers to affect the camera as the Player navigates the

scene. The default gameplay camera is NavCam1, but when the Player heads to the

far end of the room, a Trigger object changes the camera to NavCam2.

Triggers can be turned on and off using the Object: Send message Action. A Trigger

turns itself off by disabling its Collider component.

A more advanced feature of Triggers is that the GameObject it detects can be passed to

its list of Actions as a parameter. For more on ActionList parameters, see section 5.13.

Important note: In order for a Trigger to work, either the Trigger or the object it is to

detect must have a Rigidbody component. This is also true for 2D Triggers, only with a

Rigidbody2D component.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 85

5.7 - CONVERSATIONS

A Conversation object lets the player choose from a list of on-screen dialogue options,

which when combined allow them to converse with an NPC. They are started by using

the Dialogue: Start conversation Action. Even if no NPC is present, they can still be

used to provide the player with a choice of words. Dialogue options are displayed in-

game within a DialogueList element (see section 11.2).

You can create a new conversation by clicking Conversation under the Scene

Manager's Logic panel, followed by Add new. Like Cutscene objects, a Conversation

object is never physically seen by the player, so its position in 3D space is irrelevant.

The Conversation's Inspector window allows you to manage the options that appear on-

screen. Options can be displayed as text or as icons, and can be enabled or disabled

at any time. What happens when the player chooses an option can be handled in two

ways: within the Conversation Inspector, or within the Action that calls the Conversation.

The first method involves the creation of Dialogue Option objects – with each object

holding an ActionList that determines what happens when its associated option is

chosen. The Conversation Inspector and Editor windows make it simple to auto-create

such objects and link them to an option. When a Dialogue Option has run, you can

choose what happens next: either to stop running that Conversation, return to the list of

options, or to run a new Conversation. You can set this within the Conversation

Inspector, using the When finished popup.

Linked Dialogue Options are considered the “default” when an option is chosen.

However, it is possible to override these defaults when the Conversation is initiated with

the Dialogue: Start conversation Action. This is the second method: by checking

Override defaults?, you can define what happens when an option is clicked within the

ActionList itself – whether it be to run other Actions in the same list, or to call a separate

Cutscene. Be aware that this has no When finished option like the Conversation

Inspector method does – you will have to call the same Dialogue: Start converstation

Action manually if you want to return to the same options afterwards.

Dialogue Options can be enabled and disabled using the Dialogue: Toggle option

Action. This is useful for preventing the player from saying the same thing twice.

Options can also be locked, to ignore future calls to be turned on or off.

Sometimes, a player may only be faced with one dialogue option – when this happens,

this option can be played automatically. To do this, just check the Auto-play lone

option checkbox at the top of the Conversation inspector.

Particularly if your game is keyboard-controlled, you can make it easier for your player

to select options by linking them to numeric keys on your keyboard. Just check

Dialogue options can be selected with number keys? in the Settings Manager. This

option also allows you to trigger options with inputs mapped to DialogueOptionX,

where 'X' is the index number of the option to trigger.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 86

Conversations can also be timed, similar to those in Telltale's The Walking Dead game.

If you check the Is timed? checkbox at the top of the Conversation inspector, you can

specify the length of time that the conversation will display. You must also select a

default Dialogue Option to run when the timer runs out. If a default option is not chosen,

the conversation will end when the timer runs out.

If you want to give the player the option of asking characters about the Inventory items

they hold, you can also limit an option's display to only show if a given Inventory item is

held.

You can also open a useful Conversation Editor from the top of the Conversation

Inspector. From there, you can view all assigned Dialogue Options that the selected

Conversation has, and click on them to display their ActionLists in the Inspector window.

If you select a new Conversation object, you can quickly revert back to the previous one

from the top-left of the window.

Just like Hotspots, Conversations allow you to change the Interaction source in their

Inspectors. By default, linked Dialogue Options are scene-based lists, but you can also

make use of ActionList asset files (see section 5.8). You can also set this to Custom

Script. You will then be able to send a message to a GameObject of your choice. This

is useful if you wish to hard-code your responses instead of relying on Actions.

When dialogue options are shown, pressing an input key mapped to the name

“EndConversation” in Unity's Input Manager will automatically remove them from view

and end the Conversation.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 87

5.8 - ACTIONLIST ASSETS

Within a given scene, we can place Cutscenes, Triggers, Interactions and Dialogue

Options - each of which are ActionLists that can manipulate objects within that scene.

But sometimes, we'll want an ActionList to run no matter which scene is currently loaded

- for example, when examining an Inventory item. And when working as a team on a

large game, we may also want to be able to create ActionLists for a scene without

interfering with anyone else's work.

With Adventure Creator, we can create an ActionList asset, which is an ActionList that

exists as a physical file within your project folder. This asset is created by right-clicking

inside the Project window, and choosing Create -> Adventure Creator -> ActionList.

Double-clicking this asset will open it within the ActionList Editor.

ActionList assets are mainly used for Inventory interactions, Menu functions, and

common tasks that can occur in any scene. For example, the Demo game's Pause

menu (as found in the Demo_MenuManager asset) runs the "DeselectInventory"

ActionList when it turns on. This ActionList de-selects any active Inventory item, making

sure the main cursor is always displayed when navigating the Pause menu.

ActionList assets can also manipulate scene objects. When dragging an object onto a

asset's field, a “Constant ID” number will appear beneath it. A Constant ID number

acts as a unique reference to the object, so that it can still be found by the asset when

another scene is open. If a GameObject has no Constant ID when it is assigned to an

ActionList asset's field, one will be generated automatically by giving itself a ConstantID

script. If the GameObject is not currently visible to the field (e.g. because another

scene is open), the Search scenes button underneath the field can be used to search

all scenes listed in the game's Build Settings for the object in question.

When a GameObject has a ConstantID script, its ID number can be manually set. If you

wish for an asset-based Action to manipulate different objects in different scenes, you

can assign the same ID number to each object to ensure that the Action will always be

carried out.

ActionList assets can be called by using the Engine: Run ActionList Action and setting

the Source field to Asset File. Similarly, Cutscenes and other scene-based ActionLists

can also refer to an asset file for their Actions.

ActionLists assets can also be referenced from Hotspots and Conversations in a similar

way. This is useful for creating "global" interactions, such as Conversations that can

take place over more than one scene.

ActionList assets can be converted to scene-based ActionLists (like Cutscenes), and

vice-versa, via the cog icon to the top-right of the Inspector. As scene-based

ActionLists cannot be stored as assets directly, if you want to transfer one to another

scene, then it is recommended to convert it to an ActionList asset, and then convert it

back to a scene-based ActionList in the new scene.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 88

5.9 - ARROW PROMPTS

An Arrow Prompt is an on-screen indicator that the player can perform an action by

pushing a directional key. This is similar to the Quick-Time Events that are employed in

Telltale's The Walking Dead game.

The demo game makes use of Arrow Prompts when the player clicks on the barrel for

the first time. Left and right arrows appear on the screen – pushing Left causes the

robot to push the barrel over, while pushing Right makes him leave it alone. When

relying on Touch Screen input, you can also activate arrows by swiping in the given

direction.

Arrow Prompts are created by clicking Arrow Prompt under the Scene Manager's Logic

panel, followed by Add new. As with Conversations and Cutscenes, Arrow Prompt

objects are invisible and their transforms are unimportant.

You can use the Arrow Prompt inspector to provide any combination of up, down, left

and right arrows. You can modify the icon of each arrow, and supply a Cutscene that

will run when the appropriate key is pressed, or arrow is clicked, by the player. The

Arrow Prompts will be disabled automatically once this happens.

Arrow Prompts have a type field, which determines how they may be interacted with.

They can be set to only respond to directional movement (i.e. cursor keys), cursor

clicks, or both.

While a set of Arrow Prompts are on-screen, the player's regular movement control is

disabled. To make a set of Arrow Prompts appear, the object must be turned on using

the Object: Send Message action and choosing Turn On as the message to send.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 89

5.10 - SOUNDS

A Sound object provides additional settings for Audio Sources, allows volumes to be

adjusted by the player, and allows sound to be played using the Sound: Play Action.

Sound objects are created by clicking the Sound button under the Scene Manger's

Logic panel. You can set up your sound using the Audio Source component as normal,

but the Volume field will be overridden. Instead, you can use the Relative volume field

in the Sound inspector to adjust its sound level. This way, you can adjust the volume

relative to other sounds of the same type (e.g. music or SFX).

The Sound type pop-up lets you designate which category of sound the object will play.

This will affect its overall volume, since the game allows the player to choose the

volume of Music, SFX and Speech audio from the Options menu. Choosing “Other” will

make the Options menu ignore the volume for this object, making it independent from

the rest of the game. As speech audio is automatically set to the correct volume without

the need for a Sound object, the “Speech” option in the pop-up is only necessary for

playing other sounds at the same volume.

If you are working with Unity 5, you have the added option of linking your Sound objects

to Audio Mixer Groups. Mixer Groups can be set within the Settings Manager, under

Audio Settings. Volume parameters for each sound type will also need to entered, and

created in the Mixer Group. If an AudioSource has no Audio Mixer Group assigned in

its Output field, then it will be assigned automatically based on the Sound type in the

Sound component. This is also true for the AudioSource components used by

characters.

The Sound: Play Action can control Sound objects by playing, stopping and fading

audio. You can also change the sound clip that is being played, but this is not

recommended for audio that will likely be looping when the game is saved, since any

change in a Sound object's Audio Clip will not be stored in the save data.

By default, sounds do not carry over when changing scene, but you may wish to have

e.g. ambient sounds continue playing as you navigate the game. To have a Sound

object survive a scene change, check the Play across scenes? checkbox, and move

the prefab into the root of your scene's hierarchy. The prefab cannot survive a scene

load unless it has no parent GameObject.

Though the Sound object can be used to play music, it is recommended to use the

dedicated music system for music playback – see section 5.11.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 90

5.11 - MUSIC

Whereas sound effects and speech audio are generally tied to specific GameObjects in

a scene, music tracks can played independently to both the scene, and the objects

within them.

By using the Sound: Play music Action, music tracks can be played, queued, looped

and stopped at any time. The state of the music, and the queued playlist, is saved

automatically.

In order to play music using this Action, a music track must first be listed in the Music

Storage window. This window can be accessed from the Action, and it's here that

AudioClips are assigned, as well as their relative volumes. Only tracks listed in this

window will be available to use in the Action.

Note: When music tracks are assigned in this window, the associated data is stored in

the Settings Manager. Therefore, be aware that if you change your Settings Manager

asset file, you will also have to update the Music Storage window with your tracks.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 91

5.12 - CONTAINERS

A Container is a scene-based list of Inventory items (see section 6.1 for more on

Inventory items). This allows for gameplay such as treasure chests, that the Player can

open and take from within, and storage chests with which the Player can store away

items for later use.

A Container can have a default set of items, that can be changed during gameplay,

either through Actions or through Menus. To “open” a Container, use the Container:

Open Action. To view the contents of a Container, your Menu Manager must contain a

Menu with an Appear type set to On Container. The Demo_MenuManager asset

provides such a Menu, and with this items can be transferred both ways between the

Container and the Player's Inventory.

To store the contents of a Container in save game files, a Container requires that the

RememberContainer script be attached, but this is true of all Container prefabs by

default.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 92

5.13 - ACTIONLIST PARAMETERS

Sometimes, we'll want our game to perform the same task several times, but with subtle

differences each time - for example, whenever the Player picks up an item, we want its

associated Hotspot to be disabled, its GameObject to be made invisible, and the Item to

be added to the inventory.

ActionList parameters allow us to use the same ActionList to perform the same tasks

to different objects - just as parameters do when programming functions. In the

example above, parameters could be used to create a single ActionList that disables

any Hotspot, hides any GameObject, and adds any Item to the Player's inventory. This

ActionList would then be called every time the Player takes an item - with the specific

objects referenced by the parameters being set each time.

Parameters are available to Cutscenes, Interactions, Triggers, and asset-based

ActionLists. To enable them, check Use parameters? in the properties box at the top

of the Inspector. A new box will appear: enter the number of parameters you wish to

use, and you can then re-name and choose the type of each one. Parameters can

reference Strings, Floats, Integers, Booleans, GameObjects, Unity Objects (such as

Materials and AudioClips), Inventory items, Global Variables and Local Variables -

though Local Variables are not compatible with asset-based ActionLists.

Interactions and Triggers allow for special-case GameObject parameters. An

Interaction that is part of a Hotspot can have that Hotspot automatically assigned, and a

Trigger can have the collider automatically assigned.

Whenever an Action can make use of a parameter, the list of parameters will appear

inside the Action as a drop-down box. Choose a parameter to "override" the Action's

default field, and have it be replaced by the parameter. Note that this drop-down box

will only appear if at least one parameter of matching type has been defined.

Sometimes the function of Actions change based on their field settings. For example,

the Variable: Check Action will give an option to check for true or false when querying a

boolean, and will give an option to check a numerical value when querying an integer.

Note than when a parameter is assigned to an Action, it will assume the same UI and

functionality that it had before the parameter was set.

Once an ActionList has been set up to take parameters, these parameters can be

passed to it by calling it from another ActionList with the ActionList: Run Action. When

the ActionList: Run Action is used to trigger an ActionList with parameters, you can set

the fields for each parameter. You can also use this Action to transfer its ActionList's

own parameters that have been set using another such Action.

To set the values of individual parameters, use the ActionList: Set parameter Action,

or alternatively set them through custom scripting: the ActionList and ActionListAsset

classes both store their parameters as Lists, which can be modified through script.

When a scene-based Cutscene or Interaction sources its Actions from an ActionList

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 93

Asset File that contains parameters, the scene-based list will also make use of those

parameters. You can choose to either use the parameter values from the asset file

(Sync parameter values?), or the scene object (Set local parameter values?).

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 94

5.14 - DRAGGABLE OBJECTS

Adventure Creator allows for moveable objects that can be manipulated directly with the

mouse cursor or touches, creating a greater sense of presence and interactivity -

particular with first person games. Such objects fall into two categories: Draggable and

PickUp objects. Draggable objects are constrained: they can only be moved in certain

ways: either along a set plane, only rotated, or along pre-defined Tracks.

To hold a Draggable object, simply touch (or click) it and hold. The object will be let go

when the touch or click is let go. How far away an object can be is determined by the

Moveable ray length field in the Settings Manager.

The Scene Manager provides a default Draggable prefab, which contains all the

components necessary, but no mesh. It's advisable to add the required mesh to it as a

child object, because the Draggable's position and rotation is determined by its Drag

mode - therefore, adding a mesh as a child object allows its Transform settings to be set

safely.

Key to the way a moveable object behaves is its Rigidbody settings. The Drag and

Angular Drag values are locked to 20 when an object is held, so it's the Mass value that

affects how quickly a held object moves. A Mass of 1 gives a 1:1 relationship between

the movement of the mouse or touch and the movement of the object. Higher values

will require more movement from the player to move the object, which lower values will

require less.

Draggable objects are at their most useful when locked to a Track. There are three

Track types, each available as prefabs in the Scene Manager: Straight Track, Curved

Track, and Lever Track. When placed in the scene, a Track prefab will display a white

line in the Scene window that represents the locus an attached Draggable object can

take, with a grey circle at the start, and a white circle at the end. When moving along a

Track, a Draggable object works best when its base Collider component is a Sphere

Collider, so it's a good idea to keep this component even if you add other Colliders to it

in child objects.

A Straight Track is used to constrain a Draggable object along a straight line. Rotation

effects can also be added, to make the object roll as it moves, or turn in a screw-like

motion. Note: For best results, ensure that the first Collider component on your

Draggable is a Sphere Collider. It can be left disabled if necessary in favour of a

collider that better suits the shape of your object, but it will be used to set the limit

boundaries.

A Curved Track prefab is used to constrain a Draggable object along a curved line. If

the line is looped to form a circle, the number of possible revolutions can also be set.

A Hinge Track prefab is used to pivot a Draggable object about its centre. Its position

is locked, and can only be rotated in a circular motion. Like the Curved Track, it can

also be looped. This Track type is useful for objects such as doors and levers. If the

camera is going to be looking at a hinged Draggable head-on, it's recommended to

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 95

enable the Align drag vector to front setting.

When a Draggable object is moved, its Interaction on move ActionList will be run. If

this Interaction begins with a Moveable: Check track position Action, it can be looped

onto itself to be run again until the desired position has been reached. The Moveable:

Set track position Action can be used to move the Draggable object automatically.

Be mindful that when a Draggable object becomes attached to a track, it adopts that

track's transform - its rotation may become flipped depending on the track's orientation,

for example. This is a necessary requirement of the drag/track system, but can be

countered by checking Maintain original child transforms? in the Moveable_Drag

Inspector. This will cause any children (which is where models should be placed) of the

Draggable to retain their position and rotation after attachment.

Draggable objects can be turned on and off by using the Object: Send message Action

on them. They start the scene enabled, but this can be changed with the Remember

Moveable script, which is attached to the prefab by default.

The Moveable_Drag Inspector also allows you to reduce the player's movement when it

is being manipulated, which is particularly helpful when creating immersive first-person

games.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 96

5.15 - PICKUP OBJECTS

PickUp objects, unlike Draggable objects, can be freely manipulated. To hold a PickUp

object, simply touch (or click) it and hold. The object will be let go when the touch or

click is let go. How far away an object can be is determined by the Moveable ray

length field in the Settings Manager.

PickUp objects can also be rotated, brought closer to the screen, and thrown. The

required Input axes to perform these extra functions are listed in the Settings Manager's

Required inputs section.

The Scene Manager provides a default PickUp prefab, which contains all the

components necessary, but no mesh. The prefab uses a Sphere Collider by default, but

this can be replaced if necessary with another.

Key to the way a moveable object behaves is its Rigidbody settings. The Drag and

Angular Drag values are locked to 20 when an object is held, so it's the Mass value that

affects how quickly a held object moves. A Mass of 1 gives a 1:1 relationship between

the movement of the mouse or touch and the movement of the object. Higher values

will require more movement from the player to move the object, which lower values will

require less.

Triggers can be placed in the scene to determine if a PickUp object has been placed in

the correct position. A Trigger can be set to detect the PickUp object in question (or all

PickUps in general by choosing Any Object With Component and entering the

component name Moveable_PickUp), so that a sequence of Actions will run when the

object enters it.

PickUp objects can be turned on and off by using the Object: Send message Action on

them. They start the scene enabled, but this can be changed with the Remember

Moveable script, which is attached to the prefab by default.

The Moveable_PickUp Inspector also allows you to reduce the player's movement when

it is being manipulated, which is particularly helpful when creating immersive first-

person games.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 97

5.16 - CUSTOM CURSORS

As stated in section 5.1, the Cursor Manager is used to define the Interactions available

in your game. You can add, remove and set textures, animate them, as well as define

the rules for which cursors appear – such as the ability to display a dedicated “walk”

cursor when hovering over a Navigation Mesh.

The Cursor Manager can also be used to determine if cursors are rendered in Hardware

or Software mode. Software mode, the default, hides the hardware cursor and displays

the correct cursor as a texture in its place. While it can be slower on older systems, it

enjoys wider support on more platforms. Hardware mode, on the other hand, replaces

the system's hardware cursor completely, and can often be faster. Note, however, that

as of September 2014, Hardware cursors do not work correctly in the Unity Editor on

Macs – this is a Unity-based problem, but still works correctly in the game is Built.

The “click offset” can also be set for each cursor. In Software mode, this offset

represents how far the click point is from the cursor's centre, as a decimal of its size. In

Hardware mode, the offset represents how far the click point is from the cursor's top-left,

in exact pixels.

Cursors defined under the Interaction icons panel can also be referenced in the Menu

Manager (see section 11.1), to change the cursor when the mouse hovers over a

particular element.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 98

5.17 - QUICK TIME EVENTS

Quick Time Events, or QTEs, are isolated moments of gameplay that require the player

to press a key, or a combination of keys, within a time limit. The event is considered

"won" if the keys are pressed correctly, and "lost" otherwise. Adventure Creator makes

it easy to trigger such events, by using the Input: QTE Action. When this Action is run,

regular gameplay is disabled, and the Action waits until the player has either won or

lost.

QTEs can have several "win" requirements: a single button-press, a button held down

for a set time, or a button pressed repeatedly (i.e. "button mashing"). The button name

defined in the Action must correspond to an Input button defined in the Input Manager

(found in Edit -> Project settings -> Input in the top toolbar). What happens when the

player wins or loses is dictated by the Action's If condition is met and If conditions is

not met fields respectively.

A Menu name can also be supplied to the Action. So long as this Menu's Appear type

is set to Manual, then it will be displayed automatically for the duration of the QTE -

making it suitable to act as a "button prompt" to tell the player what to do. Timer menu

elements (see section 11.2) are useful here: a Timer's Timer type can be set to either

Quick Time Event Remaining (how long longer the QTE will last) or Quick Time

Event Progress (how much progress the player has made). If such a Timer is visible

when a QTE is active, then it will represent that QTE.

Additionally, if the Menu is linked to Unity UI (see section 11.3), then it can also be

animated when the player wins, loses, or presses a correct button. To prepare a Unity

UI-linked Menu for animating, attach an Animator component to the base Canvas

component. Adventure Creator requires that three animation states be present: Win

and Lose, and either Hold or Hit (depending on the QTE's type: the Action will describe

which states it requires). If not all animations are required (e.g. Win but not Lose), then

empty states of the same name can be used instead.

A series of QTE tutorials can be found here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 99

6.0 - INVENTORY

6.1 - DECLARING INVENTORY ITEMS

The items that the player can pick up over the course of the game are collectively

known as the Inventory. Items that the player is holding are displayed in the game's

Inventory menu, and can be used, examined and combined with Hotspots, NPCs and

and other items. If your Interaction method (see section 5.1) is not set to “Context

Sensitive”, they can also be “given” to NPCs (see section 6.2).

Inventory items are declared and modified using the Inventory Manager – the fifth tab in

the main AdventureCreator window. Each item has fields for a unique name, icon

texture, and checkboxes to determine if it is carried by the player when starting the

game, and determining if the player can carry multiple units of it. This is useful for

things like currency.

Adventure Creator provides different methods of inventory handling – that is, whether or

not Items are selected before choosing the Hotspot to use them on, or whether the

Hotspot is chosen before selecting which Item to use. You can also make use of an

Active and Selected texture for each Item, based on your chosen settings. An Active

texture is displayed when an Inventory cursor is hovering over a Hotspot, or when the

item is selected. The cursor effect that is employed, be it simple or pulsing, can be

modified in the Settings Manager. A Selected texture will override the Active within an

InventoryBox element, if one is provided.

Alternatively, a Cursor can also be defined for the Inventory item, provided that the

Cursor Manager has been set to change when an item is selected. This allows you to

assign a dedicated Cursor graphic, which may also be animated.

Inventory items can also be sorted into categories. Categories can be created,

renamed and removed from the top of the Inventory Manager. Once multiple categories

exist, each Inventory item can be sorted into one of them. Categorising inventory items

allows them to be sorted when creating inventory menus – for example, by categorising

spell items under “Spells”, you can create a spell inventory menu that just displays

spells.

Inventory items can also have properties assigned to them – see section 6.5, as well as

a GameObject prefab. This prefab can be used, in conjunction with custom scripting, to

build e.g. 3D inventory interfaces. An item's associated prefab is stored in the InvItem

class' linkedPrefab field.

How Inventory items are manipulated are determined by their various “Interactions”

fields. Which fields are displayed depends on what your various interaction options in

the Settings Manager are set to. These are outlined in the next section.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 100

6.2 - INVENTORY HANDLING

By default, an Inventory item is selected by left-clicking on its icon within an

InventoryBox menu element (see section 11.1 for more on Menus). Once it is selected,

it can be used on a Hotspot by creating Inventory interactions within that Hotspot, or be

combined with another item.

Items can be examined by right-clicking (or by dropping a selected item onto itself, if set

in the Settings Manager). And if you wish for the player to do something other than

select it when left-clicking on it (for example, opening a separate "close up" scene), you

can override the "select" behaviour.

The Standard interactions panel that appears when an item is being edited in the

Inventory Manager allows you to choose what happens for each of these various

interactions. For example, you can make an "Examine" interaction, a "Use" interaction,

or an interaction for the various combinations with other items.

Such interactions are stored in ActionList asset files - these are scene-independent lists

(see section 5.8), which mean they can be run regardless of which scene the player

might be in.

Exactly what "Standard interactions" are available, however, depends on your chosen

Interaction method, as set in the Settings Manager (see section 5.1). If your game

makes use of Choose Interaction Then Hotspot mode or Choose Hotspot Then

Interaction mode, then you can make use of as many interactions as you like for your

Hotspots (as set in the Cursor Manager). When in either of these modes, you can opt

to make use of these interactions, rather than the standard "Use" and "Examine", on

your Inventory items as well. In your Settings Manager, just change the "Inventory

interactions" option from "Single" to "Multiple". You will now be able to define an

Interaction for each cursor type on your Inventory items.

These two modes also allow you to “give” items to NPCs. When you declare the

Inventory interactions on a Hotspot that's attached to an NPC, you can choose whether

it's a “Use” or a “Give” interaction. The Use (item) on (object) syntax can be set

globally within the Cursor Manager, or per-item in the Inventory Manager. By default,

Inventory interactions are to be “used” when selected – if done so manually using the

Inventory: Select Action, however, you can change this. You can also select items in

“give” mode using the method below:

When set to "Multiple", you can still select Items by using the Inventory: Select" Action

in their interaction asset files. However, this can be quite tedious if you always want the

same cursor type to select an item - for example, "Use". So, you can opt to make this

the default behaviour: in the Settings Manager, check Select item if Interaction is

unhandled?, and you can choose which cursor mode will select an item. The same

method can be used to select items for "giving" them to NPCs.

Unhandled events are “default” interactions that are run when no specific interaction has

been defined. We can use these events to create standard messages to the player

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 101

when they try to combine or use items in way the developer hasn't catered for.

For example, the demo game makes use of the Use on hotspot unhandled event.

When the player tries using the “Fake sword” item on the pinboard, which doesn't have

an interaction defined for such a scenario, the game will run this unhandled event –

causing the robot to reply, “I can't cut that.”

In addition to defining global unhandled events, you can also define per-item unhandled

events, which override the defaults. Found under the Standard interactions section of

an Inventory Item's editor, you can use these to elicit a response from the Player that's

unique to that Item.

It is also possible to define per-Hotspot unhandled events, which will take precedent

over any unhandled event defined in the Inventory Manager. This is useful for Hotspots

like trashcans, where you can make the player say something like “I don't want to throw

that away.” when any item is used on it.

You can also pass the Hotspot that was clicked on to initiate the unhandled interaction

as a GameObject parameter (see Section 5.13) – just click Pass Hotspot as

GameObject parameter? at the top of the Inventory Manager. This will apply for per-

Hotspot interactions as well.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 102

6.3 - MANAGING INVENTORY IN-GAME

Once declared in the Inventory Manager, Inventory items can be added to and removed

from the Player by using the Inventory: Add or remove Action. If multiple units of the

same item can be carried (by ticking the Can carry multiple? checkbox in the Inventory

Manager), then this Action will also allow you to affect the number of units that the

player is carrying. For example, if you have created an item that represents currency,

you can use this Action to handle a shop transaction – removing the player's amount of

money by 50.

To use an Inventory item on a particular Hotspot or NPC, refer back to section 5.3.

The Inventory: Check Action is used to perform different Actions based on what the

player is carrying. Again, if multiple units of the same item can be carried, this Action

will allow you to make a specific query about how many units of that item the player is

carrying. Returning to our shop example, we can use this Action to determine if the

player has enough money to buy an item, and issue a response accordingly.

For coders, the player's inventory at runtime is stored in the PersistentEngine object's

Runtime Inventory component. A public list inside this script called localItems stores

the player's inventory. Inventory items are given an ID number when created in the

Inventory Manager, which is used by the RuntimeInventory script to determine which

item is being affected. This allows items to be removed and inserted in between each

other, without destroying their references.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 103

6.4 - CRAFTING

As well as combining two items together to solve puzzles, you can also define crafting

“recipes” that allow for multiple items to be combined to create a new one. This allows

for Minecraft-style crafting elements in your game.

Beneath the list of Items in the Inventory Manager, you can declare any number of

recipes. Each recipe requires a number of Items as “ingredients”, and a resulting Item

that is produced when the ingredients are combined. Recipes can optionally be made

to require a specific crafting pattern – that is, the arrangement of ingredients in the

Crafting menu element.

If an ingredient's Item has Can carry multiple checked, you can also determine the

number of instances of this item required. For example, a recipe to create a lit torch

may require one empty torch and two batteries.

To craft items, ingredients must be placed into a Crafting menu element. A Crafting

element has two types: Ingredients and Output. When the correct arrangement of items

are placed in a Crafting box of the Ingredient type, the resulting item can be selected

from a Crafting box of the Output type. If the recipe (as declared in the Inventory

Manager) has Result is automatic checked, the resulting Item will appear instantly in

the Output box – otherwise it will require the Inventory: Crafting Action to be run to

create the recipe.

To demonstrate the appropriate use of the Crafting menu element, both the Demo and

Demo2D Menu Manager assets provide a Crafting menu, which you can copy into your

own Menu Manager. Note that this menu's Appear type is set to Manual, and you will

have to decide for yourself how this Menu opens in your game – whether it be by the

Menu: Change state Action, or opening from another Menu, or some other means.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 104

6.5 - INVENTORY PROPERTIES

Inventory properties are variables that you can define for Inventory items, which each

item having its own value for each variable. This makes it possible to give an item

"stats" such as weight or value. Properties can either be defined for all items, or for

those within a specific category. Properties can be created and managed within the

Properties tab of the Inventory Manager.

When an item can make use of a property, it is listed at the bottom of that item's

Settings panel, and its values can then be set.

An item's properties can be displayed in a Label menu element (see section 11.2), but

its true value lies when used with custom scripting. The GetProperty function within the

InvItem class can be used to retrieve any property, and unique values, that the item

holds. The RuntimeInventory script holds all inventory items held by the player,

allowing including the variable lastClickedItem, which stores the last item that the player

clicked on.

See the scripting guide for a more thorough description of public functions and variables

available to custom scripts.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 105

7.0 - VARIABLES

7.1 - DECLARING VARIABLES

You can define both Global and Local Variables. Global Variables are scene-

independent, and can be retrieved and modified regardless of scene, while Local

Variables are specific to a scene, and cannot be read outside of that scene.

Variables are used to to keep track of progress, and alter gameplay accordingly. For

example, the demo game makes use of a boolean variable called Tried lifting canvas,

which is used to incite a different reaction from the Player character when clicking on

the canvas Hotspot multiple times.

They can also be used to debug your game. The demo games makes use of another

boolean called Played intro, which can be set to true during development to skip the

opening cutscene when the game is started.

Variables can be one of five types:

Boolean: Either “true” or “false”

Integer: A whole number

String: Some text

Float: A number with a decimal point

Pop Up: A string chosen from a drop-down list of pre-determined choices

All Variables are defined in the Variables Manager, but Local Variables can only be

defined once Organise room objects has been clicked in the Scene Manager.

Variables can be either booleans (true-or-false flags), integers (whole numbers), floats

(numbers with decimals) or strings (a line of text). It is important to set a variable's type

before using it in game logic.

You can also give each variable a name, and an initial state. If you have many

Variables, you may find it easier to locate them in Actions if you placed a forward-slash

in their name (e.g. “Options/IsFullScreen”), as they will be grouped up in lists according

to the letters before the slash.

Note that using the Variables Manager to change a variable's state while the game is

running will not affect the game's current instance of those variables, and changes

made to the Variables Manager will survive when the game is stopped. For debugging,

the “live” values of Variables can be seen during gameplay by checking Show realtime

values? at the top of the manager.

As well as being used “behind the scenes” to affect game logic, Variables can also be

displayed on screen, either via a MenuLabel (see section 11.2), via a Character's

dialogue, or when typing formulas into the Variable: Set Action. The token syntax

[var:ID] will be replaced by the value of the associated Variable. For example, [var:2]

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 106

will display the value of Global Variable 2 listed in the Variables Manager. A Variable's

ID number is listed next to it in the Variable Manager – note that this number is not

necessarily the same as its order in the list.

Local Variables make use of a slightly different token syntax: [localvar:ID].

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 107

7.2 - MANAGING VARIABLES IN-GAME

Variables are set using the Variable: Set Action, and queried using the Variable:

Check Action. The Variable: Set Action can also be used to transfer the value of a

MenuInput Menu Element (see section 11.2) to a String Variable, and Mecanim

parameter values to Boolean and Integer Variables.

The Variable: Copy Action can be used to transfer a Variable's value to another of the

same type – this is useful for temporarily backing up a value, or for converting a Local

Variable to a Global one.

For coders: when the game begins, the PersistentEngine object's GlobalVariables

component makes a copy of the global variables, keeping them separate from the

Variables Manager during runtime. These are stored in a public list called globalVars,

and – like inventory items – rely on ID numbers to determine which variable is being

referenced. Local variables are stored in the GameEngine object's LocalVariables

component, inside the localVars list. The Scripting guide has more information on these

scripts.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 108

7.3 - LINKING WITH PLAYMAKER VARIABLES

If you have the popular PlayMaker asset, which is a separate Unity asset to Adventure

Creator, you can sync Adventure Creator's Global Variables with PlayMaker's Global

Variables. To do so, simply select the Variable you wish to link, and change its Link to

value to Playmaker Global Variable.

If you have not done so already, you will be prompted to add the PlayMakerIsPresent

scripting define symbol to your game's Player Settings. You can find this field from Edit

→ Project Settings → Player.

Once you have entered this, you can then enter the name of the PlayMaker Global

Variable you wish to link to. Bear in mind that the two variables must match type: if you

are linking a PlayMaker float, you must do so with an Adventure Creator float as well.

You can also choose whether or not PlayMaker determines the initial value of the

Adventure Creator Global Variable. Generally, your game should only affect either the

PlayMaker or Adventure Creator Variable, rather than both. When a PlayMaker

Variable is changed, its value is “downloaded” to Adventure Creator only when it is

needed – i.e. when the Variable: Check Action is used to determine its value.

By linking Variables in this way, you can save the value of PlayMaker Global Variables

automatically.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 109

7.4 - LINKING WITH OPTIONS DATA

Global Variables can be used to form custom options data, which is independent of

save game data. See section 9.4 on how to do this.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 110

7.5 - VARIABLE PRESETS

Variable presets allow you to bulk-assign all Global or Local Variable values at once.

This is particularly useful for debugging and testing, since you can use them to quickly

assign your variables to states they'll be at specific points in your game.

Presets are listed and defined in the Preset configurations panel of the Variables

Manager. Once a preset has been created, you can assign a Variable's preset value

within the Variable's properties panel. A preset value will the Variable's default value

until it is modified.

When the game is running, a preset can be assigned by selecting it in the Variables

Manager and clicking Bulk-assign. Presets can also be assigned by using the

Variable: Assign preset Action, which can be useful if you need to ensure all players

have the exact same variable values at some point during gameplay.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 111

7.6 - SCENE ATTRIBUTES

Scene attributes are a special type of variables in that they exist across all scenes, and

can't be written to. They allow you to set properties about a scene that can later be

read using the Scene: Check attribute Action.

An ActionList asset that's called when a scene begins, for example, can be used to

initialise a scene or run some common task depending on the attributes of that scene.

Scene attributes are created within the Scene Manager, under the "Scene attributes"

header. Attributes are created by clicking Manage attributes, and using the window

that opens to define the attribute types that are available in the Scene Manager. Each

attribute then exists across all scenes, and each scene has its own value for each

attribute.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 112

8.0 - MISCELLANEOUS SCRIPTS

8.1 - SHAPEABLE

The Shapeable script is used to manage multiple blend shapes that are present on the

Skinned Mesh Renderer that it is attached to.

When working with blend shapes, it is often the case that you will want to group some

together, and only ever have one within a group to be “active”, while the others are not.

For example, you may want to group a Character's various eyebrow expressions into a

group, so that only one can be active at a time.

Attach the Shapeable script to a Skinned Mesh Renderer, and you will be able to define

as many shape groups as you like. A group can contain any number of shape keys,

which each correspond to a different blend shape.

Once a Shapeable script has been set up, it can then be manipulated by the Object:

Blend shape Action. This Action can be used to make one key in a group the “active”

one – all others will be disabled. This can be performed over time, however, for smooth

transitions.

This concept is used by the NPC Brain in the 3D Demo. The ExpressionHappy and

ExpressionSad blend shapes are grouped together, and called upon in the Basemene

scene.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 113

8.2 - MOVEABLE

In order to manipulate a GameObject's Transform component with the Object:

Transform Action, the Moveable script must be attached. Simply attach the script to

the GameObject, and its Transform can be manipulated.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 114

8.3 - PARALLAX 2D

In games made in Unity 2D mode (as set by the Moving and turning popup in the

Settings Manager), the camera does not physically move. When it pans sideways, the

perspective remains fixed.

As this happens, all objects in the scene will move across the game window at the same

rate, regardless of their distance from the camera. Therefore, the Parallax 2D script

can be used to achieve a depth affect by causing them to move with the camera – the

speed at which it follows will determine how far away it feels.

Attach the Parallax 2D script to a background sprite, and assign a Depth value. The

more positive the value, the further away it will seem. The more negative, the closer it

will seem. This script is used on the foreground and background objects in the 2D

demo's Park scene.

For more advanced effects, it is also possible to limit the parallax movement to within

pre-set boundaries in both the X and Y directions. Just check Constrain? within each

directional box to set upper and lower bounds.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 115

8.4 - LIMIT VISIBILITY

Particularly in 2.5D games, you may wish for an object to be visible only when a

particular camera is the active one. Attach the Limit Visibility script, and you can limit

its visibility to a certain camera – and optionally its children, too.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 116

8.5 - ALIGN TO CAMERA

The Align To Camera component is used to aid in the correct placement of scene

sprites when building 2.5D games. 2.5D games require that scene sprites (i.e. those

that the player can walk in front of and behind) are placed in 3D space, so that the

player can be viewed from a perspective-correct camera. Therefore, it's necessary to

align these sprites such that they face a camera that may not be pointing along an axis -

which can be difficult when trying to do manually.

By attaching the Align To Camera component to a scene sprite, you can have it

automatically face a camera. Once it is aligned, its depth (the distance from this

camera) can be controlled within the component's Inspector. Optionally, you can lock

the sprite's percieved scale when the depth is adjusted. This will cause the sprite to get

larger as it moves further away, ensuring it has the same "screen-space" when viewed

through the camera.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 117

8.6 - PARTICLE SWITCH

When you create a Unity Particle System, you may wish to turn it on at some point

during gameplay, rather than play it continually. For example, a fireplace would only

need to produce smoke when it's lit.

With the Particle Switch script, you can turn the Particle System on and off easily with

the Object: Send message Action. Add the script to your Particle System, then point

to it with the Object: Send message Action. The “Turn On” and “Turn Off” messages

will perform as expected, but the “Interact” message will cause it to emit all of its

particles once.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 118

8.7 - LIGHT SWITCH

When you create a Unity Light, you may wish to turn it on at some point during

gameplay, rather than play it continually. For example, a lamp would only emit light if

the player has plugged it into a wall socket.

With the Light Switch script, you can turn the Light on and off easily with the Object:

Send message Action. Add the script to your Light, then point to it with the Object:

Send message Action. The “Turn On” and “Turn Off” messages will perform as

expected.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 119

8.8 - SPRITE FADER

In order to manipulate a Sprite's transparency with the Object: Fade sprite Action, the

Sprite Fader script must be attached. Simply attach the script to the Sprite, and its

transparency can be manipulated.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 120

8.9 - TINT MAPS

If your game is in 2D (and makes use of Unity 2D for your Moving and turning setting

- see section 1.5), then you can make use of Tint maps to alter the colour of sprites as

they move around a scene. This allows you to easily create dynamic lighting effects,

such as having your Player get darker when they enter a shaded portion of the

background.

A Tint map can be created under the Camera section of the Scene Manager, and

assigned as the default at the top - underneath Scene settings. A new Tint map will

appear 10 units in the Z-axis, but its Z-position is not actually important, as it can be

hidden when the game begins. What is important is its scale in the X and Y directions -

after creating it, stretch it out so that it covers the same area as your background

graphic. You can then supply a "tint" texture to its Inspector. This texture will tint any

sprites that "follow" it - but pure white will not have an effect. Such sprites will be tinted

according to their position over the Tint map.

IMPORTANT: The texture you supply must be readable by Unity. This is a simple but

crucial step: within its properties Inspector, set its Texture Type to Advanced, and

check Read/Write Enabled.

To make a sprite follow a Tint map, simply add the Follow Tint Map script component.

This component will normally follow the scene's default Tint map, as defined in the

Scene Manager, but you can also supply a separate Tint map if you prefer.

You can also adjust the intensity of the tinting effect. These values can also be

changed mid-game by using the Object: Change Tint map Action - allowing you to

change the Tint effect dynamically, e.g. when the player turns on on a light switch. Just

be sure to add the Remember Visibility component to the sprite as well if you do – as

this will ensure any such changes are recorded in save game files (see section 9.2).

A tutorial on working with Tint maps can be found here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 121

CHAPTER II: ADVANCED FEATURES

9.0 - SAVING AND LOADING

9.1 - OVERVIEW

Adventure Creator is capable of saving and loading a player's progress with little effort

on the developer's part. However, it is important to understand the way in which it does

so, and what exactly is recorded in order to create an effective save system for your

game.

A player can save or load a game by accessing a SavesList menu element (see section

11.2). After saving or loading, an ActionList asset can be optionally run – which is

useful for doing things like setting up menus correctly afterwards.

The name of save files is – by default – the same as your project name, but you can

replace this from the Settings Manger, under Save game settings. It is here that you

can also tell Adventure Creator to save a screenshot as well as a save file (note:

Screenshots are disabled for WebPlayer and Android platforms), the maximum number

of allowed save files, and their display order in SavesList Menu Elements (see section

11.2)

When a game is saved, Adventure Creator stores two types of data: main and room.

Main data includes the player's position, the player's standard animations (2D sprites

only), the camera's position, the current scene, and the state of the inventory, global

variables, and menus. This data is stored automatically.

Room data is scene-specific, and only consists of data that has been flagged for saving.

Flagging GameObjects for saving is a simple matter of attaching the appropriate

Remember scripts to them. For example, to save the state of a conversation's dialogue

options, the Remember Conversation script must be attached. A full description of the

various Remember scripts is given in the next section.

So long as an object has been flagged appropriately, its data will be saved and loaded.

Adventure Creator will also handle the storage and return of room data as the player

navigates different scenes.

Saved game files are stored in Unity's Application.persistentDataPath. You can

display this path in the Unity console by calling print(Application.persistentDataPath); in a script.

While Adventure Creator is capable of storing most of the essential data needed to

properly save a game, it is not capable of saving changes to a GameObject's reference

to an external asset file – the most important effect of this being that changes in

animation are not saved. However, it is easy to work around this by using Global

Variables, which are always saved.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 122

Global Variables can be used to revert objects and NPCs to their appropriate animation

states when the game is loaded by calling upon them in the scene's Cutscene on load

field, found in the Scene Manager. The demo provides several examples of this, all of

which are described in section 9.5.

The save system will also not save dynamic paths, i.e. those generated by characters

when pathfinding. Thus, if the Player character is pathfinding to a point as the game is

saved, they will no longer be moving when that game is loaded back.

Save games can also be loaded using the Save: Save or load Action. A more

advanced save menu can be created by using this Action in conjunction with ActionList

parameters (see section 5.13). This Action can also be used to only load a save file

selectively, so that only certain elements of a save file are loaded.

For coders, saved games can be accessed via the SaveSystem script, which is

attached to the PersistentEngine, created at runtime. SaveSystem contains several

static functions to aid in save management: LoadSave, SaveGame, SaveNewGame,

LoadAutoSave, GetNumSlots and GetSaveSlotName. Most functions require the slot

number as a parameter. The slot number, which refers to the list of saved games in the

menus, is also appended to the save's filename.

For example, the following code will load the first save game slot:

SaveSystem.LoadGame (0);

In order to function correctly, a scene must be in Unity's Build Settings in order to load a

saved game from it, and it must have finished initialising correctly before transitioning to

a new one. Do not call LoadGame from within either the Awake or Start functions.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 123

9.2 - SAVING INDIVIDUAL OBJECTS

Saving object data within a scene is done by adding the correct component to that

object. Starting with v1.50, you can have Adventure Creator attempt to “auto-tag” your

game's objects with the correct components for you – just click Auto-add save

components to GameObjects at the top of the Settings Manager.

However, it is still important to understand the principles involved in saving scene object

data – in case your requirements are slightly different:

Unless it is either the GameEngine, PersistentEngine, the Player, or the MainCamera,

GameObjects in your scene cannot be saved without an associated ID number. The

ConstantID script, when attached to a GameObject, will provide such a variable, and

will not change upon restarting Unity.

We must add a ConstantID script to any GameCamera that the MainCamera can be

switched to when saving is enabled (that is, during normal gameplay). In doing so, we

allow the referenced object (in this case, the GameCamera), to be “visible” to the save

system, and thus allow it to be saved. For the same reason, we must attach a

ConstantID script to each NavMesh if a scene has more than one.

However, to record specific data about the GameObject, rather than merely the

reference to it, we must use Remember scripts. Remember scripts are a subclass of

ConstantID, which give the save system instructions to also save specific things about

that GameObject. For example, the RememberName script ensures that the name of

its associated GameObject will be saved. The following is a list of the various

Remember scripts, and when they are used.

RememberAnimator – Attaching this script to any Animator component will

cause the current animation, parameter values and layer weights of that Animator

to be saved. If an animation is in mid-transition when saving occurs, only the

“transition-to” animation will be saved. Note that this component is only available

in Unity 5.

RememberCollider – Attaching this script to any Collider or Trigger will make

sure the enabled state of its Collider component will be saved.

RememberContainer – Attaching this script to any Container object will make

sure the items stored within will be saved. This is a part of the Container prefab

by default.

RememberConversation – Attaching this script to any Conversation object will

make sure the on/off/lock state of its DialogueOptions will be saved. This is a

part of the Conversation prefab by default.

RememberFootstepSounds – Attaching this to any Footstep Sounds

component will save the sound clips referenced within. Such sounds can be

changed with the “Sound: Change footsteps” Action. In order to save the sounds

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 124

successfully, they must be placed in Resources folders and given unique

filenames – this goes for both the original sounds and any new sounds that the

component may have during gameplay.

RememberHotspot – Attaching this script to any Hotspot object will make sure

its visibility to the player's cursor, any changes in its name, and any changes in

its Interaction states are saved.

RememberMaterial – Attaching this script to any Renderer object will record any

changes in its Materials. It will search your game's Resources folder when

looking for Materials to place on it, and these must have unique filenames.

RememberMoveable – Attaching this script to any Draggable or PickUp object

will record its position and rotation, as well as the position along any track it may

be attached to.

RememberName – Attaching this script to any GameObject will record any

changes in said GameObject's name.

RememberNavMesh2D – Attaching this script to any NavMesh2D prefab will

record any changes in its hole structure. Holes (in the form of Polygon Colliders)

can be added and removed from NavMesh2D prefabs during gameplay to add

pathfinding obstacles.

RememberNPC – Attaching this script to any NPC will record that NPC's

transform, active path, and visibility to the player's cursor. Note that in order to

also save the active path, a ConstantID script must also be present on the Path

object. Changes in “standard animations” (walk, idle, etc) are also saved – if the

NPC uses Legacy animation, the animations must be placed in a Resources

asset folder and have a unique filename.

RememberShapable – Attach this to any GameObject that also has a

Shapeable script. Shapeable scripts can be used to manipulate blend shapes on

a Skinned Mesh Renderer, and the RememberShapeable script will record any

changes made.

RememberSound – Attach this to any Sound object that you wish to save. What

its playing, and its track position will be recorded. If you need to record its

change in sound clip (if it changes mid-game, for example), just place the

AudioClip in question inside an asset folder named Resources.

RememberTransform – Attach this script to any GameObject to save its

transform data. Can optionally save a GameObject's presence in the scene, if it

is deleted or instantiated during gameplay – but only if the GameObject is a

prefab inside a Resources asset folder. Can also be used to save which

GameObject is its parent, provided that GameObject has either a ConstantID

script of its own, or is an assigned Hand Bone of a Character.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 125

RememberTrigger – Attach this script to any Trigger prefab to save its on/off

state.

RememberVideoPlayer – Attach this script to Video Player components whose

playback state you wish to save (i.e. paused or playing, and current frame). This

is only available in Unity 5.6 or later.

RememberVisibility – Attach this script to any GameObject to save its renderer

component's “enabled” state, and optionally that of its children. This works for

both mesh and sprite renderers. When attached to a sprite renderer, it can also

be made to record its colour or transparency. It will also save the state of any

attached Sprite Fader (see section 8.8) or Follow Tint Map component (see

section 8.9).

AdventureCreator will save the data of any object with these scripts attached. Objects

marked to be saved have a save icon beside them in the Hierarchy window. To reduce

the size of save files, it is wise to use them only when necessary. For example, the 3D

Demo's opening Conversation, IntroConv, has no RememberConversation script, since

the states of its DialogueOptions never change.

Some scripts also allow the state they record to be “off” when the game begins. For

example, a Hotspot can be disabled by default, by attaching a RememberHotspot script

to it, and setting its Hotspot state on start to Off.

The following is a general guideline for setting a scene up correctly for saving and

loading:

•All GameCamera objects that are used during normal gameplay (that is,

not purely used during cutscenes) have a ConstantID script.

•All Conversation objects with DialogueOptions that can change have a

ConstantID script.

•All Paths that characters may be using upon saving have a ConstantID

script.

•If the active NavMesh can change during a scene, give all NavMeshes a

ConstantID script.

•All Hotspot objects that can be turned on or off have a

RememberHotspot script.

•All NPCs have a RememberNPC script.

•All other GameObject types that are moved during gameplay (through its

Transform, not just Animation component) have a RememberTransform

script.

Animation, however, cannot be saved so easily. It is for this reason that the On load

Cutscene field is provided in the Scene Manager – as this will be run whenever a scene

is loaded via a save game file. In this Cutscene, you can set up any animation states

that you need to, based on the values of Global or Local variables that you've defined.

The 3D Demo scene, Basement, provides an example of this.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 126

9.3 - AUTOSAVING

Save slot “0” is reserved for Autosaving, and will appear as such in the in-game Save

and Load menus. They can be created via two methods:

The first is with Cutscenes. At the top of a Cutscene's inspector, tick the Auto-save

after running? box to save the game automatically once the Cutscene has run. Be

aware that this will only occur if the Cutscene does not “branch off” onto another

Cutscene object. That is, none of the Actions within the Cutscene are set to Run

Cutscene in their After running field.

The second is with the Save: Save or load Action, which allows you to save and load

save games directly, as opposed to letting the player do so in a SavesList menu

element (see Section 11.2). Note, however, that saving through this Action is only

possible under the following conditions:

1. No Conversation is currently active (see Section 5.7).

2. No ActionList (both scene-based and asset-based) is running other than the one

that contains the Save: Save or load Action.

3. The Engine: Manage systems Action is not currently locking the save system

off.

Script functions to programatically-load an auto-save, and others, can be found in

section 12.7.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 127

9.4 - OPTIONS DATA

Options data is independent from save data, allowing option changes to “survive” when

a saved game is loaded. They are stored in Unity's PlayerPrefs, under a key that is

based on your game's name.

All Adventure Creator games have five options by default: whether or not subtitles are

on, the game's language, and the volume levels of music, speech, and sound effects.

These options can be changed in the Options Menu that both the Demo_MenuManager

and Demo2D_MenuManagers carry. You can also view and edit this data, as well as

reset them to their default values, in the Settings Manager.

Options data is loaded when the game begins, and saved whenever a change is made

to any of them.

It is possible to create custom options in your game by way of Variables. The Link to

property of a Global Variable, as listed in the Variables Manager, can be set to Options

Data. When this is done, the Variable's value will be stored in the PlayerPrefs, and not

in save game files. You can then use the Variable: Set Action, or Cycle, Toggle and

Slider Menu Elements to affect the value.

For coders, Option variables are stored in the OptionsData class. The public instance

of this class is in the Options script, which is attached to the PersistentEngine, created

at runtime.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 128

9.5 - HOW THE DEMO DOES IT

The demo game, while simple, demonstrates a fully-functioning save and load system.

The first step to creating such a system is to be aware of the conditions under which

saving is possible. While loading is possible at any time, a game can only be saved

during normal gameplay (that is, not during cutscenes or conversations). For that

reason, the player cannot save progress in the demo until the introduction cinematic has

played, and we can use this knowledge to make assumptions about the state of the

scene when the game loads.

We know that during normal gameplay, Brain will be sat in the chair, and the canvas will

be tipped over. Therefore, the OnLoad Cutscene (which is set as the Cutscene on

Load in the demo's Scene Manager) sets up the animation states for Brain, the chair

and the canvas. The Player object is also reset to idle, since it may have been playing

a custom animation when the player requested a saved game to load.

The rest of the save system is set up by careful placement of ConstantID and

Remember scripts on certain GameObjects:

•ConstantID placed on the NavCam1 and NavCam2 GameCameras

ensures the reference to the active camera is stored. Only these cameras

require this script, since the game can only be saved during normal

gameplay.

•RememberNPC placed on Brain ensures his transformation is stored

•RememberAnimator placed on the Barrel, Canvas and Chair

SetGeometry objects. Since these objects use Mecanim for their

animation playback, this script can be used to store their Animator states.

•RememberConversation placed on BrainConv (the main conversation

object) ensures the “enabled” state of each DialogueOption is stored

•RememberHotspot placed on the Sword, Barrel1 and Barrel2 Hotspots

ensures their visibility to the player's cursor is stored. The Sword Hotspot

is turned off as the player picks it up, and the Barrel1 Hotspot is replaced

with Barrel2 when the player pushes the barrel over.

•RememberTransform placed on the Sword mesh (inside the

_SetGeometry folder) ensures its transformation is stored. When the

player picks the sword up, the mesh object is hidden from view by moving

it to a far-off Marker called HideMarker.

Additionally, the demo game makes use of a Local Variable called Played intro. By

setting this boolean to true before starting the game, the game will skip the opening

cinematic, which is useful when testing the scene during development. The OnStart

Cutscene, which runs when the scene begins (having been set in the Scene Manager),

checks the state of this variable and either plays the intro, or skips it by moving Brain to

the chair and running OnLoad.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 129

9.6 - LOADING SCREENS

If your game features complex scenes, or it is played on older hardware, it may take a

few seconds to transition between scenes. In this case, you may wish to create a

loading screen, that appears during this pause to alert the player that the game is

You can do this by creating a dedicated "loading" scene, which is displayed during

transitions. This does not need to be an "Adventure Creator" scene - it can merely be a

camera with a sprite texture in front of it.

Create a scene you wish to act at the loading screen, and add it to your game's list of

Scenes in build from the Build Settings. Then, check the Use loading screen? box in

the Settings Manager, and supply the scene number of your loading screen.

Additionally, or instead of, you can opt to make use of asynchronous loading. This

feature allows you to load scenes in the background, allowing animation to continue for

a short time while the next scene loads. By checking Load scenes asynchronously?

in the Settings Manager, you can then provide a delay time before and after the load

process – which is useful if you want some nice loading effects.

For example, you can create a “Loading” menu with a progress bar – a technique that is

covered in this tutorial.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 130

9.7 - IMPORTING SAVES FROM OTHER GAMES

If you are making a multi-episodic game that spans multiple projects, you can use the

SavesList menu element (see section 11.2) to import saved games from a previous

project. This will import the save file's Global Variables (and thus the player's choices)

into the current game.

When a SavesList's Click action is set to Import, you must supply an Import product

name (as set in the other project's PlayerSettings window), and Import save filename

(as set in the other project's Settings Manager). Note that there are three requirements

for this to work:

•The other project's Company name (as set in the PlayerSettings window) must

be identical to the current project.

•The two projects must share exactly the same Global Variables – it is

recommended to copy the VariablesManager asset and use it in both projects.

•Because of Unity's security features, this feature only works on standalone

platforms (PC, Mac and Linux).

When this SavesList is displayed, it will then list any import files it can find. If the player

chooses a file, an ActionList can be defined that will run if the import is successful.

It is also possible to only limit the available import files to those in which a particular

Global Variable has been set to true. This is useful if you only want players to be able

to import a save if they have reached the end of the previous game.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 131

9.8 - SAVE PROFILES

Player profiles allow you to separate save game files and options settings by the player

who created them. This is useful for a number of reasons: for instance, it means that

one player cannot accidentally delete another player's save files. It also allows options

such as the language to be unique to the person playing. However, they are quite an

advanced topic, and it's recommended to be familiar with Menus, ActionLists, and

ActionList parameters before working with them.

Profiles can be enabled at the top of the Settings Manager: Enable save game

profiles?. Your game will automatically create a new profile if none exist - it is not

possible to have a game with no profiles. You can now use the ProfilesList Menu

Element (see section 11.2). This element will list all profiles created by the user -

though the currently-active profile can optionally be hidden. When a profile in this menu

element is clicked, it will be selected. To display the current profile non-interactively, a

Label can be created with a Label type of Active Save Profile.

Profiles can be created, renamed, and deleted using the Save: Manage profiles

Action. When a new profile is created or renamed, its name can be set by the value of

a String Global Variable (see section 7.1). You can have the player enter a name of

their choice by using an Input menu element, and using the Variable: Set Action to

store the Input box's contents in the String Global Variable. When a profile is deleted,

any associated save game files will also be deleted, so you may want to have make a

confirmation box appear before performing this.

To provide the ability to rename or delete profiles in the form of Button Menu Elements

beside your list of profiles, it is recommended to make use of ActionList parameters

(see section 5.13) to condense the number of ActionLists you need to make. If a Button

Menu Element is set to run an ActionList that has an Integer parameter, then the

parameter can be set within the Button's properties. If you set this parameter to match

the slot index number of the profile list beside it (indices start from zero), you can use

just one Save: Manage profiles Action to handle the deletion of any profile.

A basic Profiles menu is included in the Demo_MenuManager asset file, and can be

used to create, delete and switch profiles. To make use of it, enable profiles within the

Settings Manager, and then un-hide the ProfilesButton element within the Pause menu.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 132

10.0 - SPEECH MANAGEMENT

10.1 - AUDIO FILES

Audio files for speech are dynamically loaded at runtime, meaning you do not have to

create a link between each Dialogue: Play speech Action and its associated AudioClip.

Such clips are loaded by giving each line of speech an ID number – a unique integer

assigned by the Speech Manager.

You can access the Speech Manager from the final tab in the main Adventure Creator

window (Window → Adventure Creator → Game editor). Clicking Gather text will

cause the manager to search all scenes added to the Build Settings (File → Build

Settings) and give an ID to every Dialogue: Play Speech Action (among other things).

It will also do the same to lines contained in any ActionList assets referenced by your

game.

You will first be prompted to save the open scene. This is a non-destructive process:

IDs will only be added to those Actions without one. When it has finished, the speech

lines found in the game will be listed underneath, along with the name of the speaker

and ID number. Note that speech lines that are blank, or without a speaker, will not be

listed. By default, lines spoken by the Player are denoted as “Player” - if you only rely

on one Player prefab, the Speech Manager will give you an option to rely on the

prefab's actual name instead (though you will need to gather the lines again to update

them).

The filename syntax is “Character name” + “ID number”, while the audio format and

extension can be any that Unity recognises. For example, Brain's line, “Hey, little

robot!” has an ID number of 21, meaning the associated audio file is named

Brain21.mp3. Player lines are always named as Player, rather than the Player prefab's

name.

Alternatively, you can choose to manually assign audio files to a speech line by un-

checking Auto-name speech audio files? in the Speech Manager. You can then

assign files via the field that appears when clicking on a line's entry below. Note that if

your game makes use of lip-syncing files, then these too will have to be manually

assigned. Be aware: Unity loads manually-assigned files when the game begins,

so this should be avoided if lots of files are being read on a slow system, e.g. a

mobile device.

Audio files can now be made for the game. By default, audio files are found

automatically according to their name – the expected folder and filename can be found

by clicking on a speech line's entry within the Speech Manager. You can generate a file

to give to voice actors, or to use as a reference sheet for which filename each line

needs, by exporting a script sheet (see section 10.3).

If a speech line has no associated Character, it is considered a narration line, and the

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 133

audio file is named Narration. In order to play narration audio, your scene must either

contain a Player prefab with an AudioSource component, or have a Default Sound

prefab assigned in the Scene Manager.

Audio files for speech are placed in a Speech subfolder inside your Resources

directory. Viewing a speech lines properties will display its expected filename and

folder – if Place audio files in speaker subfolders? is checked, then audio files will

need to be placed in subfolders with the name of the speaking character. For example,

Brain21's audio file would be placed in Resources/Brain/.

If your game's character engine is set to Legacy (see section 3.1), you can use the

Dialogue: Play Speech Action to set a specific animation to play per line. However,

Adventure Creator also features a number of ways to animate your Character's lips

when talking, and these are covered in sections 10.5 and 10.6).

Adventure Creator also supports “audio ducking” - while speech audio plays, all other

audio can be made to quieten slightly so that the speech can be better heard. The

amount by which SFX and Music volumes are reduced are set within the Speech

Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 134

10.2 - MANAGING TRANSLATIONS

Adventure Creator comes with full translation support for your game's text, specifically:

•Speech lines

•Hotspots and Dialogue Option labels

•NPC names (if set to something other than their GameObject's name)

•Journal pages

•Menu text

•Inventory Item names

•Pop-up and String Variables.

•Cursor names and prefixes

A game's active language is stored in its Options Data (see Section 9.4) and is

controlled by the player in the Options menu.

Before you can translate text, you must first gather it in the Speech Manager (using the

same Gather Text button as discussed in Section 10.1). Once text is gathered, clicking

on it within the Speech Manager will reveal a number of properties, including any

translations if they exist. Lines of text can be filtered by scene, type, and more –

including any custom description you choose to give a line of text when viewing its

properties.

Within the Speech Manager, you can add and remove supported translations

underneath the Languages panel. While translations for each line of text can be edited

within the Speech Manager, it is recommended to edit them in an external spreadsheet.

Translations can be exported as CSV files to be edited externally. You can export

individual translations by clicking the cog icon to the right of a translation's name, and

export all at once by clicking Export text..., once the text you wish to translate is listed

in the Speech Manager. This will open the Text export wizard, which you can use to

select what text is exported, and in what order.

You can use a spreadsheet application, such as Excel or OpenOffice, to edit the CSV

file and click Import translation within the Speech Manager to update the translation.

Note that the CSV delimiter is a pipe ( | ) character. As an example, the demo game

comes with a French translation.

You can then modify and re-import the CSV files back into the Speech Manager via the

Import text... button. After selecting the CSV file, you will then be presented with the

Text import wizard, in which you can choose which columns get imported as what

translation. Bear in mind that the line order does not matter: the Speech Manager will

identify text by the ID number in the first column – not by the row in which they appear.

HTML script sheets, useful for actors, can be created via the Create script sheet...

button. This will open up a new window, providing options regarding what exactly you

want to generate.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 135

You can also tell Adventure Creator to only rely on translated text, and ignore the

original text that was entered in Unity inspectors. This is useful if you would like to

update your game's main language in a CSV file as well – you can simply create a new

translation that serves as the game's main language (even if it's in the same language

as the original game text), and use that as the default translation.

You can also play alternative speech audio files when different languages are selected.

By checking the “Audio translations?” box in the Settings Manager, the engine will look

for different audio files inside a subfolder of the translation's name. To use the previous

section's example, a French translation of Brain's line 21 will be placed in Resources →

Speech → French → Brain21.mp3.

Each language has a Language reads right-to-left option. If checked, then Hotspot and

inventory labels (e.g. “Use sword on barrel”) will be reversed (e.g. “barrel on sword

Use”) as will Input menu elements.

Translations can be edited or imported at runtime by accessing the

RuntimeLanguages script during gameplay (see section 12.7).

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 136

10.3 - SCRIPT SHEETS

Once your game's speech text has been collected in the Speech Manager (see section

10.1), it can be exported as an HTML script sheet to hand out to voice actors. Within

the Speech Manager, click Create script sheet... to bring up the Script Sheet window.

By default, all speech lines listed in the Speech Manager will be exported as an HTML

file. However, the Script Sheet window gives you the option of limiting these lines by

character name, or by Speech Tag. If your game supports multiple languages, you can

also select which language to export lines in.

Speech Tags are labels that you can assign Dialogue: Play speech Actions, and are

useful if you want voice actors to just get a script with lines related to a particular

cutscene or interactive sequence. They are created within the Speech Manager by

clicking Edit speech tags. You can add and remove tags in the window that then pops

up.

Once tags are enabled and defined, any ActionList (both scene- and asset-based) that

contains a Dialogue: Play speech Action can be assigned to one within its list of

properties. When the speech lines within are next gathered into the Speech Manager,

they will be listed with this tag.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 137

10.4 - SPEECH TOKENS

Speech tokens are snippets of text that, when inserted into a Character's line of

dialogue, have a dynamic effect. The following tokens are recognised:

[continue]

If the dialogue this is placed in is not running in the background, then from this

point onward it will be. This is useful if, for example, you want to cut the camera

on a particular word, mid-sentence.

[hold]

Like [continue] above, the ActionList will carry on when this token is displayed on

screen. However, the speech itself will remain on the screen indefinitely, until the

Dialogue: Stop speech Action is used to end it. This is useful, for example, if

you want a character's last-spoken line to remain on the screen when the player

is presented with a dialogue option.

[expression:Name]

Changes the character's expression, if Use expressions? is checked within their

Inspector, to the one named “Name”. More on expressions can be found in

section 10.7.

[var:ID]

Replaces the token with the value of a Global Variable, where “ID” is the ID

number of the referenced Variable. The replacement token of any Variable is

listed in its properties in the Variables Manager.

[localvar:ID]

Replaces the token with the value of a Local Variable, where “ID” is the ID

number of the referenced Variable. The replacement token of any Variable is

listed in its properties in the Variables Manager.

[wait]

Removes the token, and only displays the speech text up to the point at which it

was placed. The Character will not continue speaking until the player clicks/taps.

Note that Subtitles can be skipped? must be enabled in the Speech Manager.

[wait:X]

Removes the token, and only displays the speech text up to the point at which it

was placed. The Character will wait X seconds before continuing to speak. The

value of X can be either an integer or a decimal.

[token:ID]

Replaces the token with a string assigned by calling the SetCustomToken

function inside RuntimeVariables, where “ID” is the ID number of the custom

token. A tutorial on using this token can be found here.

The “token”, “var” and “localvar” tokens can also be used in Menus and Conversations.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 138

10.5 - FACEFX INTEGRATION

FaceFX is a popular application used to create facial animation from speech audio, and

can be used on Characters inside Adventure Creator. To begin using FaceFX's XML

files, you must first download and import the official FaceFX Unity plugin from

http://unitydemos.facefx.com.s3.amazonaws.com/FaceFXBonesMorph.unitypackage.

Next, go to the Speech Manager and set Lip syncing to Face FX. You will be

prompted to add the FaceFXIsPresent scripting define symbol to your game's Player

Settings. You can find this field from Edit → Project Settings → Player.

Adventure Creator will now auto-detect any FaceFX scripts attached to your Characters

when they speak. These scripts must be, or must derive from,

FaceFXControllerScript_Base, but can be attached either to the root Character

gameobject, or on a child gameobject. If both a script and speech audio clip (see

section 10.1) is detected, Adventure Creator will attempt to play an XML file of the same

name as the clip, but with “Default_” inserted before it.

For example, if the audio file is named “Player2”, then the assumed XML name is

“Default_Player2”.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 139

10.6 - LIP SYNCING

Animating your Characters convincingly makes a big difference to a game's quality, and

there are a number of methods available. For Legacy-based Characters, you can opt to

play a custom facial animation for each line of dialogue. This animation is set explicitly

within each Dialogue: Play speech Action.

However, it's often unfeasible to keyframe an animation for every line of dialogue, and

this option is only available to 3D characters. So, Adventure Creator provides several

ways to animate Characters' lips automatically – a process known as lip-syncing.

Aside from the FaceFX integration mentioned in section 10.5, Adventure Creator has

support for a number of free alternatives, that can be used to animate 2D sprites, 3D

models, as well as portrait graphics.

Bringing lip-syncing to your game is a two-step process. First, the dialogue to be

spoken must be broken down into a list of phonemes, or lip-shapes. Second, the

phonemes are mapped onto the speaking Character in some way – whether it be onto

the Character's gameobject, or their portrait graphic. All of these settings are handled in

the Speech Manager.

Within the Speech Manager, the Lip syncing setting determines how the phonemes for

each line of dialogue are found. Setting this to FaceFX requires no more steps other

than those described in the previous section. The other available options are:

From Speech Text

This option will generate phonemes automatically based on the speech text. This

option is best used when there is no accompanying audio – it won't always be a

totally accurate approximation, but it will give the Character's animation some

noticeable variety.

Read Pamela File

This option will make use of the phonemes generated by a Pamela file. Pamela

is a free Windows application that can generate phonemes, and is a good choice

for fine-tuning a lip-syncing animation. It can be downloaded from

http://users.monash.edu.au/~myless/catnap/pamela3/.

Read Sapi File

This option will make use of the phonemes generated by a SAPI file. SAPI is

another free Windows application, and is a good choice for quickly and

automatically creating phonemes in bulk. Adventure Creator's Physics demo

makes use of this option. SAPI can be downloaded from

http://www.annosoft.com/sapi_lipsync/docs/index.html.

Read Papagayo File

This option will make use of the phonemes generated by Papagoyo, a free,

cross-platform lip-sync tool that's easy to use. It can be downloaded from

http://www.lostmarble.com/papagayo/.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 140

Salsa 2D

This option will make use of the 2D lip-syncing features of SALSA With

RandomEyes, which is a separate Unity asset available to purchase from

http://crazyminnowstudio.com/projects/salsa-with-randomeyes-lipsync. While the

Salsa 3D script component can be used on 3D characters independently of

Adventure Creator, Salsa 2D cannot – because 2D characters can face multiple

directions, and therefore need different sets of “talking” frames. To get around

this problem, simply choose this option, and add the Salsa 2D to your character's

base object (which should also have an AudioSource), and ignore its sprite fields.

Adventure Creator will instead make use of the sprite animations you provided in

the NPC / Player components, and use Salsa 2D to perform the lip-syncing

processing. You will also need to add the SalsaIsPresent Scripting Define

Symbol – see section 12.1.

Rogo Lip Sync

This option will make use of Rogo Digital's Lip Sync, which is a separate Unity

asset available to purchase from

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/32117. LipSyncData files are

generated as normal, and must then be named/placed according to the

description below. The lip-sync animation will then be played automatically

provided the speech line has an ID, and the speaking character has a LipSync

script component attached to the root GameObject.

Pamela, SAPI, Rogo Digitial LipSync, and Papagayo files are automatically detected by

Adventure Creator in the same way that audio speech files are (see section 10.1). They

must be placed in a Resources/Lipsync folder, and be of the same filename as they're

relevant audio file, only with a .txt extension (or .asset for Rogo Digital LipSync). For

example, if an audio file is “Resources/Speech/Player2.mp3”, its accompanying

phoneme file would be “Resources/Lipsync/Player2.txt”. Lipsync files can also work

with translations.

For each of the options listed above, you will also need to map each phoneme to an

animation frame. Click on the Phonemes Editor to bring up the mapping UI. Multiple

phonemes can be mapped to the same frame by separating them with a slash “/”. The

Revert to defaults button will map appropriate phonemes to your chosen Lip-sync

method, but it will likely require further tweaking.

Once your phonemes are being generated and mapped to frames, you can now use

them to animate your Characters. The Perform lipsync on setting chooses how:

Portrait will animate a Character's portrait graphic (assuming it's an animated texture),

Portrait And Game Object will also animate the Character's GameObject, and Game

Object Texture will animate a texture on a Character's Skinned Mesh Renderer. The

method by Portrait And Game Object affects the Character is based on your

Character's chosen animation engine:

For Sprites Unity-based Characters, each lip-sync frame will correspond to a frame in

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 141

the Character's talking animation. This animation is assumed to be of the same number

of frames as have been declared in the Phonemes Editor.

For Sprites Unity Complex-based Characters, the current lip-sync frame can be output

to the Mecanim controller by declaring a Phoneme integer parameter in the

Character's Inspector.

For Legacy and Mecanim-based Characters, lip-syncing works by manipulating blend

shapes. Each lip-sync frame will be mapped to a particular blend shape, as declared by

the Shapeable script. All blend shapes used to animate the mouth must be placed in

the same group (see section 8.1 for more on shape groups), and the group to affect is

then declared in the Character's inspector. The Physics demo makes use of blend

shapes to animate Brain in the opening cutscene.

To use Game Object Texture mode, a LipSyncTexture script component must be

attached to the Character's root gameobject. Once attached, it will provide texture

replacement fields that correspond to each phoneme frame.

Before lip-syncing features were introduced, Adventure Creator also featured a method

of moving a 3D character's mouth automatically, based on the volume of their speech

audio. This is used by the demo game to animate the robot's jaw without a need for

line-specific animation clips.

To make use of this feature, simply add the AutoLipSync script to a character, and

modify the public variables in the inspector as needed. A “jaw bone” Transform will

need to be assigned, as will the axis to rotate the bone on.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 142

10.7 - FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

If a character uses Mecanim or Sprites Unity Complex animation (see section 3.7 and

3.9 respectively), or relies on portrait graphics when speaking (see section 3.1), then

their expression can be changed mid-speech by using the [expression:Name] token

within the speech text itself (other tokens are available as well - see section 10.4). The

"Name" part of this token refers to the label given to an expression defined in the Player

or NPC Inspector, underneath Dialogue settings, once Use expressions? is checked.

Here, multiple expressions can be created and managed - each with their own portrait

graphic, and ID number.

The ID number is fixed, and displayed just above the expression's "Name" field. If your

character uses Mecanim animation, then your chosen Expression ID integer

parameter (as set under the Mecanim parameters panel) will be set to this value when

the expression is triggered.

A tutorial on working with character expressions can be found here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 143

11.0 - MENUS

11.1 - OVERVIEW

Each element of the game's user interface – from the Pause and Options menus to the

Hotspot label and dialogue option list – are created using Menus.

Adventure Creator's menu system is designed to be powerful yet simple to use. All

Menus are defined within the Menu Manager. From here, you can define your game's

Menus, and edit both their appearance and functionality.

Menus can either be designed with Adventure Creator's built in Menu system, or by

referencing one made with Unity UI (see section 11.3).

The demo game's Menu Manager asset provides a fully-functioning menu system for an

adventure game. Rather than create a new menu system from scratch, you may prefer

to duplicate this asset and then edit it to your liking. Note that Menu Manager assets

group up all Menu and Menu Element assets together - you will have to select all the

assets (or just the root asset) before duplicating to properly copy it.

The following is a run-down of the default menu system:

Pause – Displays buttons to access the Options, Save and Load menus, as well

as to resume gameplay or quit the game. Appears either when player presses

the "Menu" axis (as defined in the Input Settings), or clicks the "Menu" button on

the InGame menu.

Options – Allows the changing of various in-game options, such as audio levels

and language. Accessed only via the Pause Menu.

Save – Lists available saved games to overwrite, with an option to save a new

file if the limit has not been reached. Accessed only via the Pause Menu.

Load – Lists available saved games to load. Accessed only via the Pause

Menu.

Inventory – Displays any Inventory items held by the player. Accessed by

hovering the mouse over the top of the screen during normal gameplay, once the

player is carrying something.

InGame – Displays a single button to access the Pause Menu. Always visible

during normal gameplay.

Conversation – Lists the available Dialogue Options in the active Conversation.

Only visible when a Conversation is active.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 144

Hotspot – Displays a text label showing the name of any Hotspot or Inventory

item underneath the cursor. Only visible during normal gameplay.

Subtitles – Displays the name and dialogue of the currently speaking Character.

Only visible if Subtitles are set to On from within the Options Menu.

Interaction – Displays a list of available Interaction choices for a selected

Hotspot. Not used by the demo game - only visible when the game's Interaction

method is set to Choose Hotspot Then Interaction (see section 5.1).

Container – Displays the contents of the active Container, and also the Player's

inventory. Clicking on item in one list will transfer it to the other.

When editing a menu, you can choose to have it display in your Game window when

your game is not running, to get a live preview of how it will look. Just click the Test in

Game Window? checkbox at the top of the Menu Manager.

Upon selecting a Menu to edit, its properties box will appear beneath the list of defined

Menus. From here you can give it a title (for reference purposes only), assign a

background texture, choose its orientation, position, size, and more. The main property

to define is its Appear type. Menus can be made to appear and disappear

automatically, based on their Appear type. The Appear type can be set to one of the

following:

Manual – Deactivates the Menu by default. Can only be shown and hidden

using the Menu: Change State Action or through scripting. Pause this menu if

you wish to access it via a keyboard or controller.

Mouse Over – Activates the Menu only when the player's cursor hovers over its

defined area.

During Conversation – Activates the Menu only when a list of dialogue options,

by way of a Conversation prefab, is made available. Pause this menu if you wish

to access it via a keyboard or controller.

During Cutscene – Activates the Menu whenever gameplay is blocked, but not

paused. This can be used to add e.g. black borders on the screen during a

cutscene. The Clickable in cutscenes? option must be set for a Menu to be

interactive at this time.

On Container – Activates the Menu when a Container has been opened using

the Container: Open Action.

On Input Key – Identical to Manual, only a Toggle key can also be used to

activate and deactivate the Menu. The key's name must match that of an axis in

the Input settings.

On Interaction – Activates the Menu once the player clicks to select a Hotspot.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 145

Will deactivate again when the cursor leaves its defined area (as set in the

Settings Manager). Only for use with the Interaction method Choose Hotspot

Then Interaction (see section 5.1). Pause this menu if you wish to access it via a

keyboard or controller.

On Hotspot – Activates the Menu whenever the cursor is hovering over a

Hotspot or Inventory item during normal gameplay. If the chosen Interaction

method allows for it, an additional option allows each Hotspot to have its own

instance of this Menu – allowing for the crossfading of Hotspot labels rather than

one fading out before the next appears.

When Speech Plays – Activates the Menu when a speech line is active, but only

if Subtitles are set to On. By default, the menu will only be used for the most

recently-activated line – if a line is still playing in the background, for example,

then the text will be removed. However, by checking Duplicate for multiple

lines?, each speech line will be displayed in its own copy of the menu. This is

useful for games in which dialogue lines overlap, and subtitle text is displayed

above those speaking. Can additionally be filtered to only display for Character

(either all characters or specific ones), Narration lines (those without an

associated Character), and/or lines that play normally or in the background.

During Gameplay – Activates the Menu only during normal gameplay.

While Inventory Selected – Activates whenever any inventory item (see section

6.1) has been selected, ready to be used on another item or Hotspot

Menus can be locked, and won't be shown until unlocked, by checking the Start game

locked off? checkbox. They can also be locked via the Menu: Change state Action in-

game.

Some Menus can be set to pause the game when activated. The Menu Manager allows

for a Pause background texture to be defined, which will cover the screen when this

happens. The “GUI depth” (a Unity property) of Adventure Creator's menus can also be

set, in case of conflict with other GUI scripts and assets.

In the case that a Menu is purely for the display of information (for example, a score

bar), it can be made non-interactive by checking Ignore Cursor clicks? within its

properties box.

Menus can also be made to run an ActionList asset when they turn on or off (see

section 5.8). The Demo game's Pause menu makes use of this by triggering an Action

that deselects the active Inventory, ensuring the main cursor is always active when the

Pause menu is active.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 146

11.2 - MENU ELEMENTS

A Menu is nothing until Elements are added to it. Menu Elements make up a Menu's

functionality, in the form of Labels, Buttons, Icons and more. When a Menu is selected,

its Elements are listed underneath the properties box. From here you can create,

remove and edit Elements, as well as re-arrange their order.

Appearance settings such as font, colour and size are defined on a per-Element basis,

allowing for deep customisation of Menu appearances. All elements can separately

made visible and invisible, both by default or changes during gameplay via the Menu:

Change State Action. If an Element's Position popup is set to Aligned, it will arrange

itself automatically in line with other Elements.

Before you make a new Element, you must first choose its type, via the Element type

pop-up box. Elements vary in appearance and functionality depending on their type.

Some types, such as Labels, are non-interactive while others, such as Buttons, can be

clicked on. When an Element is selected, its properties box is displayed.

The following list of Element types are available:

Button – A simple button that can be clicked on. The Click type defines what

happens when clicked on. Among the available options are Run Action List and

Custom Script, both of which are described in the following section. Buttons

can also be used to scroll through a list of inventory items, turn pages in a

journal, and simulate input keys. If an ActionList that has an Integer parameter is

assigned to run when clicked (see section 5.13), then the value of this parameter

can be set within the Button's properties.

Crafting – Provides a grid for placing down crafting ingredients, and a space for

the resulting output Item. Change the Crafting element type to choose between

these two functions.

Cycle – A label that cycles through elements of a string array when clicked on.

The Cycle type defines its link to other data, and can be used to affect integer

Variables. An ActionList can be assigned to run when clicked. When integrated

with Unity UI (see section 11.3), a Cycle can be linked to either a Button or a

Dropdown.

DialogList – Displays Dialogue options of the active Conversation. Can either

be a list of all available options, or be forced to always display the "n'th" option.

Its click functionality is handled automatically. If the active Conversation has

more active options than the DialogList is set to display, the visible options can

be shifted by using a Button Element with a Click Type of Offset Element Slot.

Drag – Allows either the entire Menu or a single Element to be dragged within a

pre-defined boundary. This also works on Elements that are larger than the

Menu they're contained in, making it useful for displaying documents that are

larger than the screen.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 147

Graphic – Allows a texture to be drawn. Unlike the Label element, which can

also display a texture, the one in a Graphic can also be animated – if the texture

is made up of frames of equal size.

Input – A label that can be edited via keyboard when the element is active. Can

be used for password-input puzzles. Optionally, a Button on the same Menu can

be “triggered” when the Enter key is pressed. The text value can be set to a

String variable by using the Variable: Set Action.

Interaction – Displays a single Icon as defined in the Cursor Manager. Its click

functionality is handled automatically, based on the game's Interaction method

(see section 5.1).

InventoryBox – Displays a list of inventory items carried by the player – either

with icons or with names. If its Inventory box type is set to Hotspot Based, this

list will be further limited to items catered for by the active Hotspot. If instead it's

set to Default, the number of slots shown can be limited. If this is the case, and

more items are carried than displayed, a Button Element with a Click Type of

Offset Element Slot can be used to shift the displayed items. If it's set to

Display Selected, it will show the icon of the currently selected item – note that

this is for visual purposes only. However, if set to Display Last Selected, it will

provide the last-selected item as a clickable icon, providing an easy way for the

player to re-select their last-used item.

Journal – Displays text from a number of pages. Pages can be flipped through

by using a Button Element with a Click Type of Offset Journal. New pages can

be added during gameplay, or existing ones removed, via the Menu: Change

state Action. The active page can be set manually using the Menu: Set Journal

page Action. Variable and custom tokens described in section 10.4 can also be

used in the label's text. If you want to display two pages at once, you can create

two Journals side-by-side, and have the second reference the first by changing

its Type to Display Existing Journal. NOTE: In order for any in-game changes

made to a journal to be recorded in save game files, all of the journal's pages

must be listed in the Speech Manager's Game Text list. This can be done by

clicking Gather text in the Speech Manager (see Section 10.1).

Label – Displays a text box that cannot be clicked on. If the Label type is not set

to Normal, the text label will be replaced in-game automatically. For example,

setting it to Hotspot will cause the label to change to the currently-active

Hotspot, and setting it to Variable will cause the label to show the value of pre-

defined Variables. Variable and custom tokens described in section 10.4 can

also be used in the label's text.

ProfilesList – If save game profiles are enabled (see section 9.8), this element

will display any profiles that the user has created. Clicking on a profile will make

it the active one, and any lists of save games will be updated to reflect the new

profile. The currently-active profile can be optionally left out. By default, the

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 148

shown profile will be automatically switched to when clicked on, but this can be

prevented to allow for different click-handling – such as deleting or renaming

profiles using the Save: Manage profiles Action.

SavesList – Displays either a list of saved games found in the file system, or a

specific save slot number. The Click action is used to determine if clicking loads

them, overwrites them, or imports them from another project (see section 9.7). If

set to Save, an option to save a new game can be made to show if the number of

save files does not exceed the maximum set. Optionally, an ActionList asset can

also be run once the game is saved. If the Settings Manager has been set to

take screenshots when saving, you can also change the Display type to show

screenshots – with or without an accompanying label. By default, the

saving/loading will be handled automatically when clicked on, but this can be

prevented to allow for different click-handling – such as deleting or renaming

save files using the Save: Manage saves Action.

Slider - Draws a horizontal bar whose width represents a value between a lower

and upper value (by default, this is 0 and 1). The Slider affects field can be

used to link it with one of the three sound types in the game, link to a float Global

Variable, or allow its value to be defined via a custom script. A Slider can

optionally be made to ignore mouse clicks.

Timer - Draws a horizontal bar used to represent the time remaining in a timed

Conversation or Quick Time Event, the progress made in a Quick Time Event, or

the progress made while loading a new scene (if Load scene asynchronously?

Is checked within the Settings Manager – see section 9.6).

Toggle - Similar to a Cycle, only the available values are either On or Off. The

Toggle type field can be used to link it with the visibility state of subtitles, affect

boolean Variables, or allow its value to be defined via a custom script. An

ActionList can be assigned to run when clicked.

Elements that can be clicked on can also be assigned two sound clips: one for when the

Element is made active (i.e., when the mouse hovers over it), and another for when the

Element is clicked on. Before such sound clips will play, however, a Default Sound

prefab must be defined in your scene, as it is through this prefab that menu sounds will

play. To create a prefab, click Sound from the list of objects in the Scene Manager,

and then drag it into the Default Sound prefab box underneath Scene Settings.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 149

11.3 - UNITY UI INTEGRATION

Unity 4.6 brings a new UI system, and Adventure Creator can link them with Menus -

allowing for things like button clicks and label text to be controlled by Adventure Creator

automatically. The Menu: Change state and Menu: Check state Actions can also be

used with them. Adventure Creator will only control exactly what it's told to: if a UI

component is not "linked" to Adventure Creator, then the user has full control over it.

To see Adventure Creator's Unity UI integration quickly, you can use the New Game

Wizard to create a UI-linked Menu Manager by choosing Default Unity UI as your

starting GUI type. The New Game Wizard can be accessed by choosing Adventure

Creator → Gettings started → New Game Wizard from the top toolbar.

To integrate an existing UI into Adventure Creator, create a Menu in the Menu Manager,

and change its Source to either Unity Ui Prefab or Unity Ui in Scene. All visual

controls will then disappear from the properties list. In its place, Linked Canvas and

RectTransform boundary fields will appear. The Linked Canvas should be the root

object of the UI, and the RectTransform boundary should reference the "bounding box" -

this can be invisible, but is necessary for Adventure Creator to determine whether of not

the mouse is currently "over" a UI.

If the source is set to Unity Ui in Scene, Adventure Creator will only be able to

manipulate the UI if it's present in the scene when the scene loads. This is useful for

UIs rendered in World Space.

If the source is set to Unity Ui Prefab, then the Linked Canvas field must reference the

prefab instead.

For Unity UI objects to function properly, an Event system must be present in the scene.

At the top of the Menu Manager, you can supply an Event system prefab that will be

automatically added to the scene at runtime. If none is supplied, and no such system is

present in the scene, Adventure Creator will create one.

The Event system can be used to handle keyboard and touch input easily. If you enter

an Element's name into the Menu's First selected Element property, then that Element

will be selected automatically when the Menu is turned on – ideal for Menus that are

keyboard-controlled. Alternatively, you can check Auto-select first visible Element?,

which is useful if the element you want to select is unknown – e.g. in the case of

Interaction menus.

Another thing to be aware of when working with keyboard-controlled Menus is that AC

will normally only allow keyboard-control over Menus when the game is paused. To

allow for keyboard-control during gameplay, you can use the Engine: Manage systems

Action to enable control when the Menu is turned on.

By default, Button and Interaction elements linked to Unity UI will respond to Unity's

“PointerClick” event (i.e. a full click-and-release). However, this can be set to

“PointerDown” (i.e. no release needed) within the element's properties box.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 150

UI-linked Menus have different Transition type and Position type options to regular

Menus. A simple "fade" transition can be easily implemented by setting Transition type

to Canvas Group Fade - just place a Canvas Group component on your Canvas object.

For more complex animation, select Custom Animation. You must then place an

Animator component on your Canvas object, with four states: On, Off, OnInstant and

OffInstant, which will be called automatically when the UI is turned on, both instantly

and over time. An example controller can be found in your Assets folder, under

AdventureCreator -> UI -> AnimatedMenu_Example.

Each UI component you wish to manipulate must be linked to an appropriate Menu

Element. Each Element will present a field for its expected component - for example, a

Label element will expect a UI Text component. When one is assigned, a Constant ID

number will be generated for it and displayed underneath. It is this ID number that links

the two together.

Elements that make use of multiple slots (for example, InventoryBox elements) will

require one UI component per slot. When the number of available slots exceeds the

number of used slots (for example, when the player carries fewer inventory items that

the InventoryBox element can display), you can choose to either disable the slot

GameObject, or clear its contents. The latter is necessary if you wish to allow item re-

ordering in your Inventory menu, since unused slots must still be active in the scene for

them to receive items.

When viewing a prefab in the Project window, Unity won't let you select sub-children -

making it impossible to find the UI component needed to link to an element. If this is the

case, simply drag the UI into a scene, and assign the UI component from there.

Adventure Creator will record the Constant ID number - this is what's important, so click

"Apply" at the top of the UI's Inspector to save the new Constant ID number back into

the prefab, and remove it from the scene.

Unity's EventSystem allows for UI Canvases to be controlled via both the mouse and

keyboard, as well as any controllers plugged in. If your game's Input method is set to

Keyboard Or Controller, then – unless you've specified your own EventSystem prefab

– AC will disable mouse movement whenever a UI is keyboard-controlled. This

behaviour is on by default, but can be disabled by unchecking Disable mouse when

keyboard-controlling Unity UI Menus?.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 151

11.4 - MENU SCRIPTING

Aside from simple commands such as turning Menus off or displaying labels, Adventure

Creator's Menus require extra steps to give them functionality. One of the available

options for a Button's Click type is to Run Action List - specifically an ActionList asset

(see section 5.8). Additionally, ActionLists can also be run when a Menu is turned on or

off.

The Demo game's Menu Manager relies on an ActionList asset when the player clicks

the Quit Button in the Pause Menu - the ActionList runs the Engine: End game Action

to exit the game.

Menu functionality can be customised much more heavily through scripting. Whenever

a Menu is activated, a function called OnMenuEnable is called within the MenuSystem

script (found within Assets -> Adventure Creator -> Scripts -> Menu). The activated

Menu is sent to the function as a parameter, so that specific commands can be issued

to it.

Most clickable Elements, such as Buttons, can also call the MenuSystem script when

clicked on by the player. Changing a clickable Element's "type" (for example, a Button's

Click type) to Custom Script will cause the OnElementClick function to be run, with click

data sent as parameters.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 152

11.5 - SCENE-BASED MENUS

The MenuLink script links Menus to scene objects, making it possible for your game to

have 3D menus. To make a scene-based Menu, the Menu must first be created as

normal within the Menu Manager. Since it won't be directly seen by the player, its

appearance is not important. Make sure its Appear type is set to Manual, and that

Enabled on start is left unchecked.

A scene-based Menu relies on a separate GameObject for each Menu Element. If an

Element has more than one “slot” (for example, a SaveList), each slot must also be a

separate GameObject. Attach the MenuLink script to each GameObject, and then use

the Inspector to enter the name of its associated Menu and Element. If a GUIText

component is also attached to the object, its Text field will be set to the linked Element's

label. Otherwise, you can access the Element's label from the MenuLink script's

GetLabel function.

When the MenuLink script's Interact function is called, either through custom scripting

or by using the Object: Send message Action, the game will react as though the

Element itself was clicked on. If the Element is a Button, you can use an ActionList

asset (see section 5.8) to manipulate objects in your scene, for example moving the

Camera to focus on another Element.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 153

CHAPTER III: EXTENDING FUNCTIONALITY

12.0 - INTEGRATING NEW CODE

12.1 - SUPPORTED THIRD-PARTY ASSETS

Adventure Creator can be integrated with a number of other Unity assets out-of-the-box.

To allow Adventure Creator to “talk to” third-party assets, you may need to add a

particular Scripting Define Symbol to your Player settings – this is just a piece of text

that tells Adventure Creator that it can safely run certain lines of code without causing

errors.

To add a Scripting Define Symbol, simply choose Edit → Project settings → Player from

the top toolbar, and add the symbol in the text box underneath Scripting Define

Symbols. Multiple symbols can be placed in this box – just separate them with a

semicolon (;).

Below is a list of third-party Unity assets that can be integrated with Adventure Creator,

together with their respective symbols. For unofficial integrations between AC and other

assets, see the Integrations section of the AC wiki.

2D Toolkit

Description:

2D Toolkit is an alternative sprite animation system to Unity's built-in 2D system, and

can be used to animate Characters. To animate a Character with 2D Toolkit, see

section 3.8.

Web address: www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit

Scripting define symbol: tk2DIsPresent

Cinema Director

Description:

Cinema Director is a timeline-based cutscene tool that can be used to make complex

cinematics. The Third party: Cinema Director Action can be used to trigger Cinema

Director cutscenes within Adventure Creator ActionLists.

Web address: www.cinema-suite.com

Scripting define symbol: CinemaDirectorIsPresent

FaceFX

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 154

Description:

Face FX is an industry standard application that produces automatic facial animation

based on audio. To add FaceFX lipsyncing to your Characters, see section 10.5.

Web address:

http://unitydemos.facefx.com.s3.amazonaws.com/FaceFXBonesMorph.unitypacka

Scripting define symbol: FaceFXIsPresent

OUYA

Description:

The OUYA is an Android-based console that Unity games can easily be published to.

To link Adventure Creator's input settings to the OUYA's, see section 2.10.

Web address: www.ouya.tv

Scripting define symbol: OUYAIsPresent

PlayMaker

Description:

PlayMaker is a popular visual scripting system for Unity. Adventure Creator can call

PlayMaker Events with the Third Party: PlayMaker Action. Global Variables can also

be linked to PlayMaker's Variables – see section 7.3 for more.

Web address: www.hutonggames.com

Scripting define symbol: PlayMakerIsPresent

Rogo Digital LipSync

Description:

Rogo Digital LipSync 3D lip-syncing Unity asset. Adventure Creator can be used to

play lipsync animations generated by this asset when characters speak, as described in

section 10.6.

Web address: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/32117

Scripting define symbol: RogoLipSyncIsPresent

SALSA With RandomEyes

Description:

SALSA With RandomEyes is a 2D and 3D lip-syncing Unity asset. While 3D characters

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 155

made in Adventure Creator can make use of Salsa's 3D component without conflict, 2D

characters require special set up – as described in section 10.6.

Web address: crazyminnowstudio.com/projects/salsa-with-randomeyes-lipsync/

Scripting define symbol: SalsaIsPresent

Ultimate FPS

Description:

Ultimate FPS is a popular first-person control system for Unity. Characters made with

Ultimate FPS can be used as Adventure Creator players – see section 2.7.

Web address: www.visionpunk.com

Scripting define symbol: UltimateFPSIsPresent

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 156

12.2 - CUSTOM SCRIPTS

A script reference for all of Adventure Creator's public variables and functions can be

found at adventutrecreator.org/scripting-guide. The reference page for any AC

component can also be accessed by clicking on the “Help” icon in the upper-right corner

of its Inspector (in Unity 5.1 and above).

You can call a custom script – or rather, run a function within a custom script – from an

ActionList by using the Object: Send message Action. This Action can be used to

send a message to another object. If that object holds any scripts that declare a

function with the message's name, then that function will run.

A drop-down list in the Object: Send message Action allows you to choose the

message that the Action will send. As well as a number of standard messages used by

Adventure Creator, you can supply a custom message and, optionally, an integer to

pass as a parameter.

The ParticleSwitch script (found in AdventureCreator → Scripts → Object) can be used

in this manner to turn particle systems on and off. Simply attach the script to a Particle

System, and then use the Object: Send message Action to call its TurnOn and

TurnOff functions to enable and disable it respectively. Similarly, the LightSwitch script

can be used to enable and disable Light sources.

As another example, let's say we want to integrate an Achievement script into our

game. This script causes an achievement message to display on the screen – the

message displayed being determined by an integer. Our script might contain the

following function:

DisplayAchievement (int achievement_number) {}

Suppose, as part of a Cutscene, we want “achievement 3” to appear. We simply add an

Object: Send Message Action to our Cutscene, select our Message to send

parameter as Custom, enter DisplayAchievement as our Method name, tick the Pass

integer to method? checkbox, and enter the number 3 into the Integer to send field.

If you want to avoid Actions and hard-code a gameplay-blocking Cutscene, you can use

the StartCutscene function to place the game in Cutscene mode (see this tutorial).

It may also be the case that you need to check Adventure Creator's “game state”, which

determines if you're in normal gameplay, a cutscene, the game is paused, or if dialogue

options are presented. This can be done every frame by checking the variable

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler.gameState (see section 12.7). However, a more

efficient way to check for changes is to write a script that implements the IStateChange

interface, and place it on the GameEngine prefab in the scene. This interface provides

an OnStateChange function that is called whenever the gameState variable changes

value.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 157

12.3 - CUSTOM ACTIONS

For an introduction to Actions and their functions, refer to the section 5.2.

Each Action used by Adventure Creator is a self-contained script file. When Set

directory is clicked, the Actions Manager searches a custom folder for scripts with the

“.cs” file extension, and includes them in the list of available Actions. Only one folder

can be defined at a time, so all custom action files must be placed together.

Each Action is a subclass of the Action base class, and its implementation and

inspector GUI are written together. By writing a new Action subclass script and

“registering” it in the Actions Manager, it can be included for use in Cutscenes,

ActionLists and other game logic.

To be properly visible inside the Actions Manager, a new Action must have its title text

field and category enum field defined within its constructor. An override function called

ShowGUI is used to display variables inside its inspector.

An ActionLists' Actions are stored inside a list variable. When an ActionList runs, it calls

upon its first Action (via the Action's Run function), and then subsequent Actions based

on the previous Action's command – either continuing to the next Action, skipping to a

pre-determined number, or halting. The ActionList will only move onto its next Action

once the current one is no longer running, as set with the isRunning boolean.

The Action's Run function returns a float, which corresponds to the time that the

ActionList will wait before running the Action again, to see if the Action's task has been

completed. A protected float called defaultPauseTime is often called by Actions when

the time taken to complete a task cannot be calculated.

Once an Action's task has been completed, ActionList will call that Action's End

function. This is already written in the Action base class file, and does not normally

need to be overridden. The End function returns an integer that represents the Action

that the ActionList should next run, if not the one that immediately follows. This is how

ActionLists can skip certain Actions. If the returned value is -1, the ActionList will stop

and gameplay will resume. If it is -2, the ActionList will stop but assume another

ActionList has taken over game-pausing duties. If the returned value is zero, the

ActionList will attempt to run the next Action as normal.

To assist in the creation of new Actions and help with the understanding of how they

work, a template Action script – with comments – has been written, called

ActionTemplate.cs. It can be found in Assets → AdventureCreator → Scripts →

ActionList. That folder also includes ActionCheckTemplate.cs, a template file for

“check” Actions, i.e. those that result in one of two outputs depending on some intenal

query.

A step-by-step tutorial on writing Actions can be found online here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 158

12.4 - CUSTOM PATHFINDING

Adventure Creator provides three methods of pathfinding – Mesh Collider, Unity

Navigation, and Polygon Collider (see sections 2.11 to 2.13). Each method is written in

a separate script, which are all subclasses of the NavigationEngine ScriptableObject

class. Which script is used in a scene is determined by the Pathfinding method option

in the Scene Manager.

To integrate a new pathfinding script, set the Pathfinding method to Custom, and then

enter the name of your NavigationEngine subclass into the box that appears beneath.

You can refer to the Scripting Guide to see what overridable functions are in the

NavigationEngine script.

The only essential function is GetPointsArray, which takes two Vector3s as inputs and

returns a Vector3 array that describes the path. Other functions, such as SetVisibility

and SceneSettingsGUI can be used to better integrate the method into your workflow,

but are not necessary.

For the script to be useable when working with Unity's 2D view (i.e. make use of

Physics2D raycasts), the is2D boolean must be set to true. This can be done within the

OnReset function, which is called when the scene begins.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 159

12.5 - CUSTOM ANIMATION ENGINES

As explained in section 3.1, characters in Adventure Creator can be animated with

Legacy, Mecanim, Sprites, and 2D Toolkit. The animation engine used is selected at

the top of the character’s NPC or Player component Inspector. However, it is also

possible to animate characters with other animation engines: the option “Custom” can

also be chosen.

When the Animation engine pop-up is set to Custom, you then need to supply a

Script name. The referenced script must already exist, and needs to be a subclass of

the AnimEngine ScriptableObject class.

Each of the default animation engines have their own such script, found in Assets ->

AdventureCreator -> Scripts -> Animation. They work by overriding functions that are

called when a character must be animated. For example, when a character walks, the

script’s PlayWalk() function is called every frame. The script can also be used to

change the behaviour of the “Character: Animate” Action when affecting characters with

a particular animation engine.

The functions below can be overridden in a custom animation script. Its character

variable can be used to access the character’s NPC/Player script properties.

The following are called every frame, depending on what the character is doing:

PlayIdle ()

PlayWalk ()

PlayRun ()

PlayTalk ()

PlayJump ()

PlayTurnLeft ()

PlayTurnRight ()

The following can also be overridden:

CharSettingsGUI ()

Used to display any additional GUI settings the character’s Inspector may require

ActionCharAnimGUI (ActionCharAnim action)

Used to display the “Character: Animate” Action’s GUI

ActionCharAnimRun (ActionCharAnim action)

Called when the “Character: Animate” Action is run

ActionCharAnimSkip (ActionCharAnim action)

Called when the “Character: Animate” Action is skipped

A full list of the variables and functions available in NPC and Player scripts can be found

online here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 160

12.6 - CUSTOM MOTION CONTROLLERS

By default, a character's motion is handled automatically. However, you can also set

their Motion control field to Just Turning or Manual.

When set to either, Adventure Creator will leave the character’s positioning to a

separate motion controller. When set to Just Turning, Adventure Creator will rotate the

character when idle. In either case, Adventure Creator will still calculate what the

character’s position and rotation “should” be - which custom animation controllers can

make use of.

This feature is made use of by the NavMeshAgentIntegration script, which is an

example of how an Adventure Creator character can move using a NavMeshAgent

component instead.

A tutorial on writing a “bridge script” to another motion control system can be found

online here. The tutorial also lists commonly-used functions and variables in the

Player / NPC scripts that are useful when writing such a script.

A full list of the variables and functions available in NPC and Player scripts can be found

online here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 161

12.7 - COMMON FUNCTIONS AND VARIABLES

A script reference for all of Adventure Creator's public variables and functions can be

found here. A tutorial on writing an Interaction through script can be found here.

Adventure Creator has a number of public functions and variables that are useful when

writing custom code. All scripts make use of the “AC” namespace. The most important

thing to note before starting is that all managers and engine scripts can be accessed in-

game by referencing their associated static variable in the KickStarter script. For

example, the SceneChanger script can be accessed with:

AC.KickStarter.sceneChanger

An API reference to any property listed in the Managers can be displayed, and copied to

the text buffer, by right-clicking the associated Editor label.

Below is a list of the most fundamental variables:

Variables

AC.KickStarter.player

The current Player prefab

AC.KickStarter.mainCamera

The MainCamera prefab

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler.gameState

The GameState enumeration that dictates whether the game is Normal (regular

gameplay), Cutscene, DialogOptions, or Paused.

AC.KickStarter.mainCamera.attachedCamera

The camera that the MainCamera is currently attached to

AC.KickStarter.settingsManager

The Settings Manager. All Managers and GameEngine / PersistentEngine

scripts can be accessed this way. Additionally, a Manager asset file can be

temporarily assigned by setting it to this variable.

AC.KickStarter.playerInput

The PlayerInput script component. Any component attached to the GameEngine

or PersistentEngine GameObjects can be accessed this way.

AC.KickStarter.runtimeInventory.selectedItem

The currently selected inventory item.

AC.KickStarter.runtimeInventory.selectedItem.id

The ID number of the currently selected inventory item.

AC.KickStarter.runtimeInventory.hoverItem

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 162

The unselected inventory item underneath the mouse cursor

Functions

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler.StartCutscene ()

Places the game in Cutscene mode.

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler.EndCutscene ()

Takes the game out of Cutscene mode.

AC.KickStarter.playerInteraction.GetActiveHotspot ();

Returns the active Hotspot.

AC.KickStarter.playerInput.GetMousePosition ();

Returns the cursor (or last touch) position in absolute pixels.

AC.KickStarter.playerInput.SetTimeScale (float _timeScale);

Sets the speed of the game whenever menus are not pausing gameplay.

SaveSystem.SaveGame (int saveID);

Attempts to load the save game of number saveID.

bool SaveSystem.LoadGame (int saveID);

Attempts to load the save game of number saveID. Returns false if

unsuccessful.

SaveSystem.LoadAutoSave ();

Attempts to load the last-made autosave.

AC.KickStarter.mainCamera.GetFocalDistance ();

Returns the MainCamera's focal distance, as set by its current GameCamera

AC.KickStarter.playerInput.SimulateInputButton (string button);

Simulates the pressing of an AC-recognised button, such as FlashHotspots

AC.KickStarter.playerInput.SimulateInputAxis (string axis, float val);

Simulates the pressing of an AC-recognised axis, such as CursorHorizontal

AC.PlayerMenus.GetMenus ();

Returns a List of Menu classes as set by the Menu Manager

AC.PlayerMenus.GetMenuWithName (string menuName);

Returns a Menu named menuName

AC.PlayerMenus.GetElementWithName (string menuName, string menuElementName);

Returns a Menu Element named menuElementName inside a Menu named

menuName

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 163

AC.PlayerMenus.SimulateClick (string menuName, string menuElementName, int slot);

Simulates a left-click on slot slot of Menu Element menuElement in Menu

menuName.

AC.Kickstarter.playerMenus.EnableInteractionMenus (Hotspot hotspot);

Enables Interaction Menus (see “Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode”,

section 5.1) for a given Hotspot.

AC.Kickstarter.playerMenus.EnableInteractionMenus (InvItem inventoryItem);

Enables Interaction Menus (see “Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode”,

section 5.1) for a given Inventory Item.

AC.Kickstarter.playerMenus.CloseInteractionMenus ();

Disables Interaction Menus (see “Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode”,

section 5.1).

AC.KickStarter.playerMenus.RecalculateAll ();

Recalculates the size and position of all Menus. Call this after a change in

screen resolution.

AC.KickStarter.playerMenus.RebuildMenus (MenuManager menuManager)

Rebuilds all Menus according to those defined in the “menuManager” asset. This

allows you to completely change your Menus mid-game.

AC.PlayerQTE.GetRemainingTimeFactor ();

If a QTE is active, returns the time remaining as a decimal

AC.PlayerQTE.GetProgress ();

If a QTE is active, returns the progress made by the player

AC.ActionListManager.KillAll ();

Abruptly ends all currently-running ActionLists

AC.ActionListManager.EndAssetList (ActionListAsset actionListAsset);

Abruptly ends an ActionList asset file

AC.ActionListAssetManager.EndList (ActionList actionList);

Abruptly ends a scene-based ActionList

AC.AdvGame.RunActionListAsset (ActionListAsset actionListAsset);

Runs the ActionList asset file actionListAsset

AC.Options.GetLanguage ();

Returns the index number of the currently-selected language

AC.Options.SetLanguage (int i);

Sets the index number of the currently-selected language to “i”

AC.Options.GetLanguageName ();

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 164

Returns the name of the currently-selected language

AC.KickStarter.runtimeVariables.GetSpeechLog ();

Returns all game text spoken since the last time the game was loaded, in an

array of SpeechLog classes. The SpeechLog contains a string of the dialogue

text (fullText), a string of the character who spoke it (speakerName) and the ID of

the line if set by the Speech Manager (lineID).

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler.GatherObjects ();

Rebuilds the various arrays of known scene objects. This should be called after

any object is removed or added to the scene through script.

The following functions are used for retrieving and setting Variable values. “_id” refers to

the Variable's ID number, which is displayed to the left of its name in the Variables

Manager.

AC.GlobalVariables.GetVariable (int _id);

AC.GlobalVariables.GetIntegerValue (int _id);

AC.GlobalVariables.GetBooleanValue (int _id);

AC.GlobalVariables.GetStringValue (int _id);

AC.GlobalVariables.GetFloatValue (int _id);

AC.GlobalVariables.GetPopupValue (int _id);

AC.GlobalVariables.SetIntegerValue (int _id, int _value);

AC.GlobalVariables.SetBooleanValue (int _id, bool _value);

AC.GlobalVariables.SetStringValue (int _id, string _value);

AC.GlobalVariables.SetFloatValue (int _id, float _value);

AC.GlobalVariables.SetPopupValue (int _id, int _value);

AC.LocalVariables.GetIntegerValue (int _id);

AC.LocalVariables.GetBooleanValue (int _id);

AC.LocalVariables.GetStringValue (int _id);

AC.LocalVariables.GetFloatValue (int _id);

AC.LocalVariables.GetPopupValue (int _id);

AC.LocalVariables.SetIntegerValue (int _id, int _value);

AC.LocalVariables.SetBooleanValue (int _id, bool _value);

AC.LocalVariables.SetStringValue (int _id, string _value);

AC.LocalVariables.SetFloatValue (int _id, float _value);

AC.LocalVariables.SetPopupValue (int _id, int _value);

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 165

12.8 - CUSTOM SAVE DATA

Adventure Creator makes it possible to write scripts that extend its saving capabilities –

allowing you to save both scene and global data.

It is possible to write your own Remember scripts (see section 9.2) and use them to

save your own data within a scene. Such a script must derive from the Remember

class (of AC namespace) and contain SaveData and LoadData functions. A tutorial for

writing a custom Remember script can be found online here.

It is also possible to save and load custom global data using script hooks. A global

save script must implement the ISave interface, be attached to the PersistentEngine

prefab, and contain both PreSave and PostLoad functions. A tutorial is available here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 166

12.9 - REMAPPING INPUTS

The PlayerInput.cs script uses custom functions to detect input, which are called

throughout Adventure Creator in place of Unity's standard functions, such as

Input.GetButtonDown. These functions can also be overridden using delegates,

meaning your game's control scheme can be changed on the fly, or integrated with a

third-party input manager asset.

The following table shows the available functions that can be overridden using

delegates:

Unity function PlayerInput function Delegate override

bool Input.GetButtonDown (string

name)

bool InputGetButtonDown (string

name)

bool

InputGetButtonDownDelegate

(string name)

bool Input.GetButtonUp (string

name)

bool InputGetButtonUp (string

name)

bool InputGetButtonUpDelegate

(string name)

bool Input.GetButton (string

name)

bool InputGetButton (string

name)

bool InputGetButtonDelegate

(string name)

float Input.GetButtonAxis (string

name)

float InputGetAxis (string name) float InputGetAxisDelegate (string

name)

Vector2 Input.mousePosition Vector2 InputMousePosition (bool

cursorIsLocked)

Vector2

InputMousePositionDelegate

(bool cursorIsLocked)

bool Input.GetMouseButtonDown

(int button)

bool InputGetMouseButtonDown

(int button)

bool

InputGetMouseButtonDownDeleg

ate (int button)

bool Input.GetMouseButton (int

button)

bool InputGetMouseButton (int

button)

bool InputGetMouseButton (int

button)

A tutorial on using these delegates in practice can be found online here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 167

12.10 - CUSTOM EVENTS

In addition to the input delegates listed in the previous section, a number of general-

purpose events exist at specific times during gameplay – for example whenever a

character speaks.

These events can be listened to by custom scripts, to aid in the integration of third-party

assets or added-on features. Unlike the input delegates, these events to not override

regular functionality – they are simply called in addition.

These static events are defined in EventManager script. A list of them, together with

descriptions, can be found in the Scripting guide.

A tutorial on working with custom events can be found here.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 168

12.11 - INTEGRATING OTHER GAMEPLAY

While Adventure Creator is intended primarily for traditional adventure games, other

gameplay mechanics (such as combat, driving, etc) can be added on through careful

integration of other assets or custom scripts. However, as each such game is unique,

the procedure to do so is also unique - so it is important to understand how AC is

designed before doing so.

First, it is strongly recommended to have a solid understanding of how AC works when

used by itself. The multi-hour tutorial videos available online can provide this, and

watching all of them will give you a good all-round knowledge of AC's workflow

regardless of the perspective or gameplay your game will ultimately have.

AC will only operate in any Unity scene that contains an instance of its GameEngine

prefab - which keeps track of settings about the scene. This is generated automatically

when you use the Scene Manager. When the first such scene is run, the GameEngine

will spawn an instance of AC's PersistentEngine prefab - which keeps track of your

player's progress and any game-wide settings. If you then switch to a "non-AC" scene

(i.e. one without a GameEngine) the PersistentEngine will go to sleep, and will only

reawaken when you enter an AC scene again.

Therefore, if you want to keep your adventure game elements and non-adventure (e.g.

combat) elements in separate scenes, then it is generally quite simple to make a game

that shares the two.

It is also possible to send AC to sleep at any point - even in an AC scene - by calling the

KickStarter script's TurnOffAC function:

AC.KickStarter.TurnOffAC ();

This will cause all of AC's Update, LateUpdate, OnGUI and FixedUpdate calls to cease

until the script's TurnOnAC function is called:

AC.KickStarter.TurnOnAC ();

This approach would be suitable if you wanted to disable AC entirely midway through a

scene, and re-enable it later on.

If, however, you want a more closely-merged integration - for example, replace AC

gameplay with combat but retain AC's Menu system - you can use the Engine: Manage

systems Action (see Section 5.2) to selectively disable any of AC's systems. To

prevent movement and interactions, for example, you would use this Action to disable

the Movement and Interaction systems, and re-enable them at a later time.

Disabling individual systems will prevent them from being updated - so if a character is

in the middle of walking, for example, then will only stop if you command them to with

the Character: Move along path Action. The same goes for ActionLists and

Cutscenes, which can be halted at anytime using the ActionList: Kill Action.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 169

12.12 - CUSTOM INTERACTION SYSTEMS

While Adventure Creator has a range of options that can be used to recreate many

popular adventure game interfaces, it's possible to create a completely custom one

through scripting. If your Settings Manager's Interaction method is set to Custom

Script, then Hotspots will only be selectable by calling script functions.

Included with Adventure Creator is the Custom Interaction System Example script,

which demonstrates how Hotspots and inventory items can be selected and interacted

with from a GUI, bypassing AC's internal interface.

The Hotspot script component contains the following functions, that can be used to

trigger its various interactions:

RunUseInteraction (int iconID = -1)

Runs the Hotspot's 'Use' interaction. If no icon ID is supplied (as defined in the

Cursor Manager), then the first-available use interaction will be run.

RunExamineInteraction ()

Runs the Hotspot's 'Examine' interaction.

RunInventoryInteraction (InvItem invItem = null)

Runs the Hotspot's 'Use with inventory' interaction. If no inventory item is

supplied, then the currently-selected inventory item will be run.

The currently-active Hotspot can be read with:

AC.KickStarter.playerInteraction.GetActiveHotspot ();

Even with a custom interaction system, Hotspots are still detected according to the

Hotspot detection method setting in the Settings Manager. Therefore, if you wish to

control how Hotspots are first selected, this must be set to Custom Script as well. You

can then select any Hotspot (updating the "Hotspot label" and highlighting it in the

scene) with:

AC.KickStarter.playerInteraction.SetActiveHotspot (Hotspot hotspot);

Note that a Hotspot does not need to be selected or highlighted in order to have its

interactions triggered through script.

When it comes to inventory interactions, the above settings do not affect the way

InventoryBox menus behave - you can still use, select and combine items as normal. In

order to change the way an InventoryBox menu element works, you can set its

Inventory box type setting to Custom Script to disable regular behaviour, and then

use the OnMenuElementClick custom event to run your own code as appropriate (see

Section 12.10).

A typical event reads as:

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 170

private void MyElementClick (AC.Menu _menu, MenuElement _element, int

_slot, int _buttonPressed)

{

Debug.Log ("Menu: " + _menu.title + ", Element: " + _element +

", Slot: " + _slot + ", MouseState: " + _buttonPressed);

}

See the custom event tutorial for more on how events are used.

Either by using custom events or otherwise, inventory item (each given their own

InvItem class instance) can have their interactions triggerd in a manner similar to that of

Hotspots:

RunUseInteraction (int iconID = -1)

Runs the Inventory item's 'Use' interaction. An icon ID (as defined in the Cursor

Manager) can be supplied if the Settings Manager's 'Inventory interactions' field

is set to 'Multiple'.

RunExamineInteraction ()

Runs the Inventory item's 'Examine' interaction, if the Settings Manager's

'Inventory interactions' field is set to 'Single'.

CombineWithItem (InvItem otherInvItem)

Combines the Inventory item with another

Select ()

Selects the inventory item, but does not use it

A List of all inventory items defined by your game can be found with:

AC.KickStarter.inventoryManager.items

A List of all inventory items carried by the player can be found with:

AC.KickStarter.runtimeInventory.localItems

Note, however, that entries in this List can be null - therefore you should always do a

null check when reading entries in this List.

The currently-selected inventory item can be read with:

AC.KickStarter.runtimeInventory.SelectedItem;

And can be deselected with:

AC.KickStarter.runtimeInventory.SetNull ();

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 171

Finally, if your interaction system involves mouse-clicks on the screen, you may need to

“reset” the mouse click afterwards in order to prevent any of AC's other systems (such

as point-and-click pathfinding) from making use of it. Do to that, just call:

AC.KickStarter.playerInput.ResetMouseClick ();

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 172

13.0 – HOW IT WORKS

13.1 - OVERVIEW

The following section gives a broad overview of the system behind Adventure Creator,

so that it can be built-upon to cater to a scripter's needs. The sections that follow

provide a more in-depth explanation of more specific elements.

The single most important variable used by Adventure Creator is the gameState, a

public variable inside the StateHandler script, which is referenced by the majority of the

game's other scripts. The GameState enum can take the following four values: Normal,

Cutscene, DialogueOptions, and Paused. To take control away from the player, the

gameState must be set to Cutscene, and returned to Normal to resume gameplay. The

StateHandler also contains two functions that can disable and re-enable all of

Adventure Creator's systems (see section 13.4).

The StateHandler script is a component of the PersistentEngine prefab, one of two

“engine” objects that are required for Adventure Creator to work. PersistentEngine is

scene-independent, in that its data survives scene loading, and GameEngine is scene-

specific, and does not survive scene loading.

Scripts find the active GameEngine, PersistentEngine, and the Player prefabs by the

tags of the same name, so there must only ever be one object with each tag present in

the scene at any one time.

Of the two engines and the player, only the GameEngine is present when the scene

begins. A component inside GameEngine, called Kickstarter, will create an instance of

both the PersistentEngine and the Player prefabs if none exist. This way, a game can

begin from any scene, which is useful for game testing.

The GameEngine is used to store and handle data that does not need to be carried to

the next scene. It houses the player control scripts, the menu system, scene-specific

settings and the dialogue-handling script.

The PersistentEngine is used to store and handle data that needs to transfer from one

scene to the next. It houses the options and game saving scripts, saved room data as

well as local instances of the variables and inventory items defined in the managers.

Only one active camera is ever present in the game – the MainCamera. The other

cameras, including the optional First Person Camera, are merely used as reference by

the main camera. When assigned an “activeCamera” variable, the main camera will

imitate that camera's position, rotation, and field of view.

Most project-specific data is stored in the various Manager assets, as explained in the

next section.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 173

13.2 - MANAGERS

Each Manager is its own asset file. A project can have multiple Managers of the same

type in its Assets folder, but only one of each will be used by the game. Which one it

uses is determined by the References file, which must exist directly in a Resources

directory.

The References script defines one public field for each manager. The AdvGame script

contains a static function called GetReferences, which can be used to quickly obtain

each of the Managers being used by the game. For example, AdvGame.GetReferences

().settingsManager will return the active Settings Manager.

Changes made in the managers, except those made in the Scene Manager, survive

assembly reloads. Because most scripts that refer to them do so only when needed,

you can make changes to your game while the game is running (such as changing the

movement method). The global variables defined in the Variables Manager, however,

are kept separate at runtime. The GlobalVariables script, attached to the

PersistentEngine prefab, store a local copy of the Global Variables when the game

starts. This way, when Cutscenes and other game logic affect the state of the variables,

the changes are not passed recursively back to the Variables Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 174

13.3 - PATHS

Paths are used to provide navigation to Characters so that they can move around a

scene. The Paths script stores a list of Vector3s, as well as additional variables for

things like move speed, path type, and so on.

These Vector3s, or nodes, describe a route through the scene. A Character moving

along a Path will loop, ping-pong between the ends, or move to random nodes

depending on the path type. A Character moves along a path by assigning that

Character's activePath variable by using the SetPath function. A Character's

targetNode and prevNode integers, which represent the target node and previously-

visited node respectively, allows the Character to determine where on the path they are,

and which direction they should be moving in.

A Character moving along a Path will refer to that Path's script to determine its course of

action upon reaching a node. The public function GetNextNode returns a node integer,

which will be -1 if the Character has reached the end of the Path.

If a Character prefab has a Paths script attached, it can dynamically alter this Path mid-

game. This is the basis of pathfinding. The MoveAlongPoints function, inside the

Character script, will re-build its own Path according to a supplied array of Vector3s,

effectively re-assigning that Path's nodes.

The array of Vector3s for this function is generated by the NavigationMesh script. The

GetPointsArray function requires a starting Vector3 and a target Vector3, and analyses

the active NavMesh to produce the array. If you wish to replace the default pathfinding

algorithm with your own, this is the function to override.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 175

13.4 - PLAYER CONTROL

The Player is controlled indirectly, via six scripts on the GameEngine. They are:

•PlayerMenus – Handles the display of menus according to their

AppearType

•PlayerCursor – Handles the display of the cursor

•PlayerInput – “Reads in” the player's input buttons and axes

•PlayerInteraction – Handles the processing of clicks on interactive

objects

•PlayerMovement – Handles the movement of the Player object during

gameplay

•PlayerQTE – Handles the state of any active quick-time event.

Each script is independent from the others as best can be. The PlayerInput script does

not refer to any of the others, but all others refer to it. By keeping scripts separate in

this way, it is not difficult to provide the player with more control. You can disable

individual scripts by using the Engine: Manage systems Action.

When you wish to add your own custom Player control without affecting the other

scripts, it's recommended that your Player prefab uses the Mecanim engine for

animation, so that you can script parameter changes without interfering with the other

systems. If you wish to disable Adventure Creator at any time, even if it is for a brief

time such as while firing a weapon, you can easily do so by accessing the KickStarter

script. Since it relies on objects created at runtime, calls to it in Awake () will not work,

but Start () will work just fine. The code to disable and re-enable Adventure Creator is

as follows:

AC.KickStarter.TurnOffAC ();

AC.KickStarter.TurnOnAC ();

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 176

13.5 - GAME DEBUGGING

Adventure Creator has a few features that aid in debugging:

A list of all currently-active ActionLists can be displayed in the Game window, along with

the game's current state. This list can be shown by clicking Show active ActionLists

in Game window? in the Settings Manager.

Actions can be marked as breakpoints, causing the Unity Editor to pause just before

they are run – allowing the user to check the state of a scene at that point in time.

Actions can be toggled as breakpoints via their context menu to the top-right of their

node.

Actions can also be commented from within the ActionList Editor window, by clicking the

cog in their top-right corner. These comments can be printed in the Unity Console by

Print Action comments in Console?, also in the Settings Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 177

13.6 - PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMISATION

AC is designed with good performance in mind. Depending on your game type,

however, there are some tricks you can employ to further boost performance:

1. The Settings Manager will list your game's available Input Axes based on the

settings chosen. By default, AC will perform try/catch statements to avoid errors

if these inputs are not define. If the Assume inputs are defined? option

beneath this list is checked, these statements will be ignored. The Inputs will be

need to be present in Unity's Input Manager, but performance to the game will be

increased.

2. When loading save game files, AC will search your game's Resources folder for

asset files that may be referenced by your save data – for example, an AudioClip

that was used to change the Player's walk sound, or a prefab that was added to

the scene mid-game. Normally, this is performed by searching for all such

assets with a Resources.LoadAll() function call – which searches all assets but is

memory intensive. This can be an issue particularly on mobiles, if you have

many such assets in a Resources folder.

To get around this, you can place such assets in specially-named subfolders

within your Resources folder. If such subfolders are found, then AC will only

search them – which can lower the memory usage considerably if you have

many files to search. This can be done by placing your Resources assets in the

following folders:

1. SaveableData/Textures – for Texture2D assets

2. SaveableData/Audio – for AudioClip assets (this excludes speech audio)

3. SaveableData/Animations – for AnimationClip assets

4. SaveableData/Materials – for Material assets

5. SaveableData/ActionLists – for ActionList assets

6. SaveableData/Prefabs – for GameObject prefab assets

For full optimisation, you should create subfolders with these names even if you

have no relevant assets to place in them, and place a “dummy” asset inside of

each – for example, a single AudioClip inside “SaveableData/Audio”. Note that

once these subfolders exist, however, all such assets must be placed in them

correctly for AC to be able to find them.

3. Menus that have their Source property set to Adventure Creator are drawn with

Unity's OnGUI calls. If your game relies on Unity UI-sourced Menus, or no

Menus at all, then removing the OnGUI call can give a performance boost -

particularly on mobile. The OnGUI call can be removed by entering

ACIgnoreOnGUI as a Scripting Define Symbol in Unity's Player settings. Be

aware, however, that OnGUI is also used by AC for drawing camera effects and

Software cursors - though the latter can be corrected by changing your Cursor

rendering setting to Hardware in AC's Cursor Manager. If the OnGUI code

required only some of the time, it can be run manually by calling the

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 178

StateHandler script's _OnGUI() function:

AC.KickStarter.stateHandler._OnGUI ();

4. If your game is in 2D, then the Navigation Mesh Inspector, which is used by 2D

NavMeshes, has a number of options that can aid performance. Setting

Character evasion to None will reduce the number of pathfinding calls, and the

Accuracy slider can be reduced. As the latter will affect the accuracy of

pathfinding, it is best to experiment while the game is running to find the optimum

value.

5. AC will output log messages to the Console when necessary – this may be

frequently if there is something wrong with your game. Such messages can

impact performance. While you should always check the Console for AC's

messages, these logs can be disabled completely by switching Show logs in

Console? to Never in the Settings Manager.

Adventure Creator User Manual Page 179

13.7 - VERSION CONTROL AND COLLABORATION

The following are some tips when working on a project with version control and/or

collaboration:

1) Unity has a bug regarding string serialization in Force Text asset serialization mode -

see this bug report page. Therefore, be sure to set your Asset Serialization mode

(found in Edit -> Project settings -> Editor) to Mixed.

2) When collaborating, rely on ActionList assets over scene-based ActionLists (such as

Cutscenes and Interactions) whenever possible. Hotspots, Conversations and other

components that reference Actions each have an Actions source field. Setting this to

Asset File allows you to make use of an ActionList asset instead of a scene-based

Action.

Adventure Creator Manual

Navigation menu

Versions of this User Manual:

Views

Navigation