Dialogue kicking my butt - help?

[chajapa]

Simply dialogue.

Quest has no stages.

I have one branch for female player and one branch for male player.

 

I just got done reading up on conditions and... what a convoluted mess.

 

Anyways...

 

Female PC branch works.

I can have separate dialogues for talking to NPC that are male, NPC females, NPC females that are also milkmaid, and NPC female followers that are milkmaids.

 

Male PC branch.... sometimes it doesn't even show up!

When it does, it's missing pieces of dialogue ("topics" not showing) which I ASSUMED was due to conditions so I cut conditions back to basically, no children, no creatures, and then in individual topic threads I just set Subject == female, or Subject == female AND GePlayerTeammate (seemed more reliable with custom followers not in the vanilla system), and then Subject == MilkMaidFaction

 

MOST of those don't show up. Or SOME of them show up in one save, but none in another save.

 

This is NOT heavily scripted. The end of a run of dialogue results in a sexlab animation, but.... I'm getting discouraged.

 

Am I thinking of branches wrong? 

 

Should I have MORE branches? Should I have only used one and just split off to female PC and male PC groups of dialogue within the same branch?

 

AND.... if I make a new branch, can I break the link to the startup topic in "Branch B" and move those topics to "Branch C" and connect them to "Branch C"'s startup topic?

 

I bow to the modding gurus. This is a pain in the ass.

 

[WraithSlayer]

Male PC branch.... sometimes it doesn't even show up!

When it does, it's missing pieces of dialogue ("topics" not showing) which I ASSUMED was due to conditions so I cut conditions back to basically, no children, no creatures, and then in individual topic threads I just set Subject == female, or Subject == female AND GePlayerTeammate (seemed more reliable with custom followers not in the vanilla system), and then Subject == MilkMaidFaction

 

Bear in mind that by default, conditions use an AND operator. This means that if even just one of the conditions doesn't yield TRUE when it resolves, that dialogue won't qualify to be displayed. You can switch some of the conditions to OR for scenarios where not all of the conditions need to apply, but due to the way it's implemented in the CK, OR operators are unwieldy to implement correctly for large condition sets, and it's very easy to screw up if you're not comfortable with the way the CK handles them.

 

As for your case: when in doubt, it's probably the volatile conditions that are causing problems. Have you confirmed that the target is in fact both in MilkMaidFaction and currently marked as a teammate, when the dialogue fails to show?

 

 

Am I thinking of branches wrong? 

 

Should I have MORE branches? Should I have only used one and just split off to female PC and male PC groups of dialogue within the same branch?

 

AND.... if I make a new branch, can I break the link to the startup topic in "Branch B" and move those topics to "Branch C" and connect them to "Branch C"'s startup topic?

 

There isn't really a correct way to do things here, it really depends on how you're structuring your dialogue and how it makes the most sense to you. With that said, it's generally less confusing to keep a given conversation subject under a single Top-level or Blocking dialogue branch, and create new topics in it that link to each other to progress the conversation. However, note that Top-Level and Blocking branches can only have one starting topic, so if you need OptionA and OptionB to be dialogue options as soon as you start talking to an NPC, then those two options each need their own Top-Level branch. Also, branches set to Normal don't even have starting topics at all, and their content can only be accessed via linking from another branch.

 

Speaking of Top-Level and Blocking branches, the topic that you define as the Starting Topic is usually the only one that you need to worry about setting conditions in. All other topics in that branch cannot be accessed directly, only when linked to by other topics, so they generally don't need any conditions at all. (unless you want to have several possible topic texts depending on certain conditions, like males having one topic text and females another)

[chajapa]

I think one of my problems may be that this started out simple and I'd really like to grow it. In doing so, I may have just made a mess of it. 

 

I have just 4 animations that get used. One is femalePC-on-femaleNPC, another is femaleNPC-onfemalePC, maleNPC-onfemalePC, and malePC-on-femaleNPC

So that's 4 script fragments for animation at the end of a conversation.

Then there's 1 script fragment that only adds the sexlab property line and the faction property from milkmaids so I can do the check for whether or not the subject is in MilkMaidFaction

 

QUESTIONS:

Can I create, for example, a script fragment called femPConFemNPC .... I mean create it ONCE.... and then use the "add script" at the end of another dialogue that would use that same animation? (right now I have individual scripts for each topic that results in animation so right now I have 25 scripts that could be cut to more like... 5)

 

In a dialogue topic, there's a box for a script fragment at the beginning of the topic and at the end. I've only been using the one for the end of the topic. Am I possibly missing the milkmaid faction check because I've only added the fragment with the faction property in the END fragment? So like... the condition checks have already happened? Should I have that faction property set at the beginning of a topic? My thinking is.... well... does that beginning fragment process BEFORE the condition checks?

 

And as a follow-up to that, if I put the script fragment that adds the sexlab property and faction property in the beginning fragment of the Start topic for a branch, do I need to add those property lines for each animation? Or is this a case of, once the properties are picked up... we only need to do it once? If that's the case then I shouldn't need to be adding those property lines to the animation fragments as those are only ever at the end of a string of topics, so if the property lines are in the beginning of the Start topic.... I shouldn't need them added again... right?

 

It would be nice if I could just get those properties loaded once, somehow.

 

If I have a femalePC and I have 3 branches for her, (branch for talking to male NPC, branch for talking to femalePC, branch for talking to a milkmaid) and if I put the property lines in the beginning of each of those 3 start topics, then as she wanders around and talks to various people, I'm "re-loading" those properties each time. Is that a problem?

 

I realize a lot of this is pretty basic stuff for an experienced modder, but believe me I've googled and searched and read as much as I can and there is precious little available for simply writing dialogue. All of the tutorials are for creating quests with stages and some dialogue. I want to create lots of dialogue and no actual quest (no stages, etc... I realize I'm writing dialogue IN a quest)

 

The only REAL help I've gotten so far has been here on LL, for which I'm very thankful.

[WraithSlayer]

QUESTIONS:

Can I create, for example, a script fragment called femPConFemNPC .... I mean create it ONCE.... and then use the "add script" at the end of another dialogue that would use that same animation? (right now I have individual scripts for each topic that results in animation so right now I have 25 scripts that could be cut to more like... 5)

 

I tried this before, but it's just messy and I don't think it works properly. The method I chose in SexLab Solutions to avoid excessive script files is to have my customized dialogues simply link to a generic dialogue script at the end of the conversation.

 

So for example, if you have 5 different possible dialogue endings for something like female-on-female, don't put any scripting in any of them, but have them all link* to a generic dialogue that includes the SexLab script. You may even try having no text in this dialogue and just the script, though I've never tested to see how Skyrim reacts to that.

 

*When linking to the end dialogue, toggle the Invisible Continue checkbox to enabled. This will make the dialogue continue seamlessly without giving the player a selection prompt.

 

In a dialogue topic, there's a box for a script fragment at the beginning of the topic and at the end. I've only been using the one for the end of the topic. Am I possibly missing the milkmaid faction check because I've only added the fragment with the faction property in the END fragment? So like... the condition checks have already happened? Should I have that faction property set at the beginning of a topic? My thinking is.... well... does that beginning fragment process BEFORE the condition checks?

 

The condition checks are the very first thing that happens when a dialogue is referenced. If they fail, none of the dialogue will be shown to the player, and neither the start or the end dialogue script will execute. Basically, the order is:

 

Check conditions -> Show dialogue to player -> Execute start script -> Wait for dialogue to finish -> Execute end script

 

If you have a condition in your dialogue topic that checks for a given variable, make sure this variable is set to the correct value in a previous dialogue topic.

 

 

And as a follow-up to that, if I put the script fragment that adds the sexlab property and faction property in the beginning fragment of the Start topic for a branch, do I need to add those property lines for each animation? Or is this a case of, once the properties are picked up... we only need to do it once? If that's the case then I shouldn't need to be adding those property lines to the animation fragments as those are only ever at the end of a string of topics, so if the property lines are in the beginning of the Start topic.... I shouldn't need them added again... right?

 

No, properties have to be defined once per script. Your Topic Info script has no knowledge of your dialogue branches' structure, nor does it fetch any properties from other scripts earlier in that branch. If you don't give the script everything it needs to do its job on its own, it won't work. As you can imagine, this makes it quite tedious to work with scripted topics, so it's important to cleverly structure your dialogue to use as less scripts as possible, as explained before in my first answer.

 

If I have a femalePC and I have 3 branches for her, (branch for talking to male NPC, branch for talking to femalePC, branch for talking to a milkmaid) and if I put the property lines in the beginning of each of those 3 start topics, then as she wanders around and talks to various people, I'm "re-loading" those properties each time. Is that a problem?

 

Not at all, that's how you're supposed to do it. The properties aren't even being "re-loaded"; that term implies there's a separate instance of the property for each script that uses it. That's not the case, the scripts are just all linking to the same, single reference.

 

If an analogy would help: when you define a property in a script, you're just giving the script an e-mail address it can contact if it needs something. You're not copying the entire mailbox over.

[chajapa]

I like the silent continue idea to cut down on the number of scripts.

 

Right now my branch for Female PC works fine. No hiccups.

 

My branch for a Male PC doesn't even show the starting topic.

 

I have one condition at quest level and that is IsChild != 1 AND   ( so... no kids allowed.. )

 

The Male PC Branch's starting topic has 2 conditions

PL GetIsSex Male == 1 AND

S  GetIsSex Female == 1 AND

 

When I was looking at this and trying to figure things out I saw the condition expressed as OnRef (GetIsSex Male == 1) AND (GetIsSex Female == 1)

 

I was like.... huh?

 

I thought if a condition was being run on "Subject" , it was being run on the NPC that my character is talking to.

I tried changing Subject to Target and that didn't seem to help. The CK Wiki explanation of these terms is confusing as it gets into caster and magic effects and such. All I'm doing is talking.

 

If Branch 1 is the branch for Female PC and Branch 2 is the one for Male PC...

Am I supposed to have a link from the Branch 1 Starting Topic to the Branch 2 Starting Topic? 

 

I've just been under the assumption that if it fails the condition check for Branch 1 (PL GetIsSex Female == 1 ) that it would skip it and show the Branch 2 Starting Topic. Right now it's behaving as if it checks the Branch 1 starting topic (for a female PC) and if I'm playing a Male PC, that condition check fails so it's just done. Because it SHOULD be passing the Branch 2 starting topic condition check.... if I have the whole Subject vs Target vs.... WTF... figured out.

 

 

[WraithSlayer]

Right now my branch for Female PC works fine. No hiccups.

 

My branch for a Male PC doesn't even show the starting topic.

 

I have one condition at quest level and that is IsChild != 1 AND   ( so... no kids allowed.. )

 

The Male PC Branch's starting topic has 2 conditions

PL GetIsSex Male == 1 AND

S  GetIsSex Female == 1 AND

 

Is the Male PC branch configured as a Top-Level branch? And if yes, is the Starting Topic aiming at the correct topic?

 

 

When I was looking at this and trying to figure things out I saw the condition expressed as OnRef (GetIsSex Male == 1) AND (GetIsSex Female == 1)

 

I was like.... huh?

 

I'm just as "huh?" as you are here. The bit I marked in red, where did you see that?

 

 

I thought if a condition was being run on "Subject" , it was being run on the NPC that my character is talking to.

I tried changing Subject to Target and that didn't seem to help. The CK Wiki explanation of these terms is confusing as it gets into caster and magic effects and such. All I'm doing is talking.

 

You're correct about what Subject is for, and you're using it correctly in the context of dialogue. As for what Target does, it's not used in dialogue conditions as far as I know. (keep in mind conditions are used for a lot of things, like applying magic effects and such, not just dialogue)

 

 

If Branch 1 is the branch for Female PC and Branch 2 is the one for Male PC...

Am I supposed to have a link from the Branch 1 Starting Topic to the Branch 2 Starting Topic?

 

They shouldn't be linking to each other unless you want to re-use some of the dialogue. But since you're having trouble getting things to work, I'd recommend keeping them completely independent from each other for now. They should both be Top-level dialogue branches, and their starting topic conditions should only differ in PL GetIsSex.

 

 

I've just been under the assumption that if it fails the condition check for Branch 1 (PL GetIsSex Female == 1 ) that it would skip it and show the Branch 2 Starting Topic. Right now it's behaving as if it checks the Branch 1 starting topic (for a female PC) and if I'm playing a Male PC, that condition check fails so it's just done. Because it SHOULD be passing the Branch 2 starting topic condition check.... if I have the whole Subject vs Target vs.... WTF... figured out.

 

About the bit in red, either you're misunderstanding how branches work, or you're not actually intending on using Top-Level dialogue, but rather linking to your 2 gender-specific branches from another conversation.

 

For clarity, a branches' starting topic conditions are evaluated independently. As such, there's no such thing as "if Branch 1 fails, it checks Branch 2 instead". No, it'll check both Branch 1 and Branch 2 at the same time, and it will add none, either, or both, depending on what their conditions evaluate to.

[chajapa]

When I was looking at this and trying to figure things out I saw the condition expressed as OnRef (GetIsSex Male == 1) AND (GetIsSex Female == 1)

 

If I click on the starting topic's opening dialogue, I see this in a line containing the response. Should I be using GetPCIsSex to check player character instead of GetIsSex?

 

They should both be Top-level dialogue branches, and their starting topic conditions should only differ in PL GetIsSex.

 

 

They are both showing as Top Level Branches. I tried copying the conditions from the femalePC branch's Starting Topic to the malePC branch's starting topic and flipping the PL GetIsSex to Male and that didn't work either.

 

For clarity, a branches' starting topic conditions are evaluated independently. As such, there's no such thing as "if Branch 1 fails, it checks Branch 2 instead". No, it'll check both Branch 1 and Branch 2 at the same time, and it will add none, either, or both, depending on what their conditions evaluate to.

 

 

Understood. When I said "skip it" I meant "just not display it" and move on .. so if Branch one fails condition check and Branch 2 passes, it will display Branch 2's Starting Topic, and if both pass, it would display both.

 

To get this MalePC branch working I have completely removed any "OR" in the condition checks. And trying to keep conditions to a minimum just to find out what is keeping it from showing up. 

 

So right now for the MalePC branch Starting Topic, the conditions I *THINK* are in play are:

 

S IsChild != 1 AND (carried over from the only condition that I put in at quest level)

PL GetIsSex Male == 1 (in the Starting topic of Male PC branch which is a Top Level branch)

S   GetIsSex Female == 1 (hopefully checking the NPC I'm talking to)

 

SO... if my Male PC approaches a female NPC who is NOT a child.... this should display... right?

 

It's not.

 

And what's even more frustrating is that the female PC branch works perfectly when I play a female character. She has separate dialogue active for males, females who are NOT followers or in the milkmaidfaction, females who are milkmaids and not followers, and then females who are milkmaids and also followers. And it all works... somehow. 

 

But this Male PC branch is driving me nuts.

[WraithSlayer]

GetPCIsSex isn't really needed for dialogue, I've always used PL GetIsSex and haven't had any issues.

 

Try removing all the conditions from the male branch and see if it still doesn't show up. Also, if you can provide the ESP you're working on (as well as any ESPs/ESMs it may have as masters) I can take a look at it in the CK.

[chajapa]

OK, well I removed all conditions from the Male PC starting topic and it still doesn't show up. At this point I have to guess that I've done something... somewhere in that branch that broke the branch completely. 

 

I'm going to try making a new branch for Male PC and building it slowly and see if I can get it done without breaking it again.

 

If that fails, I'll package up what I have right now and take you up on the offer to have a look. I sure would like to know what I broke though to avoid breaking it again

[WraithSlayer]

A top-level dialogue branch with no conditions has absolutely zero reasons to not show up. In fact, it should show for every NPC you can talk to.

 

Either something's set incorrectly in the CK, or the NPC you're testing with already has a blocking branch that looks a lot like just a greeting that leads into the top-level selections, but it's actually not. And for some reason, that blocking branch is referencing the female branch but not the male. I suggest testing with a different NPC that's not related to the milk maids mod at all, they should have the male dialogue option if this branch is configured correctly in the CK.

[chajapa]

Not sure exactly what I broke, but I broke something good.

Now the female dialogue isn't showing up either. Even if I go back to a previous version.

 

*sigh*

 

I'll keep looking

 

I take that back.... tried a different save and the male PC dialogue showed up, but it's missing a couple of topics that should show up when I have a follower who is also a milk maid.... this is maddening

 

 

[Guest]

Hi cahjapa,

 

I had some similar problems with a few dialogue: some of them were showing some were not, and the conditions were exactly the same.

I read in a post to re-generate the SEQ file for the mod. Super easy to do it with TES5Edit.

Magically all the dialogues (that had right conditions) showed up correctly after this.

 

Hope this helps to solve your case.

[chajapa]

Thanks. But I regenerated the SEQ every time I saved the esp. 

I edit the esp, exit CK, go into tes5edit and generate SEQ and then add MilkModNEW.esp as master.

 

At this point I have no idea what's wrong, but I'm done for today. I might just start over.

 

ALSO... when you put a condition in the first tab of the "quest". What does it mean if it's red?

I noticed this a few minutes ago that my condition for S IsChild != 1 AND  ... was red. Does that mean it's invalid? Or is that normal for a quest-wide condition?

 

 

[Guest]

The conditions are colored but I do not understand too much why.

Magic effect conditions are always reddish, while topic conditions are dark gray.

Never saw the condition on the same item have different colors though.

 

You can send me a screenshot or a detailed description of your condition, I can check if I find why are they not working.

 

Just one silly point, if I may: I never used conditions in branches. I always do conditions on the topics of the branches. This is enough to avoid the branch to start if the conditions are not respected.

Another small point, warn if you mix OR and AND conditions. If you do you have to understand the priority aggregation logic of the CK, that is a little bit weird to understand. But it is possible to organize the conditions to work also in complex cases just by reordering the conditions inside the topic.

 

[chajapa]

OK, it seems I'm still having some issues with dialogues not showing up. I made a new quest, no stages, and all it has is dialogue.

 

Branch 1 would look something like this:

 

Branch1StartTopic (has 2 conditions - Player==female and Subject ==male)

 - this links to TopicA, TopicB, TopicC

 

Branch1TopicA - this one shows up (this is linked to TopicA1, TopicA2, TopicA3 and finally to Branch1TopicEnd)

 

Branch1TopicB - this one does NOT show up (linked to Branch1TopicEnd)

 

Branch1TopicC - this one shows up (linked to TopicC1, TopicC2, Branch1TopicEnd)

 

The ONLY Topic that has conditions is the StartTopic

 

This happens in other branches as well. Some Topics show up, some don't.

ALL of the various branch Start Topics show up as they're supposed to. I mean, they meet the conditions set in them and show up as expected. It's the topics AFTER the Start Topic that are hit or miss.

 

I have regenerated the SEQ file thinking that might be the problem. It made no difference.

 

I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong and it's probably something pretty basic.

 

A couple of questions:

 

#1: This is just dialogue. I'm not recording any custom voice or anything. However, when I export the dialogue and look at the file, it appears to be looking for a voice file for every voice type of the speaker's gender. So if I'm talking to a male NPC, it's looking for a voice file (.xwm?) for every male voice type and not finding one. Consequently, my dialogue export is HUGE as it goes through each voice type looking for a voice file for each topic info.

What should I be doing about this?

 

#2: There's a checkbox for "Has LIP file" and it's checked by default. If my reading about this is correct, that's a lip sync file? Should I be UNchecking that for each info?

 

#3: Is there a list of ALLOWED characters that you can put in dialogue? Or DISallowed? I know now that I can't use "(" or ")" as it apparently looks for a parameter between them. 

Or am I only allowed to use letters, numbers, and standard punctuation? (period, exclamation, question marks, commas)?

 

#4: Should I be marking the final topic as "goodbye"? Basically most of these topics end in a sexlab animation which throws you out of the dialogue so I haven't been marking final topics as "goodbye".

 

As I said, this is probably very basic, but it's becoming increasingly frustrating to try to create a lot of dialogue when things keep going wrong and googling this stuff doesn't really come up with any answers. 

 

Thanks for any help.

 

[Guest]

Hello,

 

#1 usually I do not record voices for my dialogues and I do not export the standard voices that may be attached. Just be sure you use the "Fus d'ho ro" mod to let Skyrim play the dialogues without recorded voices.

 

#2 It does not really matter. If the voice is NOT recorded a "random lip movement" is generated. You may need to create a lip file only if your sentence is very short but the lips are moving for too long. (But this is perfectionism)

 

#3 Use conditions. If you want a few NPC for the dialogue just add the conditions [subject getId == YourNPCId1] OR [subject getId == YourNPCId2] OR ...

If the number of NPCs is too long use a different method like a keyword or a faction ( [subject isInFaction == yourFaction] )

 

 #4 a goodbye topic means that when this topic is done, the dialogue interface is automatically closed. It should be done for all the topics that are the end of the conversation.

 

[chajapa]

AHAH!

EUREKA! I think I've found my problem with disappearing dialogues.

 

It looks like there is a LIMIT on how many TOTAL CHARACTERS you can have in the topic choice list. I know there is a character limit in each line of dialogue as you're building the dialogue, but I'm talking about the COMBINED total of characters that needs to be displayed for all topics meeting the conditions.

I don't know yet what that number is, but here's what I mean.

 

StartingTopic - Just has short into text like, "Are you staring at my chest?" and the NPC responds and the number of characters in the response doesn't seem to matter...

 

StartingTopic is linked to 3 Topic Choices.

 

Now, let's say the character limit is 160 (I don't know for sure yet what it is... stay with me...)

 

TopicChoiceA has 50 characters (my player is saying the words and this is what needs to show now as a choice on screen)

TopicChoiceB has 50 characters

TopicChoiceC has 50 characters

---everything works fine. All topic choices are displayed.

 

BUT.... if TopicChoiceA has 80 characters (she talks a lot) and the others have 50 characters each, we have EXCEEDED the character limit (total characters of the 3 choices is now 180), so ONE of those topics isn't going to display as a choice.

 

And if you have a Topic that is linking to 4 or 5 or 6 other topic choices, each of those needs to have as few characters as possible in order to stay under whatever the actual character limit is for all topic choices being displayed.

 

This is like.... a EUREKA! moment for me as I've been struggling with this issue for several DAYS. And maybe an experienced modder would be like... "well, DUH", but for me... trying to write dialogue-driven interactions I now know that if I'm offering several choices, the opening lines of those Topics need to be short enough to not push the limit.

 

I'm stoked.... it means I have to go in and do some restructuring and rethinking, but at least now I know what I have to do... (I hope).

I tested this on one branch. Shortened 2 of the 3 topic choices' opening lines. And all 3 showed up when only 2 were showing up before and I couldn't figure out why...

I think this is it.

 

*happy dance*

 

 

 

 

[WraithSlayer]

 

#3: Is there a list of ALLOWED characters that you can put in dialogue? Or DISallowed? I know now that I can't use "(" or ")" as it apparently looks for a parameter between them. 

Or am I only allowed to use letters, numbers, and standard punctuation? (period, exclamation, question marks, commas)?

 

I use "(" and ")" in player response dialogues and never had any issues. Hell, even Bethesda uses those, in (Persuade), (Intimidate), and (Bribe) dialogues.

 

As far as I know, the only characters you shouldn't use in dialogue are \ (escape character), and < and >, which are used to reference dynamic variables in dialogue.

 

 

#4: Should I be marking the final topic as "goodbye"? Basically most of these topics end in a sexlab animation which throws you out of the dialogue so I haven't been marking final topics as "goodbye".

 

It shouldn't be making a difference since SexLab yanks you out of the dialogue anyway, but it's always good practice to set a dialogue line as a goodbye if you intend for the player to stop talking with the NPC.

 

 

AHAH!

EUREKA! I think I've found my problem with disappearing dialogues.

 

It looks like there is a LIMIT on how many TOTAL CHARACTERS you can have in the topic choice list. I know there is a character limit in each line of dialogue as you're building the dialogue, but I'm talking about the COMBINED total of characters that needs to be displayed for all topics meeting the conditions.

I don't know yet what that number is, but here's what I mean.

 

StartingTopic - Just has short into text like, "Are you staring at my chest?" and the NPC responds and the number of characters in the response doesn't seem to matter...

 

StartingTopic is linked to 3 Topic Choices.

 

Now, let's say the character limit is 160 (I don't know for sure yet what it is... stay with me...)

 

TopicChoiceA has 50 characters (my player is saying the words and this is what needs to show now as a choice on screen)

TopicChoiceB has 50 characters

TopicChoiceC has 50 characters

---everything works fine. All topic choices are displayed.

 

BUT.... if TopicChoiceA has 80 characters (she talks a lot) and the others have 50 characters each, we have EXCEEDED the character limit (total characters of the 3 choices is now 180), so ONE of those topics isn't going to display as a choice.

 

And if you have a Topic that is linking to 4 or 5 or 6 other topic choices, each of those needs to have as few characters as possible in order to stay under whatever the actual character limit is for all topic choices being displayed.

 

This is like.... a EUREKA! moment for me as I've been struggling with this issue for several DAYS. And maybe an experienced modder would be like... "well, DUH", but for me... trying to write dialogue-driven interactions I now know that if I'm offering several choices, the opening lines of those Topics need to be short enough to not push the limit.

 

I'm stoked.... it means I have to go in and do some restructuring and rethinking, but at least now I know what I have to do... (I hope).

I tested this on one branch. Shortened 2 of the 3 topic choices' opening lines. And all 3 showed up when only 2 were showing up before and I couldn't figure out why...

I think this is it.

 

*happy dance*

 

While I'm glad that you've figured out what's causing the missing dialogue issue for you, what you're describing isn't normal behaviour at all. A lot of dialogue in the vanilla game far exceeds the character limit you're suggesting, and it still works fine. Take the random world encounter with the thief, for example. (called WERJ02 in the CK, if you wanna check) You are given the following options when first approached by the "All right, hand over your valuables, or I'll gut you like a fish." line :

 

Here, take it. Just leave me alone. [35 characters]

I'd rather die! [15 characters]

Walk away. Right now. (Intimidate) [34 characters]

Do I look like I have any money? (Persuade) [43 characters]

Whoa, brother. Don't you recognize a fellow Guild member? [57 characters]

I would think you'd have more respect for a Nightingale. [56 characters]

 

Another example for RoriksteadFreeform, starting from the "Your days of exploiting your son are over." topic:

 

You'd prefer your son to grow bitter and resent you? (Persuade) [63 characters]

Here, use this to buy some armor. (<bribecost> gold) [52 characters]

On second thought, let's talk about this another time.[54 characters]

Find the money, or you'll have me to deal with. (Intimidate) [60 characters]

[chajapa]

Wraithslayer,

 

Regarding character count. Neither of your examples exceeds 255 characters.

I know for sure I was exceeding that number and that MIGHT be the limit. I had 152 characters in just one topic.

So my example above using 160 as the limit is probably not even close. I'm about to jump back into the game after changing my dialogues to shorten them and insert new topics to "take up the slack" so to speak. So... I'll get to see if this worked. 

 

And I thank you for taking the time to count the characters! You examples may help me determine what the limit actually is (if a limit truly exists)

[chajapa]

And..... this seems to have done the trick. I was getting VERY heavy on the dialogue. Displaying a single topic doesn't seem to be a problem. Displaying several, when you've pushed the character count on each of them very high, well... that seems to be what got me into trouble.

 

I still have a couple of multi-line infos (or would those be multi-info topics?) that don't seem to progress from line to line as I expect they should. Most work fine, but a few are not reliable. Makes me wonder if I haven't exceeded some OTHER limit that I've yet to learn about.

 

So... invisible continue .... If I link TopicA to TopicB with an invisible continue, does it then only display what the NPC is saying in TopicB? 

[WraithSlayer]

Wraithslayer,

 

Regarding character count. Neither of your examples exceeds 255 characters.

I know for sure I was exceeding that number and that MIGHT be the limit. I had 152 characters in just one topic.

So my example above using 160 as the limit is probably not even close. I'm about to jump back into the game after changing my dialogues to shorten them and insert new topics to "take up the slack" so to speak. So... I'll get to see if this worked. 

 

And I thank you for taking the time to count the characters! You examples may help me determine what the limit actually is (if a limit truly exists)

 

Where did you get 255 from? You said you were already having trouble at 180, so I showed you examples that exceeded 180.

 

In any case, I can still confirm it works just fine over 255. The examples I gave you were vanilla-only choices, but the mod I'm working on (SexLab Solutions) adds an additional option in either of those branches, where the player can offer sex. These additions push the player's dialogue total to 299 characters in the thief encounter, and to 309 in the Rorikstead one. And these are just dialogue lines spoken by the player, if we include the NPC's lines as well we can practically double the number. You're welcome to download and check my mod in the CK if you want to investigate this further, though personally I'm inclined to assume there's something else going on that we've not yet discovered, and that's causing the missing dialogue in your mod.

 

 

So... invisible continue .... If I link TopicA to TopicB with an invisible continue, does it then only display what the NPC is saying in TopicB? 

 

If you invisible continue from TopicA to TopicB, the NPC will start speaking their line from B as soon as A finishes. Whatever player prompt may be defined in B will be skipped, the player never gets to pick any dialogue.

 

Note that if you enable Invisible Continue on TopicA, and it links to both B and C, the game will ALWAYS pick B (the first option), even before checking if the conditions for it will return true. As best practice, when working with invisible continues, only link to ONE topic, and make sure the linked topic doesn't have any conditions that may fail in the current dialogue, otherwise your dialogue will end abruptly. In the event that you want to use an Invisible Continue and have the NPC speak a different line based on conditions, you'll have to fork the dialogue at TopicB by creating several Topic Infos with different conditions. Alternatively, you could create A1 and A2 as Topic Infos of TopicA, with each linking to B and C respectively via invisible continues.

[chajapa]

The 180 number in my example was pulled out of a hat. Because I'm not sure what the number is.

 

And when I'm talking about total character count..... hard to explain...

 

Not total count for a PROGRESSION of dialogue:

 

Not this:

StartTopic -> TopicA -> TopicA2 -> TopicA3

 

not adding characters in topics that display progressively (first one, then the next, then the next, etc)

 

I'm talking about when you have a StartTopic (or.... any topic really) that links to 3 or 4 Topic choices.

 

So you get the prompt from StartTopic and when you click it, you get the PLAYER lines from:

 

TopicA - ( player portion of dialogue from this one Topic)

TopicB - (player portion..)

TopicC - (and so on)

TopicD - (.....)

 

When they all have to be displayed on-screen at the same time as choices because they're linked from StartTopic.

Still not sure I'm making sense...

 

The total characters from those 4 is what I'd be talking about. Not any subtopic that come AFTER them in linear fashion. 

 

In what I'll call a "topic thread" where TopicA links to TopicA2, TopicA3, TopicA4, etc... I'm telling STORIES between PC and NPC. The PC is limited to the limit of a single line in the Topic, but the NPC can have multiple lines (infos?) spoken one after another within the same Topic. As long as I respect the line limits within a single Topic, I can create as many Topics as it takes to carry the conversation. 

 

It's only when a Topic splits... forks?... to many choices, that I think I'm pushing the character limit out of bounds. I think there's a limit on what that area of the screen can display where you see the PLAYER's dialogue piece. 

 

Example... next time you feel like you have a few minutes

 

Create a start topic. PC dialogue can be stupid simple like "Hello". NPC responds, "What's up?"

 

Now the fun. 

Create 4 new topics. TopicA, TopicB, TopicC, TopicD.

 

In the PLAYER portion of TopicA, fill it to within 1 or 2 of the character limit. Whatever is on screen... you know what I'm talking about. It increments as you type.

Of course it can be nonsense for the purpose of testing.

 

Same now with TopicB, C, D.

 

Now link StartTopic to ALL of them. We're not linking A to B or anything. No links between the 4, just each of them linked from StartTopic

 

Now... depending on if you're using the default character limit for a Topic (I've increased my limit as the default is just terribly small) I think you'll reach a point where it will stop showing all of the choices being linked from StartTopic.

 

And, believe me when I tell you, I am not arguing. You know WAY more about this stuff than me. I'm just trying to convey what I'm seeing.

 

The GOOD news is... by shortening the lines that are trying to be displayed simultaneously... I now have all dialogues showing up. 

 

I was trying to get descriptive using the dialogue system like:

 

TopicSomething

PLAYER: "Perhaps if I were to SHOW you...." <--- add up the characters in THIS line from TopicA, TopicB, TopicC, TopicD. The infos don't matter for this.

 

INFOS

Info 1: Show me? Oh, my... I...

Info 2: (Her cheeks flush and she is starting to pant...)

Info 3: Yes, I think I need you to show me.

 

and even THAT seems to work better when I'm not pushing some limit... imaginary or not!

 

[Guest]

Hi chajapa, please note that the last statement of WraithSlayer is extremely important!

If you don't take care of it your dialogues will have only problems.

 

So, using your example in a schematic way:

 

[Player] Start a Topic and says something to a NPC

[NPC] says the first topic of the branch that has a condition valid (if you set random then he/she will say one random that respects the topic conditions), let's call this "Topic A"

Topic A -> Invisible continue -> Topic B: the payer just says nothing, after the topic A is completed the same NPC will say Topic B

No way to put conditions on two invisible continue.

 

If you need something like this:

 

Player [start Topic] -> [NPC] Topica A1 or A2

A1 -> Invisible Continue -> B1

A2 -> Invisible Continue -> B2

B1 -> Player says something (one or more options) -> Topic C1,2,3, etc.

 

You have to: put conditions on Topic A1 and A2 (if no conditions are set and there is no random, the first one will be used)

No conditions on B1 or B2

You may add conditions to C1, C2, C3, but have always a default non conditioned one to avoid abnormal dialogue ends.

 

 

 

[WraithSlayer]

The 180 number in my example was pulled out of a hat. Because I'm not sure what the number is.

 

And when I'm talking about total character count..... hard to explain...

 

Not total count for a PROGRESSION of dialogue:

 

Not this:

StartTopic -> TopicA -> TopicA2 -> TopicA3

 

not adding characters in topics that display progressively (first one, then the next, then the next, etc)

 

I'm talking about when you have a StartTopic (or.... any topic really) that links to 3 or 4 Topic choices.

 

So you get the prompt from StartTopic and when you click it, you get the PLAYER lines from:

 

TopicA - ( player portion of dialogue from this one Topic)

TopicB - (player portion..)

TopicC - (and so on)

TopicD - (.....)

 

When they all have to be displayed on-screen at the same time as choices because they're linked from StartTopic.

Still not sure I'm making sense...

 

The total characters from those 4 is what I'd be talking about. Not any subtopic that come AFTER them in linear fashion. 

 

In what I'll call a "topic thread" where TopicA links to TopicA2, TopicA3, TopicA4, etc... I'm telling STORIES between PC and NPC. The PC is limited to the limit of a single line in the Topic, but the NPC can have multiple lines (infos?) spoken one after another within the same Topic. As long as I respect the line limits within a single Topic, I can create as many Topics as it takes to carry the conversation. 

 

It's only when a Topic splits... forks?... to many choices, that I think I'm pushing the character limit out of bounds. I think there's a limit on what that area of the screen can display where you see the PLAYER's dialogue piece. 

 

Example... next time you feel like you have a few minutes

 

Create a start topic. PC dialogue can be stupid simple like "Hello". NPC responds, "What's up?"

 

Now the fun. 

Create 4 new topics. TopicA, TopicB, TopicC, TopicD.

 

In the PLAYER portion of TopicA, fill it to within 1 or 2 of the character limit. Whatever is on screen... you know what I'm talking about. It increments as you type.

Of course it can be nonsense for the purpose of testing.

 

Same now with TopicB, C, D.

 

Now link StartTopic to ALL of them. We're not linking A to B or anything. No links between the 4, just each of them linked from StartTopic

 

Now... depending on if you're using the default character limit for a Topic (I've increased my limit as the default is just terribly small) I think you'll reach a point where it will stop showing all of the choices being linked from StartTopic.

 

And, believe me when I tell you, I am not arguing. You know WAY more about this stuff than me. I'm just trying to convey what I'm seeing.

 

The GOOD news is... by shortening the lines that are trying to be displayed simultaneously... I now have all dialogues showing up. 

 

I was trying to get descriptive using the dialogue system like:

 

TopicSomething

PLAYER: "Perhaps if I were to SHOW you...." <--- add up the characters in THIS line from TopicA, TopicB, TopicC, TopicD. The infos don't matter for this.

 

INFOS

Info 1: Show me? Oh, my... I...

Info 2: (Her cheeks flush and she is starting to pant...)

Info 3: Yes, I think I need you to show me.

 

and even THAT seems to work better when I'm not pushing some limit... imaginary or not!

 

I took 5 minutes to test this, and couldn't reproduce your issues. I added 7 player options and they all showed up (some scrolling was required to see the sixth and seventh, but all 7 were there) :

 

http://i.imgur.com/33mnERh.jpg

 

I've also attached the test mod here if you want to test it in your environment, since there might be something else in your install that's causing problems.

 

ws_dialogue_test.7z

 

I think your problem is due to the part of the quote I outlined in red, though. If I understand correctly, you modified your CK so you can have the player use more than 80 characters in a line? I don't think Skyrim supports this at all, nor would I recommend using these types of hacks to circumvent CK restrictions.

 

[chajapa]

What would be the easiest way.... in dialogue, so I'd need to know what to put where i a script fragment..... 

 

to strip my player character ?

 

Ideally... I'd like to strip her in one topic, and have her redress in another.

I would LIKE to strip her with the undressing animation even if that setting is toggled OFF in SexLab if that's possible.

 

I tried using StripSlots, but for some reason I can't get it to work. I'm sure I'm missing something stupid because.... I'm such a n00b... hehehe.

 

I was trying to get her to take her shirt off, and hopefully put it back on later.

 

It's really humbling to be doing this stuff. I'm retired from a university position in IT where I was advising departments on hardware and making purchases. BIG hardware....high end network stuff and various levels of servers and interface equipment.... and a lot of smaller stuff too, but I was SMART.... and right now... I'm NOT! hahahahah