[RELEASE] Advanced Conversation System (ACS)

[dreadedentity 278]

Advanced Conversation System

By: DreadedEntity

Release for Arma 3

Stable in: 1.34.128075 (and probably on)

Version: 1.0

Hello everyone,

ACS is finally ready, well, it's actually been ready since before Thanksgiving, but I wanted to make a demo mission to show off how to use it. ACS is a powerful, simple-to-use system that aims to provide full conversations with Arma's AI. It can run scripts and code, and even play sound.

Features:

• Ability to talk to AI
  
• Branching conversation/tree system
  
• Ability to run code or scripts with data passed to them
  
• Create dynamic conversations with built-in add/remove topic functions
  
• Play sounds to go along with your conversations
  
• Virtually unlimited topics/conversations
  
• System keeps track of conversation topics that have already been talked about
  
• Conversations made entirely by you
  

Implementation:

To use the built-in functions #include ACS_userFunctions.sqf to a place clients will run it, such as init.sqf

#include "ACS\ACS_userFunctions.sqf"

To use the dialog system (this is required), #include the files from the ACS\resources folder to your description.ext

#include "ACS\resources\definitions.hpp"
#include "ACS\resources\ACS_dialog.hpp"

That's it!

Here's a video of the system in-action:

(Download the example mission here, contains ACS (obviously))



Download (dropbox) <---ACS only

I'm going to write up a short .pdf tutorial highlighting specific use of this system. It will cover everything, and include tricks that I have found during development. When completed, I will replace these sentences with a dropbox link

This system is being released under the Arma Public License Share Alike (APL-SA). Please observe and follow this license. In addition to APL-SA the author reserves the right to have his work, or any derivatives of, removed from any works in which he does not want to be associated with.

Edited December 4, 2014 by DreadedEntity

[jshock 512]

Looks good, I do like the pyramid like structure for the conversations :D.

[Guest]

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Advanced Conversation System (ACS) v1.0

================================================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account on Armaholic.

This means soon you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!

[epicgoldenwarrior 11]

Pretty handy dandy.

Although if you want to write out stuff for every single unit, that could be annoying.

//unless of course there is a platform already out there, as in I can put this in COS and have a few default ones, randomly picked, like "leave me alone" or "go away" etc, and then add special ones to story characters. Please tell me if this is possible. Prolly in pdf but just asking.

[dreadedentity 278]

Pretty handy dandy.

Although if you want to write out stuff for every single unit, that could be annoying.

//unless of course there is a platform already out there, as in I can put this in COS and have a few default ones, randomly picked, like "leave me alone" or "go away" etc, and then add special ones to story characters. Please tell me if this is possible. Prolly in pdf but just asking.

Right, this is how I envisioned using this system. You would have a few default conversations for non-important NPC's (also known as one-liners), then put in a great deal more effort into story-related characters

[Foxtrop1 10]

this thing is epic, also it fits very well in arma3

[dreadedentity 278]

this thing is epic, also it fits very well in arma3

Thanks a lot, that makes me feel good.

Hey Foxhound, how can I update my post with your AH picture download link?

[Tajin 348]

Sounds pretty cool, I'll have to give it a try. :D

Word of advice though.:

Make your global function and variable names a bit more "unique".

Preferably use something like "YOURTAG_fnc_functionname".

"makeTitle" <-- this for example is a somewhat common name and can easily lead to conflicts with other scripts.

[Guest]

Hey Foxhound, how can I update my post with your AH picture download link?

You could just quote my post and copy the parts you need. But since I realise some of this is different and confusing across different forums just copy/paste this:

[center][url=http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=27529][url]http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/news_download_a3_3.png[/url][/url]
[url=http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=27529]Advanced Conversation System (ACS) v1.0[/url][/center]

New website comes with automatic generated mirror image and link. Hopefully that will prevent further confusion in the future.....soon....sooon :)

[astrell 3]

It is dedicated server compatible?

[dreadedentity 278]

It is dedicated server compatible?

That's up to you. When you use setVariable to populate the conversations, if you set the last parameter to true, the data will be synchronized to all players, including JIP. In that respect it will work with multiplayer. However, unless you modify the script, each unit will have their own "completed" topic list created locally. Also, you'd need to use BIS_fnc_MP to run ACS_init.sqf, so that the actions will be added locally to each player.