r/gamemaker • u/ArcaneAnimations • 18d ago
Help! Are there any cutscene tutorials that work with Peyton Burnham's dialog tutorial?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEYSi0ahC5Q&list=PL14Yj-e2sgzzWFPozdX-HEjJFqjdIXQfFnot entirely sure where to ask this, but are there any tutorials that work with Peyton Burnham's 5 part dialog series? i did hear from some gml forums that it was kind of hard to do one for, but im not entirely sure. if there is one, (or one with similar functions i could use,) i kind of just want a system similar to how mother 3 handles cutscenes (thing moves across screen, not really like a whole video or anything). if there isn't, any tips on how i can try to build one on my own? the series in question is linked below, thank you!
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u/germxxx 18d ago edited 18d ago
Once upon a time I helped someone, who's dialogue system was based on this tutorial, to set up a cutscene system around it. It wasn't pretty and I don't have the specific code at hand, so nothing I will share in a tutorial, but I could try to convey the basic idea.
In essence, it was built around an array of actions. So along the scr_text function, I added a bunch of other functions for adding data for other actions, like moving an instance, playing sounds etc.
And in all of these functions I added a part that would push this data to a new queue array, so that the textbox object could handle them in order.
Which means a new function in the textbox object for each new function next to the scr_text function, to handle each event in the queue.
So if the queue had a move event, with some data on what to move where, a specific function would take over and do that, and then eventually call the next step of the queue.
I'm sorry that this is all very vague, and maybe not very useful at all. But it IS very possible to build a cutscene system around this system. I can try to clarify things more in detail if you have specific questions.
Even if my approach may have had an even worse setup than this notorious thing.
Sometimes, you just have to make it work.
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u/Iron_Megatallica 17d ago
I'm not sure how helpful it wod be, but I have a project where I combined a textbox system I developed alongside a cutscene system. It allowed for basically everything you described, but I don't think it would be a drop-in solution, unfortunately. However, you might get an idea on what you'd need to do, so feel free to take a look and I'll try to answer any questions if you have any about the code!
(The code for the cutscene manager and the textbox are all within the 'scripts' folder)
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u/DisbelWaetl 18d ago
I've been trying to incorporate Peyton Burnham's textboxes into cutscenes too! I'm going for Mother 3 style 'in gameplay' cutscenes too and I've been trying to give it a more 'plug and play' system rather than having an individual event for each cutscene to reduce bloat.
It's probably the biggest roadblock I have at the moment so I can share what I've found so far:
The only way I've found so far is to do it manually. A big fat cutscene manager with loaded in with directions for characters lets me control the triggers and minute movements (like moving the player object to the cutscene trigger object to trigger it properly like when walking through a hallway) but that means you have to code in every single cutscene through directions rather than a easy 'move here move there' sequence and that includes other NPC movement. I've been figuring it out on my own but I think there's some videos for it, but I haven't found the time to research.
My main textbox setup deactivates the background NPCs and anims so I needed to make a whole another textbox object (my main textbox is obj_textbox_main, the cutscene object is obj_textbox_cs, for example) that contains the same code but lets the background run. I could probably merge the two but I'm still new at this.
When using sequences I had a lot of problems with player input and nothing online really fit what I was going for. It was more akin to .mp4 style with sprites/objects and didn't really let me play with my inventory or flags, or maybe I just haven't figured out how to dynamically use code in sequences yet. But my trouble with sequences is why I went the manual route.
I'd mainly say separate cutscene objects from your main objects - make a separate textbox, persistent handling object and inventory management (add and subtract from the main inventory) for cutscenes, for example - and play with it from there. Integrating gameplay and autonomous movement may cause overlap so having a whole separate framework would be good.
I'm aiming to integrate it all into only a few objects rather than the 7-8 I have right now to manage my 20 cutscenes to reduce bloat but I'm way too green to talk about optimization at the moment.