Cutscenes and dialogues.

Cutscenes

Making Cutscenes is easy, either drop an .mp4 file in ./videos with the name of the song followed by -cutscene at the end, or drop it in the corresponding song folder and simply name it cutscene.mp4

You can also put an -end before -cutscene to make that cutscene appear at the end of the song.
Starting them manually with also a custom prefix is also possible, check the Cutscenes/Dialogue Scripts page.

Dialogues

Codename Engine also supports Dialogues, though there's a lot to unwrap here, so please read with patience.

Making a basic dialogue is done by making a file called dialogue.xml in the corresponding song folder, and the content should look something like this:

<dialogue box="default">
    <!-- All characters -->
    <char name="dad" position="left" />
    <char name="girlfriend" position="middle" />
    <char name="boyfriend" position="right" />

    <!-- Lines -->
    <line char="dad">
        yo its me your <format color="#FF0000">enemy!</format> how are you
    </line>
    <line char="boyfriend">
        shut up u stupid bitch
        ur useless af!!! loser!
    </line>
    <line char="girlfriend">
        agreed
    </line>
</dialogue>

This dialogue covers all types of characters (only having 3 types of positions).

Starting with the <dialogue> node, it only has 2 parameters:

• box which, well, determines the textbox that it should use.
• forceBoxDefaultTxtSound which overrides all text sounds and applies the default one.

For the <char> node, it has the following parameters:

• name determines which character to introduce.
• position determines the position which the character stays on.
• textSound determines what sound the character should play when it speaks. (takes from the ./sounds folder)
• defaultAnim i have no idea what that is bro

As for the <line> node, the example shows it's default usage, so the next parameters are mostly for advanced usage:

• bubble determines the animation the textbox should play.
• callback determines what function to call in a Dialogue Script (see Cutscenes/Dialogue Scripts)
• changeDefAnim to play a different animation for the character (changeDefAnim="scared").
• speed is the typing speed (default is 0.05).
• musicVolume changes the music volume (default is 0.8).
• changeMusic determines what song to change to.
• playSound plays a sound on the same line (so yes, you can also play a sound at the same time the dialogue starts).
• nextSound changes the sound of whenever you proceed to the next line.

The <line> node also accepts <format> children, to format different parts of the text. The parameters are:

• color for coloring.
• font to change the font of the text.

Setting up Dialogue Characters.

After realizing how to basically make a dialogue, you can now start adding custom characters besides the default ones.

You can start by making an XML file with the character's corresponding name and put it in ./data/dialogue/characters/.

Here's what Boyfriend's data looks like:

<character x="285">
    <anim name="normal" anim="normal" fps="24" />
</character>

We'll quickly go through the parameters here, for <character>:

• name which defines the internal name used for scripting.
• x and y define it's position in-game.
• sprite is the name of the sprite in the files. (keep in mind if you set this to point to a sparrow spritesheet it will automatically make an animation of all the frames in the spritesheet)
• textSound determines what sound the character should play when it speaks. (takes from the ./sounds folder)

Other options include:

• skewx and skewy skews the sprite.
• antialiasing determines whether or not the sprite has antialiasing. (true by default)
• width and height determine the width and height of the sprite's hitbox. (does not affect the sprite itself)
• scale, scalex and scaley are size multipliers for the sprite's width and height. (setting it to 2 means double the size)
• graphicSize, graphicSizex and graphicSizey determine the width and height of the sprite.
• updateHitbox determines whether or not to update the sprite's hitbox.
• alpha is the "opacity" of the sprite
• color tints the sprite in the color you set it to (example #FF0000 will tint the sprite in full red)
• playOnCountdown tells the sprite whether or not to play it's animation during countdown or not.
• beatInterval, beatOffset, honestly, I don't even know what this shit is okay.

As for the <anim> nodes, these are the parameters:

• name defines the internal name of the animation (used for scripting)
• anim is the prefix for finding the animation in the spritesheet.
• indices indicates which frames to play from the previously found frames. (For a range you can type 1..5 to generate 1,2,3,4,5)
• type determines the type of the animation. either beat or loop.
• fps is the framerate of your animation.
• x and y are the animation offset. (offset is only applied when the animation is played)
• forced whether or not to force animation playback while a different one is already playing.
• loop to make your animation loop.

(if you think this is familiar yes this is basically the same as making a sprite in a stage.)

Setting up Dialogue Boxes.

If you feel like also customizing boxes, fret not because you can also change that as well. (although this is gonna be a bit more advanced than the last 2)

You can start by making an XML file with the box's corresponding name and put it in ./data/dialogue/boxes/.

The default box's XML data looks like this:

<dialoguebox y="75">
    <!--
        Node containing all text settings
    -->
    <text font="vcr.ttf" x="107" y="206" width="1053" color="#000000" size="40"/>

    <!--
        All positions for characters
    -->
    <charpos name="left" x="-500" y="184" flipBubble="true" />
    <charpos name="middle" x="0" y="184" />
    <charpos name="right" x="500" y="184" />

    <!--
        All animations for the dialogue box
        For example, if you wanna add an "angry" animation, add an animation named "angry" (box idle), and "angry-open" (not needed, for box apparition)
    -->
    <anim name="normal" anim="speech bubble normal" fps="24" loop="true" x="-30"/>
    <anim name="normal-open" anim="Speech Bubble Normal Open" fps="24" />

    <anim name="angry" anim="AHH speech bubble" fps="24" loop="true" y="60"/>
    <anim name="angry-open" anim="speech bubble loud open" fps="24"  y="60"/>
</dialoguebox>

There's a lot to unpack but we'll go over each step in understanding this.

The <dialoguebox> node parameters and also the <anim> node parameters are exactly like the Dialogue Character ones (such as sprite for <dialoguebox>), so we'll skip those. (keep in mind if you make an animation with an -open at the end it will be used as an opening animation).

For the <text> node, which is required for this Dialogue Box to be considered valid, has the following parameters:

• x and y to change the positioning of the text in the box.
• width to determine the width of the field.
• color for coloring the text.
• size to determine the size of the text (default is 20).
• font to determine the font that the text should use (picks up the font from ./fonts).
• antialiasing to determine whether or not your text should use antialiasing.
• borderStyle determines if it has a border and which type of border the text should use (outline, shadow, outline_fast or none).
  • borderQuality for determining the quality of the border.
  • shadowOffsetX and shadowOffsetY for offsetting the shadow (if selected that style).
  • borderSize for sizing the border.
  • borderColor for coloring the border.

Now, for the <charpos> node, it's pretty simple, these are the parameters:

• name is the name of the position.
• x and y is for the position itself, i guess.
• flipBubble determines if the Dialogue Box itself should flip for the character.