CONVERSATIONS

One of the greatest features in the Thief world is the interaction between ai's, namely conversations. Table on the right is the entire list of conversations in T2, taken from the schema file. Also a list of the Motion tags for making ai's more realistic with motions and gestures during a conversation.
I've been having problems with conversations myself so I figured doing this would refresh my memory a bit more and help to learn it quick.


Example I'm using below is from Miss 05
"Two women talk about Garretts ambush".

Create 2 Ai's.
Edit them giving them unique names ie: WomanOne, Woman Two.
Create a marker and give it a unique name ie: 'Conv'.
Edit the markers properties :
Add S>Scripts and put TrapConverse in the first field and ok it.
Add Ai>Conversations>SaveConversation> and check the box.
Add AI>Conversations>Conversation and ok it, twice even.

Now we need to link the conversation to the actors.
Click on Conv and link to WomanOne with AiConversationActor
In the Link Data field give WomanOne the Actor ID 1.
Make the same link for WomanTwo but in the data field give it the Actor ID 2

LINK FROM MARKER TO AI'S

Next thing is to actually have lines in the conversation.
Click on Conv's properties and edit Add>AI>Conversations>Conversation.
The pic below is by clicking on step 00 brings up the conversation Actions. In the Actor field who ActorID 1 is ActorOne

 " schema sv20503A
archetype AI_CONV
sv20503A
schema_voice vserv2 1 c0503 (LineNo 1 1) "
The next step is for ActorTwo. Easy to see the pattern that follows :
Step 02 will be ActorOne, Step 03 will be ActorTwo and so on right up to Step 06. If you look at this Conversation on Miss05 you'll note there are 7 lines in the conversation. So that's 7 steps for the entire conversation. You can also add motions with argument 3: Conv#		 "schema ex20503B
archetype AI_CONV
ex20503B
schema_voice vextra2 1 c0503 (LineNo 2 2) "

 

Example I've been using is only for speech, but there is a whole lot of stuff that can be done with conversations. To the right is a pic of step 07 that adds the metaproperty M-Does Patrol thus sending them off on patrol after they have finished speaking. I'm sure the OM's have this kind of setting in step 00 instead of at the end. I'm not changing it now !

Thing to watch out for in conversations is the actors Voice. Conversations are set for specific voices. The conversation lists has the schema_voice needed for each actor. So if you are using an ai with the wrong voice you can click on the ai's properties and change the voice via Add>Speech>Voice .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few setting you can fiddle about with. Personally I've really only used the Play sound/motion action