4e Speech Bubbles

[Seth]

The latest 4e ruleset puts cute speech bubbles around players speech, which does a fantastic job of further differentiating it from other messages in the log. I was wondering if anyone was familiar with the feature from a technical standpoint. It would be really cool in one of the nWoD rulesets (a system where you tend to do a great deal more talking than an average 4e game). So is this feature simple enough to implement in a customized ruleset and would it be cool to do so?

[Stitched]

I haven't seen the code but you might be able to copy the code from the chat_entry.lua script (under the rulesets script folder) but it probably uses a "chat bubble" graphic that the text gets placed onto. Wasn't able to find that in the code, however.

[Phystus]

I think the "Base Ruleset" available on the Wiki (https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Base_Ruleset) has portraits in chat too. D20_JPG does as well. You might have a look in those as well.

~P

[Tenian]

It might be across the board in 2.7 I haven't checked.


mode = "story" formats it as a frame
mode="chat" formats it as a speech bubble

If it is in the code somewhere, it's probably in ChatManager.deliverMessage

[StuartW]

The Base Ruleset and the WoD ruleset have chat portraits. You need to enable them (on the GM side) from GM Preferences->Show Portraits in Chat. You need to be aware that nWoD and WoD rulesets are both for the new WoD game system, but were created by different folks. The second one (WoD) has this feature.

Stuart

[Seth]

There seems to be some confusion, though replies trying to help are always appreciated. I am not talking about chat portraits at all, but rather speech bubbles.

When playing the 4e ruleset using build 2.7.1 cute speech bubbles are placed around characters text when they speak (as opposed to their emotes or OOC which do not get the speech bubble treatment). If your chat log has lots of OOC, die rolls and other junk the speech bubbles do a fantastic job of making actual character speech pop.

[Zeus]

Seth - JPG may correct me on this but here's my pennies worth.

The new 'chat/speech bubbles' are simply graphic frames that are used as the background to chat mode text. Story mode text uses a different frame graphic.

See chatframe_chat and chatframe_story in graphics_frames.xml and chatframe_chat.png and chatframe_story.png in graphics/frames.

The windowclass 'chat' (in desktop_classes.xml) defines the chatbox on the desktop. Within 'chat' the window is comprised of the chatwindow (again called 'chat'), an indicator control (chat wait) and the chat entry field ('entry').

When the chatwindow receives an onDeliverMessage event (see scripts/chat_entry.lua) it sends/receives the messagedata and a mode. It is this mode that determines which frame graphic the chat chatwindow will use as the graphic background for the message data.

I don't believe the other text modes (system, ooc, emote,etc.) render a background in 4E but I guess you could do something similar by simply updating the onDeliverMessage() event handler.

So to build this functionality into other rulesets, requires making the new frames and defining them and I believe updating the chatwindow onDeliverMessage() event handler to process the text modes.

[Stitched]

True. I tried using the Unpak tool found here on this site and it only unpacked the xml and lua files - renaming the .pak to .zip allows you to unpack the image directories to find those chat graphics.



Seth - JPG may correct me on this but here's my pennies worth.

The new 'chat/speech bubbles' are simply graphic frames that are used as the background to chat mode text. Story mode text uses a different frame graphic.

See chatframe_chat and chatframe_story in graphics_frames.xml and chatframe_chat.png and chatframe_story.png in graphics/frames.

The windowclass 'chat' (in desktop_classes.xml) defines the chatbox on the desktop. Within 'chat' the window is comprised of the chatwindow (again called 'chat'), an indicator control (chat wait) and the chat entry field ('entry').

When the chatwindow receives an onDeliverMessage event (see scripts/chat_entry.lua) it sends/receives the messagedata and a mode. It is this mode that determines which frame graphic the chat chatwindow will use as the graphic background for the message data.

I don't believe the other text modes (system, ooc, emote,etc.) render a background in 4E but I guess you could do something similar by simply updating the onDeliverMessage() event handler.

So to build this functionality into other rulesets, requires making the new frames and defining them and I believe updating the chatwindow onDeliverMessage() event handler to process the text modes.

[Moon Wizard]

The chat mode graphics are completely defined in the XML for the chatwindow object in the target ruleset. Just specify the mode and the graphic, and it will be displayed.

If you want to fiddle with the message modes themselves, that would take some tinkering in the LUA, but probably not necessary. The default modes are "chat", "story", "act", "emote", and "ooc".

Cheers,
JPG