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clawforce
May 10th, 2017, 21:33
Good afternoon everyone!

Before I bang my head against the wall trying to figure out how to code what I'm looking for in as an extension, I figured I would check with the experts here. Essentially, what I'm trying to do is duplicate the semi-transparent overlay that games like Persona use when presenting a PC or NPC speaking, similar to this:

18941

Now obviously there's a lot going on there, and I'm not looking to capture most of it. From my research through the forums it would appear that having animated PNG files is not possible, but static PNG files with background transparency should be. Could I create an extension that when triggered pops up a shoulders up character portrait across the bottom of the screen with a blank word bubble next to them to indicate that they are the one speaking?

For reference, when we play, we use Discord for voice chat, so using text chat portraits doesn't help. A solution like this would contextualize who is speaking and help establish the connection to the character or NPC.

So tell me, am I nuts to think about this, or should I start hacking away at the coding? What form of extensibility is going to work best here? LUA? XML? Some combination?

Thanks in advance!

LordEntrails
May 12th, 2017, 23:45
I'm not an expert, but I do understand a little bit about coding/logic. How are you going to have Discord tell FG that someone is broadcasting and which player they are?

Even though I don't know how such could be done, I do think it happens somehow, because when I use the community TS server, sometimes it seems like a chat bubble pops up on the character portrait in FG. Now I might just be delusional, and maybe something else is going on, but, well...

Zacchaeus
May 13th, 2017, 00:05
Some people use Overwolf with TS and I think this is the thing which tells tou who is speaking. Not sure that it works with FG though.

Welcome to the forms clawforce. I have no answer for you either, since I'm not a coder.

Trenloe
May 13th, 2017, 05:17
I do think it happens somehow, because when I use the community TS server, sometimes it seems like a chat bubble pops up on the character portrait in FG. Now I might just be delusional, and maybe something else is going on, but, well...
You're delusional.

;)

The chat bubble appears when the owner of that PC is typing in chat.

Ken L
May 13th, 2017, 07:42
You could conceivably develop an extension that drops an overlay at the bottom of the chat window sans the chat bubble. Cheaply you can just blow up their portrait, border-less to achieve PNG transparency, but you'll have trouble with bubble alignment. IIRC the chat api won't let you do cool things as it isn't modular.

LordEntrails
May 19th, 2017, 20:12
You're delusional.

;)

The chat bubble appears when the owner of that PC is typing in chat.
See, I knew I was delusional!