Making Characters Talk

Making characters talk in the world is relatively straightforward. There are two ways to invoke characters in your scene:

Character Invocation Methods

1. Animation or Subscene Actions

• Use Animation ink actions to trigger character animations
• Use Subscene ink actions to load character subscenes

2. Controller-Based Approach

• Start a Camera angle controller with no template characters
• Start a Cutscene controller that has animations or subscenes linked

Once you've set up character invocation using any of these methods, you'll have characters available in your world and ready to deliver dialogue.

Ink Action Types

There are two types of ink action execution:

Command Block Actions

These actions block the story progression until they complete. Use for actions that require the story to wait.

Normal Actions

These actions execute without blocking the story flow. The narrative continues while the action runs in the background.

Implementation Examples

Example 1: Using a Camera Angle

=== chapter_1_scene ===
# camera jamie pov
Jamie: Hello, world!

Execution behavior: The camera command executes immediately, and the dialogue starts right away. Jamie speaks while the camera is in his point of view.

Example 2: Using a Cutscene

=== chapter_1_scene ===
# cutscene start "Beginning"
Jamie: Hello, world!

Execution behavior: The cutscene "Beginning" starts and plays completely. Once the cutscene finishes, then Jamie speaks his dialogue.

Execution Flow Comparison

Camera Command Flow:

1. # camera jamie pov executes
2. Camera switches to Jamie's POV immediately
3. Dialogue executes simultaneously
4. Jamie speaks while camera action is active

Cutscene Flow:

1. # cutscene start "Beginning" executes
2. Cutscene plays entirely
3. Cutscene ends
4. Then Jamie speaks his dialogue

Technical Notes

• Character names in dialogue must match entity names in your world
• Looped animations: Characters with looped movement animations are allowed during dialogue, because the story is on a static state.
• Reading pace: Keep dialogues short. If you need more lines, have the same character speak multiple times
• Characters must be spawned and available in the scene before dialogue execution or else your story will crash.