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. Each conversation now has ALL the narrative of the conversations. These are colour coordinated each actors line is a different colour, RED is always female.Also a list of the Motion tags for making ai's more realistic with motions and gestures during a conversation.

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

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

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

Create a Marker and rename it , and add appropriate scripts and AIConversation link FROM the conv marker to the 2 Actors.
This conversation adds the M-DoesPatrol and M-RunnyGuard to both Actors named teef1 and teef2
Create 2 patrol points , 1 right beside the guard and the other where you want him to go. Create another marker and name it gohere, place it beside the 2nd patrol point . Link Actor 1 to the marker with a AIWatchObject.

The guard will now run to the second patrol point

Conversation has 2 Actors , 2 patrol points, 2 markers,
1 button, 1 teletrap

AiWatchObject settings are self explanatory , this basically lets the guard press a button linked to a teleport trap, hey presto, he's gone

Ghosts

I have a conversation where Actor 3 is a Pagan Ghost.
The settings circled is pretty much all there is to it, if it ain't working it is more likely the conversation itself isn't triggering.