Articy:Draft 3 Notes

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Contents

• Foreword
• Notes
• Flow Editor
  • Key Terms
• Scripting
• Templates
  • Best Practices
• Document View
  • Notes

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Foreword

Articy:Draft is an expensive-ish tool for what it does. It's a visualizer for narrative content, whether that's in-game text, dialogue, locations, lore, or various metadata for prose writing. I tried really hard to use it for my creative writing. According to Steam, I've put over 1,043 hours into the software. This is at least as much time as I've spent drafting my published work, as I always had the program open alongside whatever word processor I was using. The thing was, I never felt like I made full use of the tool. I'm documenting my re-discovery here in an effort to gain a more complete understanding of its capabilities. I hope you learn something, too.

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Notes

• The workspace can be expanded by adding extra tabs, mousing to the edge and dragging out new panes, and opening further instances of articy.
• Expanding a pane to monitor Property Inspector while clicking through Nodes is a good practice.
• Query is the built-in, SQL-like search language. It can be used to find any object within a project. Link to documentation.
• Export to Unreal Engine is imported via articy's plugin. Link to documentation.

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Flow Editor

Key Terms

• Flow Editor: basic canvas.
• Add Note: right-click connection arrow.
• Submerge: double-click to "dive" into node, revealing further details or for nesting.
• Emerge: return to previous layer. Click icon to the left of the frame title.
• Flow Fragment: basic atomic node, ceated with right-click in Flow Editor. Submerge to enter details.
• Dialogue: basic narrative node. Submerge to input dialog.
• Annotation: used to create notes. Also useful as "frames" similar to Substance Designer.
• Hub: node used as return point for dialogue paths.
• Jump: node used to go to return point or any other non-direct node. Right-click to select target.
• Retarget: redirect nodes by selecting the connection, then hovering over the connected pin until an arrow appears. Click-drag to new pin.
• Templates: frameworks for narrative objects.
  • Features: used for defining parameters for narrative objects.
  • Entities: instances of narrative objects, draws on definitions from Features. Use the Technical name field to assign unique identifier. Entities are used to define NPCs, playable characters, enemies, weapons, items, skills, and technologies.
• Locations: Not a level designer. Used to provide visual reference. Drag-drop references from the navigator to create quick links at locations.
• Conflict Search: Accessed via the red "hazard" icon on the general toolbar.

Scripting

• articy:draft Scripting Documentation
• Global Variables: once created, scripted by double-clicking input pins.
  • Get state: double-click input pin, VariableType.variableName == false or true
  • Set state: double-click output pin, VariableType.variableName = false or true
  • Set Property: Output pin: setProp(getObj("EntityTName"), "FeatureTName.ParameterTName", getProp(getObj("ETName"), "FTName.PTName")+1);
  • Get Property: Input pin: getProp(getObj("ETName"), "FTName.PTName") booleanOperator checkValue;
  • GV Increment/Decrement: GameState.variableName += 1;
  • Grant/remove item to/from entity: Output pin: ETName.PTName = true/false;
• In Templates: Generally use script in Flow, but references can be inserted into templates.
• Instruction Node: Used in Flow between fragments to set variables.
• Condition Node: Used to check variables and offer simple or gate. For situations involving more than two choices, use the Get/Set behaviors for Global Variables on input pins.
• Commenting: Start lines with // to insert comments.
• Simulation Variables: After starting a simulation, clicking the Journey settings (denoted by a wrench icon) allows temporary setting of various global variables.

Templates

Best Practices

• Property Naming: when duplicating, give appropriate base name then accept iterations Base Name (02), BaseName_02.

Workflow

1. Create Feature(s).
2. Create Template.
3. Add Feature(s) to Template.
4. Create Entity.
5. Apply Template to Entity.
6. Construct narrative.

Document View

Notes

• Ctrl+Enter adds a new Dialogue Fragment.
• Dragging and dropping from the left side of a Document title into the Flow will convert the Document into a Node. Note: this creates an unlinked copy of the content.

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