Articy Draft

We’ve explained why you should use Articy Draft in our overview of writing and design tools.  Let’s learn how.

We’ll cover:

• detail on beginner quick start tutorial
• what kinds of intermediate integration you can do with Unity Dialogue System
  • Importing into Unity
• what kinds of advanced workflows are possible
  • Variables & Lua scripting
  • Entity database design
  • Unity plugin
  • Articy C# macros

Beginner Articy Draft Tutorials

Try Articy Draft

1. Download and install Articy Draft.
2. Request a trial license.
3. Start by exploring the example project called Camelot.

Buy Articy Draft

You have a few options to buy your first copy of Articy.

1. Buy Flex version for the cheapest monthly amount.
2. Buy permanent license if you can afford it to save money long-term.
3. Buy Steam version if you use multiple computers with a single Steam account and want to switch between them.
4. Write down your serial number in an app like 1Password and sync it with your phone if you intend to be able to switch machines.

Switch computers with a single non-Steam license

1. Go to nevigo.com/unregister.
2. Enter your existing serial number.
3. Go to your email and copy the code they sent you.
4. Return to your web browser and enter the code.
5. Open Articy Draft.
6. Close your project if necessary.
7. In the top left settings menu, choose License Management.
8. Enter your serial number.

Intermediate Articy Draft Tutorials

Mind your data

SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN

Articy has crashed while editing global variable sets for example, losing hours and hours of work. If you are used to auto-saving, get used to manually saving in Articy.

BACKUP AND VERSION CONTROL

You should check your Articy data files into a Git repository  so that your changes can be reverted and synced alongside your game.

You might even want to put the Articy files in the repo for your game’s Unity assets.

If you have the budget and are serious about collaborating with it, get the multi-user licenses. If you are trying to use single-user licenses, designate one person at a time to have it “checked out” to be able to make changes to avoid merge conflicts.

Converting dialogue text into Articy flows

Watch Nevigo’s Scratchpad tutorial which shows how to write free-form notes and to import screenplay-style text into flowchart form:

Export to Word for printing and reading

The above tutorial also shows how to export your project into a Word document.

1. Use Word Export to generate a Word file.
2. Try printing it as a PDF or on a printer if you have one and sharing it with team members for feedback.

Import your Articy project into Unity Dialogue System

1. Get Dialogue System for Unity.
2. Try out their example scenes to get a feel for it.
   1. Speak to the Sargeant about your mission.
   2. Hack the computer.
   3. Press E to weigh moral quandary.
   4. Defeat the evil space emperor (or not; only you can decide!)
3. Export your Articy project as XML.
4. Import your Articy XML file into Dialogue System.
5. Place dialogue triggers according to the Dialogue System Articy documentation linking to your imported dialogues.
6. Hit play.

Learn more about how to use Articy

Watch Zach Snader’s great oveview of how to design games with Articy including location drawing.

Advanced Articy Draft Tutorials

Use Articy’s Lua scripting

Articy has Lua scripting built in that can be evaluated by Dialogue System.

1. Read Dialogue System’s Articy expression docs.
2. Make a variable in Articy like Points.
3. Add Instruction entities that increase points when the player chooses certain flows.
4. Write Conditions into the flowchart nodes requiring certain amounts of points to unlock certain dialogue options.
5. Import the project into Unity and test that the variables work and the conditions change the dialogue options based on Points.

Beta test Articy 2.5’s Unity plugin

Apply to Nevigo’s Articy Draft 2.5 beta. It will let you directly access Articy data from within Unity more extensively than with Dialogue System alone.

Write Articy 2.5 macro plugins

Articy 2.5 also lets you write C# plugin macros for the Articy Draft editor to allow you to better author content with your game’s entities.

 

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