Advice for VN writer

[Konrad Simon]

I hope this is the right place to ask this. I'm working with a programmer and an artist on my first VN, and trying to make the script as friendly for them as possible.

There are several classes of text that go into a script:
1) Internal thoughts of a character ("Should I stick my head up my ass?")
2) Dialog spoken by a character ("MC: I'm going to stick my head up my ass.")
3) Action or narrative ("You stick your head up your ass")
4) Instructions for the programmer ("If MC's head is not up his ass, go to stick-head-up-ass")
5 Description of an image or animation ("animation of MC bending ever and shoving his head up his ass")

My question: What is some advice for how to make it clear to the artist and programmer which of those a given line of text is? Do you use italics for images, bold for programming instructions, brackets? Is there an industry standard for this kind of thing, or a resource that discusses it?

Thanks.

 

[Doorknob22]

1. Assuming you're taking over all the plot/dialog, I'm not sure why 1,2 and 3 should concern either the artist or the programmer. It's yours anyway.
2. #4 you should write pseudo code. You can decide that #### are instructions for the programmers.
3. In a similar way, you can designate ### as instructions for the artist.

Combining it all would look something like:

    karl "All right asshole, you asked for it. Fuck the gold, you're dying. Here and now."

    sofi "Kill him, husband. Bash his stupid skull!"

    ### scene karlon house 65 # karlon Opens the cage door

    ka "Are you sure about this, [karl]?"

    karl "Get out, time to die!"

    ### scene karlon house 66 # grinning Karder, close up

    ka "Thank you. You have no idea how much I'm going to enjoy this."

    ka "And you [sofi]... You're next."

    #### call battle_game_1(karlonFighter)

Which is actual code from my next update, only I leave ### to myself.

Good luck!

 

[Vanderer]

When I write for myself, I tend to just make commentaries, lines that start with a #. Just for what the text itself do not convey clearly.
What is written after the # is ignored totally by the program.

One advice from a beginner to another to make your partner life easier, if I may: think about how hard a scene will be to pose, animate, or find the right asset for.

If it is a hard scene to do, is it necessary? Can you axe it? Can you write it in a way that will make their life easier without losing the essence of it? If found that often I wrote something and when it's time to actually create the render it take far more time than I thought for a part of the story that do not warrant so much efforts.

 

[Konrad Simon]

This is very helpful. Thank you both!

 

[Konrad Simon]

Which is actual code from my next update, only I leave ### to myself.

Good luck!

And, by the way, I am very much looking forward to your next update; I'm enjoying Vae Victus - Khan a great deal.

 

[Rafster]

There are several classes of text that go into a script:
1) Internal thoughts of a character ("Should I stick my head up my ass?")
2) Dialog spoken by a character ("MC: I'm going to stick my head up my ass.")
3) Action or narrative ("You stick your head up your ass")
4) Instructions for the programmer ("If MC's head is not up his ass, go to stick-head-up-ass")
5 Description of an image or animation ("animation of MC bending ever and shoving his head up his ass")

My question: What is some advice for how to make it clear to the artist and programmer which of those a given line of text is? Do you use italics for images, bold for programming instructions, brackets? Is there an industry standard for this kind of thing, or a resource that discusses it?

I would go with something like this:

1) thought: Should I stick my head up my ass? /thought
2) MC: I'm going to stick my head up my ass. /dialogue
3) text: You stick your head up your ass /text
4) code: If MC's head is not up his ass, go to stick-head-up-ass /code
5) art: animation of MC bending ever and shoving his head up his ass /art

The idea is that everyone looks for the words (ctrl+f) and identify what is addressed to them. For example, "code:" and " /code" will be only for the programmer, and he should ignore the rest, or place it where they go on the code.