Dialogue data model
- Game Development course
- Advanced
- Lesson 31/71
- 4 min
Learn the dialogue node and line data model.
Dialogue Data Model
At the core of a dialogue system lie data models that represent speech lines. Each individual line contains the speaker's name, the spoken text, and optionally an audio clip reference.
[System.Serializable]
public class DialogueLine {
public string speaker;
public string text;
}Adding [System.Serializable] to C# classes enables these models to be viewed in the Inspector and serialized to JSON format.
Dialogue Nodes
A sequential sequence of lines forms a Dialogue Node. A node stores an identifier (id), a list of lines, and the identifier of the subsequent node (nextId).
[System.Serializable]
public class DialogueNode {
public int id;
public List<DialogueLine> lines;
public int nextId;
}With this node structure, conversations are organized into discrete blocks and sequence flow is maintained.
Practice Dialogue line model
Define a Start method. Inside, declare string speaker = "Rehber"; and print "Konusmaci: " + speaker to the console using Debug.Log.
Starter code
using UnityEngine;
public class DialogueModelTester : MonoBehaviour
{
// Start icinde speaker degiskenini tanimla ve yazdir
}Sample solution
using UnityEngine;
public class DialogueModelTester : MonoBehaviour
{
void Start()
{
string speaker = "Rehber";
Debug.Log("Konusmaci: " + speaker);
}
}Expected output
Konusmaci: Rehber
Questions and answers
Review the lesson questions together with their answers. To test yourself, solve the lesson interactively.
1 Which two pieces of information are fundamentally required in a dialogue line data model?
- Physics collision layer and audio mixer
- GPU clock speed and RAM size
- Speaker name and dialogue text Correct answer
- Screen resolution and shader code
Explanation: To determine who is speaking and what text will be rendered, speaker name and text fields are essential.
2 Serializable dialogue line
[System.____] public class DialogueLine { public string text; }[System.Serializable] public class DialogueLine { public string text; }Explanation: In Unity, the '[System.Serializable]' attribute is required to make a data model serializable.
3 Dialogue model terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
DialogueLine |
Single line and speaker data |
DialogueNode |
Node holding a group of dialogue lines |
speaker |
Name of the speaking character |
nextId |
Next node identifier to continue flow |