Luna UI Documentation

DialogueController is the base class for every dialogue view in Luna — speech bubbles, tutorial modals, visual novels. Provides character-by-character reveal with three modes, audio integration via DialogueAudio, and parses text effects inline.

Features

Text Reveal Animation: Character-by-character text reveal with configurable timing
Audio Integration: Automatic audio playback for letters and punctuation pauses
Text Effects Support: Full integration with the Text Effects system
Multiple Animation Modes: Choose from VertexReveal, Default, or Instant modes
Event System: Events for text start and completion

Components

DialogueController requires a DialogueAudio component on the same GameObject for audio playback.

Animation Modes

Mode	Description
VertexReveal	Recommended. Uses vertex manipulation for smooth reveal with text effects
Default	Legacy mode. Shows text character by character
Instant	Shows all text immediately with text effects active

Inspector

Setting	Description
Skip Chars	Characters to skip during reveal (default: space)
Stop Chars	Characters that trigger a pause (default: `.`, `,`, `!`, `?`)
Text Animation Mode	The reveal mode to use

Basic Usage

csharp

using UnityEngine;
using CupkekGames.Luna;

public class MyDialogue : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private DialogueController _dialogueController;

    private void Start()
    {
        // Subscribe to events
        _dialogueController.OnTextStart += OnDialogueStart;
        _dialogueController.OnTextComplete += OnDialogueComplete;
    }

    public void ShowDialogue(string text)
    {
        // Continue with text, don't skip current if playing
        _dialogueController.Continue(text, skipCurrent: false);
    }

    public void SkipToEnd()
    {
        // End current text animation immediately
        _dialogueController.EndCurrent();
    }

    private void OnDialogueStart()
    {
        Debug.Log("Dialogue started");
    }

    private void OnDialogueComplete()
    {
        Debug.Log("Dialogue complete");
    }
}

API

Properties

IsPlaying

Returns true if text is currently being revealed.

csharp

if (_dialogueController.IsPlaying)
{
    // Text is still being revealed
}

Methods

Continue

Plays text with optional skip behavior.

csharp

public bool Continue(string text, bool skipCurrent)

Parameter	Description
text	The text to display (can include text effect tags)
skipCurrent	If true and text is playing, skips to new text. If false, completes current text first.

Returns: true if new text started playing, false if current text was completed instead.

Example:

csharp

// First call starts "Hello World"
_dialogueController.Continue("Hello World", false);

// If called while playing, this completes "Hello World" and returns false
bool started = _dialogueController.Continue("Next line", false);

// With skipCurrent: true, immediately starts new text
_dialogueController.Continue("Skipped to this!", true);

EndCurrent

Immediately completes the current text animation and shows the full text.

csharp

public void EndCurrent()

InitializeUI

Virtual method that queries the view's UI elements. Override in derived classes to set up additional elements.

csharp

public virtual void InitializeUI()

It runs on the OnUILoaded contract, not in Awake: a freshly instantiated view (a world-space speech bubble, a prefab you spawn yourself) has no loaded panel tree yet, so ParentElement is null at Awake. OnUILoaded fires synchronously when the tree is already loaded and again on every UI reload, so your override always queries the live tree — and should expect to run more than once per scene. Register callbacks idempotently (-= before +=).

Setters on the shipped implementations are state-first: calling them before the panel tree loads stores the desired state, which InitializeUI applies once the elements exist — so you can configure a bubble immediately after instantiating it. See SpeechBubbleController.

Events

Event	Description
OnTextStart	Fired when text begins playing
OnTextComplete	Fired when text finishes (either naturally or via EndCurrent)

Using Text Effects

DialogueController automatically parses and applies text effects:

csharp

// Text effects are automatically parsed and applied
_dialogueController.Continue(
    "This is <shake maxxamplitude=\"5\">scary</shake> stuff!", 
    false
);

// Rainbow effect
_dialogueController.Continue(
    "Look at this <rainb durationperchar=\"1.0\">magical</rainb> text!",
    false
);

DialogueAudio Component

The DialogueAudio component handles audio playback during text reveal.

Inspector

Setting	Description
Letter	AudioClip played for each character
Pause	AudioClip played for punctuation pauses

Methods

csharp

public void PlayLetter()  // Play letter sound
public void PlayPause()   // Play pause sound

Required UXML structure

The DialogueController expects a Label with name "Speech":

xml

<ui:UXML xmlns:ui="UnityEngine.UIElements">
    <ui:Label name="Speech" />
</ui:UXML>

Derived Classes

DialogueController serves as the base for specialized dialogue implementations:

SpeechBubbleController - Positioned speech bubbles with arrows
TutorialModalController - Step-by-step tutorials
VisualNovelController - Full visual novel interface

Tips

Use VertexReveal mode for the best visual quality with text effects
The skipCurrent parameter is useful for implementing "click to skip" functionality
Subscribe to OnTextComplete to know when to show "continue" prompts
Text effect tags are automatically removed from the displayed text

Dialogue Controller

Features

Components

Animation Modes

Inspector

Basic Usage

API

Properties

IsPlaying

Methods

Continue

EndCurrent

InitializeUI

Events

Using Text Effects

DialogueAudio Component

Inspector

Methods

Required UXML structure

Derived Classes

Tips

See also