Wanting to add the point system

I plan to introduce the point system into my newest story Grey’s Embrace. Emerson (aka the reader) will have to make decisions that could affect her relationship with her fiance Wyatt and her friendship/relationship with Hunter. I understand how the point system works. I want to have some kind of overlay/prop pop up when the reader has made a choice to signify who has gained a point. In Under You by E R Gurney she uses head and heart points that show up as a brain and a heart when you make a choice. In Her Innocence by Arrows she uses a devil and angel to show which point you received. When I’m reading both stories I enjoy when they pop up. I feel it adds to the story. However I cannot figure out how to create an overlay to show who the point will be awarded to since they are actual characters and not just characteristics of the MC. Any help is welcomed and thanks in advance.

Are you wanting the overlays to show up all the time, even when the other character isn’t present, or only while talking to the character?

For the latter, I would just make an overlay and make it a habit to place it at the same time you code the point. Then spot place it right over where they are standing at the time/where their dialogue box is/was.

@ CHARACTERNAME +1
#add ‘positive’ overlay placement

If you want it to be all the time, I would make individual overlays for each character and add +1 or -1 next to it.

So:

#you make the choice
@ CHARACTERONE +1
@ CHARACTERTWO -1
#overlay placement saying “Character One -1” or a heart
#overlay placement saying “Character Two -1” or a broken heart

Moved to Directing Helps and Tips since this seems to involve coding. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about where to correctly create topics, and feel to PM me if there are any questions. :wink:

For the actual overlays you could use any font you want, with some effects like shadow or outlines or whatever, write their name and save it as a png file to upload as an overlay.

As for the directing: I just create the little overlays somewhere close to MCs shoulder and have the opacity to 0. Then I let the opacity go to 90% and animate the overlay the way I need it.

If you are planning to use it for characters:

  1. Create the overlays as mentioned above (eg. with Adobe Photoshop etc.)
  2. Place the according overlay (in your case the name of the character and for instance a plus for points gained or a minus for points lost or different colors etc.)
  3. Animate the overlay whenever you have a choice.

Here’s my angel code as an example:

&overlay ANGELICON create
&overlay ANGELICON to layer 27
&overlay 6576965317558272_ANGELICON shifts to 98 296 in zone 1 in 0
&overlay 6576965317558272_ANGELICON scales to 0.147 0.147 in zone 1 in 0
@pause for 0.2
&overlay ANGELICON opacity 90% in 1
&overlay ANGELICON shifts to 98 304 in zone 1 in 0.5 THEN overlay ANGELICON shifts to 98 296 in zone 1 in 0.5 loop 3 times
readerMessage If he still|italic|is|reset|your boyfriend after all these revelations.
gain boyfriend15
@ANGEL +1
@YOU faces right AND YOU is talk_flirt_charming_atcamera
@overlay ANGELICON opacity 0% in 2
@pause for a beat
&YOU faces right

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