Hello and welcome to the articy:draft X Basics tutorial series. This lesson features the Flow. How we can navigate the Flow View, and how to structure the Flow with nesting.
The Flow
The Flow is the visual center piece of articy:draft, here we can compose interactive, branching stories in an easy to use drag and drop environment. We can reach it from the Jumpstart Page (1) or by selecting Flow in the Navigator (2).
The Navigator shows all content in a hierarchical, explorer-like data structure (1). It is an optional element however and can be changed in width or collapsed entirely by using the splitter (2).
While we could observe the Flow in a List (1) or Tile (2) view, the absolute majority of time we will spend in the primary Flow editor view (3), simply because it makes working in a branching story structure so much easier.
Navigating the Flow
We navigate the Flow view by holding the right mouse button to pan around. With the mouse wheel or the zoom slider we can zoom in or out.
Note, that depending on the window size, elements in the toolbar might be hidden or collapsed.
With left click we can select a single object, or hold left to drag a rectangle to select multiple objects. Left clicking anywhere on an empty space deselects the current selected object or objects. Right click opens a context sensitive menu, depending on the underlying object. Right clicking on a flow object presents me with different options than clicking empty space or a connection for example.
Manipulating objects in the Flow
Hover over the top part of an object until the mouse cursor changes to a move symbol then left click and hold to move the object or multiple selected objects.
Bring the cursor to any corner to get a scaling option. Again, left click and hold to change the object’s size.
If an object is selected, an additional toolbar appears with context sensitive options, regarding the selection. Here we get additional selection options, like selecting all following or previous elements, or the means to order elements in case they overlap. If multiple objects are selected we also can align them in different ways.
Flow structure – nesting
What we can see in the Flow view right now is our entire narrative content of the project. Wait a minute, you might think right now, that looks pretty small.
Indeed it does, but I have not yet mentioned one of articy’s core approaches for the Flow, and that is nesting. Instead of having the entire content on the same layer, we can structure it in any way that makes sense for the specific project. The nodes we see here have further content within them and we can dive into these nodes to see it.
Dracula is just a small demo project, so if we go one layer deeper into any one of the nodes on the Flow’s top layer, or “submerge” as this action is called in articy, we get to the actual dialogue lines of the scene.
Nesting allows us to structure our content on different layers, and is first and foremost a tool to help structure our story from macro to micro, from broad ideas down to single lines of dialogue, while always letting us keep the overview.
To submerge into a selected node, use the Submerge button in the toolbar (1), or the “Enter” hotkey. In case the node already has inner content you can also double-click the inner content symbol (2) at the top right of the node, which consists of two little, downward facing, triangles.
Once you are submerged into a node, you see the inner content surrounded by the parent node’s box, symbolized with a dashed outline (1). To go one level higher, or to “emerge” click the icon found above the top border of the parent box (2), or use the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + Backspace”. Alternatively you can also navigate the different layers via the Navigator.
Flow – connections
Do all nodes have to be connected all the time? It depends. For an actual dialogue, it makes sense to have the nodes connected, as it makes creating a branching structure much easier.
But if you have a set of barks, for example, to be used when the player tries to combine items, these most likely will be unconnected in articy:draft and picked by the game engine.
It looks similar for the project’s structure. If your story flow is supposed to be in a certain order, like here 1 to 2 to 3 a or 3 b and then to 4, it makes sense to have the nodes connected, if your story structure is more open and the order depends on the player’s actions, you could use a hub structure in articy, or leave the nodes unconnected. There is no real right or wrong, it also depends on the way you want to handle the data later in the engine.
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