Hello everyone,
All of us at Articy are incredibly proud to release the coronation of our hard and intensive work for the past year: articy:draft X
You’ve all been waiting for a new release for some time now and we’re happy to bring this new version to you. We’ve received a lot of messages and took the time to listen to all the suggestions and wishes that you have shared with us and we are very grateful to everyone who pitched in. This new release is as much yours as it is ours.
Let’s go through the new additions together:
Localization and Voice Over support
Localization is by far the most requested feature from users across all our versions.
Much-needed toolsets such as Project Languages, Localization state management, Automatic Translation with DeepL, Spelling Dictionaries, Localization export and import, Localization report and the brand new dedicated Localization View are there to help you get your content localized either directly in-app or externally using the import-export function.
The added Voice Over support will make it easy to manage, localize and play Voice Over files directly in articy:draft and of course match localized Voice Over files with their corresponding localized texts.
With all narrative content in one place it becomes much easier to manage project languages, provide context, match text with Voice Over, track progress, export and import new or changed content to articy:draft and finally to the game engine.
For additional information and instructions on how to make use of all the Localization and Voice Over related features, please refer to the Help Center – Localization section. Dedicated video tutorials will be made available in the coming weeks.
Simulation Mode
Once copy is localized and Voice Over files are in, the story is already shaping up so the next natural step is to take it out for a spin in any language you choose to add to your project. You can do just that with the improvements added to the Simulation Mode which now supports switching languages and automatic playback of attached Voice Over sound files.
AI Extensions
The new AI extensions allow you the ability to access third party AI services in order to save time and use them directly within articy:draft X.
The AI Extentions come in the form of an insulated plugin and are meant to provide assistance as a starting point for writers and narrative designers to support them in their daily tasks.
We are adamant about keeping the flexibility to allow that the decision of if and how the third party AI services are used is completely up to the talented and capable creative minds that have enriched our generations – that’s you! So if you’re an AI enthusiast you can use the 3rd Party AI services directly within articy:draft. But if AI is not your thing, or if your employer prohibits its use, you can choose to disable the plugin altogether. For companies who decide not to use it, the server administrator in Multi User environments has the option to disable and also restrict access to the AI Extensions for all user accounts.
For additional information and instructions on how to set up and use the AI Extensions, please refer to the Help Center – Services – AI Extensions section. Dedicated video tutorials will be made available in the coming weeks. Should you have questions concerning the use of your data in relation to AI Extensions please refer to the dedicated section in our FAQ page.
Generic Engine Export
The Generic Engine Export is a good starting point to export content created in articy:draft X to your own engine or to open-source engines, like Godot, for example. It creates an archive, which contains all generated JSON files and optionally all assets, in BBCode text format, helping you collect all narrative content for a custom import solution for any engine that handles JSON data.
For quick instructions on how to use the Generic Engine Export, please refer to the Help Center – Engine Exports – Generic Export section.
MDK enhancements
The Macro Development Kit (MDK) has just become more powerful. The ability to write plugins which integrate and extend the functionality of articy:draft X now includes the possibility to add custom Imports & Exports with their own configuration UI directly into the Export-Dialog & Import Wizard; existing localization export and import plugin source code available to modify and recompile; and access to Multi-Language Texts.
Advanced configuration
For those of you who were using the command-line switches, this is the next level! We are keeping the flexibility of customizing different starting parameters to your preferences and workflow and made everything easier to achieve through the articy configuration file. The most relevant commands are already included in the articy.cfg file and you can find a complete list of available commands in our Help Center
Updated Unity and Unreal importers
New versions of the beloved articy:draft importers for Unity and Unreal supporting all the new features are now available on the respective Unity and Unreal integration pages on our website.
The new versions of the importers are currently in review queue on the Unity Asset Store and the Unreal Marketplace and will be published as soon as they are reviewed.
There are many other small additions and quality of life improvements that accompany our new version that simply didn’t fit into this blog post. If you want to go through all the changes big and small, take a look at the Recent Changes in our Help Center.
And this is only the beginning, further development of the coming features as well as all-new features are planned and a much awaited Mac version is in development and will be released as part of our future updates.
This is definitely an exciting time for us and we hope to have peaked your interest and that you’ll share our enthusiasm for this brand new version.
Anxious to try out articy:draft X? Get the free version right now and start 💯 worries free.
Get articy:draft X FREE
*No payment information required
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to keep yourself up to date and informed. To exchange ideas and interact with other articy:draft users, join our communities on reddit and discord.