Camera focus inside dialog

[hexer]

One of our writers has a question concerning camera inside dialog so here's his question:


Fallout 1 and 2 never really had any inter-NPC dialogue, save for that one scene in Fallout 2 where Vic meets his daughter. That's handled through lots and lots of floating text, which isn't necessarily ideal in every situation.

Since we have one follower whose shtick is that he fucks around with your quests and when talking to certain characters, how do we handle this?  Is it possible to do something like this where the camera display moves to focus on a different character(Similar to Baldur's Gate):



(Talk to Johnny, camera is focused on him in the dialogue menu)

Johnny: Hello, welcome to Moletown!

PC: Hello, my name is CHARNAME.

(Camera focuses on Hanged Man)

Hanged Man: You should unload on that little twirp.

PC: (Continue)

(Camera focuses on Johnny)

Johnny: So, what can I do for you?

 

If that's possible, the only issue would be for talking head NPCs.

If it's not possible, a workaround would be to include a brief text description denoting one of your followers is talking like this:

(Talk to Johnny, camera is focused on him in the dialogue menu)

Johnny: Hello, welcome to Moletown!

PC: Hello, my name is CHARNAME.

Hanged Man: (The Hanged Man leans close to your ear and utters a hoarse whisper) You should unload on that little twirp.

PC: (Continue)

Johnny: So, what can I do for you?
 

Another workaround (Which I don't suggest) would be to add "Hanged Man:" to denote it's someone other than the NPC you clicked on, but that would look very out of place in Fallout as that is not the dialogue style the developers used for the first games.

Mostly, I just need to know if the first option is viable.

[Lexx]

Pretty sure you can script to center the camera on a npc- but I'd imagine it looks awkward, or if you have a high resolution and the map border is close by, it won't look right anyway.

Personally, I'd go with the description text in the beginning of the other npc talking. This would be needed anyway, regardless of the camera switching, exactly because of what I wrote above... Sometimes the camera most likely can't center on someone else.

Of course you could script a new dialog interface and have character portraits being shown, as it was done in the Van Buren techdemo.... and even then I'd do the description text, simply because for me this would be a must-have as soon as the characters are switching.