Character Callbacks — Ren'Py Documentation

# Character Callbacks

Ren'Py includes the ability to execute callbacks when various events occur during dialogue. This is done by giving the callback argument to `Character()`, or setting the `config.character_callback` or `config.all_character_callbacks` variables.

The character callback is called with a single positional argument, the event that occured. Possible events are:

"begin"

  Called at the start of a say statement.

"show"

  Called before showing each segment of dialogue. Dialogue may be separated into multiple segments by the {w} or {p} text tags, but always consists of at least one segment.

"show_done"

  Called after showing each segment of dialogue.

"slow_done"

  Called after slow text finishes showing. Note that this event may occur after "end", in cases where dialogue does not cause an interaction to occur.

"end"

  Called at the end of a say statement.

The callback is called with at the keyword arguments:

interact

  This is true if the dialogue causes an interaction to occur.

type

  The type of character (e.g. "nvl", "adv", "bubble").

what

  The text that is going to be supplied to the what displayable.

multiple

  The multiple argument to `Character()`.

The "show" and "slow_done" callbacks are also given additional keyword arguments:

start

  The start of the current segment of dialogue, in the what string.

end

  The end of the current segment of dialogue, in the what string.

delay

  The amount of time Ren'Py will pause after the current segment of dialogue is shown, or None if Ren'Py will pause until the player clicks.

last_segment

  True if this is the last segment of dialogue in the say statement, False otherwise.

Other values of the positional argument and additional keyword arguments may be supplie to the callback. The callback should be written to ignore keyword arguments it does not understand.

## Example

This example plays beeps in place of a character voice, when slow text is enabled:

    init python:
        def beepy_voice(event, interact=True, **kwargs):
            if not interact:
                return

            if event == "show_done":
                renpy.sound.play("beeps.ogg")
            elif event == "slow_done":
                renpy.sound.stop()

    define pike = Character("Christopher Pike", callback=beepy_voice)

    label start:

        pike "So, hanging out on Talos IV, minding my own business, when..."

To specialize a general callback with for specific characters, you can pass arguments to the callback function with the cb_ prefix:

    init python:
        def boopy_voice(event, interact=True, boopfile="normal_boop.ogg", **kwargs):
            if not interact:
                return

            if event == "show_done":
                renpy.sound.play(boopfile)
            elif event == "slow_done":
                renpy.sound.stop()

    define chrisjen = Character("Chrisjen", callback=boopy_voice)
    define nagata = Character("Naomi", callback=boopy_voice, cb_boopfile="sfx-blipmale.ogg")