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Make stuff follow the mouse

by Hjalmar · in Torque 3D Beginner · 08/05/2014 (12:13 pm) · 7 replies

I'm trying to make a game where it is possible for the player to place buildings. I've completed the RTS Prototype tutorial but need some pointers on how to make the building visible before being placed. I suppose I could create the TSStatic object, pass it to some function that keeps track of it until some onMouseDown event and change its location by constantly checking the mouse pointers location until the event. But is there a neater way to do it?
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Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#1
08/05/2014 (1:17 pm)
No, I think that's pretty much it - unless you intend to extend the engine to do that. In fact, you can use the onMouseDragged() event - so, onDown it creates the object, onDrag it moves it and onUp it places it. Perhaps use onRightDown to cancel....

Hjalmar
#2
08/06/2014 (1:40 am)
Ok, thanks. An other problem, how do I move a StaticShape() ? It has a getter for position but no setPosition, is position public so I can get it with "$obj.position" ? Or do I have to implement a set:er?

#edit: Were is onMouseDragged declared? Can't find it in gameTSCtrl.cpp

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#3
08/06/2014 (6:50 am)
GUI control mouse callbacks are declared in GuiControl (engine/gui/core/guiControl.h around line 597). It is left to the child controls to implement it. See engine/T3D/guiObjectView.cpp @ line 278 for an example implementation (this control uses left mouse drag to move the camera, right mouse drag to orbit around the focus object).

Torque Owner Robert Fritzen
Phantom Games Development
#4
08/06/2014 (5:13 pm)
I'd just create a new update method in the C++ to accomplish this.

As Richard has explained, take a peek at GuiControl.h for a sample on how the engine works with mouse events. You'll just want to make one that uses the advanceTime method, or whatever method that is. Just store the current mouse position every frame and throw it in a variable accessible by the gui.

Torque Owner Daniel Buckmaster
T3D Steering Committee
#5
08/06/2014 (5:41 pm)
The lack of setPosition is stupid. For now, you need to use setTransform, but you have to pass the whole transform with rotation as well. Something like this:
%newPos = "1 2 3"; // or whatever
%trans = %obj.getTransform();
%rot = getWords(%trans, 3, 6);
%newTrans = %newPos SPC %rot;
%obj.setTransform(%newTrans);

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#6
08/06/2014 (6:16 pm)
Wait - you mean
%obj.position = "1 2 3";
doesn't work? I was pretty sure it worked...

Hjalmar
#7
08/06/2014 (11:59 pm)
Great! Now it works! I added this to gameTSCtrl:

void GameTSCTRL::onMouseDragged(const GuiEvent &evt)
{
  Parent::onMouseDragged(evt);
  if( isMethod( "onMouseDragged" ) )
      makeScriptCall( "onMouseDragged", evt );
}

In playGui.cs:

function PlayGui::onMouseDragged(%this, %pos, %start, %ray)
{
   if(%this.placingBuilding)
     commandToServer('moveCurrentBuilding',%pos, %start, %ray);
}

And moveCurrentBuilding just does $currentBuilding.position=%pos;