System shock/CyClones pointer

Hi! Does anybody know how to make moving pointer like in SS or CyClones. I'm currently working on a small project that mix SS shooting method and rpg elements (inventory managment system, level up, life bars etc.)

No way. It's out of scope of a first person shooter engine like Doom engine is. Not even ZDoom makes this possible.

scifista42 said:

No way. It's out of scope of a first person shooter engine like Doom engine is. Not even ZDoom makes this possible.

Technically it's possible in ZDoom with a lot of scripting, but then you cannot move at the same time, because the game doesn't distinguish between mouse input and keyboard input so turning with the keyboard is interpreted the same way as moving the mouse and your cursor would move.

Though if you really want to, you could work around that by replacing the built-in movement with scripted movement. ZDoom allows to define up to four buttons for custom functions, you could associate them with "forward", "left", "right", and either "back" or a turn/strafe toggle, then when your script is polling player input for cursor movements, you could also look at these and push or turn the player pawn accordingly.

Gez said:

Technically it's possible in ZDoom with a lot of scripting,

I guess KovalPL would also want to use the pointer for inspecting and picking up inventory items in player's sight and such things. So, it would require not only an additional range of input commands, keys assigned to them, and a control script and HUDMessage graphic for the pointer itself, but also some kind of custom-scripted collision detection which I can't imagine implemented neither easily nor reliably, if it's possible at all, because it would have to be based on level geometry and hitboxes of the game objects, and not per-pixel collision detection on player's view, because the engine absolutely doesn't allow the latter at all. Either way, a System-Shock-like pointer is something the engine doesn't support natively.

what about CyClones engine itself? ( http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Raven_engine ) I read that Carmack wrote it for Raven software. Is it free or obsolete? Also I read that Slade can handle it( http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Shadowcaster )
I could dive into it and see how it's done. If in-game (CyClones) I'm able to walk and point at anything, then zdoom is no worse. Am I right? ;d

Wait for a proper reply by Gez, he's the one with good knowledge about non-Doom 2.5D game engines from the 90s. I can only tell you that:
1. SLADE3 can open CyClones' data files, and that's the only connection between them there is.
2. You are indeed wrong if you assume that every feature of the Raven engine must also be present in ZDoom. ZDoom is not even based on the Raven engine's code.

No, I mean if I study how pointer in Raven Engine works then I'll try to achive it one way or another in Zdoom. If not for game design then for tutorial purposes ;d There's no big rush ;d

scifista42 said:

I guess KovalPL would also want to use the pointer for inspecting and picking up inventory items in player's sight and such things. So, it would require not only an additional range of input commands, keys assigned to them, and a control script and HUDMessage graphic for the pointer itself, but also some kind of custom-scripted collision detection which I can't imagine implemented neither easily nor reliably, if it's possible at all, because it would have to be based on level geometry and hitboxes of the game objects, and not per-pixel collision detection on player's view, because the engine absolutely doesn't allow the latter at all. Either way, a System-Shock-like pointer is something the engine doesn't support natively.

Look at stuff like this:
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=49027

People are working on it.

KovalPL said:

No, I mean if I study how pointer in Raven Engine works then I'll try to achive it one way or another in Zdoom. If not for game design then for tutorial purposes ;d There's no big rush ;d

There's a big difference between what you can do when changing the engine and what you can do from within the engine.

Gez said:

Look at stuff like this:
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=49027

People are working on it.

Interesting. I couldn't find out if and how does this guy implement collision detection between the cursor and actual "in-map" objects in player's view, but if he really implemented the required 3D geometrical checks to do so (at least approximately), it would be cool. Purely 2D pixel checks would be preferable for that purpose, but those are fundamentally impossible in ZDoom as I'm pretty sure.