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Objectives Display Gui


Ishtvan

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Yet another GUI we could use. I don't presume to say what gets priority in the Art department, so feel free to ignore these requests if there are other high priority things. I'm just putting them in because the objectives code is ready to send text objectives to a GUI and mark them as complete/incomplete/invalid, etc. :)

 

Also when writing the code, I"m curious where I should store teh data to make it most easily accessible to GUIs. I think someone suggested I look at some example, but I didn't have time to look at it yet.

 

Feature-wise, how is this going to work? Are we going to have a toggle key that brings up the Map/Objectives GUI like in T1/2? Or are we going to display these guis ingame as if the thief is checking a notebook or something?

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Well, I don't think the game should keep running while the player is looking at his objectives, so that should be a separate screen like T2. I'm inclined to suggest the same for the map, although I think Gil was already talking about using the fixed-readable GUI system for maps, which would I guess go into your inventory? I'm not strongly against that idea either, since the maps are supposedly things you actually have in the gameworld.

 

Although, I'm not sure I'd want to see blue highlights on a map that I'm actually holding as a player. It's one thing on a separate screen, but if it's supposed to be a real object that's a different matter.

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Although, I'm not sure I'd want to see blue highlights on a map that I'm actually holding as a player. It's one thing on a separate screen, but if it's supposed to be a real object that's a different matter.

 

I believe we decided that the highlight would be an option?

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Ok, here's a simple Objectives concept based on Pak's original design. All the different objective types are included.

 

I personally prefer the font of the first version, but I've included the classic T2 handwriting font and another as well for some variety.

 

gui-objectives.jpg

 

gui-objectives2.jpg

 

gui-objectives3.jpg

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Looks great!

 

I really like the idea of the arrow pointing out new objectives too. IMO an objective should probably stay marked as "new" until you open the objectives menu and see it for the first time, then it goes away. Alternatively, the "new" marking could go away some time after getting the objective, but I think I like the first option better.

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Napalm is going to work on getting this one ready, so I'll wait a little while longer to see if there are more comments about the fonts, then I'll give Napalm the relevant graphics.

 

Ish, you and Napalm can coordinate whatever coding will be necessary to modify objectives?

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Alrighty, for the record I like the third. Ish, the main thing I'll need coding wise is the functions that relate to mission objectives, I'll also take a look at how PDA objectives worked to see if theres a fast easy way.

 

What kind of functions are called from GUIs? Script functions I'm assuming? If GUIs can read variables that can also be set from the SDK, that might be the best way, since I can just put in the text from each objective and some variables representing the state in the place GUIs can read, and the GUI can read it and decide what to display.

 

I'll look at how they do it for player health.

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Yea, it's similar to the health Functionything::actionything style scripting, it should be the same except instead of health or actions for function whatever the in map script is

 

And yea, I think the first one looks too cartooney as well, the third looks a little more real, and it's not that hard to read

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Okay, I looked up how to set those "gui::<variable>" things and I can handle that part of it from the SDK.

 

I guess you can assume we have the following variables:

 

string obj1_text : text description

 

int obj1_state : will be an integer from 0-3 with each int representing the following state: 0 incomplete, 1 complete, 3 invalid (should have a line drawn thru it), 4 failed (should have X drawn thru it)

 

then some booleans (or ints that are 1 or 0 if the gui doesn't have bools)

bool obj1_visible : if set to false/0, the objective is hidden and does not display in the GUI (used for mapper scripting and stuff)

 

bool obj1_mandatory : Some objectives can be optional. @Springheel: How are we going to differentiate between mandatory and optional objectives in the GUI? We could just write "optional" in the text I guess, or there could be some symbol?

 

 

I think that should cover it for the variables. Each of these can be set on a numebr of objectives, obj1_* obj2_*, etc. Unless the gui code can do arrays of structures, but I don't think it can.

 

One question though, can GUIs do for loops or something like that to handle an arbitrary number of things to display, or do you have to put in item1, item2, item3... itemN up to some maximum? The number of objectives will be changing every time. I guess if we must we can do it this way though and just put in some arbitrary GUI display limit like 20 objectives.

 

Also, what happens if there are so many objectives that they won't fit on a single page? I guess we should add a page-turning button and another page or two?

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I had thought we were stealing using the one out of Thief? JD or whatever?

 

Well, the middle one is the only Thief handwriting font I have. I didn't get anything called JD when I got the Thief Font pack.

 

So far we have three votes for #1 and two for #3.

 

A question about fonts: Can you make fonts bold in guis?

 

Some objectives can be optional. @Springheel: How are we going to differentiate between mandatory and optional objectives in the GUI? We could just write "optional" in the text I guess, or there could be some symbol?

 

I don't think a symbol would be best, even if I could think of one. I think it would be easiest just to write "Optional" right into the objective. I think this is also how they did it in T2.

 

* Optional: Steal the Chalice.

 

I guess we should add a page-turning button and another page or two?

 

Yeah, if there's more than one page we can always just include a "next page" option at the bottom of the list.

 

3 invalid (should have a line drawn thru it

 

I'm not sure how to go about measuring the length of of the line to be crossed out. I can provide a small, tileable line that can be carried through the entire text if you can figure out how to tile it to the right length.

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One question though, can GUIs do for loops or something like that to handle an arbitrary number of things to display, or do you have to put in item1, item2, item3... itemN up to some maximum? The number of objectives will be changing every time. I guess if we must we can do it this way though and just put in some arbitrary GUI display limit like 20 objectives.

 

Also, what happens if there are so many objectives that they won't fit on a single page? I guess we should add a page-turning button and another page or two?

 

There are some ways of looping guis that I found to be somewhat sucessful, you create a float variable which is changed per itemn, and reset back to 0 when it reaches some number, allowing for repetion of the same command in the code, I used to to with some sucess to allow access to different menu sections and such earlier.

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Okay, sounds good. Once it's planned out, please let me know if you need any more/different variables, and I'll have the code write the finalized vars once the gui is ready for testing.

 

Btw, about the three versions of the font: I have to say #2 is pretty hard for me to read. I like either #1 or #3 better.

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Ok, I've replaced the option #2 that no one liked with JD font above. Let me know which of the three you prefer now, and we'll go with that one for all our handwritten GUIs.

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