Subject: User interface proposal
From: Jari P Saukkonen (jsaukkon@cs.Helsinki.FI)
Date: Thu Aug 26 1999 - 00:32:23 EEST
Me (Dazzt), Harum and Namhas had a small gathering this evening, discussing the user interface. We looked at some modern first-person games to see how others had done it and how we could do better ( :) ). The following points were agreed upon and will be implemented unless someone suggests a better option. Controlling your character requires both using your keyboard (movement) and your mouse (head). This mouse-keyboard style seems to be quite standard in first-person games today, allowing fast turns and glancing etc which are impossible to do with plain keyboard. While your character is standing still, moving the mouse turns the head. If you try to turn your head sideways more than the neck would allow, the character will turn. If you are moving forwards, turning character's head also turns his body, maybe with little delay so you can glance to one side or another while running straight forward. We didn't decide anything specific on the object handling, except that there will be no separate "inventories". If you want to look into the pouch in your belt, you turn your head so you can see it and click on it to see what it contains. My idea for generic item-handling is that clicking the left mouse button would "use" an item in your hand (hit with a weapon, light a torch, read a scroll etc), and right mouse button would "manipulate" (pick, drop, press a button etc). Using this as an example, a battle might go like this: You see a couple of ugly orcs charging at you from the nearby forest. Feeling like a tough guy you decide to fight them. First, you look down at the sword sheath tied to your belt, click right mouse button on the sword (we need a somekind of cursor or crosshair to coordinate actions) to wield it, and start fighting using the left mouse button. With better luck, you might have survived :). I'd like to have comments on this, just to know what do you think of it. ++Dazzt --- | Jari Saukkonen + jari.saukkonen@cs.helsinki.fi : coral -. | programming music graphics | dolphin : | art keyboards web | nah-kolor | +------------------------------------------------+-----------' | Babylon5-inspired 'shadow function' 0 <= t <= 4*pi/3 : x(t) = (sin 8t)^2 * (5 + 3sin 8t) cos (t/2 + (sin 8t)^2) . y(t) = +-(sin 8t)^2 * (5 + 3cos 8t) sin (t/2 + (sin 8t)^2)
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