Quote:
Originally Posted by JCurwen3
I would definitely be interested in using it. I know it has the potential to add an extra dimension to my spaceship battles (yes, I meant that both figuratively and was also well aware of the pun)...
As far as importing from Excel, the COM / OLE automation force is strong within me, so if that becomes something desirable, I'd be happy to do the coding to add support for that.
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OK, the roaming camera is working already.
I'm currently downloading Blender because apparently I don't have a nice FBX-formatted cone primitive on my computer (I'll need a cone to denote legal movement zones and gunnery arcs later).
Currently, I see a ship template as consisting of the ship placeholder (object which is there to be something concrete with specific coordinates and facing, and to which actual ship models will be childed later), its vector child (this one is likely to remain abstract), and line renderers to denote ship facing direction and the straight path between the ship's current position and the vector's position.
I figured the best way to implement 3D movement is similar to the way Homeworld 2 does it:
When a ship is to be moved, activate an invisible plane collider at the vertical coordinates of the ship/vector/target (both horizontal coordinates centred on the original ship coords), and while mouse button is pressed (i.e. dragging the vector/ship/etc.), project a RayCast onto this plane (only); the new coordinates are the hit point of the RayCast onto the plane. However, with Shift pressed, vertical mouse movement is mapped into an adjustment of the vertical coordinate instead (no RayCast involved).
Of course, for starters I'm just gonna try 2D dragging.
Oh, and I now realized that it's much easier to make the engine hex-agnostic. Figuring which hex's centre is closest to the new coordinates is a bother that might, unless I learn some short way of doing it, chew up some resources (as silly as it sounds).