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Problem using t2dSceneObject as a health bar

by Richard Skala · in iTorque 2D · 05/18/2010 (8:12 pm) · 6 replies

I am using a t2dSceneObject as a Health Bar, and it works fine, except for one important issue.

When resizing the t2dSceneObject health bar (when the user loses 'health'), it shrinks towards the middle, which is correct since the "position" is the center of the object. So, to compensate, in the same frame, I move the object downwards by half the amount it was resized, so it is positioned correctly.

The problem is that the t2dSceneObject doesn't seem to update fast enough, causing the user being able to see the health bar shrinking and moving down very quickly.

I would like the object to resize and reposition immediately to avoid this issue. Is there some way I can force a draw update or something on the t2dSceneObject? Is there some other solution I might be missing?

Thanks for any assistance.
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Torque Owner Scott Wilson-Billing
MeYuMe
#1
05/19/2010 (12:34 am)
The only thing I can think of is using a set of images for the health bar where each image in the set represents the different health level e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20 % etc then just swop out the image based on the health. It may not be accurate enough for what you want though?

Torque Owner Richard Skala
Pixel Vandals Inc.
#2
05/19/2010 (1:10 am)
I appreciate the input, but I don't think that will be accurate enough, as the value can be any float value between 0.0f and 100.0f. I was thinking that perhaps I need to use a 'GuiControl' instead of a 't2dSceneObject'. Unfortunately, information about 'GuiControl' objects seems kind of scarce, so I don't really know much about them.

Torque 3D Owner Dean Parker
Serendip Games
#3
05/19/2010 (1:44 am)
Game code
// %power = life amount.

   %width = %power * 2;  // or what ever size u want the bar.
   %height = getWord(lifeBar.extent, 1);

   lifeBar.setExtent(%width, %height);
   return;


GUI
new GuiBitmapCtrl(lifebar) {
         canSaveDynamicFields = "0";
         isContainer = "0";
         Profile = "GuiDefaultProfile";
         HorizSizing = "right";
         VertSizing = "bottom";
         Position = "3 2";
         Extent = "197 25";
         MinExtent = "8 2";
         canSave = "1";
         Visible = "0";
         hovertime = "1000";
         bitmap = "~/data/images/solidcolor.png";
         wrap = "0";
         useSourceRect = "0";
         sourceRect = "0 0 0 0";
      };

Torque Owner Richard Skala
Pixel Vandals Inc.
#4
05/19/2010 (5:38 am)
ok, this is a good start -- I have the object created through script, and the object is found using Sim::findObject(). I'm using your code exactly how it is above, except I changed the bitmap name, of course. However, it doesn't show up on screen. Any ideas why that might be?

Torque 3D Owner Dean Parker
Serendip Games
#5
05/19/2010 (6:07 am)
1) the bitmap should be a solid color
2) the size does not have to be full size, it could be size 2x2. it gets resized / stretched from the code.
3) proper coding for bitmap should be ...
bitmap = "~/data/images/green";

assuming your image name is green.png

Torque Owner Richard Skala
Pixel Vandals Inc.
#6
05/19/2010 (4:58 pm)
I figured out why it wasn't appearing on screen. I needed to add the GuiControl to the mainScreen.gui file.