Bit of a slow week, continuing my efforts into Scaleform and Action Script, this time in relation to the main UI.
Some discussion lead to a pretty significant change – there is no main menu. Being a PC focused game, having to go back to a central screen to choose another seemed odd. Animations are also currently non-existent. Quick transitions may be added later, but that is about it. We figure people would prefer to be in-game playing, rather than waiting for flashy animations and camera flybys.
The key bindings menu has become an interesting task. The basic idea of selecting a command and pressing the key to bind it to is easy. Its the actual commands that are not.
When I first began working on Ground Branch, I added a crappy basic scripting system to allow additional commands to be created and customised with out recompiling anything. I really need to expand that system soon.
The reason is simple enough – you can’t please everyone.
Currently, Ground Branch doesn’t use the classic tactical FPS mouse button setup. Instead, the left and right mouse buttons correspond to the right and left hands, with the middle button controlling weapon positions and sight usage. We will go into the reason behind this setup in a future post.
At the very least, a few people will not be happy with this setup. In a standard situation, they’d be able to rebind their keys, but lose the functionality of the existing ones. The scripting system will help prevent that.
Plenty of presets will exist to make things easy, but the ability to control the finer details will remain for those who want it.
Better then having to bind 4 keys to to jump, stand up, mantle and kick door.
-Kris
