Cycle Command Interface

Also known as the Sam & Max Interface or the interface for dirty minded people.

On this page I am going to show you how to setup an interface that allows you to cycle through the commands.

click to enlarge First things first I would just like to quickly mention something about setting up your mouse cursors as this is something where quite a few people go wrong; well this & when to use the set cursor or set command action parts. The important thing to remember about your mouse cursors is that you need to create both an active & an inactive cursor animation & the animation center needs to be correctly setup for both. The animation center is what determines the current x,y position of your animation, regardless of whether it's your mouse cursor, an object, an item or a character. Where you set the animation center will vary depending on the cursor design but for example: if the mouse cursor icon is just of your typical arrow, then the animation center would usually be set to the tip (point) of the arrow. Don't forget to set the standard command via the interface properties tab.

To begin with we are going to setup the simplest part of the cycle command interface, which is the cycle part of it. You need to go into mouse properties found under the game section & then you just need to select "activates next command" found under the right mouse button section. Simples! no?

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Next we need to create the command interface itself, so open up the interface section & add a new interface, just call it something simple like "control_interface" as it makes it easier to find things quickly. Now we need to create a button for each command you intend to create. Name these all something simple like "walk", "talk", "examine" etc. Now we need to set each of these as a "command button" inside of the button properties tab & then inside of the command properties tab: set the cursor as whatever cursor is for said command. Next, you need to setup what each command can be used on. Because this interface uses multiple commands you can choose whether it can be used on objects, characters or both & whether or not the command can be used on your playable character.

I would recommend leaving them set to normal command.

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In the next part (below) I will explain how to use the command interface in game.

Because we are using an interface with multiple commands we no longer have to set the required mouse cursor on mouse over/out. The cursors should automatically change to the cursor that we set inside of the command properties tab of said command whenever we cycle to the next command.

You will however have to create actions on each object, character or item that are allowed to have said action executed on them. Typically if you try to use an action or drop an item that has not been listed on the aforementioned object, character or item then a random comment will be selected from the playable characters comment sets; this is of course providing you have created some.

To cycle commands you just need to right click anywhere on the screen; having said that you could also create a button to be displayed via an interface which the player could click to cycle backwards & forwards through the available commands via the use of action parts.

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