Please provide player's cursor position or a way to highlight around the cursor

[Yehn]

When a mining drill is in the player's cursor, the resource mining area is displayed with a highlight.

However, as far as I know, there is no way to do this with a modded item that is not a mining drill nor a power pole.

Therefore, as part of LuaPlayer.cursor_stack or LuaPlayer.cursor_ghost, I would like it if the position of the entity to be placed were somehow provided so I can render a visualization to the player that shows what area will be affected by the entity - before this entity is actually built.

[Impatient]

i +2 that

[Honktown]

Couldn't you get the cursor position, and place a sprite maybe with the brightness multiplied by day brightness at the position? Follow the mouse around every tick if they have the item in their hand. I don't know how to tell if the character puts the item away, but tracking if they had an item in their hand and it was one you want highlighted should work.

[Boodals]

Getting the player's mouse position will never be done because then every player would have to send a network packet every time their mouse moved.
However something to draw LuaRendering objects relative to the player's cursor ghost could be done, and has been requested previously.

[darkfrei]

What about light about the cursor by godmode in the night? Can it be seen in the multiplayer?

[Rseding91]

It has been on my mental to-do to make every entity support having some "area" visualization when in the cursor. I just haven't figured out how that would interact with already-built entities and such.

Right now electric poles show all areas in the world that have electric coverage when you hold one but things like beacons don't.

I could easily make a property which just shows "an area" around the item when in the cursor that has no other logic. Unless someone has better ideas.

[IronCartographer]

I just haven't figured out how that would interact with already-built entities and such.

Does this refer to potential interactions like custom filtering of highlighting for entities that would overlap the area?

[Rseding91]

I just haven't figured out how that would interact with already-built entities and such.

Does this refer to potential interactions like custom filtering of highlighting for entities that would overlap the area?

Something like that. Although I don't see how it would ever really work out to be anything except "just draws a square when held".

[Honktown]

I just haven't figured out how that would interact with already-built entities and such.

Does this refer to potential interactions like custom filtering of highlighting for entities that would overlap the area?

Something like that. Although I don't see how it would ever really work out to be anything except "just draws a square when held".

This sounds really dumb, but could the mouse cursor be made a luaEntity, that specifically only exists/updates for the current player? (to prevent network lag) Then it would have a position, and a sprite could be drawn using luarender if the player cursor stack changed and it matched a certain item.

I don't know if a sprite can be made to 'follow' an entity. An entity can be made a target, but the only things that draw I can think of are non-moving entities: power poles, miners, turrets, etc. I can think of many reasons it would be useful for a draw_<foo> to follow an entity.

[Bilka]

I don't know if a sprite can be made to 'follow' an entity. An entity can be made a target, but the only things that draw I can think of are non-moving entities: power poles, miners, turrets, etc. I can think of many reasons it would be useful for a draw_<foo> to follow an entity.

Ever heard of script rendering? https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/LuaRendering.html

[Honktown]

I don't know if a sprite can be made to 'follow' an entity. An entity can be made a target, but the only things that draw I can think of are non-moving entities: power poles, miners, turrets, etc. I can think of many reasons it would be useful for a draw_<foo> to follow an entity.

Ever heard of script rendering? https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/LuaRendering.html

Code: Select all

draw_sprite{sprite=…, orientation=…, x_scale=…, y_scale=…, tint=…, render_layer=…, orientation_target=…, orientation_target_offset=…, oriented_offset=…, target=…, target_offset=…, surface=…, time_to_live=…, forces=…, players=…, visible=…, only_in_alt_mode=…} → uint64
Create a sprite.

Parameters
Table with the following fields:
sprite :: SpritePath
orientation :: float (optional): The orientation of the sprite. Default is 0.
x_scale :: double (optional): Horizontal scale of the sprite. Default is 1.
y_scale :: double (optional): Vertical scale of the sprite. Default is 1.
tint :: Color (optional)
render_layer :: RenderLayer (optional)
orientation_target :: Position or LuaEntity (optional): If given, the sprite rotates so that it faces this target. Note that orientation is still applied to the sprite.
orientation_target_offset :: Vector (optional): Only used if orientation_target is a LuaEntity.
oriented_offset :: Vector (optional): Offsets the center of the sprite if orientation_target is given. This offset will rotate together with the sprite.
target :: Position or LuaEntity: Center of the sprite.
target_offset :: Vector (optional): Only used if target is a LuaEntity.
surface :: SurfaceSpecification
time_to_live :: uint (optional): In ticks. Defaults to living forever.
forces :: array of ForceSpecification (optional): The forces that this object is rendered to.
players :: array of PlayerSpecification (optional): The players that this object is rendered to.
visible :: boolean (optional): If this is rendered to anyone at all. Defaults to true.
only_in_alt_mode :: boolean (optional): If this should only be rendered in alt mode. Defaults to false.
Return value
Id of the render object

Doesn't say if the sprite moves with a target if the target is a lua-entity.

[Yehn]

I could easily make a property which just shows "an area" around the item when in the cursor that has no other logic. Unless someone has better ideas.

For my purposes this would be perfect.

[darkfrei]

Once I write the mod with player's selected highlighting: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TorchLight
The mod creates small LuaRendering.light between player and selected entity, but the light can be attached only one for them.