[DeeZire]

Curator asked me on this one, but since its so useful I thought I'd throw it open to everyone as I forgot how flexible this could be. Apologies to Curator if Ive ruined an exclusive for him.

You can use W3D models as mouse cursors & pointers rather than stick with the Windows ones. Before I go on, this is from memory and old INI files and I havent tested this with the final release but I do know that the codes are valid.

Place the W3D files from the attached ZIP into your mods Art\W3D directory as usual. You dont need any textures, any that are needed ship with the game anyway, but you can reskin the cursors if you want (see below).

First off, you need to edit MOUSE.INI to get the game to use these instead of the default Windows type cursors. Each section in MOUSE.INI should remain the same as the game is hardwired to use those specific section names for the various cursors - you cant just 'add' new ones.

The difference is, whereas the game normally uses a section like this to define the cursor;-

MouseCursor Target
Texture = SCCAttack
Image = SCCAttack
End

You now need to make that section look like this instead;-

MouseCursor Target
W3DModel = SCCAttack
Texture = SCCAttack.tga
W3DAnim = SCCAttack.SCCAttack
W3DScale = 0.1
End

The Texture = tag allows you to have a greater degree of control over your cursors - you can skin them and thus get them to fit with your mod. Personally, I advise leaving W3DScale = at its default setting of 0.1 - small changes in this value can have quite a drastic effect, and if youre not careful the cursor can quite literally end up filling the screen.

As usual, theres a way of adding some value here for that extra niceness in your mod. Using W3D cursors allows you to apply individual and cursor-specific 'tooltips'. Take a look at this example section to see how its done;-

MouseCursor Target
CursorText = Mouse:Enter
CursorTextColor = R:255 G:255 B:255 A:255
CursorTextDropColor = R:0 G: 0 B: 0 A:255
W3DModel = SCCAttack
Texture = SCCAttack.tga
W3DAnim = SCCAttack.SCCAttack
W3DScale = 0.1
End

The first three tags allow you to define and specify the tooltip on a per-cursor basis. The tooltip text itself is called by the CursorText = tag which points to an entry in your string file. Coincidently, those strings are still in the games CSF file too.

There was a way of utilising DirectX8 direct-rendered cursors too, but I cant remember how that was done and in either case they offered no advantages over W3D ones.

Hope thats of some use

[Curator]

It's tough searching for the correct tags that apply to their relevent modules.

In any case, nice work.

EDIT: It appears as though none of the code works.

[DeeZire]

Hmm, IIRC you had to specify which cursor set to use. It may be this bit that wont work.

In the main Mouse section of the Mouse.INI file, try this;-

CursorMode = N

Values for N;-
'1' for DX8 cursor set
'2' for Polygon cursor set
'3' for W3D cursor
'4' for the Windows cursor set (default)

The values could also be 0,1,2,3 but my memory is hazy on this... you may even have to specify the CursorMode = in GameData.INI or even Options.INI now.

[Curator]

The game doesn't recognise CursorMode= and/or the relavent tags for w3d cursors.

I think it's been hardcoded in the final build to only accept windows cursors.

[Koen]

... that could be what they mean by 'optimization' of the final build.

[smurfbizkit]

I dont' see the big deal anyways....2d cursors work just as well.

[Godwin]

well 3d ones could be more interesting, like you're really looking at a screen commanding your forces and information pops up all around you, well, at least that's what we tried to do in AR2