Inheritance and Entity objects

[martyj]

I was wondering how we could use inheritance with the Entity class to allow code re-use

 

For example, I have an animaited model, (a Knight)

I have another animated model, (a Bat)

 

I want the Knight and Bat to have a few functions to start animations, a generic drawing, ect.

 

I want the Knight and Bat to also have seperate functions as well such as the Bat will Fly(), where as the Knight will Walk().

 

How could I tie a leadwerks Entity with a custom overloaded class to handle the comonalities of these two objects, but also allow for the unique functions for their class.

 

I should mention I'd like to be abe to add these Entities with the GUI editor.

 

Basically in C++ I want to have something like this:

 

 

class AnimatedModel : Entity

{

public:

void StartAnimation(Sequence, Duration, Loop, DistanceBased);

}

 

class Knight : AnimatedModel

{

public:

void Walk();

}

 

class Bat : AnimatedModel

{

public:

void Fly();

}

 

Using ToLua++ these could be callable in Lua.

[gamecreator]

Not sure what the question is. You would have something like a Character base class that would have the entity Model, animation functions you mentioned, position, etc. The derived classes like the Knight and Bat would have functions for their unique characteristics.

[martyj]

How can I reference custom classes in the GUI editor?

 

I don't want code to initalize objects at positions. It would be better to use the GUI editor for object positioning.

[Rick]

My preference is usually composition.

 

class Knight
{
private:
  Entity* model;
  Animations* animations;
};

 

I would examine if I need functions like Walk() and Fly(). They are basically just MoveTo() functions. Each type would just determine what animation to play when it moves

[Roland]

Yes. Go with Ricks suggestion

 

[martyj]

Ok, I see one problem fixed. Using Hooks you can recieve the in game-events from the engine.

 

How do I take an entity in LE3's map and easily tie it to a class?

 

The only thing I can think of is creating a ToLua++ function to register an object to a native class.

 

Can anyone thing of a better way?

 

Thanks for the input everyone.