how to add HP/MP bars as billboard

[keless]

I want to add a billboarded 'bar' as a child of a scene node.

right now I see example code of how to create one billboard image, but I want multiple images that are goin to be dynamic. Is it possible to create an empty billboard node, and attach what I guess would be a custom scene node as a child to that?

technically, this isnt the right way to do it, as it should be apart of the 2D just mapped to a 3D space. But I want to do it this way first to see how I would map dynamic billboards to avatars.

[niko]

I would create a general child scene node which can contain a GUIElement. Would be cool, in this way you could not only add things like icons, and healthbars to the avatar, but also Text, single and multiline. You could let it draw itself at the 2d position you get from ISceneCollisionManager::getScreenCoordinatesFrom3DPosition for example.

[keless]

I am creating a class "CSN_Overlay" which accepts a GUIElement* in its constructor.

when it's render function is called, it merely updates the 2D position of the GUIElement. This can be any Element, including static text/image/your custom element.

This means I can also write a robust "Progressbar" type GUI element, which I will attach to an overlay to create the HP bar.

Check out the ss_overlayX screen shots:
http://www.skyesurfer.net/keless/IrrLic ... reenshots/
(the Overlay is not transparent because I didnt bother to set the transparency color of the IImage element before taking this picture.)

[keless]

Apparently IGUIImage does not support drawing its Texture as transparent. This should be addressed by Niko. (a simple boolean with get and set functions should do)

[niko]

Apparently IGUIImage does not support drawing its Texture as transparent. This should be addressed by Niko.

Yep, right, already on my list.