Detecting user input
Mouse events are one of the many types of user input you can detect in a video game. Other most common types are keyboard or game controller events, which won’t be covered in this book. Still, the principles in detecting what the mouse is doing are similar to how you can treat other types of events. The reason why we are focusing more on mouse events is that there is an extra layer of complexity you’ve got to deal with, which is what this section will be about. Let’s dive right in.
In a conventional desktop application such as text- or video-editing software, the interface is usually populated with a lot of buttons, menus, and likewise. The natural behavior you’d expect from the users of such software is to click these designated spots, which is something the creators of the application anticipate and prepare for you. How would you go about this in a 3D game, though?
See, when you click anywhere on your screen, you are essentially...
