LE Possible ways to implement no-pause menus.

[XenialJesse]

I've poked around and have seen many requests for menus that don't pause the game, but nothing that's come of it. I'm guessing that means Skyrim's menu system can't be overridden in a way that lets us navigate it while the game world keeps running.

But there are 2 possibilities I think already exist. I understand that neither of these are going to replace the whole menu system, so they're just suggestions for implementing small menus that might not be too hard for a modder to pull off.

One suggestion I saw, which never received a reply, pointed to the tanning racks/crafting stations we use. They pull up a very functional two-levelled non-SkyUI menu system. So can a mod be made that simply fakes that event, overrides the crafting animation with idling, replaces the text, and then exits and activates upon selection? I did a quick check and the world is indeed living on; it's not just an animation. My horse in the background was being a spaz as usual, and time had passed on the game world's clock.

A similar suggestion is to do the same thing with the dialog menus. We already know that it's possible to position them anywhere, fill them with any text, and control them with any keys (by referring to the EZ2C mod). Once again, just fake the event, populate it with menu items, and activate and exit upon selection.

So that's my request. I believe that if preventing the UI's system pause was possible someone would have done it by now, but the above two suggestions are at least ideas for implementing some on-the-fly menu action.

That way we could still rummage through our items and wotnot without stopping time like a god, mid-swing. It feels cheap to a lot of people to be able to just freeze time inches from the blade on your last pixels of HP then, all smug, fish out a potion or change armour or whatever. If we had non-pausing menus, people such as these (and myself) wouldn't have to choose between what feels like cheating, or abandoning the battle entirely.

And it would simply be very cool to be able to hit your menus and see the game live on behind them.

If someone also figured out how to do the above, while not disconnecting WASD from running control and keeping the camera happy, that would be icing on the cake. Suggested controls for navigating such a menu while still running:

WASD = run

mouse = mouselook

mousewheel = up/down menu items

LMB = select/next menu level

RMB = exit/previous menu level

But that last bit's a bit of a fantasy I imagine. Anyway, thanks for reading. :)

 

 

 

[electrino]

Funny how this is exactly how it's done in Fallout 4 :D

 

p.s. nice necropost by me :D

Edited November 28, 2015 by electrino