GUI vs Room: pros and cons.

[Lionmonkey]

I've got a point in my game, where the protagonist is standing close to an object and then the camera changes to the view from his eyes, so player can explore the object. (Like in Space Quest IV, when Roger looks at the transport thing that lies on the sidewalk, or like in Laura Bow 2, when she sits at the table at the Trib)

I've figured two ways for this:
1) Make it a GUI
2)Make it a separate room, where the main character is not visible

I'd like to know, what are the advantages and disadvantages of both these solutions, or/and is there a third one?

If there is already a thread about this somewhere, please give me a link.

[bicilotti]

Go for the room.

If you have no particular special effect to go with the object (translucence with the former room or whatever) choose the room. Simplier and solid in my opinion.

[Ashen]

Yeah, it depends what you've got in mind to happen there.
Rooms can do the normal room things (Objects, Hotspots, Background animations, Characters, etc) that make them better for somethings (looking in drawers or under the bed, examining a table in a restaurant), while GUIs have the normal GUI things (Buttons, ListBoxes, TextBoxes, etc) that make them better for others (keypad locks, computer screens; things that require input, not just interaction).
If it's just a close-up of an Object with nothing else to do (except maybe the options to Take/Examine/Cancel), I'd go with the GUI. But that's just personal preference - the code would probably be much the same either way, and using a Room would have the advantage of keeping most of it neatly seperate from the Global script (not that there's likely to be a lot of it).

[Lionmonkey]

Thanks guys.

[Dualnames]

I was bored to make a new topic for the same thing, so i'm gonna use a Map (Gui or Room) for my game. Like Discworld noir, CMI, and ecc..
So I'm thinking it's better and easier to script a Mapas a GUI.