How to limit click'n'drag movement to an area?

Posted by Vexille on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Vexille
Published on 2012-10-07T22:13:28Z Indexed on 2012/10/08 3:49 UTC
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I apologize for the somewhat generic title. I'm really don't have much clue about how to accomplish what I'm trying to do, which is making it harder even to research a possible solution.

I'm trying to implement a path marker of sorts (maybe there's a most suitable name for it, but this is the best I could come up with).

In front of the player there will be a path marker, which will determine how the player will move once he finishes planning his turn. The player may click and drag the marker to the position they choose, but the marker can only be moved within a defined working area (the gray bit).

Path Marker Diagram

So I'm now stuck with two problems:

First of all, how exactly should I define that workable area? I can imagine maybe two vectors that have the player as a starting point to form the workable angle, and maybe those two arcs could come from circles that have their center where the player is, but I definetly don't know how to put this all together.

And secondly, after I've defined the area where the marker can be placed, how can I enforce that the marker should only stay within that area? For example, if the player clicks and drags the marker around, it may move freely within the working area, but must not leave the boundaries of the area. So for example, if the player starts dragging the marker upwards, it will move upwards until it hits he end of the working area (first diagram below), but if after that the player starts dragging sideways, the marker must follow the drag while still within the area (second diagram below).

First Diagram: Moving Upwards Second Diagram: Following the drag

I hope this wasn't all too confusing. Thanks, guys.

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