Quick Easy Question

[SupYouFool]

Just wondering, is it possible to draw lines on the screen without giving them focus? So the line stays on top of Everything else, but doesnt get focus. E.G. while playing a full screen game like HalfLife when it doesnt have focus it automatically minimizes itself. I would like to be able to draw some lines on the screen that will stay visible when HalfLife is maximized, but the lines will not have focus. Hope this makes sense :P Is this even possible?

[Protocol]

Nope... doesn't seem possible...

Even if you get the lines to draw on the screen it will erase each time the screen is refreshed... unless you keep drawing them over and over again.

Even if you do that, and you wish to use it with HalfLife, it still wouldn't work because HalfLife uses DirectX rendering which deals straight with the hardware and skips the Operating System GDI (graphic design interface). So the lines will not show up when HalfLife is maximized.

Unless there is some other way, in which I don't know about.

[SupYouFool]

There is another way, that draws with the game, but that has only been accomplished by the OGC team with a game hook that hooks the game engine itself, and that isnt what I am trying to do. Oh well, was worth a shot i guess. Thanks for the reply.

[CrazedWombat]

just because it doesnt seem possible, doesnt mean it isnt...heheh but i cant think of anything. most big games, you can download their source for their engine. (can with at least quake 3). just download the halflife engine and create/use a small program to run a search throughout the code to find where OGC hooked their shyt. then find out how they did it and possibly create a third party and use the same source that OGC did but in your own way.
i dont know why you would want this, but if its worth all the trouble. go for it...

[SupYouFool]

The only problem with hooking the halflife engine IS Their anti cheat. Detects any "tampering" with memory. Thats pretty much the main reason thats out of the question. And to hook the engine would require a lot of coding in cpp, vb program probably couldnt handle it as well :\ I have coded for the halflife engine a tad (made my own personal mod) but There is just no way I could make a visual basic hook, let alone one that could get past VAC. (Valve Anti-Cheat)