Pretti! Interface-graphics

[Elhoim]

Hey, no redesign in two days? That's great! You're getting that compulsive behaviour under control after all.

Well, not really... I´ve been ocuppied with other projects... :D

I´m quite happy with the latest GUI. It has lot of text space, it´s pretty clean and it ocuppies less screen space. Minor tweaks aside, I think it´s pretty much done.

I´ve been trying to come up with a nice inventory screen, but I usually find hard to start from nothing. Maybe I´ll post the WIP for suggestions.

 

[Perishiko]

Hey, no redesign in two days? That's great! You're getting that compulsive behaviour under control after all.

Well, not really... I´ve been ocuppied with other projects... :D

I´m quite happy with the latest GUI. It has lot of text space, it´s pretty clean and it ocuppies less screen space. Minor tweaks aside, I think it´s pretty much done.

I´ve been trying to come up with a nice inventory screen, but I usually find hard to start from nothing. Maybe I´ll post the WIP for suggestions.

Will there be some sort of "scroll" for the text box? I haven't seen it indicated on any screens yet.

 

[Elhoim]

Hey, no redesign in two days? That's great! You're getting that compulsive behaviour under control after all.

Well, not really... I´ve been ocuppied with other projects... :D

I´m quite happy with the latest GUI. It has lot of text space, it´s pretty clean and it ocuppies less screen space. Minor tweaks aside, I think it´s pretty much done.

I´ve been trying to come up with a nice inventory screen, but I usually find hard to start from nothing. Maybe I´ll post the WIP for suggestions.

Will there be some sort of "scroll" for the text box? I haven't seen it indicated on any screens yet.

Yep, I´m working on it.

 

[denizsi]

You've enlarged the textbox to add more lines, but you've made it thinner, so in total there won't fit more text. Of course not counting the smaller font, which could be an option.

I believe that the amount of short, single-line messages would dwarf that of longer, two or three-lined messages, so I don't see any real advantage to a wider text-box. I love your interface more than all others' (with Marsal's following very closely), but all of them including yours limit the vertical space. Default interface displays eight lines. Losing four (in your previous versions) is a little big in my opinion. To compansate the lost lines with just a few pixels smaller font (message text in my last attempt to hack yours, for example, is one pixel smaller for small characters and two pixels smaller than capitals) is perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Besides, it doesn't make a readability issue in full screen.

However, I agree that the last rape I did wasn't that appealing. I was just toying with the ideas. By the way, I loved turquoise better. Orange-red looks like candy.

A few details:

I'd modify the top horizontal border. Remove it or make it smaller. The interface is a tad too large on my 19". Less is more.

I agree that the total height is large and I'd fancy a little shorter interface. No need to occupy that much of screen estate. But that top band of motif really makes is better in my opinion. Maybe Android could make everything just a little smaller; font size and slot items, as well as the bottom icons.

Addressed at VD and Flashback; what about expandable text-box for better readability when desired? Would it be problem / hard to add such a functionality? Like this, maybe?

(alt links 1 2 )

I also shortened the interface by 10 pixels from here and there.

By the way, Android, you have thirteen icons there again.

 

[Necro]

rofl love the text on your hud xD

 

[kaizoku]

An expandable text-box would be great and it would make gameplay a lot better because it would reduce the really anoying manual scrolling time


@android
- replace the "square-wave" top bar of the UI with something a lot thinner

@android, @Elhoim
- try to resize some of the UI components in order to make it smaller.
Currently the UI uses about 20%? of the screen which is a lot

 

[Fresh]

Haha @ the dialogue text

 

[MF]

Why don't you guys stop moaning about screen 'real-estate'? (it's a pretty virtual thing which is exactly the opposite, the analogy sucks)

Personally, I think 20% of the screen is fine. I hate high resolution gaming in which I can't see the icon I'm clicking on just to have a field of vision that would give an agoraphopiac a heart attack. I'm greatly in favor of style and something familiar to hold on to when I'm looking at the screen. Don't make them smaller please.

 

[android]

Just out of curiosity, what bothers you about what I do?

I don't like much the item panels with "drop shadow" effect, the embossed version was better IMHO. Also the "windows" with fallen out bricks, as seen on the dialog screen I think, don't look well, the bricks take too much space away and it can't work with the textbox I'd say. But maybe the biggest issue I have is that you can't quite compare it with the interfaces from other games from the beginning of this thread... But I guess you can't compare mine as well...

So, what about adding the head once again to the interface?
I guess since, most people changed their opinion about its visual effect after you removed it you should think about it.

Well as I said before, I'd love to see the head somewhere on another screen, but now there's no more space for it and I agree that it doesn't fit so much into the main interface.

And while I like most of your suggestions, personally I would like to keep the old dialogue screen setup. It was tweaked 1000 times and finally reached the state when everyone liked it. Also, it has much more space for NPC text, which is always a good thing (no scrolling required)

I understand you don't want to change things in the engine back and forth, but since I was given complete freedom, I saw this as the best solution based on my experience with the IE games. I really think it was quite elegant and could handle a lot of text. Of course that if forced I could adapt my designs to your previous setup...

About the skinning thing - when I think about PS:T I can't really imagine it with two sets of different interfaces. The UI added a lot to the overall style of the game, it was so weird and fitted perfectly into the Planescape universe. That's probably all I ment. Anyway if the UI mechanics are dependant on some XML or config files I guess I would be able to help with those as well.

I believe that the amount of short, single-line messages would dwarf that of longer, two or three-lined messages, so I don't see any real advantage to a wider text-box. I love your interface more than all others' (with Marsal's following very closely), but all of them including yours limit the vertical space. Default interface displays eight lines. Losing four (in your previous versions) is a little big in my opinion.

Thanks, I agree about the textbox, but I don't think it's so drastic.

I really like your expanding text box version! Maybe it could also be solved by expanding it into the dialog interface or even full screen as I mentioned before.

By the way, Android, you have thirteen icons there again.

Yeah This time it's intentional - one more stone for character screen icon.

Personally, I think 20% of the screen is fine. I hate high resolution gaming in which I can't see the icon I'm clicking on just to have a field of vision that would give an agoraphopiac a heart attack. I'm greatly in favor of style and something familiar to hold on to when I'm looking at the screen. Don't make them smaller please.

I tend to agree, Fallout had the same size and it was mentioned before it's not needed to show the latest parallax mapping and spherical harmonics techniques of the game.

 

[sabishii]

Why don't you guys stop moaning about screen 'real-estate'? (it's a pretty virtual thing which is exactly the opposite, the analogy sucks)

Personally, I think 20% of the screen is fine. I hate high resolution gaming in which I can't see the icon I'm clicking on just to have a field of vision that would give an agoraphopiac a heart attack. I'm greatly in favor of style and something familiar to hold on to when I'm looking at the screen. Don't make them smaller please.

Agreed. It's not a first-person or behind-the-shoulder camera game, and it's not even going to be in real time. A smaller interface isn't really necessary.

 

[Nedrah]

I disagree.
Especially in the high-res Shot Android posted it became painfully obvious to me that the Interface would do nicely with 2/3 of it's current size.
I understand how people in this thread might think of the interface as something that may as well dominate the screen, but I believe it might become a royal pain in the butt in some game situations to have it at this size.

 

[Elhoim]

Okay, a little update on the main GUI:

- More screen "real state".
- Bigger text area.
- Added scroll bar.
- "Sharper" textures.

 

[denizsi]

Maybe it could also be solved by expanding it into the dialog interface or even full screen as I mentioned before.

If there is no actual use for the text box during dialogues, I think it could double as NPC talk box during dialogue, with a reply box next to it with the same height. Need Flashback or VD to tell us.

Yeah Smile This time it's intentional - one more stone for character screen icon.

You could bring the head back to have it function as a button for that in my opinion, and it would be nice too.

 

[DarkSign]

Why don't you guys stop moaning about screen 'real-estate'? (it's a pretty virtual thing which is exactly the opposite, the analogy sucks)

To argue just for argument's sake, you're wrong. Both are spacial relations with finite available resources. Just as Manhattan is very expensive because it's all been taken up and there's nothing new to develop, a computer screen only has so much space to use for competing uses.

 

[denizsi]

Assuming there is no use for the text box during a dialogue, something like these maybe?

(alt links 1 2 )

 

[Elhoim]

Priceless dialogue!

 

[Claw]

Okay, a little update on the main GUI:

- Added scroll bar.

Hmm, I am not too fond of how the scroll bar intersects the background. Maybe you could integrate it into the wooden beam or try the "scroll" scroll bar inside the text window?

 

[Elhoim]

Okay, a little update on the main GUI:

- Added scroll bar.

Hmm, I am not too fond of how the scroll bar intersects the background. Maybe you could integrate it into the wooden beam or try the "scroll" scroll bar inside the text window?

Yeah, I wasn´t too fond of it either. I think I´ll go the wodden way, so I can also expand the text box.

 

[Necro]

love the updated one!

as for the conversation one i like the one where one half is taken by the dialog and only 1th by the visual.

 

[Claw]

"1th"? What, a "oneth"? Wouldn't that be 100% though?

 

[Necro]

heh what a typo xD

just came back from a visit to the relatives so

anyways i meant i liked the one where the visual part takes 1/4th of the screen while the dialog takes half.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Just got back a few hours ago. The tweaks & changes look great. Any inventory screens mockups yet?

 

[Longshanks]

Here's my latest effort.



Issues:
- Need to improve the vertical toolbar.
- I don't like the weapon slots.

Worth continuing with?
I'm really not sure whether it's half decent or completely awful.

 

[Elhoim]

Just got back a few hours ago. The tweaks & changes look great. Any inventory screens mockups yet?

Here is a WIP I was doing. It is no way final, of course, as there are lot of rough spots, as you can see.

 

[Elhoim]

Here's my latest effort.

[PIC]

Issues:
- Need to improve the vertical toolbar.
- I don't like the weapon slots.

Worth continuing with?
I'm really not sure whether it's half decent or completely awful.

It´s not bad. It seems a little vertical streched, tough, and the colors are a little too saturated, IMO.