UI opinions

[oksnoop2]

Conflict Terra's UI is well it's not perfect. To make things worse Sanada and I are in disagreement of build icons. So we decided to bring screenshots and our opinions to the boards. Tell us what you think.

First off what we have established.

The current UI we have is kind of painful because of silly bevels it's encasing our build pics in.
Example:

http://img177.imageshack.us/i/defaultui.png/

And we would both like a more "traditional" UI.
Example:

http://img17.imageshack.us/i/aok035.png/

We realize that there is probably no Spring UI similar to that. *insert sad emoticon here*

So here's an explanation of the current build picture system.

http://img51.imageshack.us/i/kamphmech.png/

http://img163.imageshack.us/i/kartymech.png/

You will see that there is a blue border around both icons. Each border color has a meaning:
red = cruiser and cruiser related
yellow = economy and builders
brown = defenses
dark blue = mech and mech related
green = tank and tank related
white = plane and plane related
light blue = ship and ship related
black = submarine and submarine related

The background color is a little more straight forward.
green is ground
blue is water
very light blue is sky
green / blue is hover
blue/green is amphibious
green/brown is all terrain

We also plan to implement (see below) dark boxes in the bottom left corner to allow the user to better see how many units they have queued up. And another box in the top right corner to indicate tech level.

All this we generally agree on. Here's were we disagree.


http://img13.imageshack.us/i/iconcrisp.png/


http://img689.imageshack.us/i/iconfuzzy.png/

The top is what i think it better. The bevel used in the bottom is just level of detail i think will be lost in such a small icon. Also they are not small buttons with in buttons but all part of one surface.

Sanada isn't content with either one but leans towards the bottom because:
"the human eye/brain finds gradients more appealing" and that he just wanted to "spice it up"

So that's where we stand on this. Your opinions are valued.

[Kenku]

I think I would somewhat agree with Sanada on the Beveling thing. However, It would be best to make "At scale" images of the build pics for better comparison.

[SanadaUjiosan]

The wiki said they should be 92x92. They're 92x92.

[AF]

You will see that there is a blue border around both icons. Each border color has a meaning:

Blue borders? Ah Sky units

red = cruiser and cruiser related

These must be flamers

yellow = economy and builders

Electricity!

brown = defenses
dark blue = mech and mech related

Or water?

green = tank and tank related

Healers and medics?

white = plane and plane related
light blue = ship and ship related

Shallow water! Or sky?

black = submarine and submarine related

wut?

The background color is a little more straight forward.
green is ground
blue is water
very light blue is sky

Perhaps light blue is shallows and dark blue is water?

green / blue is hover
blue/green is amphibious

hmmm or maybe its actually the other way around!

green/brown is all terrain

Or maybe its above ground and sub terrain?

We also plan to implement (see below) dark boxes in the bottom left corner to allow the user to better see how many units they have queued up. And another box in the top right corner to indicate tech level.

hmmm I have 2 of these queued up I never clicked on this, ahk now its t1, and if I click again its t2, but it still says 2 in the other corner? =s


I'm sorry but all of this is a bit arbitrary...

• A: The user should not have to figure it out or read a manual, it should be glaringly obvious
• B: Ambiguity is very bad
• C: Build icons are intended to demonstrate what kind of unit it is. Therefore a picture of a flamer unit is less effective than a giant flamethrower firing with a sign behind it saying 'tier 2'
• D: Tips on loading screens are a terribly poor excuse for justifying arbitrary conventions
• E: There are no cultural mappings for most RTS buildings, so never rely solely on colours.

edit:: edited out some tosh

[hoijui]

i like the idea of having al this info in the build pic, and of course it has to be:
1. choose usefull groups
2. assign colors to the groups
this seems to be what you have done.

and not:
1. for each color, think of a group that would fit it (blue -> water units)
which seems to be what AF suggests.

better use arbitrary colors then useless groups.

[AF]

I didnt suggest that, I parodied that using an ad ridiculum argument.

Colours are not a good means of identifying on their own. They hold little in the way of cultural convention on their own.

Instead of green and blue representing land, Id rather see a picture of actual land and actual sea, or actual sky. This is far better and far quicker to recognize, with no conventions necessary, and no prior explanations.

Show flamer units firing flame at something and you know instantly what that unit does. Better yet, show it firing flame at the kinds of units its good at killing.

Show anti air units shooting down planes. Artillery firing parabolic arcs. Bombers dropping bombs, builders building things.

Add small symbols of hints in the corner, but never have more than 2. Give construction units a black and yellow stripe pattern border if you must give them a border. Give radar units a small radar symbol, energy units a small lightning symbol.

Make big units look bigger in their buildpics to signify that theyre bigger and more expensive.

[SanadaUjiosan]

The handful of playtests we've had so far have told us that people overall don't seem to really look at or care about build pics. "People" of course being... 4, in total, I'd say. When asked after the game if they noticed the build pics and any sort of pattern, they all replied "Oh, they were different?" And, they were able to still play the game and make the units they wanted to. Our pics still have the models in there, not very pretty but if anyone has better suggestions on how to make them look better I'd be glad to hear them.

That being said, I've adopted the idea that any sort of system we put into our build pics will purely be secondary, or supplementary, to just looking at the model, remembering what it does, or reading the name. We talked about removing the borders altogether, to allow for a little more space for the model. That will probably happen eventually.

[AF]

When people look at icons or meanings they look with an aim to figure out what it is and move on as quickly as possible. Buildpics need to be recognizable, and quickly. Nobody will pay much attention to fancy stuff.

Theres a certain point at which they do the job, but they could still be better, because of the mental friction.

[manolo_]

tbh, the icons are atmo a lil bit shabby, i think CA has a widget to create nice ingame-pics for this task. also i like the possibility to still use my lovely iceui (please keep this in mind :) )

[AF]

set your spring to run in windowed mode with IceUI, and brace yourself for the horror your about to witness

[luckywaldo7]

tbh, the icons are atmo a lil bit shabby, i think CA has a widget to create nice ingame-pics for this task. also i like the possibility to still use my lovely iceui (please keep this in mind :) )

Actually from the looks of it they are using CA's icon generator, just using solid colors instead of textures.

set your spring to run in windowed mode with IceUI, and brace yourself for the horror your about to witness

huh what?

[oksnoop2]

The buttons are screen shots taken in wings. Then taken into photoshop and given flat color backgrounds. There's a widget for this?

[CarRepairer]

The buttons are screen shots taken in wings. Then taken into photoshop and given flat color backgrounds. There's a widget for this?

Gadget.
http://trac.caspring.org/browser/trunk/ ... erator.lua
http://trac.caspring.org/browser/trunk/ ... erator.lua

[SanadaUjiosan]

We recently thought about swapping out the border system you see above (the one identifying units by groups and classes) with a simple 2 color system identifying Tech Level. Color 1 for T1 units, Color 2 for T2 units. Simple, no "cultural significance", all that jazz.

Opinions? We haven't decided on colors yet. Will probably be very different ones for obvious reasons.

[AF]

if you have to decide on something then you've failed already. Colours are rarely helpful, especially in signifying differences that arise from gameplay.

There is no realworld correlation between colour and advancement.

The only courseof action is to make inferior options look far more inferior to their advancd coutnerparts.

e.g. make them clunkier, dirtier, awkwarder, duller, etc, and make advanced stuff look expensive, shiny, compact, futuristic!

[SanadaUjiosan]

I think you're putting too much thought into it.

Maybe it should be specified that T2 factories can build both T1 and T2 units for it's "type" (like tank, mech, ect.) The proposed idea was so someone can immediately see the line in the clump of build icons between T2 and T1.

[oksnoop2]

I think bronze, silver, and gold would work well.

[SanadaUjiosan]

We'll only need two, and bronze and gold are way too similar.

[Pxtl]

I speak english. Not pictogram. Not color. English. Colors and pictograms are good for cues, but you need _text_ to get the mental connection.

[oksnoop2]

We will make use of tool tips and unit descriptions. This whole color thing is merely a means of reinforcing it.