Anything you release as a GUI is a big plus ...
Just remember you can't please them all. I know ..
looking forward too your GUI RELEASE...
..:: New GUI Design - in progress ::..
Moderator: Moderators
yeah, oke, guess someone has to start about the gui, or you will have the same utterly ugly-full buttons in a year from now..
i'll just first make it, and finish it the way i think is good. Any comments and critics i find useful i will add/change.
It all needs to be possible to code for the guy who's going to do this.
i'll just first make it, and finish it the way i think is good. Any comments and critics i find useful i will add/change.
It all needs to be possible to code for the guy who's going to do this.
with the resource bars, why not just make it so that instead of showing actual cost, they show what you really want to know which is 'how much of my stockpile will this use up?'
IE, it shows a percentage bar of how much of your current MAXIMUM storage capacity (whether or not it's full) would be used up by such a building - and the bar could turn red if it would use more than that of course.
That would mean that it would give you a rough indication of how full your resource bar needs to be before you could build the building and be certain you won't stall.
The information would therefore be relevent to whatever stage of the game you're at (since later on, the bars would shrink to show that they represent much less of a commitment in terms of your current resources), and would retain their legibility even if you nanostall (since it's dependant on your storage capacity rather than actual stockpile).
While this system wouldn't take into account current income/spending and therefore wouldn't give 100% accurate answers, it would be very intuitive for newer players since they could immediately see how much of an investment each building represents compared to what they currently have available.
It should also be pretty easy on the CPU since all you're doing is making a graphical representation of (unit cost)/(current storage capacity), and maybe adding a number and colour change to indicate if you don't have enough storage.
Obviously such a system would be *mostly* designed for newbies. The current unit information with the exact numbers would still be available and these bars should be disableable, but I think these bars would provide a great deal of assistance for the economic side of the game.
IE, it shows a percentage bar of how much of your current MAXIMUM storage capacity (whether or not it's full) would be used up by such a building - and the bar could turn red if it would use more than that of course.
That would mean that it would give you a rough indication of how full your resource bar needs to be before you could build the building and be certain you won't stall.
The information would therefore be relevent to whatever stage of the game you're at (since later on, the bars would shrink to show that they represent much less of a commitment in terms of your current resources), and would retain their legibility even if you nanostall (since it's dependant on your storage capacity rather than actual stockpile).
While this system wouldn't take into account current income/spending and therefore wouldn't give 100% accurate answers, it would be very intuitive for newer players since they could immediately see how much of an investment each building represents compared to what they currently have available.
It should also be pretty easy on the CPU since all you're doing is making a graphical representation of (unit cost)/(current storage capacity), and maybe adding a number and colour change to indicate if you don't have enough storage.
Obviously such a system would be *mostly* designed for newbies. The current unit information with the exact numbers would still be available and these bars should be disableable, but I think these bars would provide a great deal of assistance for the economic side of the game.
As much as i like this system to help in the economics of a battle, i don't think this is the best approach. You probably will build a unit, depending on your metal/nrg income/usage, rather than on your stock pile. Also you often put more units on building something, and then you can still have nano-stalls..
I also thought of partly red bars, and something to do with it, but i really can't give a good alternative to your idea atm. So therefor it's a nice idea, but i still think it isn't of much use.
PS. If the bars aren't dynamic, like in your example, you can make a decision what to build. If your eco has more nrg income than metal at a specific period ingame, you can look for units that have lesser metal cost and higher nrg cost, so you still are able to produce units.
Apart from this is the buildtime, that might be useful, when in great need of units/defense buildings, you can then find the best unit, which has relative lowest buildtime, and fits your eco best at that moment.
We need to discuss this further to get the best idea out of it.
I also thought of partly red bars, and something to do with it, but i really can't give a good alternative to your idea atm. So therefor it's a nice idea, but i still think it isn't of much use.
PS. If the bars aren't dynamic, like in your example, you can make a decision what to build. If your eco has more nrg income than metal at a specific period ingame, you can look for units that have lesser metal cost and higher nrg cost, so you still are able to produce units.
Apart from this is the buildtime, that might be useful, when in great need of units/defense buildings, you can then find the best unit, which has relative lowest buildtime, and fits your eco best at that moment.
We need to discuss this further to get the best idea out of it.
My tuppence:
The order buttons look a lot nicer (just add a mouseover tooltip that says what they are for the noobs)!
I still think the 3% is a bit pointless, i find the red bits in the resource bar a bit hard to read (make the red brighter).
The unit info bar at the bottom should stretch all the way along the bottom, leaving the gameplay area closer to a rectangle, rather than a jagged polygon.
It would be nice if the stats window could be expanded to accomodate damage dealt, income (for allies) etc (maybe a selector so you can display military/econonomic/political info one at a time).
Resources should use the 3 digit notation, anything above 1000 should be 1.00k or even 1.0k, theres no need to have more than 1% accuracy in a fast paced game, let alone 0.1% with 3 digits...
The hold/maneuver/roam, fire orders and landat coloured squares should be a single, bigger square representing the color so its more easily seen without the need to look directly at it.
Theres too much unused space between the buttons, bunch them up tighter or make them bigger to fill in that space!
Are the bars next to the buildpics in relation to your storage or what? i find the idea really interesting, but a krog could never be compared to storage or other units for example, so maybe simply making them relative to one another? a unit like a moho metal maker would have a full energy bar and almost zero in metal, an anti-nuke would have a full buildtime bar etc... Its a hard one to tweak!
IMO the arrow bars under the buildpics look a bit cheesy and aliased, im sure you can make nicer looking arrows
Lastly, since you can hardly see whats behind the gui anyways, reducing the alpha a little so its not as transparent would improve visibility...
Great job!
The order buttons look a lot nicer (just add a mouseover tooltip that says what they are for the noobs)!
I still think the 3% is a bit pointless, i find the red bits in the resource bar a bit hard to read (make the red brighter).
The unit info bar at the bottom should stretch all the way along the bottom, leaving the gameplay area closer to a rectangle, rather than a jagged polygon.
It would be nice if the stats window could be expanded to accomodate damage dealt, income (for allies) etc (maybe a selector so you can display military/econonomic/political info one at a time).
Resources should use the 3 digit notation, anything above 1000 should be 1.00k or even 1.0k, theres no need to have more than 1% accuracy in a fast paced game, let alone 0.1% with 3 digits...
The hold/maneuver/roam, fire orders and landat coloured squares should be a single, bigger square representing the color so its more easily seen without the need to look directly at it.
Theres too much unused space between the buttons, bunch them up tighter or make them bigger to fill in that space!
Are the bars next to the buildpics in relation to your storage or what? i find the idea really interesting, but a krog could never be compared to storage or other units for example, so maybe simply making them relative to one another? a unit like a moho metal maker would have a full energy bar and almost zero in metal, an anti-nuke would have a full buildtime bar etc... Its a hard one to tweak!
IMO the arrow bars under the buildpics look a bit cheesy and aliased, im sure you can make nicer looking arrows
Lastly, since you can hardly see whats behind the gui anyways, reducing the alpha a little so its not as transparent would improve visibility...
Great job!
Yes, thx for the review and tips.
alpha of menu is changed here, looks okay, though i like some alpha, so you can still see something big happening there.
Red Color of resource bar will be more unreadable if made more reddish, so ive made the background a little less transp, and color a bit whiter.
Those arrows are indeed kinda 'off'.. i'll change them later.
The space between the buttons i think works out nice, because you won't 'miss-click' easy, when using no space between them, this can happen sooner.
The design for the stance orders, i will work on, not satisfied myself, and your idea sounds better than this concept, it shouldn't be hard to get info from you interface, and too small things don't work.
bit better this? (5 min work):
/me going to bed now, i'll be on the rest of it after the weekend.
alpha of menu is changed here, looks okay, though i like some alpha, so you can still see something big happening there.
Red Color of resource bar will be more unreadable if made more reddish, so ive made the background a little less transp, and color a bit whiter.
Those arrows are indeed kinda 'off'.. i'll change them later.
The space between the buttons i think works out nice, because you won't 'miss-click' easy, when using no space between them, this can happen sooner.
The design for the stance orders, i will work on, not satisfied myself, and your idea sounds better than this concept, it shouldn't be hard to get info from you interface, and too small things don't work.
bit better this? (5 min work):
/me going to bed now, i'll be on the rest of it after the weekend.
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jouninkomiko
- Posts: 436
- Joined: 26 Aug 2004, 08:11
That's still a lot of space devoted to the left and right buttons. I think most people can click in smaller areas. If they were shrunk to squares (right-aligned in the box), there'd be room for another couple buttons. Not sure what exactly could go there, but whatever. I made another picture.
About the arrows. I think they'd look better if they weren't so blurry. Blurry chalk-like stuff isn't TA-style... bold, colorful stuff is. Some sharp red/orange/black/white/whatever arrows pointing both directions would be a lot more suitable IMO.
I think I like the alpha of the menu half-way inbetween the last two pics you posted best. As awesome as it is to see my buildpics not stretched, distorted, and seethrough, I admit I've gotten used to seeing them that way to an extent. A semitransparent interface would suit the game best IMO.
About the arrows. I think they'd look better if they weren't so blurry. Blurry chalk-like stuff isn't TA-style... bold, colorful stuff is. Some sharp red/orange/black/white/whatever arrows pointing both directions would be a lot more suitable IMO.
I think I like the alpha of the menu half-way inbetween the last two pics you posted best. As awesome as it is to see my buildpics not stretched, distorted, and seethrough, I admit I've gotten used to seeing them that way to an extent. A semitransparent interface would suit the game best IMO.
I had the bestest Idea ever...
okay... so how about we make it so that the build menu can be toggled to a
[20x20 scaled buildpic][Name of Unit][3digit cost metal][3digitcost energy]
list... sometimes I keep hovering over build pics to try to remember what they are... I think it would be nice and clean and let all buildable items show up in limmited space...
also... some version of the bars that calculated against income, basically some kind of "optimal" build time would be half the bars filled... based on a cost/tic/income or something...
okay... so how about we make it so that the build menu can be toggled to a
[20x20 scaled buildpic][Name of Unit][3digit cost metal][3digitcost energy]
list... sometimes I keep hovering over build pics to try to remember what they are... I think it would be nice and clean and let all buildable items show up in limmited space...
also... some version of the bars that calculated against income, basically some kind of "optimal" build time would be half the bars filled... based on a cost/tic/income or something...
Well, when you mouse over the command icon it would show what it acctually represented in the tool tips, the problem now is that when "High Trajectory" is the same size as "Stop", "High Trajectory" is unreadable... problem is, none of the commands he shortcutted to be icons, are the long unreadable ones... so it doesn't do much... I like the words with the icons behind them version myself... also... EVERY SINGLE COMMAND NEEDS A KEY SHORTCUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't use capture effectively when I keep having to move the mouse to the menu and back all the time...
Mouseover's bad because it's hidden basic information. You should never hide stuff like this. Now, more detailed information about what repair does? That is a good candidate for mouseover.SinbadEV wrote:Well, when you mouse over the command icon it would show what it acctually represented in the tool tips, the problem now is that when "High Trajectory" is the same size as "Stop", "High Trajectory" is unreadable... problem is, none of the commands he shortcutted to be icons, are the long unreadable ones... so it doesn't do much... I like the words with the icons behind them version myself...
I'd agree about the problem now. LandAt, High/Low, and the Movement/Fire stuff are particularly bad.
I'll do you one better. Every single shortcut key needs to be a "bound key", and every function needs to be bindable. There should not be any input command that I can't rebind, and there shouldn't be anything I can do with a button or mouse input (save mouse-specific things like clicking on something) that I can't do with the keyboard.also... EVERY SINGLE COMMAND NEEDS A KEY SHORTCUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't use capture effectively when I keep having to move the mouse to the menu and back all the time...
(While we're making Christmas lists, I'd love a "cancel top queue action" command and an "insert at head of action queue" modifier.)
Like Tim Posted - http://godevac.tauniverse.com/files/interface.gifEgarwaen wrote:(While we're making Christmas lists, I'd love a "cancel top queue action" command and an "insert at head of action queue" modifier.)
