SD frontend GUI

[Saktoth]

So licho has decided to spruce up SD and said he needed an artist to work on the frontend, so now, apparently, im learning how to use Expression Blend.

Anyway, here are my attempts, if anyone has any feedback, critique, would like to point to some other GUI they think is particularly attractive, or would even (shock) like to contribute (you can get a trial version of Expression that lasts 60 days, and its very basic vector graphics kinda stuff) please go ahed.

So here is my first days work using expression blend.

[Saktoth]

Oh and, yes, someone has been playing starcraft and, no, its really never going to look that good:

[Jazcash]

Oh and, yes, someone has been playing starcraft and, no, its really never going to look that good:

I don't see why not ^_^

Downloading Expression now.

[very_bad_soldier]

Really impressing results for your first tries imo. I like them both, but the first more than the second (at least for usage in SD).
I will take a look at that stuff too, seems interesting...

[Saktoth]

The bottom is clearly an experiment in colour and gradients, while the top one is clearly an experiment in a design with hand drawn vector shapes.

So, dont take them as whole entities, they are more about the elements. You can see both are totally inspired by the SC2 gui but they take totally different elements from it (You could do a third one using metal plates just based on the SC2 gui, but i've no idea how to do that in vector without it looking like a cheesy fake metal gradient).

[oksnoop2]

I really like the top one, it looks clean and easy on the eye. I would have to say no to metal stuff, that seems to always look ugly. Just my humble opinions though.

[Forboding Angel]

Also, specific game background = balls.

I think you guys should ask smoth to design it for you. He'll have you up and running with uberhawtsurprisebuttsecks in notime.

[Saktoth]

The background is incidental though i am sure we can find a map that is attractive enough that we dont need any units.

Though ultimately, of course, there will be a CA-specific loader based on SD that is going to try and match CA's ingame GUI and aesthetic (Perhaps we could support multiple themes if other people want to use SD as a frontend specific to their game).

[scifi]

like them a lot
^^

So i sugest trying to figure out the final layout, since this is the most important part, you should know that when aplying gui textures everything can look wrong, streched, or even look shit. This can result in a change in code and the overall layout........
you should try looking when you start SD what should it look like.

1┬║pic
So you going for white for the lines, dark colors for background?
it can work well but when you have multiple menus white can become tiresome, more gray looking with some variation would be nice. You can try adding black lines intersecting the conection lines

Try reducing the size of the lines, their to big imo.

2┬║ pic
Blue works well when you have a screenshoot like that, if its just plain black texture behind it becomes a bit tiresome to look at,


im by all means not telling you whats wrong or good, as its all a mater of taste and general look to the player.

For games and mods this is the basic, try making stuff simple easy to understand but not so boring to look at.

keep working at it =)

[Licho]

Imo starcraft or lol are doing it well.

We should definitely support "avatar" of the player - customizable mini image or something along with some metadata (for unlocking customizable commander upgrades, keeping game stats etc).

I suggest we first list of gui screens and things we need to achieve - something like list SD is using to drive its development:
http://code.google.com/p/summerspring/

[KaiserJ]

the second one could look pretty awesome if you had that background image slowly fade into different images (to avoid the boringness that scifi mentioned)

anyways i like what you've done so far and i like the idea of a nice graphical UI for SD.

im decent @ interfaces, maybe i'll give it a go as well.

[Hobo Joe]

Though ultimately, of course, there will be a CA-specific loader based on SD that is going to try and match CA's ingame GUI and aesthetic (Perhaps we could support multiple themes if other people want to use SD as a frontend specific to their game).

Please don't do this

[Saktoth]

Please don't do this

You put forward a convincing argument. Sadly, games need to have support for their own branding on their interface.

[Saktoth]

[very_bad_soldier]

Nice nice! But honestly there are some parts I dislike. Played around with it in photoshop a bit for fun (beware im a ps-noob).


I like the transparent windows in this. Maybe the "main window" could need some bells and whistles, I removed the old ones because I thought they didnt really fit.

[Saktoth]

The thing on the right is a scroll bar.

[KaiserJ]

looks great sak; is this for the CA version or the generic one?

and how hard will it be for me to reskin it for a certain other game

[Saktoth]

Looks pretty generic to you? Yeah.

Depends how far you want to 'reskin' it. If it gets so CA specific as to have a screenshot in the background (shock!) then it would be trivial to replace that. If you want to totally change the design, as hard as making a new one. Have you done vector graphics before?

[oksnoop2]

I must say i really liked the white one much more.

[Forboding Angel]

Have you done vector graphics before?