Game UI - FPS

[EyeMWing]

So we were hanging around a few months ago, lamenting about how much games suck lately. This led to the inevitable "What would the most badassed game possible be?" discussion. This led to - well, a lot of things. Concept art, mission outlines, a storyline the thickness of a Tom Clancy novel. A hardcore determination to GET THIS THING DEVELOPED AT ALL COSTS [except through EA. EA is off limits] - even if we have to do it ourselves. But those concerns set aside, I'd like some comments on our concept for the HUD. I pasted it on top of HL2 just for some "perspective."

Pic
From top left going counter clockwise:
Vital stats (Health, armor, energy)
Objectives
Multipurpose video display (Here we're watching fox news)
Weapons stats (Thumbnail, primary ammo, secondary ammo, energy bar [appears only for weapons using it], reload indicator [appears only when needed])
Computer CLI console (Yes, our HUD features a fvcking commandline interface. All it's features are duplicated in the esc-menu, though)
Status indicators (Audio and video uplinks are toggles which effect storyline events, datalink is a game mechanic, nightvision is a toggle or not available)

Did I miss anything? Is anything out-of-whack? WTF can I to make the text readable all the time without destroying the illusion of a heads-up-display projected on the inside of a facemask?

And no, I won't disclose any of our storyline because we havn't registered the copyright on it yet and we think it's *THAT* good, as do a few people in the industry (though they don't develop FPS's, so they aren't exactly eager to help).

It's a strategy/FPS hybrid with a branching storyline, by the way. Pick your battles and then go fight them. It's quite the epic battle. And it's set right here on earth, pre-apocalypse, just a few years in the future (though I suppose you could consider this the apocalypse, depending on how you play it).

Oh, and our cops drive 350Z's (well, generic cars that look a lot like 350Z's) that cruise at speeds of over 150 on the superhighways. 22 years of automotive advancement could lead to that, right?

Update 1:
Moved stuff around.
Right side isn't bottlenecked anymore.
FOXNEWS is now backwards
I kicked it a little hard and everything went a little out of focus.

Stuff I still havn't done yet:
Dumped arial
Converted the status area to icons, kicked the CLI off to a toggle-window.
Does anyone know how to make somthing look like it's being projected onto a curved surface in photoshop?
HUD version 2

 

[PHiuR]

hate to break it to you but...

doesn't look like anything special..goodluck selling this game outside the 99cents bargain bin. heh

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: PHiuR
hate to break it to you but...

doesn't look like anything special..goodluck selling this game outside the 99cents bargain bin. heh

:beer: It's not a UI that makes a game. Never has been, never will be. I'm just asking for a little player's perspective on where the fvck stuff should be - because a UI sure as hell can BREAK a game.

And also what the hell do you expect from concept art done in 5 minutes with Photoshop because I'm too lazy to scan the hand-drawn copy?

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
because I'm too lazy to scan the hand-drawn copy?

What happened to the "hardcore determination"??

 

[everman]

Well here's some input: Go and play Thief deadly shadows. Play through shalebridge cradel, at night, in the dark, volume up the entire time, all the way through without getting up.

Create a game that can reproduce that feeling for 10-20 hours straight. You still need to work in more gameplay variety and storyline etc, but keep the overall feeling....you'll know it when you play it. (dread, terror, anticipation, horror,...)
Profit!!! (and I do mean profit!)

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: gsaldivar

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
because I'm too lazy to scan the hand-drawn copy?

What happened to the "hardcore determination"??

The fact that I only have SCSI and parallel scanners happened. I'll be damned if I'm going to deal with either of those sh!tty interfaces tonight.

 

[remagavon]

How about you put the HUD where the HL2 hud already was. HL2's was fine. The damage indicators in particular were quite unique if I recall correctly.

OT: I had to fix an SCSI scanner that was a b*tch to get working, a tech tried for days

Learn to code your own engine, then make something basic but fun out of it. Then license the engine and use the resources to do something really good. That's what I would do anyway, heh. Hell even the relatively obscure lithtech engine got licensed to a few companies for thousands of dollars.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: everman
Well here's some input: Go and play Thief deadly shadows. Play through shalebridge cradel, at night, in the dark, volume up the entire time, all the way through without getting up.

Create a game that can reproduce that feeling for 10-20 hours straight. You still need to work in more gameplay variety and storyline etc, but keep the overall feeling....you'll know it when you play it. (dread, terror, anticipation, horror,...)
Profit!!! (and I do mean profit!)

Been there, done that. Our "opening" storyline - which we estimate at 10 hours does that very, very well. We lose a bit of that once the non-linear "finale" [We aren't sure, but we estimate somthing like 70hrs to reach the most difficult ending - but that's just for the crazy bastards who want to grunt-war their way to total world domination. If you're bored, you can do it in 20 minutes.]

A lot of your actions during the initial portion do severely effect the mood of the final section, though. It's very variable (and will no doubt piss people off infinitely, we have over 32 different plot endings written thus far)

 

[BeauJangles]

make it cleaner... less stuff on the screen = better

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
So we were hanging around a few months ago, lamenting about how much games suck lately. This led to the inevitable "What would the most badassed game possible be?" discussion. This led to - well, a lot of things. Concept art, mission outlines, a storyline the thickness of a Tom Clancy novel. A hardcore determination to GET THIS THING DEVELOPED AT ALL COSTS [except through EA. EA is off limits] - even if we have to do it ourselves. But those concerns set aside, I'd like some comments on our concept for the HUD. I pasted it on top of HL2 just for some "perspective."

Pic
From top left going counter clockwise:
Vital stats (Health, armor, energy)
Objectives
Multipurpose video display (Here we're watching fox news)
Weapons stats (Thumbnail, primary ammo, secondary ammo, energy bar [appears only for weapons using it], reload indicator [appears only when needed])
Computer CLI console (Yes, our HUD features a fvcking commandline interface. All it's features are duplicated in the esc-menu, though)
Status indicators (Audio and video uplinks are toggles which effect storyline events, datalink is a game mechanic, nightvision is a toggle or not available)

Did I miss anything? Is anything out-of-whack? WTF can I to make the text readable all the time without destroying the illusion of a heads-up-display projected on the inside of a facemask?

And no, I won't disclose any of our storyline because we havn't registered the copyright on it yet and we think it's *THAT* good, as do a few people in the industry (though they don't develop FPS's, so they aren't exactly eager to help).

It's a strategy/FPS hybrid with a branching storyline, by the way. Pick your battles and then go fight them. It's quite the epic battle. And it's set right here on earth, pre-apocalypse, just a few years in the future (though I suppose you could consider this the apocalypse, depending on how you play it).

Oh, and our cops drive 350Z's (well, generic cars that look a lot like 350Z's) that cruise at speeds of over 150 on the superhighways. 22 years of automotive advancement could lead to that, right?

Hey, this game is already out! It's called LINUX.

 

[BD2003]

If the look youre going for is a HUD on the inside of the mask, it would look WAY better if everything followed the curvature of the mask. Right now, it looks nothing of the sort.

Should prob be a bit more transparent, and if you really want to take the whole mask thing and run with it, I'd say it could use some blooming/glowing around the fonts.

And please, do anything but use arial as the obvious font.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
make it cleaner... less stuff on the screen = better

Agreed. Most of the time, less is more. The less HUD you have, the more immersive the game is (unless you have the awesome HUD of Metriod Prime, then it sucks you in even more).

 

[Amorphus]

The vital information is too spread apart to be convenient, I think - health/armor/energy are up on the top left while ammo is down in bottom right.

The video console might be a bit inconvenient, because you're probably not going to have video throughout the entire game. Have that expandable, collapsible with a hotkey or something.

The CLI may get confusing, and may distract people because the focus will at times be on or off the CLI. Making it pop in and out would be much better, because I know if a CLI was there perpetually then I would mess up sometimes by typing something, trying to move, and then not being able to move and dying because all my keystrokes are going into the CLI.

Also, I thought that it looked a bit cluttered - what if something were to show up at the right side of your screen? You could reduce most of that stuff to hotkeyed popup windows.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: BD2003
If the look youre going for is a HUD on the inside of the mask, it would look WAY better if everything followed the curvature of the mask. Right now, it looks nothing of the sort.

Should prob be a bit more transparent, and if you really want to take the whole mask thing and run with it, I'd say it could use some blooming/glowing around the fonts.

And please, do anything but use arial as the obvious font.

Haha. Yes. Arial. The photoshop hackjob got the better of me there. The numbered should actually be digital-clock style, havn't decided on a face for the lettering.

As for the curvature, I hadn't even considered that. I'll have to play around with that.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Amorphus
The vital information is too spread apart to be convenient, I think - health/armor/energy are up on the top left while ammo is down in bottom right.

The video console might be a bit inconvenient, because you're probably not going to have video throughout the entire game. Have that expandable, collapsible with a hotkey or something.

The CLI may get confusing, and may distract people because the focus will at times be on or off the CLI. Making it pop in and out would be much better, because I know if a CLI was there perpetually then I would mess up sometimes by typing something, trying to move, and then not being able to move and dying because all my keystrokes are going into the CLI.

Also, I thought that it looked a bit cluttered - what if something were to show up at the right side of your screen? You could reduce most of that stuff to hotkeyed popup windows.

The video console dissapears when not in use. Probably should've mentioned that in the OP, but it slipped my mind. That IS a terrifyingly bad place for it and I know it. May as well do the same for the commandline.

 

[tranceport]

Originally posted by: everman
Well here's some input: Go and play Thief deadly shadows. Play through shalebridge cradel, at night, in the dark, volume up the entire time, all the way through without getting up.

Create a game that can reproduce that feeling for 10-20 hours straight. You still need to work in more gameplay variety and storyline etc, but keep the overall feeling....you'll know it when you play it. (dread, terror, anticipation, horror,...)
Profit!!! (and I do mean profit!)

Oh my fvcking god. That was so wicked. I played with headphones at night while the wife was sleeping. Scared the sh!t out of me. I loved that soo much. Way more scarier than doom3 to me. I was so scared in game I would get in a dark corner and sit there to make sure I didn't get caught. The voices in the background scared me as well. I would take the headphones off and pause the game and listen to make sure it was in game.

Oh man. I'm gonna play that game again someday.

 

[EyeMWing]

Moved stuff around.
Right side isn't bottlenecked anymore.
FOXNEWS is now backwards
I kicked it a little hard and everything went a little out of focus.

Stuff I still havn't done yet:
Dumped arial
Converted the status area to icons, kicked the CLI off to a toggle-window.
Does anyone know how to make somthing look like it's being projected onto a curved surface in photoshop?
HUD version 2

 

[BD2003]

http://gr.bolt.com/previews/sc...me/metroid_prime3b.jpg

Is a very good example of what I mean by the curvature. Plus also quite a bit more translucent.

With interfaces, less is more. Dont leave anything on the screen 100% of the time unless it absolutely needs to be there 100% of the time. Stuff like the objectives has no business being on screen all the time, unless they are CONSTANTLY changing.

You can either go the austere route like HL2 and have as sparse an interface as possible with only the rough basics. Or you could go the other way, and clutter the screen with all sorts of cool gizmos. Either way is fine, as long as you dont cover the screen with rough looking fonts and meters.

Metroid prime really is a shining example of how to make a cool interface. Water splashes on it, if there is a bright light, youll even see her reflection. Basically, unless you really do your homework and make it *feel* like its a visor that your character is looking through, its just going to look like well...a UI.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: BD2003
http://gr.bolt.com/previews/sc...me/metroid_prime3b.jpg

Is a very good example of what I mean by the curvature. Plus also quite a bit more translucent.

With interfaces, less is more. Dont leave anything on the screen 100% of the time unless it absolutely needs to be there 100% of the time. Stuff like the objectives has no business being on screen all the time, unless they are CONSTANTLY changing.

You can either go the austere route like HL2 and have as sparse an interface as possible with only the rough basics. Or you could go the other way, and clutter the screen with all sorts of cool gizmos. Either way is fine, as long as you dont cover the screen with rough looking fonts and meters.

Metroid prime really is a shining example of how to make a cool interface. Water splashes on it, if there is a bright light, youll even see her reflection. Basically, unless you really do your homework and make it *feel* like its a visor that your character is looking through, its just going to look like well...a UI.

Hrm. I see what you mean. I need to get away from the 4x3 rectangle to be convincing. I grabbed a paintball mask (our armor helmets share a number of traits with them) and threw it on, and it's definitely clear that I'm off on the wrong foot. Right where you'd normally expect... Ground... Is this big, blind spot called a "nose".

I already saw what you meant by the curvature, but my photoshop skillz are significantly lacking.

I'm gonna do some radical redesign work now, I'll update tommorrow.

 

[cmdrmoocow]

Things that are flat and away from the middle are good.

Though on a side note, this sounds like an interesting project, and I might like to help.