PlaneShift
Fan Area => Fan Art => Topic started by: Shadowfax on July 10, 2005, 09:34:40 am
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Well I was bored and after playing around with my info window like some other members, I thought about trying to create my own GUI. This, however, is only a concept screenshot and I haven\'t actually put it in-game. I don\'t expect to actually mod my Planeshift to use this GUI, though, I could probably actually get some of it working in-game. (Ofcourse the minimap is not a real feature of the game)
View (http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/2708/screenshotcopy4ik.jpg)
They few things shown are all I have done so far.
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Ok I?ve seen enough...I\'m going to beg Venge or Talad to stick that compass in :P
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Without the map, clearly.
I like the simplicity, though certain parts are missing - # of PPs, FPS (often a rather useful piece of information), and of course one of the most important features, the chat ;) I\'d really like to see the chat window in a similar style.
Many many headshakes at the map, though.
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i think all the windows that are in-game are a bit messy right now, thats why i like it. Like the chat window what you have to pull in-and out the sight of where you are walking. Maybe a permanent chat bar at the bottom of the screen?
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What\'s wrong with the map?
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Besides it appearing completely OOC, and being rather useless. As is on the screenshot, it shows far too small an area to be of any real use - you could just zoom out with your camera a tiny bit and see the same thing - it\'s an unnecessary feature. Certainly the design of it is lovely, but it\'s the function that carries greater importance.
There already has been official word that no auto-maps will be in the game, as well. Might as well stick a dragon in there ;)
*edit* I believe the compass directions are a bit off as well. The direction of the library has been described as east, with the Hydlaa exit gates as north. I think this isn\'t reflected on the screenshot, but I could be wrong. It\'s too early in the morning. *sheepish grin*
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Why would a map be useless?
You would think the Dev\'s would take away the 3rd Person zoom \"zoom out as far as you want\" and max it at 50 meters or so (I hope).
It should show enemy’s maybe with a red dot and guild members with a yellow dot for eg.
If not that then why not a small hand held compass with just N,S,E,W with an arrow?
IMHO I do think that it is a necessity for people, especially the newbs.
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Originally posted by Karyuu
Besides it appearing completely OOC, and being rather useless. As is on the screenshot, it shows far too small an area to be of any real use - you could just zoom out with your camera a tiny bit and see the same thing - it\'s an unnecessary feature. Certainly the design of it is lovely, but it\'s the function that carries greater importance.
I think it\'s not at all OOC, because it is small. It\'s about the area that you could see by quickly turning your head left, then right. Zooming out a couple of hundred kilometers is far more unrealistic than being constantly aware of what buildings (not people) are around you. If it were connected to a mapping skill, with differing level of detail, I think it certainly would be something :)
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me loves it, me wants it, where can I get it ?
As for the map, it can just be used as a compass, which would be very handy, but I dont think living beings should appear on it
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This may be a strech, but what about having a compass with just a black background, no map, no living things on it either, and have maps available for purchase. The maps could be brought up in full screen mode only perhaps to prevent using them as a mini-map - more like pulling your map out of your pocket and frowning at it for a while. It shouldn\'t show your location on it either - you should have to figure that out based on landmarks :)
Then magic users could also purchase a spell that has a certain time duration that makes creatures show up on the compass screen. As magic users might be weaker in melee fighting, it would be useful for journeys so they could avoid confrontation.
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Made some small changes. Now it displays PP, FPS, and time. Also the target\'s crystal could change to red or green when a target is selected depending on if it is friendly or hostile towards you. I\'ll add the chatbox etc. later.
View (http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/2380/screenshotcopy22fa.jpg)
I like the idea of starting with a blank compass and then having to purchase maps. And then to see people on the map, needing a spell or training in the \"map\" skill. It will be a useful feature for hunter/scout players. The map is really no more OCC then a the infowindow and chatbox.
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As for the \"no living beings\" on maps... This can be connected not only to a mapmaking skill, but also to a tracking skill. There certainly are different races that can track, using different ways to track.
Dermorians would probably be able to track by sound, Kran by vibration, Enki by sound and semell, depending on wind direction. Other races can also gain some levels of tracking ability through practice using their normal senses.
The information on this would obviously be highly dependant on skill level in the treacking skill, and maybe an additional stat / skill \"sense awareness\" to actually make use of the available senses.
As for the directions... I have seen the gates and the temple being described as \"north\", so it seems that north is really in the directrion of the templa when looking from the statue.
Thus, how about the compass showing the fountain with the statue in it\'s center and the temple as marker for \"north\", like the red end of the needle of a normal compass?
Obviously, this compass would not be available unless you actually _have_ one. Some races might, again, have a built-in but not 100% reliable one, like Elves, Enki, Klyros and Kran. It could also be connected to an \"orientation\" skill, since other races will also be able to learn that, obviously. A purchased one would be available to all, and, depending on quality, be more or less 100% accurate.
Also, it would be really good if you would have \"built-in\" and \"bought\" compass markers if both are available. There\'s nothing like your compass telling you you\'re heading west while your feeling says you\'re heading east. :) This could also be a peculiar property of certain places, as we have these IRL, too: magnetic ores in the earth cause severe deviation of the compass.
As for the minimap... I\'m not 100% sure about it. Granted, there surely is no way of having a GPS, but OTOH, the camera modes are comparatively limited in their usefulness for orientation, if you consider the unlimited zoom a bug, which I think it is.
I think I prefer a conventional map, though.
As for the general look of the GUI: it is not cluttering things up as much as the current one, but there are some design elements (the crystals) that are rather big but serve no purpose, thus will clutter once the remaining elements are in.
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Well the crystals, in my opinion, give the GUI a Planeshift feel. Now I think that you have a good point of there uselessness other than look so why not make them useful. I think that the segments of the info window\'s crystal should become the buttons. The large middle segment could go to invetory. The 7 buttons around it would become communictaions, petitions, group, buddylist, spellbook, quests, and guild. Then the small crystal shaped PP box would be the button for skills/stats, and the other few menus(Quit, Options, Help, Shortcuts) would be accesed from a drop-down by right clicking the middle segment(invetory button). This would really reduce clutter becuase all you would usually have open is your infowindow and chatbox(unless the compass feature is added in the future).
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My main concern with the minimap\'s OOC feeling was just that - a feeling of OOCness. If it had the appearance of a scroll with environmental features that looked as if they were drawn, it would\'ve been perfect. Afterall, I believe this is the style of map that is planned for the future - not a direct overhead view of one\'s surroundings. This was the biggest problem for me. And as Seytra stated, the location of other living things should involve either the drain of magic or the use of a certain skill - thus it too would not be automatic. I think features such as maps or compasses should look like the actual objects they are meant to represent, within the GUI. So a compass wouldn\'t be just four letters in the corner of the screen, it would have the appearance of an actual compass object (a ton of potential there for interesting designs), since unlike the many other GUI features, it is meant to be used IC.
I also agree that the nearly-infinite zoom feature is unnecessary, and should be taken care of in the future.
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I think a compass without the map would be nice and IC.
Regards.
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I added a basic chatbox, still needs work, and the party window.
View (http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1112/screenshotcopy37ms.jpg)
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Definitely love the greater simplicity of this GUI, overall :) Though I think having the party members\' mana show up as well as health would be a nice addition. And three cheers for round corners! :D
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Yea I also like the simplemess of it.
I added the mana to party members.
View (http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2227/screenshotcopy39am.jpg)
And remember you can make anything as transparent as you wish. Also the PS GUI lets you make anthing resizable and/or movable. You can also change the colors of the Hp/Mana/etc. bars to anything you want and you can change the text to whatever font you want.
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Originally posted by Shadowfax
Well the crystals, in my opinion, give the GUI a Planeshift feel. Now I think that you have a good point of there uselessness other than look so why not make them useful. I think that the segments of the info window\'s crystal should become the buttons. The large middle segment could go to invetory. The 7 buttons around it would become communictaions, petitions, group, buddylist, spellbook, quests, and guild. Then the small crystal shaped PP box would be the button for skills/stats, and the other few menus(Quit, Options, Help, Shortcuts) would be accesed from a drop-down by right clicking the middle segment(invetory button). This would really reduce clutter becuase all you would usually have open is your infowindow and chatbox(unless the compass feature is added in the future).
omg, i love this idea! If you ever create it i hope you can make this for public download...im sure it will be more popluar then the current style :))
Originally posted by Karyuu
My main concern with the minimap\'s OOC feeling was just that - a feeling of OOCness. If it had the appearance of a scroll with environmental features that looked as if they were drawn, it would\'ve been perfect. Afterall, I believe this is the style of map that is planned for the future - not a direct overhead view of one\'s surroundings. This was the biggest problem for me. And as Seytra stated, the location of other living things should involve either the drain of magic or the use of a certain skill - thus it too would not be automatic. I think features such as maps or compasses should look like the actual objects they are meant to represent, within the GUI.
Yeh i agree with you, maybe \'dots\' is not the best way to go.
I like everything you guys have said :P
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I made some more adjustments. Made it simpler so it takes up a little less room. I added a new FPS and time box and redid the chatbox.
Edit: I just redid all the borders and added a toolbar(the buttons are temp) with a row of quicklaunch slots.
View (http://img321.imageshack.us/img321/8170/screenshotnew9jk.jpg)
Edit:Edit: I thought of an even simpler way to add in the toolbar.
View (http://img323.imageshack.us/img323/1641/screenew4ha.jpg)
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Hmm, to my knowledge windows can\'t be split up/combined. It\'s a nice concept, but unless you are an expert with this sort of thing I\'d doubt it is doable. I guess you could design an info window that is wide like that with blank space in there, but then all 3 parts (info, target, and fps) would all move together. It really looks pretty good, but good luck with the xml :P
:emerald:
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Yea the xml is going to be really tough though the biggest problem I\'m having with it so far is positioning the parts like HP&Mana bars, text, etc. But your have a good point that Planehsift doesn\'t let you split up or combine anything. That\'s a really good idea though about making the info window really wide. I guess I\'ll have to see if I can get this to work.
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Originally posted by Shadowfax
Yea the xml is going to be really tough
Not tough but really, really annoying... :P Be prepared to make a tiny change, load the game up, see that you need to change it again, then exit, and repeat... 40 thousand times... :rolleyes: Have fun! :D
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originally posted by daveG
, load the game up, see that you need to change it again, then exit, and repeat... 40 thousand times... :rolleyes: Have fun! :D
auw! thats gotta work on your nerves, because loading takes ages, not to forget that you need to do it 20 times :S
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@Shadowfax: Do you ever leave that place? And great gui!
*gave up doing any change on PS, only thing that worked are race skin mods.
@Seytra: took the words out of my mouth.
Not going to say anything about maps and compass because most of what I would say was already said... Plus woke up a while ago so I\'m too lazy to type anything more.
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Originally posted by DaveG
Not tough but really, really annoying... :P Be prepared to make a tiny change, load the game up, see that you need to change it again, then exit, and repeat... 40 thousand times... :rolleyes: Have fun! :D
Indeed, this is part of the reason why a seperate program, PAWSeditor is being made- for those who know, something like eedit. But as far as I can tell there are no working versions available yet :(
As for spliting things up, yes you cannot do that without editing the C++ source. Right now, each of the subsciptions is just conected to the window it is in, but in theory those could be seperated, and windows could be definted purely by xml files. But that will take some work.
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IMO the toolbar is a bit too tiny... I liked the first option better. Maybe there could be an option to switch between them, for convinience\'s sake? btw. I love your work! :))
EDIT: geesh, I haven\'t noticed that there was a second page of the thread... /me eats a rock
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I had a wonderful idea of making a full gui for updater and ingame consisting of the marble texture with similar patterns to that of the pillars in the dungeon, nice square and simple.
i tried making it, using what marbel textures i could manage to half create, but im not one to have skill at all with 2d stuff, so i pass the idea on, someone else make this gui, i think it would look really good
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Originally posted by Shadowfax
I made some more adjustments. Made it simpler so it takes up a little less room. I added a new FPS and time box and redid the chatbox.
Edit: I just redid all the borders and added a toolbar(the buttons are temp) with a row of quicklaunch slots.
View (http://img321.imageshack.us/img321/8170/screenshotnew9jk.jpg)
Edit:Edit: I thought of an even simpler way to add in the toolbar.
View (http://img323.imageshack.us/img323/1641/screenew4ha.jpg)
I\' love your Gui, it\'s small and yet functional. Hope you share them when you finish them.
Only sugerence is that you can add the current weigth and trias in some place along the current mana, hp, Sta, etc.
The code if you wonder is:
The only problem it is that you need to open the inventory to get the data actualized, i don\'t know if it\'s a bug or it\'s the way that has coded in the source.
a nice add will be that the target info only pop-up when a target is really selected.
Sory my bad english.
Salu2.
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Well I figured out the scale of the x and y postioning the GUI uses. It goes by 1 pixel in 800x600 windowed. So now the positioning, which I was having the most trouble with, should be pretty easy if I design it in 800x600 windowed. Also I won\'t have to load the game as many times.
@Shooree: For the toolbar, I\'ll put it in as the big size and then I\'ll make it resizable so it can be shrunk and moved under the infowindow.
@Aldaron: I will see about adding it. Thanks for the code too. Yea I was hoping that the target info could pop up only when you have one but Planeshift limits what I can do with the GUI so I don\'t think that will be possible as of now. If I acrually get my GUI working I will definately put it up for download.
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I don\'t understand why you guys are saying it\'d be incredibly difficult to make this GUI.
The hard part is the artwork. Once you have everything mapped out it\'s just a matter of reading the values from photoshop and plugging them into your xml widget file.
Separating the info window into separate windows, etc makes things more difficult, but with recent (two months ago) changes to PAWS of adding a subscribe/publish system, it should be relatively easy. It may even be possible to pull this off without changing any code, although that would be an ugly solution.
BTW, I love the concept.
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Well here is my latest concept(I redid all the borders):
View (http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/8662/concept6nd.jpg)
And here is what it looks like so far in-game:
View (http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/3963/1screen8mn.jpg)
I don\'t really know what I\'m doing with the xml part but so far it\'s going well. The only problem I have had is that the images turn out looking strange in game.
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Originally posted by aarobber
I don\'t understand why you guys are saying it\'d be incredibly difficult to make this GUI.
The hard part is the artwork. Once you have everything mapped out it\'s just a matter of reading the values from photoshop and plugging them into your xml widget file.
Separating the info window into separate windows, etc makes things more difficult, but with recent (two months ago) changes to PAWS of adding a subscribe/publish system, it should be relatively easy. It may even be possible to pull this off without changing any code, although that would be an ugly solution.
BTW, I love the concept.
Yes, the art it\'s the key, but the PAWS\'s documentation when available will be of great help. :D
Sorry my bad english.
Salu2.
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Hey! So far so good :) This will be one GUI I\'ll really want to get my hands on. The things that feels \"rough\" at the moment are the crystals, however. Just their graphical design - they look like flat heptagons that have a crystal \"grid\" superimposed. Maybe if the lighting on those crystal sides looked like the lighting on the crystal of the forum top banner? The feeling of flatness dominates at the moment.
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Originally posted by Shadowfax
I don\'t really know what I\'m doing with the xml part but so far it\'s going well. The only problem I have had is that the images turn out looking strange in game.
You can try two things to clean up the images:
1) You don\'t really want the images to be scaled by PAWS in game. There\'s a flag that will prevent scaling with changes in screen resolution:
That resizetoscreen=\"no\" is the one that will prevent it from scaling in different resolutions. You also have to make sure that it\'s the exact same size as your texture if you want to minimize artifacts. The idea is that you want the image to be rendered at the exact same size as the source texture.
2) Make your images more \'textured\' by removing sharp edges and sharp falloffs in colour. This will make the texture scale better in game.
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That resizetoscreen=\"no\" is the one that will prevent it from scaling in different resolutions.
I have been looking for that for ages. Thank you very much aa.
:emerald:
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Hi.
Looks good so far, Shadowfax, you have both artistic eye and skill. I also like your gui concept and the fact that you haven\'t simply copied the existing gui and modified it, but created your own from the scratch.
It\'s good to note that resizetoscreen=\"no\" flag (or should I say resizetoscreen=\"yes\", which is the default) doesn\'t affect the font size. Thus in greater than 800*600 resolutions the windows can hold less text when resizetoscreen is set to \"no\".
This is helpful thing, actually, because now the text labels can hold the same amount of text, regardless of the resolution. However it does not change the problem that texts in low resolutions are huge and texts in high resolutions are tiny.
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i think you\'re doing a great job! and if it\'s finished (we, i guess) want it for download! it looks very clean and solid, and thats what an gui needs.( and ps\'s gui feels kind of messy, with all that screens)
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8o
Congrats on the WTB cherrpow!!!!
gui is amazing IMO
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I dont like the crystal : it must be redrawed and more beautiful
I dunno whats the display configuration you have : I hope it would be possible to change the width and the height of your player data display...
And finally I like the concept and wish you to success ! :O
:rolleyes:
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Ok well I have pretty much given up on actually putting the GUI in-game, and so for now it will remain nothing more than a concept.
Here is the latest concept. I cleaned it up a lot. I redid all the borders, beveled the status bars, and redid the crystal to try and make it look more dimensional and \"crystal-like\". I also completely redid the chatwindow.
View (http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/8279/screenshot2copy6xz.jpg)
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The crystal looks tons better :) Good to know that you won\'t be giving up on this project completely, it\'d be a shame. One of these days we\'ll -have- to have that GUI, we will. Too pretty to let die.
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Wow shadowfax that\'s stunning. Just a few things. Make that chat box match the rest of the set.
And, insted of having the crystal in the top left just...being there. Why not have it be mana of Stamina?
Other than that I like it more that the ormal interface. It has a much cleaner look to it.
Edit: Also, the crystal in the middle makes it looks like the whole interface will be crystal themed, if its not I reccomend removing that crystal and just having a bar.
Keep up the good work.:tup:
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cange the second crystal :
the white crystal must be the picture of two weapons something like a sword and an axe, crossed.
What do you think about that ?
Ill see If I could find the time to draw a crystal for you...
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I would like to see littler crystal and hp/mana\'s bars... will it be possible to redefine the size while we are playing ?
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I\'ll be happy to do some testing if you ever get this into a working skin. ;)
It\'s just so...good....
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Well I started working again on putting this skin in-game and it is actually coming along really well so far. I redid it quite a bit.
View (http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9306/shot059fl.jpg)
Changes:
- The main crystal is now behind the HP/Mana/etc. bars instead of infront so that way you can see all of the bars.
- I took away the target crystal and border because I can\'t make it only appear when somone is targeted.
- I changed the font colors to white so they are more visible.
- I found a way to make the HP/Mana/etc. bars to look beveled so they aren\'t flat.
- Changed the Stamina to only PsyStamina and changed its color becuase I Personally don\'t use the MenStamina but if I put this up for download when its down I will fix it to display both.
- I also added a custom cursor.
I haven\'t added spell power or attack stance yet since I personlly never use them, but I will add them soon. And I will also make progression points visible.
Well that\'s it for now. I\'m leaving on Friday and won\'t be back for a week after, and when I get back I will have a few days until I start school again so I will work hard to get some more things done before I leave because after Friday I won\'t have time to work on it for a while.
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Dunno, on that last one the target info just seems a bit too \"lost\" and in the open... but its great work still. Mabye the target info could be right under the character info or something?
I love it. It\'s awesome and very wonderfully clean. I still like the toolbar-in-a-PS-gem idea, you should try that next :P
Very, very nice. I want it. A lot :D
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Very wow inspired :)
Even the ranking on the top left. ;D
You should go one more step into the wow direction and add a quickbar with two rows on the bottom.
And the first versions you did where very much vivid and clearer. :)
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Yes I did get most of the inspiration from Wow which I was playing at the time. And I did actually make a version with a quicklaunch bar.
Well I haven\'t been around in a while because my computer died, but now I finally have a new one. Unfortunately all my work on the gui was lost because like and idiot I didn\'t backup my files and so it was all lost when my computer gave up.
I didn\'t really like where the concept was going anyways. I tried too hard to base it around the PS crystal and it wasted space and made the gui larger than it had to be. My newest concept is much more minimalistic but not PS themed.
Screenshot (http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/3852/screen6jm.jpg)
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As a very enthusiastic fan of minimalism, I must say, that rocks. That rocks hard :)
A billion million cookies to you!
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/me steals one and dips it in milk >:D
I love the minimal design, but I think it could technically be simplified further, literally making the bars smaller, and perhaps in a column with spaces between the types, e.g. your char\'s stuff, space, selected char\'s health, space, ...