Author Topic: UI Design and Suggestions  (Read 10822 times)

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Offline LB

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #30 on: November 29, 2012, 05:53:48 AM »
Excellent - should be able to finish up something for the font stuff over the weekend I think.  Should be fairly easy to produce a sprite based font version (as well as a . ttf version).
 

Offline SnopyDogy (OP)

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #31 on: December 07, 2012, 12:18:14 AM »
Okay, i had a lot of free time this week and have spent it developing the UI.

I have cleaned up the system map, adding distance measurement (see SystemMap.png) and and way points (SystemMap2.png). I’m looking forward to your new Font LB, I’d love to have the numbers back on the system map.

I've also added the beginnings of the Economy window. there’s not much data to display atm so it looks a little bare.
 

Offline MrAnderson

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #32 on: December 24, 2012, 01:27:40 AM »
It's nice to see a C# version of Aurora in the works, and you'll definitely have me onboard as this goes along.
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #33 on: May 01, 2013, 05:12:24 PM »
Not exactly sure what sort of visual look we are going for, but I made some basic designs for the Economy window button (assuming there will be a buttoned selector like Aurora):

Obviously neither is close to finished; the first one is planets and moons like in the map display, put in some fake-3d (the econ window seems to be based on one planet), and the other is a city with various economic structures in it.

If anyone has any input on which one to work on (or another entirely), or on what sort of style to go for, that would be good.
 

Offline sublight

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #34 on: May 01, 2013, 08:10:31 PM »
Those both look fantastic visually, but I'm afraid they may be too large for us to easily use.

Take a look at the screen shots attached by SnopyDogy above for what the initial beta release is shaping up to look like.


The easiest way for us to add color is include menu-button icons. I think those are 16x16 pixels.

If we completely replace the tab button text with icons styled like the Aurora button bar we could use larger images, but 1) we may stick with text for visual clarity leaving submitted images there unused and 2) even if we did switch to icons we would probably be looking for rectangular images no more than 32px high by 64px wide.


So... I like the one on the left best. The one on the right has too much detail to be resized or cropped if needed.

Anyone else have thoughts?
 

Offline SnopyDogy (OP)

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #35 on: May 02, 2013, 04:44:02 AM »
I agree with sublight, the one on the right is a better icon.

Its still very early in the development of the UI so I'm not too sure exactly what button icons we'll need, but for now I could use:
Ship Icons for System Map (Different for each Classes/Role).
Some icons for the different planet Types (gas Giant, Terrestrial, Rocky, Ice, Asteroid, Comet, etc)
Some icons for the Star systems on a galaxy map (could do different icons for single, binary, etc. Systems maybe?)
Arrow Buttons for the UI.
Zoom buttons for the UI.
Icons for Economics, System Map, Galaxy Map, class Design, Ships Screen and System Information.

As for the icon size, the Winforms toolbars use 16x16 pixels by default. We can resize the buttons but I'm thinking no larger then 24x24 for those. On the OpenGL size I'm currently using 8x8 coloured circles for the planets/stars/etc, however this could be increased to 16x16 or even up to 32x32. Just keep in mind that the OpenGL stuff gets scaled based on zoom so these icons will need to scale well.

Also could you make the backgrounds transparent instead of black? They'll mesh better with the rest of the UI the way (especially in the OpenGL stuff, black backgrounds behind every icon just looks wrong  ::) ).

I'm still not sure on the style myself, the retro style is okay but after seeing the below Chrome Experiment the other day I have been re-thinking our current UI approach a lot:  http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/100000-stars/
It'd be a killer combined system/Galaxy map, but retro icons wont mesh well  :)
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #36 on: May 03, 2013, 03:18:14 AM »
In my opinion the UI is very important for a game to be easy accessible and coherent to use. I also don't see a reason to include some more visual components that aurora lacks. I'm not talking about 3D effects or anything like that. But a nice galaxy background on the main map and slick and visually pleasing buttons with some small animated effect such as mouse-over effects and sound when you press them etc. It make things easier for the player in the end.

A little more graphics on the spreadsheet pages would also go a long way of making them more accessible and easy to both read and use.

I would also like to option to use pictures for my ships on the information screen. Basically you could just choose a picture when you create a ship from a list of available pictures. The community would quickly add to that list in no time... ;)

I will play this game if it releases anyway, but I know many more people would try it if the UI was a little more pleasing and forgiving.
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #37 on: May 03, 2013, 05:53:26 AM »
I can't get that experiment to load, but from the screenshots it does look like a pretty neat UI.  The only downsides I see (besides the extra time/work  taken) would be that any kind of smooth zoom would need something probably complicated to let it zoom over the space between one system and the next without skipping through the multi-system and normal system views too fast, and that it would be hard to gracefully put in windows as complex and text-based as there are now.  I could do the icons for it, if that is what we will be using, but making distinguishable ones for the tabs and such that would not clash with the rest of it will probably end up in more abstract icons that are less obvious to new players (due to limits in contrast and number of colors).
« Last Edit: May 03, 2013, 03:22:02 PM by Theeht »
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #38 on: May 07, 2013, 02:14:16 PM »
Economy Screen
System Map
Galaxy Map

How are these? 24x24 images, meant for the tabs - I couldn't make 16x16 clear about what it was.
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #39 on: May 07, 2013, 09:02:33 PM »
New versions of the old ones, with black corners to look better on the light background, and some new ones:
  Design Tab
  Ships Tab
  Economy Tab
  System Map
  System Info
  Galaxy Map

Will the ship map icons be rotated by facing?
 

Offline ZimRathbone

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #40 on: May 08, 2013, 09:04:53 PM »
I like the Design, Ships and Galaxy icons.  The Economy icon seems less intuitive to me (the Moneybag $ in Aurora is much easier to understand - perhaps a pile of coins?), and it and the two System icons are a bit too similar for my aging eyes to differentiate easily, mainly as the predominant colour is light green
« Last Edit: May 08, 2013, 09:06:24 PM by ZimRathbone »
Slàinte,

Mike
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #41 on: May 24, 2013, 10:55:47 AM »
How's this for an economy button: ? It is supposed to represent a hammer and a coin; not sure why I put in that other line but it looks better with it.
Nevermind, I just realised how bad that looks on a light background.  Working on it.

I have just finished finals, so now I should be able to work more on these.

Will the ship icons rotate with facing, or always point the same way?
« Last Edit: May 24, 2013, 11:01:06 AM by Theeht »
 

Offline Nathan_

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #42 on: May 25, 2013, 11:19:23 PM »
That could be a matter of preference, it should be easy enough to do either way though. I'd assume that the icons would always face the same direction for readability's sake.
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #43 on: May 27, 2013, 03:29:21 PM »
Made some move, zoom, and center map buttons; not showing them in order because the images become separated by random amounts when put next to each other, but the idea is that the zoom-in button goes at the bottom left, and the zoom-out button at the top right.
 

Offline Theeht

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Re: UI Design and Suggestions
« Reply #44 on: May 29, 2013, 07:26:43 PM »
How are these for basic ship icons, as a general style?  Making them with three for each ship type, currently in one color but can do whatever people think works.  Haven't touched any warship icons yet, because it seems I can't manage to draw a decent diamond, but working on it.

Cargo ships, large and small:
Colonist ships, large and small:

Will they be somehow given race colors, or is multiple colors of each icon needed?