Stellar Frontier's GUI

[Jibbit]

I agree completely the biggest problem i had doing this was i wanted the largest possible playing area but SF has so much info on display, hence the really small text it uses.We need to decide what to put 'at a glance' and what to put behind a button.

 One thing i shoulda mentioned is at the top where your own ship data is displayed, under the main modules there are two sets of red/yellow/green lights. The top one for power status of the module the bottom is damage status. The Idea being "Your ship's whole status at a glance" so you can see damage too without refering to the CMD.
I have put the tube modules to the side with no power/damage bars because i dont think they're neccessary (apart from # of rounds) if your ship is damaged to the point you cant fire, it will show on the main modules through the centre.
I did drop the wireframes ( i didn't think you'd mind ) they're very retro ad bring down the modern feel of the GUI if we're using 24bit then we should use the 3d pix instead

Admittedly the map could be larger, this is the 1024 version and i couldnt make it larger without making it take away playing space.Could we possibly add a zoom + and - to the map ?

As for scaling from 1024 to 2048 I think that all windows, ie chat, map and cdm should act like the now chat screen. Bigger res - bigger screens.

I understand the point of view that it doesn't need to be pretty, just functional. But the fact is that if we want to revive the game and bring in new people it needs to look cool and very modern. The plus side is that as the people doing the upgrade you get to make sure it's as functional as you want it. Tiger is right pretty is ok but it's go to be exactly what you need to pwn !

And Again i restate with utmost sincerety we need to drop 800x600. It's way too small to put a functional GUI on it. It's no big deal WOW have dropped it and they have 9 million customers !!

reply to odd note : the font is square 721 BT size 7

i'll redo the bottom half with your dimensions Nitehawk it'll take me about 10 mins though !

[Jibbit]

Made some of the changes asked for, and paid more attention to detail, especially text. Made all Panels scaleable.

[NiteHawk]

I like it so far. About the gold, I'd drop it though and use the white you had previous for borderlines. Gold and blue don't mix, for a space game anyways

As for the buttons, there alot nicer.

The wireframes can be used for the refit thing I wanted, its not really needed for targeting, I think the way you have it is just fine.

Other then that now it seems very nice.

Edit: PS
In general the panel will have to stay the same in a sense for the top. for the 6 Above things anyways. I mean it can scale to be a bit more, but i do not think guns should exist in the top panel. there may only be a max of 7 then.. We'll have to figure something out...

[NiteHawk]

The issue with having more panels at the bottom might become an issue. The GUI interface right now doesn't change, only the playable area does. Basicly the interface is always the same... Plus, you run out of things to actually write. As it is now I'd think thats all I'd really need.

How about this for higher resolutoins?

Expanding the middle.. As it scales, basicly should still look nice. (Maybe creating a borderline around the middle so it looks better. I'm not sure.. Your the artist, you make it look pretty! )

That's what I'd think, what you think mate?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Jibbit, here's my take on your latest interface.

Everything on the top panel can be dropped.

The 'Main stat panel' is information you don't need to look at "at a glance." it can be viewed in the CMD.  The same with Other Modules with scroll panel on the right.  And just inside of those you have the Velocity and Volume/Crew displays.  These are ALSO items which can be reviewed on the CMD.

After that you have the main modules display.  Make it only display the four critical modules.  Power, Shields, Armor, Engine.   I don't need to know about boost or cloak.  We've got a little graph that appears on your ship Icon that can tell you that. (We've also got one for shields but it's just a color indicator and not a bar.)

Trimming the modules display down, you can now drop it down to the lower panel into the gap that's just above the CMD and between the minimap and chat windows, freeing up all the space on top completely.

Since we're not 3D, one of the things we'll want to ensure is that the corners of our vision are just as clear as the center.  By clearing up the top, the view area is even and rectangular.

Now, with the reposition of the modules where I suggested, you can actually put a click to expand tag on it.   And visually it can be in a panel that's BEHIND the other panels.  Click it, and this 'panel' slides up, revealing a systems overview display that doesn't take up the CMD.  Good, so long as your safe, because when expanded, it takes up the main area.

The same could go for the minimap.  A click to expand or M for MAP keyboard shortcut expands the interface to take up the screen so you can look at a system map in more detail.

One thing I suggest is to put the grid back on the minimap, but put it back in faded white, and make the grid actually match the game distance measurement.


Anyway, the metal looks good, but for REALLY futuristic feel, I preffer the 'holographic panel' look.

I'll post a coupla' pictures as an example...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/admiraltigerclaw/Stellar%20Frontier/midchildamap.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/admiraltigerclaw/Stellar%20Frontier/desktopoct.jpg

In the first picture, you have a 'floating' window on that screeen that's bordered by the metallic feeling border.
In the second image, the panel floating in front of the girl on the right.  It's outlined by a glowing edge, and semi-transparent.
What could be done for the panels is to build them with the metal feeling outlines, but make the actual display areas inlay with the glowing border and make the display itself almost seem to float in places.  Perhaps take the 'border' off the top edges of the minimap and chat window and make them appear to float, being projected from the sides of the main panel in the middle.  Remove the outside borders for the panels so they look to extend offscreen but don't.  The same for the CMD display, remove the bottom border so it looks like it projects offscreeen even though the display doesn't.

[Staker]

This could probably be set for wide screen pc's and laptops.

And get me used to the chat :\

Nice Desktop ATC... I would of figured you would have something more appealing to a Computer Guy... Likewise my buds have either a half naked angel or some hentai background lol

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Fun part?

I made that:
http://admiraltigerclaw.deviantart.com/art/TOTAL-ANNEGILATION-MAX-58660845

[Jibbit]

I like the idea of the holographic panels and i'm pretty sure i could put it together for you. I'll get something up for you tomorrow. I thought about the sliding panels cause as you say it would solve alot of problems and clear up a hell of alot of space, the only draw back being the coding but i wont even pretend that i know anything about that part !!

For now this is the 1280 X 800 version to show upscaling of the other panel. And i changed the gold back to silver.

[Sandtrooper]

I guess we can salvage the wireframes for the refit screen if this goes forward for the "default skin", because they could be used to point out the weapon hardpoint locations even if their 64x64 pixels big.

[NiteHawk]

Well we'll figure out something, but in general it looks alot nicer, and most mods don't even have wireframes anyways because alot don't know how to do them or don't like too.

I'm not sure about ATCS post about the topbar, I'd need to see it...

An issue I see here is that target ship information is not always viewable. Because you need to tab threw things. I'm not sure how bad this will effect players or how much it will bug them. But the T key will be for Target, like it is now. So eh, whats peoples say on this?

I have to agree though with ATC and removing the borders where it is near the edge of the screen, basicly, so it gives a tiny bit more room, and it will look nicer. Goes for the top bar interface too, to remove the border on the top area. You can then either make it a tiny bit smaller (the top interface with the extra space of removing the top border where like interface for Laser1 etc is) or leave it the same. I'd probably say just cut it out. and shorten the interface a tad. Same goes for bottom I suppose too.

====

Hard thought for you people
Like I stated above, your technically missing the target bottom panel, which may be a big part to people. Think long and hard so we can get stuff done. Removing the top panel means your basicly cutting out the current bottom panel, with your local ship and target ship always being displayed. Without having to hit T to target.

Reason why I'm saying this is I don't want people crying afterwards when its removed and players go, WTF THIS WAS BETTER BEFORE CAUZ IT HAS MORE INFO DISPLAYED, sort of speak. The interface is surely 100% nicer, but you 'are' currently losing the target ship that is always displayed at the bottom.

I for one, don't really mind. I would rather just use T to target the ship when needed. Possibly when selecting a ship, the target screen appears. The issue I see though is: You cannot have bottom target view & damage control both together. Though damage control is at the top, the whole laser damage/energy loss is not. Though something can be done about that, like having a 'DOT' beside the ship weapon, that goes from green to red.

As for the minimap lines, the game renders it right now, not the interface. So no worries about that. Can change the color to anything needed.

As for the sliding panels, I'm not sure I understand, but yeah, we'll see on those. Have to remember currently the game can't really do anything super fancy. Would be fine to make the interface then later on when theres a proper engine to throw up sliding panels and such if your asking for like fancy boxes that expand and look sexy while doing so.

[Jibbit]

Turns out Tiger was right about the holographics.....Check this out !

I think the centre one looks best but as Nitehawk will tell you after seeing it....what with the idea of a sliding panel, the fact that to do this we will definately have to incorporate PNG graphics, there's is no frickin way anyone is going to code in a map which works with the type of perspective used, it would take absolutely ages to do. If you want this, you'll have to use the flat one.

But having said that even the flat one looks pretty damn cool !

[NiteHawk]

I'd thing PNG or BMP would have the same effect on the sliding, the only differ would be PNG can be properly transparent instead of using one pixel transparency.

As for making something 3D like, thats more of an engine type deal, same goes for the new planet colors you added that look 3DIsh, since it would be impossible to do this through BMP/PNG, unless you have a larger image that resizes, but that may look horrible because resizing images just plain stinks. So basicly it wouldn't be a image at all really, more or less the ENGINE would have to try to size each one properly as the screen got bigger or smaller. And yeah, the flat one will have to do until that time comes anyways. 

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Here's what I had in mind in terms of 'holographic' displays with glowing edges...

Essentially, anything solid projecting an image glows, and the outer edge of each image glows... giving you something that looks like the attatched.

Note, this is just a quick shop of what I had in mind.

Note where I moved the top bar information that's really important.
It's pretty much center vision above your CMD where target data and everything else would be displayed.
It also allows me to stuff the alert lights to each side.  Perhaps one indicator can be an alert light, and we can do something with the other.

All and all, the cleaned up interface with all the fancy details is your end.

[Jibbit]

ATC this one's for you ! hope you like it.

The map is a pop up so i'll show it with, and without. There is a dedicated target screen controlled only by keyboard (sorry not enough room for buttons).
This is it shown in 1024. Using the lowest res so i can show it all crammed together. The centre cmd and the buttons and the ship status screen will stay the same size and in the centre for all res's and the two side panels are locked to the sides so the scale points are between them.
Only thing i noticed on this one is that the main text will have to change from green to black so it shows up better.

And if it's possible this one makes the play area the whole screen with the 70% transparent holo screens on top. Not sure how that would work unless the control panels constantly refreshed.

[Staker]

If you ever played Continuum... Their map is transparent and so is the player list... It has the options to.