Vega Strike Forums

This thread has been going for awhile, but I need to ask this... To the coders (Dan, Hellcat, Klauss, or whomever), how feasible is this interface to implement? Will the Ogre version make it easier to change the interface? Would we be able to actually just convert this interface pretty much directly from HTML using some kind of ogre plug-in?

Haha... the dreaded question.

How feasible is this interface to implement?
Depends on how you indend to implement it.

Will the Ogre version make it easier to change the interface?
Most certainly. In fact, I'm already working on a python version that would apply part of the Ogre version's design to base interface, using the currently existing underlying code. My idea is to make people implement interfaces using this framework, so that when the Ogre version comes, I reimplement the python framework and everyone's happy. This new python framework, it is my intention, will most of the time grab XML "base" descriptions of the highest level that you'll be able to easily edit (some people could even provide an editor for it).

Would we be able to actually just convert this interface pretty much directly from HTML using some kind of ogre plug-in?
Not really. HTML is a resource hog, as it is painfully bland and, in order to support it, you need a whole Mozilla. No... but you'll get a pretty similar thing I'm calling "Base XML + PythonScript". Basically, your embedded python snippets will have all the usual "JavaScript" interfaces like Base.getElementById() or things like that. The idea is that it should involve no coding at all, or at most trivial coding, to write up the usual point&click interfaces.

Hey... I asked about HUDs, not Base interfaces? What are you answering?
In the Ogre version (the current version, sadly, even with the python framework can't do that) will treat HUDs as a special case of Base interfaces. So... whatever you use the same framework to design bases than you do to design HUDs - that means, niftiness, that you can implement both a base-side navmap and an in-flight mission computer

I'm considering replacing the bitmap graphics with vector graphics (SVG). Do you think this is a good idea? Does Ogre support SVG? How about performance/speed considerations? Typically, SVG (and all XML-related stuff) is kind of a resource hog.

Maybe we could limit ourselves to the SVG-Tiny specification.

Benefits:
* You only have to design an interface once for all screen resolutions.
* Source files consume less memory.
Detriments:
* May consume more memory CPU/GPU cycles.

Technically speaking, SVG support could be added, given a rasterizer for it.
There must be libraries for that.

A better way to support SVG would be to convert the vector graphics to GPU primitives - a lofty goal, but I doubt it would be very useful.

For one, it explodes polygon complexity for GUI elements - that's not nice... GUI elements are already rather complex, resulting in outrageous overdraw and insane vertex counts on some occasions (radar blips, for instance).

So... really, I don't think SVG is such a good idea. However, since SVG can be rasterized, you're free to have your original artwork in SVG (it would only have to be rasterized for inclusion, which can be done readily with The Gimp, so it's really no trouble at all).

Mind, though, that if I can kick myself and get that finished, you'll have wysiwig GUI editors rather soon.

I edited mockup #2 to include tooltips on all the interface items, so that you can see a short text description of what they do.

I was worried that the mockups would somehow have become broken in recent browsers since I haven't touched them in several years, but they seem to work fine for the most part in IE8 and Firefox 3. Only mockup #1 has some errors in the table rendering code when viewed in Firefox.

Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/xsb16pk79 ... v1_2_0.zip

i liked this HUD Design
unfortunetly the link for illustrat your talk seems to be broken, is it possible to post some view of the HUD as linked above?

Fendorin wrote:i liked this HUD Design

IMHO most parts look cool, but the whole is cluttered too much... the context menu was a great invention and all that.

Fendorin wrote:unfortunetly the link for illustrat your talk seems to be broken, is it possible to post some view of the HUD as linked above?

If it's about the archive on mediafire, i found this and this on Photobucket - seems to be almost identical versions of the same, except the original is built sprite-by-sprite. on a HTML page.

hi hi
thanks

like this should be more visible:

Wow, I love the look of that. As a new VS addict/player I would love to see that make it into the game sometime soon.
For what it's worth, you have my vote.

It's cool, but that hud is so busy (ie: cluttered) that without complex interaction that would allow one to maximize/minimize panels it would become tiresome really quickly.

VS doesn't have that interaction capability just yet.

On the subject of HUD redesigns, I'd like to make a request for something that shows the direction of movement in relation to the direction the nose of the craft is pointing.

I updated the HUDs to work in modern browsers, and created a third HUD. You can download them here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?10pw8otupi49ywv

Here are the screenshots once again:

Thanks. It looks really good. Especially HUD no.2. It's really amazing to see work on this thread being continued after more than seven years.