Towards a Better Interface

Thinking about improving the Artwork in Vega Strike, or making your own Mod? Submit your question and ideas in this forum.

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Ryder P. Moses
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Towards a Better Interface

Post by Ryder P. Moses »

So I was working on textures, and then I was working on this, and there was no clear intervening period that I can recall.

Anyway. Yeah, the trade/news/etc. interface that's present now, while it's functional and all... kinda sucks. Without the sheer ugliness of it and all the other 2D interfaces, the game as it is right now could probably pass for a somewhat dated commercial release for a while.

So I'm working on fixin' it. I've managed to slim down the interface to a small fraction of its present bulk- still incomplete, but in the end there'll be plenty of room for added functionality.

Image

This is where I've started- a barebones sales interface for the 800x600 screen. It's mostly a graphical upgrade and rearrangement of existing functions to be more intuitive and occupy less space, to give more to the text fields. There's only one real change, the quantity selection box, which compresses the buy/buy one/buy ten options into a single variable unit that can do one, five, ten, or all, based either on number of clicks or location of mouseclick in the image field. That might take more than just fucking around with the table figures.
ImageImageImageImage
Well, that and the substitution of the horribly corny Credits for the equally corny New Yen credit chit.

Once I finish the description field aspect, I'mo do one of these for ship/harware and the news. News needs a lot of changing in particular. If the time afterward, might do a nicer interface for 1024x768 and up- I'd kinda like to do an ultra-compact windowed version overlayed on one of those awesome background scenes.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Sure, both fonts and colors look better. There was something subtle, --can't put my finger on it--, that made Privateer special by having interfaces that did NOT occupy the whole screen. The background did, but the interface occupied only a portion of the screen. I guess it has something to do with keeping an awareness of surroundings. When games take the entire screen for an interface, the surroundings are gone from one's awareness... There's like a mode-switch. But if the interface is only part of the screen, for me at least, it feels more like I'm still in that virtual world. Not sure if I make sense.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

What might be really nice is integrating the interface into the environment- like a background you can interact with directly to do all the game stuff. You see a console in one screen, you're using that exact same console in the next, with bits of the concourse you were just on showing on the edge and all. It's not gonna happen here, because it'd be way too much work for me to replicate the look and feel of each planet and station (especially since I didn't do 'em in the first place. Be piss-easy if I had, really), but it might for some later project I have greater creative control over.

Anyway. The 800x600 at least is gonna occupy the full screen. There are things that could be done to reduce the interface size dramatically (turning the buy and sell lists into a unified screen that can alternate at a button press would have the necessary space at really no cost to usability, and there's similar fat could be trimmed from the other interfaces), but since I could never free up the greater part of the screen, there aren't backgrounds for this stuff right now, and I'm pretty much the only artist here right now capable of making more... yeah, not really much of a point. Gonna keep these basic, and if someone takes 'em and does the code backend I might experiment more with compacted interfaces and all in a high-res version.




You know, it'd be nice if someone could streamline the trade content while I'm plugging away at this. The balancing and cargo lists are in just as much need of repair as the visual frontend, and since this is a space trader, that's bad. I mean, can someone explain to me why we have twenty million different nearly identical kinds of cargo, but milk and caviar are sold as the same thing? Something less absurd than "they both come from animals"? Or why there's so many different kinds of swarm missile with minor-decimal differences in range or carrying capacity when they're all equally useless for anything at all? Or why a trade computer/whatever would be taking the time to tell us cute factoids about egg-eating fetishists? It's just a mess.
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Post by GAlex »

Very clear and efficient look!

a proposal: why don't implement a stock-exchange-like layout?

maybe like this ...

Code: Select all

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+
| Cephid 17 Stock Exchange: Serenity Mining Base                     | DISCONNECT |
+-----------------------+------------------------------------+-------+-------+----+
| CATEGORY              | GOODS        - PRICE | BUY  | SELL | STOCK | CARGO | +- |
+-----------------------+------------------------------------+-------+-------+----+
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
|                       |                      |      |      |       |       | <> |
+-----------------------+----------------------+------+------+-------+-------+----+
| FREE cARGO SPACE: X out of Y                        | NY: xxxxxxxx              |
+-----------------------------------------------------+----------------------+----+
... or some sort of.

for each category of goods you have the good list, the buy price, the sell price, the stock amount, the cargo amount and in the last column (for each line) a pair of button to buy/sell that good.
"Eppur si muove ..."
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Ryder, what about modelling a few computer interfaces, as 3D objects, and applying the interfaces to them? I could come up with a couple of quick models. Dynamic texturing is coming with Ogre, and we could have a number of computer interface models for trading, news, etc., that any mods can use. It would give the old 3D bases idea a big push in the right direction to have the important be just a drop-in, so that all an artist needs to do to make a 3D base is the rooms, the textures, and where the computers are.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Galex: That's a much better setup than the current one. I like the idea of breaking up the category, itemtype, and quantity especially. It makes offloading goods kinda awkward, but I can fix that, I think. I'll design the weapons interface like this, and might redo the cargo to work this way too.

Chuck: That'd work. I'm really not digging the whole 3D base idea, but from a content creation standpoint a standardized console that can be stuck in any setting would be pretty good.



What do y'all think about breaking up the news reports? It's kinda a pain in the ass to me when I wanna find something important and have to sift through a thousand battle reports from all throughout the galaxy to get to it. I'm thinking a selection of three "news networks"- one that reports on war and politics, one with job postings (those "scavenging" articles, high-value bounties, emergency supply requests, etc.), and one for news that's actually important enough for real content to be written about (say, the campaign news articles, maybe if Sol gets captured by the Aera, etc.)
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Post by Kangaroo »

Ryder P. Moses wrote:What do y'all think about breaking up the news reports? It's kinda a pain in the ass to me when I wanna find something important and have to sift through a thousand battle reports from all throughout the galaxy to get to it. I'm thinking a selection of three "news networks"- one that reports on war and politics, one with job postings (those "scavenging" articles, high-value bounties, emergency supply requests, etc.), and one for news that's actually important enough for real content to be written about (say, the campaign news articles, maybe if Sol gets captured by the Aera, etc.)
I like the idea. Maybe the news could be even sorted by star systems, cause it's kinda weird to hear all the time that some uln lost another flagship when we possibly couldn't know about it.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Ryder P. Moses wrote:Chuck: That'd work. I'm really not digging the whole 3D base idea, but from a content creation standpoint a standardized console that can be stuck in any setting would be pretty good.
Same idea could work in 2D, if you prefer 2D bases. Just using transparency around the interface; that way each base can have a different background for news, repairs, marketplace; and it frees me from having to come up with 3D models :D I'm burning the candle at 3 ends trying to get this Bengal carrier done for WCU.
What do y'all think about breaking up the news reports? It's kinda a pain in the ass to me when I wanna find something important and have to sift through a thousand battle reports from all throughout the galaxy to get to it. I'm thinking a selection of three "news networks"- one that reports on war and politics, one with job postings (those "scavenging" articles, high-value bounties, emergency supply requests, etc.), and one for news that's actually important enough for real content to be written about (say, the campaign news articles, maybe if Sol gets captured by the Aera, etc.)
Or a few buttons that filter news by categories. Frankly, I think the news as they are now were just a proof of concept that never went beyond that in terms of content. I don't think that having a flood of "flight group budweiser just kicked the living exhausts out flight group labatts and are heading for the keg system to celebrate" type news was the real intent.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

In a universe small enough that one could actually have heard of, much less give a damn about, any of the news whatsoever, it'd be a great idea. With several hundred star systems and all of them constantly at war, it's pretty much a waste of time. But since there's plenty of mods and stuff that'll be able to use such a thing properly, I'm not too put out. Besides, most of the news in real life is irrelevant crap that means nothing to the reader, too.

What it might be nice for- it's recording actual interactions of virtual ships, right? How hard would it be to have a 'video' function that lets the player watch the action played through the game engine? Like, there's a little screen inset in the news interface showing a cinematic-cam view of flight group Labatts getting blown up, a flyby by Budweiser squad as they leave the fight, etc. For one thing, this'd be shiny. For another, it'd give players a good source of information on combat- they can learn something about the loadouts of given factions and the effects of given weapons before they ever have to run across them, and should the AI ever become marginally less retarded and predictable it'd be a good way to learn combat tactics as well.

A video option'd also be good for if/when content and campaigns and stuff really start getting made, too, kinda a conveyance for prerendered cinematic clips that doesn't break game context or suspension of disbelief. 'Course, someone would have to code all this, so I guess it's something to file for later.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

No shit; yeah; live coverage! Should cost nothing code-wise, I mean, just a suicidal reporter's AI mixing it in with battling factions. Should be able to exact some credits back from the player for it, too.
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Post by Paslowo »

Perhaps there should be a number field where you enter a number on how many commodites you want to purchase.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Completed with desc and image box. I really wish I had something to do with that bottom space, just leaving it all formica is so boring and fucks up the composition. I wanted it to look kinda grungy and beigeist and like an everyday tool, but this is a little too mundane. Any ideas on how to work "save game" gracefully into a trade interface?

Image

And an overlay. Text and other variable stuffs go between the above layer and this one. Makes things sexy. Or at least less ugly.

Image[/img]
Last edited by Ryder P. Moses on Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Ultimate effect looks like this, minus a few last-minute details:

Image

Font may vary; that's just Times New Roman I used, figured it's the one thing that's more or less similar in size and shape to any font one might care to use.

Tomorrow: Weapons and upgrades.
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Post by charlieg »

Whilst I would, in a heartbeat, import that interface over the existing stuff in VS, there's still several reservations but I'll just put forward one:

This is the future. UIs will most likely be holographic, right?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Charlieg, the most common mistake made by sf writers, and what makes a lot of old sf movies so cheesy is excessive assumptions about the future. I was a kid when holography was being touted as the thing of the future. Then, 20 years ago there was yet another explosion of research in holography. I remember I was looking around for a job at that time, and every third high tech company I'd visit would mention doing some research in holography, and many of them had those big, heavy tables in vibration-free suspension and all that expensive optics paraphrenalia, and where did all that money and effort go? Ironically, not many predicted CRT's and television before they happened. But once they happened they were sure we'd have a paperless office by now. Nope, probably more paper, since it's so easy to hit Print. (Back in my days you were a draughtsman, an electric eraser was your friend. Same vellum sheet, last year and next. Nowadays, change one little thing on a drawing... hit Print... there goes another tree...)
And in spite of amazing display technologies, and book prices always going up, most of us still prefer to read a book rather than a pdf.

If I wanted to see prices in 3D I could do it with stereo goggles, much easier than using holography, but I'd much rather look at a 2D display than get cross-eyed for no good reason. And this will be as true in the year 7000, if we're still around.
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Post by GAlex »

I really wish I had something to do with that bottom space, just leaving it all formica is so boring and fucks up the composition. I wanted it to look kinda grungy and beigeist and like an everyday tool, but this is a little too mundane.(Ryder)
you can make use of soft plastic instead of formica (that is switch between '70s to '90s), and you can add a small Numpad (active or not involves coding) at the bottom-right, moving the glider just a little more up.
moreover, shrienking a bit free vertical spaces, will make space for a little keyboard (again active or not). I think that the interface shoud resemble a teminal of the structure's mainframe.
Any ideas on how to work "save game" gracefully into a trade interface?(Ryder)
there shouldn't be any game specific button on the station/whatever terminal! I always thought that such a feature should have place when you're aboard YOUR ship, or by using a FuncKey of some sort (like shift-ctrl-alt-f4? - I have 8 hands and 15 fingers per hand, you know) that opens the appropriate save/load/quit GUI, hopefully not only in stations but also in free-flight. I know it's pain to code it, but it will be a nice feature for the future (feature for the future? :lol: :lol: :lol: ).

what do you think of that?
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Post by klauss »

All that is doable right now, by python means.
Well... the overlay may need some creative thinking (I'm not sure how easy it is to control the z-order of text elements).
And... unless you hand-code fonts in python... you won't be able to use that font.

Right now.

In the future (Ogre)... a piece of cake.
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Post by GAlex »

Mybe we can have save/load/quit button in the nav-computer/star-map, and add many new features to that interface.

question is, if I save wile in free flight will I be able to reload a consistent state of the game at save time (that is: missions, insystem ships, etc?)

haven't tried so far.
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Post by klauss »

All but insystem ships.
Those are randomly generated, so they would change.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Charlieg: Well, it could be a hologram of a crappy old vending machine. Holograms don't have to be all glowy and like every cheap game interface made in this century. :P

I do get your point, though. Yeah, while I'm trying to shoot for something realistic and representational, people play games for escapism into an alternate universe where even things like utilitarian computer consoles look sexy. This series is more or less a trial run, I'll be doing something a bit different for the next screen.


Galex: Good ideas, thanks. I think I'll keep the formica, though- the game might not be set in the 70s, but it sure as hell ain't set in the 90s either, and it conveys "crappy and obsolete" well.
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Post by Halleck »

I like the formica... it looks like something you'd see at a backwater outpost. Perhaps it was from the 70's... the 2670's ;)
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Me too I like it.

[OT]: People interested in futurology should read Marshall McLuhan. His philosophical approach to dissecting technology is so honest it's almost sinister. Like when he's classifying inventions by what they replace and what they eventually do to cause a "reversal" (accomplishing the exact opposite of what they were meant to)... One shocking line I remember: "Bed -- replaces: muscles". Think about it. Or don't; just take it from me: once I got heavily into bodybuilding and, after a while I noticed I could lie on a hard floor and feel perfectly comfortable. McLuhan was right. And beds close the last gap in muscle independence; --we can now be virtually muscle-less, and pretty soon will be, as a race, reach the heigth of weakness. Well, no, I guess the last gap will be closed by cheap, mass-produced exoskeletons for the aging.
And when he says new mediums always serve the masses while the older mediums move on to serve the more intellectual minorities again he's right. Television for the masses. Nothing good there (including "nature shows"), and whatever intelligent content needs to reach an audience it does so through an audio only medium.
[/OT]

Anyways, not all technologies change much with time. There has to be a reason for them to change. Whether displays or formica...
Displays are changing and will continue to change until they reach a form that is acceptable. Right now they aren't: CRT's are too bulky and fragile; LCD has this viewing angle crap; EL is too damn expensive; and they all still lack full visual resolution and dynamic range in their color channels.

Formica, on the other hand, is a "stable" technology. It's been there basically unchanged for many decades, and there's no reason to think it will need to change. You can tell a technology is stable, when what people point out of it is a yearning for times past. When people complain about formica, it's usually in the way of "not *real* wood", but have little to say otherwise.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Very incomplete, but it's about as far as I'm getting tonight so I'll slap it up for now. So don't complain to me about what's missing or what's too simple yet. Fuckin' crappy Flaming Pear plugins keep breaking down, gonna have to build all the buttons by hand.

Image


Thingy on the left is something new to VS, but which is pretty much obligatory for every space game- the odd-colored spinning model. We've already got these gun/turret models that, it occurs to me, I've never actually seen in the game, might as well make use of 'em. Or, alternately, I guess one could slap a prerendered video in there. There's a little space below it that feels like it should be getting used for something practical, but I've got no ideas for that aren't purely decorative and too static.

This'd also be the ship/fleet interface, I guess, seeing as there's no real reason to differentiate the two. It occurred to me about halfway through this that it would really have been a better idea to integrate the two into one console, but eh, this works.


If there's one thing videogames have taught me, it's that making everything out of great fucking iron slabs is more futuristic than making everything out of plastic.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Updated, main interface buttons done as they're gonna get. Yeah, that's jack_st's ship thingy on the button. Thing is coming along slowly. I'd rather pass at least some of my courses than get this done in a hurry. Won't be around next week to do it, either, so yeah. Sometime after.
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