Check mark color

[Tels]

Right now, in our GUI checkboxes in the objectives screen are marked with a "tick". Last night while playing I was a bit confused, because I got a completed and then a new objective without really knowing why or what and while browsing the objectives screen I couldn't see anything that changed.

 

Only after some time I noticed that the checked objectives are checked in red, and the failed objectives are crossed out in red.

 

So here is my proposal: change the color of the checkbox mark to green (but make it so the color blind can still distinguish them. And even if they cannot, it is not worse than it is now where both are the same color). That would also be consistent with the green we use for checking of already played FMs:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Edit: The green in this gimpshop is a bit off, it would be better matching in game.

[Sotha]

I have no preference, but green tick would undeniably be more intuitive for completed objectives.

 

Would it be possible to design and add also a well thought of indicator to make NEW objectives easily discernible from the others?

[Springheel]

Only after some time I noticed that the checked objectives are checked in red, and the failed objectives are crossed out in red.

 

You're just noticing this now?

 

I'm not a big fan of the green, but whatever the majority agrees to is fine with me.

[Tels]

You're just noticing this now?

 

99% of my TDM time is spent developing, your mission was the first in a long time where I actually played more than 10 minutes and even then I was fixing translation bugs and had to restart all over like 10 times because every new code revision invalidated the savegame. So it too me like 3 days until I made it into Sykes house and got the first objective change - where I noticed the colors - or rather, didn't notice them and got mightily confused because I thought I did not get any changes in objectives

 

I'm not a big fan of the green, but whatever the majority agrees to is fine with me.

 

You mean the green itself, or the exact shade of green? The final color would be more darker, I think. That was a quick hack with Gimp.

 

@Sotha

 

Would it be possible to design and add also a well thought of indicator to make NEW objectives easily discernible from the others?

 

I guess so, but I don't want to be sidetracked now. Maybe you can come up with a visual design first?

[Sotha]

I guess so, but I don't want to be sidetracked now. Maybe you can come up with a visual design first?

 

Sure, I can open an own think-it-over thread for it to avoid derailing this one.

[Bikerdude]

Hmmm, dont know about that green. I think we may need something different, how does it compare to what we have in TMA and TDS..?

[Tels]

Hmmm, dont know about that green. I think we may need something different, how does it compare to what we have in TMA and TDS..?

 

Ithink that red/green are the perfect pair because they are:

 

* opposite colors, so good distinguishable (and with a bit of care even for color blind people)

* green is positive, red is negative in Western culture (think "traffic lights")

 

What other color would you choose? I have added a bit to the poll.

[jdude]

I'm not a big fan of the green, but whatever the majority agrees to is fine with me.

 

I feel the same. The two colors make me feel like the player is carrying around a pencil box.

 

@tels: You may want to rethink the red being negative in western culture though. Red is more of an attention color, think about all the brilliant red checkmarks we got in grade school

 

But honestly, doesn't really matter to me, either is okay, just don't go with more than 2 colors.

[New Horizon]

Not a huge fan of the green either...or the red honestly. I think we debated the pros and cons of striking out canceled objectives long ago, but if there was a choice that would be my preference.

 

 

Whatever the rest think though. The red alone was ok, but both red and green look quite garish. It just doesn't fit the design of the menu.

[Bikerdude]

I voted blue coz I want to see a screen shot of what it looks like.

[Tels]

Oh well, so much for another failed attempt at "design by committee"...

[Tels]

I feel the same. The two colors make me feel like the player is carrying around a pencil box.

 

@tels: You may want to rethink the red being negative in western culture though. Red is more of an attention color, think about all the brilliant red checkmarks we got in grade school

 

In my school we got a red "f" (for "falsch"), and red checkmarks, but for the simply reason: the teacher had only one colored pencil and swapping this out for another color everytime you change between "red" and "green" f.i. would be way too much hassle. Plus the need for another colored marker, which where scarce behind the iron curtain...

 

So I don't think that counts as counter-example much

 

But honestly, doesn't really matter to me, either is okay, just don't go with more than 2 colors.

 

Erm, so what is the verdict then? Are "red and green and beige for the background" more than 2 colors?

[STiFU]

Black ink caligraphic marks would be my preference.

 

A new objective could be visualized by a simple "exclamation mark" before the checkbox.

[New Horizon]

Black ink caligraphic marks would be my preference.

 

A new objective could be visualized by a simple "exclamation mark" before the checkbox.

 

Yeah, I would prefer to keep it all black ink as well.

[Tels]

Yeah, I would prefer to keep it all black ink as well.

 

The basic idea of the "change red to green" change was that the completed objectives become much easier to spot. Keeping it all black counters this, even if one uses different shapes. Because the original complaint by me was that a red cross and a red checkmark are hard to distinguish, making them black only makes it worse.

 

In that case I'd rather not change anything - but of course anybody else can change things freely.

[Serpentine]

I don't have a problem with the mapping of green/red for good/bad/whatever. However I'd suggest using a multiply blend (should work on guis), rather than add, as this darkens will look more like ink.

 

For example :

[jdude]

Erm, so what is the verdict then? Are "red and green and beige for the background" more than 2 colors?

 

About the 2 colors I just meant try not to have like an orange circle, green check, red ex, purple squares etc.

[New Horizon]

I don't have a problem with the mapping of green/red for good/bad/whatever. However I'd suggest using a multiply blend (should work on guis), rather than add, as this darkens will look more like ink.

 

For example :

 

The blend does look much nicer...dirtier even.

[Serpentine]

The blend does look much nicer...dirtier even.

Yeah, it's really good for written stuff - tho I usually do it straight in Photoshop, it's often overlooked when making readables/maps and stuff. It's also nice since you can work in greyscale and just add the ink color later via hue/saturation. It's really easy to get away with bad rescaling since the background potentially brings in the detail to make it look 1:1. Box blur makes a nice 'smudge' around the edges too. Since its 5am and I'm waiting for my ISP to stop sucking so that I can commit this 200mb and go to bed... so have a random 2 min example of why you should learn to play with blend modes:

 

 

Paper generated in Filterforge, copy and paste map in black and white from this forum (<3 whoever it was, I can't really browse to find the name), Duplicate, Blur, Hue/Sat, Resize some of it.

[Tels]

The blend does look much nicer...dirtier even.

 

Yep, if the colors were to be changed, they should be like this (I probably should have created them right away instead of telling people that "it will of course look better").

 

Not sure if the GUI can do this, tho. Anyway, should we try to make them like this? Or is this still considered a no-go?

[jdude]

I don't think it's a no go, you clearly have the majority of votes for this new coloring method.

[Tels]

I am not sure how to use a blend multiple in the GUI (afterall, this specifies an image, not a shader) but here is a mockup done by recoloring in Gimp:

 

[Springheel]

What happened to the suggestion of making the text faded on completed objectives? This would be similar to what you did with the purchase screen when you can't buy something (I don't remember whether it was a change of colour or a change of transparency). That would be just as easy to see and would avoid the multi-colour look.

[Tels]

What happened to the suggestion of making the text faded on completed objectives? This would be similar to what you did with the purchase screen when you can't buy something (I don't remember whether it was a change of colour or a change of transparency). That would be just as easy to see and would avoid the multi-colour look.

 

I somehow missed that suggestion. I'll try to see if I can make this in the GUI, it should be possible.

[Springheel]

I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to grey out completed AND failed objectives, and only leave "active" ones dark? That would make it much easier to see which objects you still had left to do.