how about redesign tdm's mainmenu

[freyk]

For inspiration for my cyberpunk fm, I have installed Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey and several D3 totalconversion mods.

And looked at the mainmenus of thief 1 til 4.

 

When i compare those menu's with the tdm mainmenu, i believe it can graphical do better.

Especially when i look at menus from edge of chaos, grimm.

(combining 2d, materials and sounds)

background from gatehouse, etc.

What are your opinions about it.

 

See attachments for some inspiration.

 

 

edge of chaos

grimm

thief 1

thief 3

prey

 

 

 

-edit-

added word "graphical".

Edited March 20, 2017 by freyk

[Springheel]

I like our menus.

[nbohr1more]

I like our menus.

+ 1

 

That said, if the Graphics menu included 3D scene data so you could preview graphic option changes that would be

pretty cool. Some settings, such as AA cannot currently be changed in realtime but Duzenko has been working on moving

the renderer to FBO targets so that would mean that such a preview system would work (whenever all that work is complete).

[Melan]

They are part of the mod's look. Could be altered for specific missions, though (as some people have already done).

[Anderson]

I do think the background image on the sides could vary more than just a slideshow of concept art. We can see concept art in credits anyway.

 

Thief 3's main menu was the best IMHO. Was never a fan of the gear factory in Thief 1 and 2 menu.

[Epifire]

I don't think it's exactly needed that we have a menu rework, but high quality material elements layered in would be badass. I'm a big fan of mission themed menus. I don't think it would work so well with id4 load times but I'd love to setup my own menu maps with an active camera view of the world (yes like HL2 ).

Edited March 20, 2017 by Epifire

[Sotha]

Current menus are alright, and it is nice to see custom menus in some individual FMs. They really show the FMA wants to give the player something special made with love.

 

Do we have instructions how to create custom menus by the way?

[peter_spy]

I think the menu looks fine, if anything needs redesign, it's the menu structure, to minimize the steps to e.g. choose a mission or change settings.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Judith

[Obsttorte]

Current menus are alright, and it is nice to see custom menus in some individual FMs. They really show the FMA wants to give the player something special made with love.

 

Do we have instructions how to create custom menus by the way?

It's a gui, I think there is a bit of documentation on this topic on the wiki.

 

And yeah, the menu is good as it is.

[Bikerdude]

Am i missing the point? I think Freyk is only asking in regards to his project not the mod?

[Obsttorte]

No, he isn't.

 

When i compare those menu's with the tdm mainmenu, i believe we can do better.

Also check the thumbnails.

[peter_spy]

And, those "inspirational" menus actually look worse. It's the pure 90s style, not something really worth going back to, aesthetically.

[nbohr1more]

Honestly, any change like this is going to have some controversy even if you were posting some generally sensible modification

like abstracting the mission name sort behavior so that the ugly "Mission Name, The" convention isn't marring the beauty of the list.

 

The best way to propose such an improvement is a tech demo. If players and team members can try it in action they are more likely

to consider the merits of the change. The Grid Based GUI is a perfectly good example. A number of players proposed something similar

but nobody could picture it as something that would fit-in with the look and feel of TDM. The tech demo by Durandall made it easier

to consider the pros and cons of such a change (and opened up many skeptical folks to the change).

[freyk]

For the people who would like to design another mainmenu, i invite you to do so.

(for starters only the mainmenu, not the submenus. because this takes time.)

To me the mainmenu doesnt have to change in a functional way, only graphical.

 

... It's the pure 90s style, not something really worth going back to, aesthetically.

How about placing the mainmenu on the left, like thief 4 and modern games?

And Adding a live fm-background, what Epifire mentioned, would also be nice. (lIs this possible? (how?)

Or just a roq or 3dobject.

 

To create a techdemo for mainmenu, create a folder named "guis", copy "mainmenu_"-files from tdm_gui01.pk4 to it and change the code.

Or create a folder in the fm and do the things above. (could not find another way to do this)

Edited March 20, 2017 by freyk

[Obsttorte]

I'm not quiet sure what difference it makes to move the mainmenu towards the left. And it is the main menu. Players spend a few secs there before starting a mission. So what would be the benefit of changing it? I haven't seen anyone complaining about it in the last years so I fairly doubt there is any neccessity to do so.

 

Just my two cents, though.

[kingsal]

This is an interesting topic. I don't mind the current TDM look and I really like it when FMs come with custom menu work.

However, I do have a few things on my dreamy wish list for the tdm menus (unrelated to the art):

 

1. Enabling authors to hook up custom main menu background image and sound shader in DR. Rather than editing the GUI. This might encourage more authors to do this.

 

2. Being able to organize the mission download page by date released, making it easier to play new missions.

 

3. A gamma / brightness preview image and or gamma scale.

 

Once again a wish list. I know how hard this stuff can be..

 

EDIT: I will happily put in the foot work and research for the gamma scale and brightness balancing. This could include some documentation for FM authors on how to best balance brightness for their missions.

Edited March 20, 2017 by kingsal

[HMart]

Current menus are alright, and it is nice to see custom menus in some individual FMs. They really show the FMA wants to give the player something special made with love.

 

Do we have instructions how to create custom menus by the way?

 

Unfortunately imo menu or UI making for idtech 4 is a dark art (no pun intended) the information is there but is spreed all over the place, afaik there's no nice video tutorials but i'm not sure.

 

You can find some info here:

 

https://modwiki.xnet.fi/GUI_scripting

 

https://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/guis.php

 

https://www.iddevnet.com/quake4/GUIEditor -> this one is for Quake 4, some things work on vanilla idtech 4, others don't work or even exist in the vanilla idtech 4 (or TDM?) engine.

[Obsttorte]

1. Enabling authors to hook up custom main menu background image and sound shader in DR. Rather than editing the GUI. This might encourage more authors to do this.

If there is an big enough interest in it I could create a blueprint gui which mappers would just have to include as well as the images/sounds they want, so they don't have to care about the gui.

 

On the matter of documentation I agree that the information is a bit far spread, but you can learn a lot by simple inspecting the gui files shipped with the mod to see how it is done there.

[peter_spy]

How about placing the mainmenu on the left, like thief 4 and modern games?

And Adding a live fm-background, what Epifire mentioned, would also be nice. (lIs this possible? (how?)

Or just a roq or 3dobject.

 

I think it's okay to have menu on the right, people generally read images from left to right, so it's up to you to decide where they focus their look. In most games it's menu first, art background second, but it works the other way around too. Having a 3d level background would be nice, although it might be too much for one-person projects – unless you're copypasting a section of what you've already built.

 

Background video is a good idea, but isn't the roq an obscure format, difficult to work with? Having a .bik or .mp4 / H.264 support would be a great improvement. Bik was an awful format back in the day, but it's pretty decent now, and it gives you absolute control over things like quality vs file size. I have the equipment, software and some experience to make Thief-like videos, but everything I read about roq format makes me think it's not worth the hassle (correct me if I'm wrong).

[teh_saccade]

IF it ain't fixed, don't break it. Or is it... if it ain't broke don't fix it..?

Perhaps if someone was to reskin the game for cyberpunk or... *shudders* continued that furry trend from last year...

Otherwise - wearing graphic design hat, here - only thing I would suggest is some new splash/backdrop images that are more "HD" and in-line with the game's current version (eg, updated textures and models, etc...).

Personally, I prefer TDM menu to that of games such as Hitman: Contracts, Thief 2 (WSp), DX, other games of the ilk - it's simple. Please remember I have some experience in UI design and will always opt for ease-of-use/nav over flash graphic transitions and stretched text and sub-nested menus with options hidden in tabs in menus before anything else (except bad kerning... dodgy kerned lettering drives me fkn crazy...).

Additionally, the gamma/brightness option - for me at least - must be changed each level as some are very, very dark and some are far too bright and/or saturated or contain sections where the ambient light must've been typo'd as it shifts incredibly green and dark (icr that mission name).
There's even been a few cases of running DCCW and retuning monitor in TDM.

// Pretty sure it is:

 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Edited March 21, 2017 by teh_saccade

[HMart]

 

I think it's okay to have menu on the right, people generally read images from left to right, so it's up to you to decide where they focus their look. In most games it's menu first, art background second, but it works the other way around too. Having a 3d level background would be nice, although it might be too much for one-person projects – unless you're copypasting a section of what you've already built.

 

Background video is a good idea, but isn't the roq an obscure format, difficult to work with? Having a .bik or .mp4 / H.264 support would be a great improvement. Bik was an awful format back in the day, but it's pretty decent now, and it gives you absolute control over things like quality vs file size. I have the equipment, software and some experience to make Thief-like videos, but everything I read about roq format makes me think it's not worth the hassle (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

You are wrong ;P

 

http://www.moddb.com/games/overdose/downloads/overdose-tools-set

 

 

 

ODVideo takes any outputted images in animation form (For example, dumped right from the console with aviDemo) and turns them into a .ROQ video (complete with custom sounds), all in a handy GUI. But wait, that's not all! It has separate frame rate and bit rate settings with a higher resolution, which, simply put, allow for stunning 720p 30fps 20mbit/sec videos.

 

This are tools made by a game team using a heavily modified idtech2 engine but they work on idtech 4 as well.

 

The Overdose tools should suffice but just for info here is another (older) converter has some limitations so read the comments.

 

http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-roq-video-file1

 

 

edit : Some advice on how to use the ODVideo tool, the tool expects the image frames to be of .tga format, it seams to demand that the numbering of the frames always start with suffix 00 if it starts with 01 the tool gives a "image not found" error, the video size is inferred by the images size, so if you want a 720p video the tga images should be already 1280x720, but for TDM or idtech 4 that is irrelevant, because afaik it only play's power of 2 .roq, that means for example 512x512 or 256x128, etc. Btw from my testes 512 seams to be the size limit for idtech 4 .roq videos.

Edited March 21, 2017 by HMart

[peter_spy]

That might help a bit, but 720p 30fps 20mbit is far from stunning these days

 

Edit: Also, isn't it restricted to 4:3 ratio? Volta had a nice intro, but AFAIR, it was in 4:3, not 16:9.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Judith

[HMart]

That might help a bit, but 720p 30fps 20mbit is far from stunning these days

 

Edit: Also, isn't it restricted to 4:3 ratio? Volta had a nice intro, but AFAIR, it was in 4:3, not 16:9.

 

Yes TDM and vanilla idtech 4 only support power of two sizes for roq videos, see the edit of my reply above for more info, so you were not entirely wrong. ;D

 

edit: btw just to inform if you open the game console and type "roq" you will see that you can encode a roq file directly on the engine, but it expects a roqparm file and i don't know how to write those.

Edited March 21, 2017 by HMart

[nbohr1more]

Whenever we get the 64-bit release out, there will be FFMPEG support for all sorts of video formats rather than being limited to ROQ.

[peter_spy]

Awesome!