Dark Mod Main Menu Updates (wip)

[kingsal]

Hello folks, I wanted to share some work in progress comps for the main menu visual updates. (these were done a while ago)

These are working in game, but are still just examples. I haven't looked into any of the more complicated menus (settings, mission downloader,  slide show mission briefings, ect) Right now I am not planning on changing the UX, these are purely visual updates. 

EDIT: In-game menus have a requirement that we use the same text color. (so we dont break custom guis in-game) I'll post some mock ups of those soon.

Let me know what you think!
 

Using custom missions screenshot (curtesy of @Spooks)
Btw this NOT volta 3 (i wish), its just a comp

 

Using the default background art:

Mock up of the store (needs some work to make more legible):

[zergrush]

It looks alrighty. What will happen to the in-game items window and old mission objectives menus? Will they remain in parchment style, or will they follow the new look?

[kingsal]

20 minutes ago, zergrush said:

It looks alrighty. What will happen to the in-game items window and old mission objectives menus? Will they remain in parchment style, or will they follow the new look?

They would follow the new look to some degree, but I haven't investigated that yet. 

One thing for certain is I don't want to change the text color for any in-game menus (so they'll need some form of light colored "parchment" but tweaked and cleaned up)

The current parchment is low-res and stretched

[freyk]

Nice menu. Is it an idea to give the mainmenu music theme also a remake?

[New Horizon]

I think the main menu music is really quite nice as is.  It evokes lots of dark moody mystery.

 

[kingsal]

7 minutes ago, freyk said:

Nice menu. Is it an idea to give the mainmenu music theme also a remake?

Thanks! Haha I don't plan on touching the theme- I think its a nice hit of nostalgia/ vibe and at this point is iconic

[Wellingtoncrab]

Looks quite promising to me! The item picture in the store is a great touch.

[madtaffer]

1 hour ago, kingsal said:

 

 

This looks amazing. Which textures did you use here?

 

[kingsal]

2 minutes ago, madtaffer said:

This looks amazing. Which textures did you use here?

 

Well the wonderful screenshot is from @Spooks  Which is featured on the thedarkmod.com. Sorry I should clarify that is NOT volta 3 (its just the FM I had loaded at the time)

[Spooks]

Yep, pretty much only the wood trellis and the wallpaper are custom textures in that, too, the rest is stock assets.

OT I do quite like the new menu style. The original background concept drawings, by Springheel I believe, are very nice but the whole grainy and fuzzy aesthetic that the paper parchment menus have only gets older as time moves on. Not that we should be jumping to super-sleek, geometric stuff, but at the very least a resolution increase is sorely needed. UI ought to serve rather than impress, after all.

[freyk]

Just for inspiration, a screenshot from the menu my old cyberpunk mission. 

I know it wil take time and lots of patience, to create a new menu. I wish you luck.

Edited March 8, 2022 by freyk

[freyk]

Adding a live background would also be nice.
That i mentioned in older topic about the same topic.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by freyk

[wesp5]

I don't see much difference except that both the game title and any mission with a longer name is now line broken which is not a good idea in my opinion. Even your own example looks weird with "working" looking bigger than the rest as if it was an option and not part of the name...

[Oktokolo]

If you did not decide on a legibility enhancement method yet:
Blurring the background and/or rendering the text with a dark one-pixel wide outline works pretty well with almost any background.

[datiswous]

14 hours ago, freyk said:

Adding a live background would also be nice.

So there was an idea to make a live background, but nobody made one (except for your tech demo). How strange.

Quote

And for a faster loadtime, the map needs to be small (one or 2 rooms, with a few objects)

I wonder if this still aplies to 2.10 .

[Anderson]

18 hours ago, freyk said:

Nice menu. Is it an idea to give the mainmenu music theme also a remake?

 

18 hours ago, kingsal said:

Thanks! Haha I don't plan on touching the theme- I think its a nice hit of nostalgia/ vibe and at this point is iconic

 

Agreed, the current music is very obviously looping and very loud to me. Just not a fan of the instruments used in TDM's main menu theme. It's not seamless to the point you don't notice it like the great main menu theme of Thief Deadly Shadows. But maybe I'm in the minority here.

 

[New Horizon]

51 minutes ago, Anderson said:

 

 

Agreed, the current music is very obviously looping and very loud to me. Just not a fan of the instruments used in TDM's main menu theme. It's not seamless to the point you don't notice it like the great main menu theme of Thief Deadly Shadows. But maybe I'm in the minority here.

 

The TDM main menu music isn't supposed to seamlessly loop, it's intentional.  It's like a windup music box at the beginning and then the other instrumentation builds around it.  It's not ambience, like the TDM menu, it's more like a theme song.

[Anderson]

53 minutes ago, New Horizon said:

The TDM main menu music isn't supposed to seamlessly loop, it's intentional.  It's like a windup music box at the beginning and then the other instrumentation builds around it.  It's not ambience, like the TDM menu, it's more like a theme song.

I guess I just don't like the ticking clock sound and the music box. Can't explain why. It's part of the logo so it is indeed too much pestering and bothering over such small things. I always love when the main menu music is replaced with something else by Fan Missions.

[Geep]

I share some of wesp5's concern about the main menu, which currently takes up roughly the rightmost half of the screen, and is reduced to 1/3 in the mockup, causing not enough space for the FM title without wrapping. If the New Mission menu is similarly narrowed, it will suffer similarly.

My reworked mockup shows what I'd like to see. The righthand panel is widened (at least as much as shown), the title and menu items are not so clustered vertically in midscreen, and more emphasis is given to the FM relative to the non-FM stuff. So the FM title font is not smaller than the menu item font. It's colored, as in 2.10.

And - new feature - you can get to the Notes and Credits without having to go to New Missions. (I'd want this to be the same font family as elsewhere, it's the closest I could get.)

Sorry this came out a little darker than intended, the fonts should be the same brightness as the original.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Geep

[thebigh]

Changing the menu width would have implications for fan missions that use custom menu splash screens. So long as it isn't widened to more than half it should still be OK though.

[Anderson]

6 minutes ago, Geep said:

I share some of wesp5's concern about the main menu, which currently takes up roughly the rightmost half of the screen, and is reduced to 1/3 in the mockup, causing not enough space for the FM title without wrapping. If the New Mission menu is similarly narrowed, it will suffer similarly.

My reworked mockup shows what I'd like to see. The righthand panel is widened (at least as much as shown), the title and menu items are not so clustered vertically in midscreen, and more emphasis is given to the FM relative to the non-FM stuff. So the FM title font is not smaller than the menu item font. It's colored, as in 2.10.

And - new feature - you can get to the Notes and Credits without having to go to New Missions. (I'd want this to be the same font family as elsewhere, it's the closest I could get.)

Sorry this came out a little darker than intended, the fonts should be the same brightness as the original.

I like the darker menu.

[thebigh]

3 minutes ago, Anderson said:

I like the darker menu.

Me too. This is the Dark mod after all.

[wesp5]

I'm still confused about the "WORKING" part of the mission title. Is this part of the name or should it be an indication that the mission is active? If it's the later I believe it's quite confusing and "(active)" would be better. Or just leave it out and use the colors to highlight the mission stuff. I believe this and the dark background should be easy to do in the current menu!

Edited March 10, 2022 by wesp5

[zergrush]

11 hours ago, thebigh said:

Me too. This is the Dark mod after all.

I think I prefer the old one because it's easier to read. I'm not sure if a facelift is something the main menu needs right now without addressing the structural and UX problems first.

[OrbWeaver]

The visual design looks good but legibility of the foreground text is suffering.

Since the location/level of detail in the background image is not predictable, it would be better to use something more visible for the text than transparent dim grey over slightly darker transparent grey.