Menu/Gui Concepts (Loading/Startup)

[pakmannen]

Okey, I managed to create a high-res (1024x768) version of the parchment background image: Background

You can compare the old and the new one here: Compare

 

However, there seems to be a problem. When importing it into the GUI editor, it seems it shrinks it down to 640x468 and the image looks pretty crappy. Can you take a look at this Napalm? I thought you said it would scale depending on resolution?

 

Here's a high-res version with the clock: Loading

 

Next I tried to add a few things to the sides, as Spring suggested. I thought it would be nice to have the nature versus technology/civilization portrayed, here's an example: Nature/Tech

The trees are okey (and kinda creepy ), but the building is not that good, and it might be better to have the city instead (like Spring said) but I couldn't find any good pictures.

 

And here's the PSD file (20 megs)

[sparhawk]

Do we have some nice sounds for the clock? Some whirring and clicking?

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Just curious pak, did you have any other images similar in style to this one? I'de like to look them over and see if I can get this same style and quality for the cutscenes. (Also, where is the .psd of this?)

[pakmannen]

Nah, I don't really have any similar pictures lying around. I'm just making them up as I go along really. I uploaded the PSD, check the original post.

 

I get most of my source material from http://www.sxc.hu which has plenty of pictures free for commercial use.

[Springheel]

Looks really good pak. About the resolution, make sure that you've scaled it to a power of 2, or D3 will resize it and it will look crappy.

 

Have you looked through the city image thread to see if any of those pics will work? I'll look around as well and see if I can find anything.

[pakmannen]

Heh, whops.. Didn't know about the scale thing. I should probably leave the GUI scripting to the pros.

 

I did look in that thread, but the images were small, and it's hard to find something that fits. If you can find something that would work it'd be great.

[Springheel]

I played around with it a bit but I don't know that this is any better than your version.

 

Gui_Loading1

[pakmannen]

I like it. That's a nice touch actually with the little houses, fits in great and gives it a lot more character. Also a good idea to add that glow behind the clock to define it more (not sure if it should be toned down a little, possibly).

 

It looks nice I must say. Sorta like the city is trying to fight back the scary forest-with-it's-claw-like-trees..

[SneaksieDave]

I agree, it's damn nice, though it might be better with a factory type of scene on the right. Pipes, machines, metal stuff. As it is, a townhouse type of building is not far enough to the right on the Nature--Technology continuum (assuming that is the intended subtext).

[Springheel]

Yeah, I don't disagree. I just couldn't find any suitable images that looked good in that spot.

[Domarius]

About the resolution, make sure that you've scaled it to a power of 2, or D3 will resize it and it will look crappy.

I'm nitpicking, but, its your graphics card that does this, not the software. Its just the way 3D acelleration works.

[pakmannen]

Alright, time to get back to these then I guess. First of all, Gildoran got this thing ingame a while back. He and Drumple needs to coordinate their efforts.

 

Second of all, we need to finalize the concepts. I still say we start of with this one (the loading screen) and get it ingame before starting on the main screens (a lot more work).

 

So what's still needed for the loading screen then?

 

1. The background. I did some work on the trees but that's it. Spring, could you upload the PSD with your latest change (the house) so I can merge that in as well? We could look for a factory type building but honestly I think it's pretty good the way it is.

 

2. The clock. We need our own original clock. First we need to know how it's going to be animated. Gildoran wanted all the pieces separate, gears, hands etc, and animate them with GUI code. Oddity wanted to model it and Napalm thought we should do still-frame animation. (Napalm is, by the by, not involved in this anymore. I haven't heard from him in months) This needs to be decided, and then the clock should be put together.

 

3. The title. The original concept had the Dark Mod title over the clock. If we still want it, we need to decide exactly how it should look. I have a few examples, but I'm not too happy with them myself. I'll post them here tomorrow.

[drumple]

as for the loading screen.. im not to shure if any type of animation will work there... seeing how the doom3

loading screen works.. its just plain.. and you can see your fps drop and hover around 2 while it loads... im not

shure if any type of animation can work. but a test will see if thats true or not.

 

if it did work, i would lean more towards some animated models of the gears for the clock, since its very easy

to make them flow smoothly together ( from another test i tried ).

[Gildoran]

Good point about the FPS... I just found thoughts of clockwork gears turning with soft-shadows and such quite appealing.

[Dram]

Yes, I'd say go model-ways with the clock.

[pakmannen]

as for the loading screen.. im not to shure if any type of animation will work there... seeing how the doom3

loading screen works.. its just plain.. and you can see your fps drop and hover around 2 while it loads... im not

shure if any type of animation can work. but a test will see if thats true or not.

Didn't you check that out Gildoran? I remember I asked you that over IRC and you replied (after checking out some files) that the loading GUI works just like any GUI, so animation should be possible. True/false?

 

Or is the FPS drop built in specially for the loading screen, since it loads a lot of data in the background etc?

[Gildoran]

Yeah, the FPS drop is specific to loading screens, since there's a lot going on in the background.

[pakmannen]

Yeah, the FPS drop is specific to loading screens, since there's a lot going on in the background.

I guess it's not really worth it to remove this function, since I assume loading will be slower as a result? It's a bummer though, if we can't animate it. I guess you could still test how it performs with an animated model or GUI scripted animation.

 

If we wont animate it, I see no reason to make the clock a 3D model. But say we find out we can animate it, and that we want a 3D model. How hard would it be to create something similar (and as detailed) as the placeholder we have now? (Guess this is directed at Oddity)

 

(The clock hands designs are, by the by, available here if that's any help when creating a 3D model. Seems like the screensaver creators just googled "clock hands" and went for the first picture they saw..)

[sparhawk]

Good point about the FPS... I just found thoughts of clockwork gears turning with soft-shadows and such quite appealing.

 

If it's only clockworks and gears it would not matter if they stopped every now and then. It would be different with other animations though.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Why don't we do it as a short looping video if we can't do it as a 3d animation? I think we can use video textures for load screens if I'm not mistaken.

[New Horizon]

[quote name='god_is_my_goldfish' post='62951' date='Mar 22 2006, 10:31 AM']Why don't we do it as a short looping video if we can't do it as a 3d animation? I think we can use video textures for load screens if I'm not mistaken.[/quote]


Heh heh, I think I've posted this link around ten times. This is the tool used for those videos. Roq format.

[url="ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/tools/roq.zip"]ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/tools/roq.zip[/url]

[Springheel]

Spring, could you upload the PSD with your latest change (the house) so I can merge that in as well? We could look for a factory type building but honestly I think it's pretty good the way it is.

 

I like it as is too. I'll upload it tonight (assuming I can get on FTP).

[drumple]

im going to try some experiments with moving models on the loading screen to see what it does, but im

assuming that any movement thats put there will slow down the load times, hopefully im wrong.

 

i have a gear that i was using to rotate and mesh with other gears.. simple model.. so if it works fine, it

should be do-able for a better model similar to that clock, which looks real nice..

 

because im thinking if it takes one revolution of the second hand to indicate loading 0-100% would look nice,

even if the clock stopped and stuttered at times would still look nice.

[drumple]

ok.. i see how this works now, every map gets its own loading gui and don't share a common one, which can

be a benifit.. say if an fm author wanted to add some text to his loading screen in the thief stye.

 

the loading screens are 5k ( for doom 3), so we just have to make a decent generic one that every fm author

can use, and they can add some graphics to it if they wanted... lets say the map is a builder type of map,

then they can have builder oriented side graphics.. ect.

 

it could be the reason d3 drops to a non existent frame rate when it loads is that there is no real update

on the screen that needs gpu attention... but i'll add the gears now and see what it does if anything.

 

 

UPDATED: yeah.. rotating models seem to work on it fine, so i would suggest we go with a real decent

clock style like that one.

[pakmannen]

Okey, so animation works. Now, what are the advantages/disadvantages with:

• Using an animated (md5..?) 3D model. How detailed can it get. Does it look out of place on a 2D parchment background etc. @Oddity: How much work are we looking at if we go this way?
  
• Using GUI scripted "sprites" (for lack of a better term). I suppose a clock is pretty easy to animate this way, since it's all simple circlular rotations. This would mean, as far as I'm aware, to create a few gear pictures, some clock hands and just put them in the GUI.