Menu/gui Concepts (objectives)

[pakmannen]

I'm not sure if we discussed the objectives screen anywhere, but I guess it's time we do so. Here's a very simple take on it: Objectives (Complete with a crappy page-curl!)

 

I suppose we want to stay with the same basic style (sepia/parchment) but we might want something a bit more fancy. On the other hand this is more "realistic", like a list the Thief wrote and then brought along. You could maybe flip between objectives/map/(briefing?) like you would with a regular scroll/book (instead of with buttons, like in Thief).

 

(I'm not gonna bother uploading the PSD, it's just the same background as in the Loading concept, with Springheels parchment picture on top and the text is SteveHandwriting)

 

Edit - If you prefer to have all this in the same topic, say so and I'll merge 'em

[Springheel]

Something like this would work, I think. When an objective is complete it could be crossed out like the Thief himself had done it.

 

I'd like to see some motion in the screen, though...perhaps keeping the swirling fog in the background.

[pakmannen]

Yeah, if we want some motion on a "realistic" version, it should go in the background. Unless the Thief has some kind of magical animated paper.

 

We also need to figure out what objective states we're going to have. Thief had quite a few: standard, completed, failed and inactive. Each with it's own graphical representation.

 

Edit - Slightly OT, but something I just thought of: is it possible to do a "notes" screen like in Thief 2 with Doom 3's GUI? That is, the player can type things onto the screen, to keep notes. If it's very hard to do I guess it's no big deal.

[Springheel]

Then perhaps it would be better to do this:

 

standard: just regular text, no asterix

completed: checkmark preceeds text

inactive: text is crossed out

failed: maybe that burning animation effect on the letters? at that point the mission ends anyway, right?

new objecive: could glow until a player has read it, then the letters go back to normal

[pakmannen]

Yes you're right, failed is not strictly needed since the mission should fail anyway. Burning text sounds good. Or if possible, burn the whole parchment.. Hehe

[sparhawk]

The background with this font is pretty hard to read. And failed is needed, because you can fail objectives which are optional without failing the mission.

[New Horizon]

The background with this font is pretty hard to read. And failed is needed, because you can fail objectives which are optional without failing the mission.

 

Make sure it's zoomed to full size, just in case your browser is making it smaller. I also think that particular font is a bit too scripty. The J.D. font used in the originals was a bit heavier and easier to read.

[sparhawk]

And when a player has a small screen like 640x480?

[pakmannen]

I thought SteveHandwriting was the font used in Thief1/2? Are you sure about that? (Also, link to the J.D font please! ) And I added one sharpening filter too much on the background, which makes the text a little harder to read. But personally, I have no trouble doing it.

 

And when a player has a small screen like 640x480?

Uh, I hope you're kidding, right? The font will of course be scaled depending on resolution. The browsers scaling function does not involve any anti-aliasing and thus makes any picture less clear.

[New Horizon]

Nope, it was J.D. Some have suggested the one you thought because it looks similar.

 

Here it is.

 

JD font

[pakmannen]

Wow, you're right. I recognize it.

I still think Steve looks cooler though but JD is more readable, I'll agree with that.

[Springheel]

I was doing some tweaking with this idea too, but I had a thought. The screens for objectives, purchase, and maps are all in-mission menus (you don't use them until you've selected a mission to play), as opposed to the main menus.

 

So those three menus should definitely have a coherent style, which doesn't *have* to necessarily be the same style as the main menu. Of the three, the map and objectives menus are far easier to design, so I think what we should do is design the purchase screen first. We may find that the parchment style doesn't suit it (or it might). But either way, it's a lot easier to design the other two menus around the purchase screen design than it is the other way around.

 

Make sense?

[pakmannen]

Yeah, it makes sense. I only started with the objectives because it was, as you said, easier

 

I think we should strive for a unified look, whatever that look is, but yes, it might be tricky to do a parchment purchase screen, but hopefully it's possible.

[Springheel]

I'm working with an idea right now that might work.

[pakmannen]

Alright. I'm gonna have to check it out tomorrow evening, I gotta catch some sleep now.

 

Oh, if you have a screenshot of the Thief purchase screen could you upload that as well? One reason i didn't start on it was that I was too lazy to find my Thief 2 CD..

[Domarius]

Dropping the resolution is one of the quickest ways to increase the frame-rate, so we shouldn't rule out 640x480 yet. No other commercial game I know of has yet.

And although scaling is supported, sometimes it doesn't happen very gracefully, as NH found out with the Minimalist project - 640x480 screens had the fonts missing parts of the letters because there werent enough pixels to display their thinner parts, and it was nearly impossible to read.

 

The font is a bit too hard to read as it is - I did zoom the pic to 100%.

 

I think we might be over-doing the parchment thing - if everything is on a plain bit of parchment it might get a bit boring, even if it is more "realistic". I don't have any other suggestions though.

[New Horizon]

Nah, that wasn't caused by the scaling, that was because the 'font maps' themselves weren't very good. The original T3 fonts worked fine at 640 X 480...it was my shoddy photoshop work that caused the problem.

 

I think the parchement will look great. We shouldn't jump from one theme to another on different screens, the menus would lose thier cohesiveness. I feel the parchement theme makes things feel very real..

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Aye, I love the parchment theme as well, it's very fitting, plus realistic in terms of the gameworld.

[Springheel]

The T2 objectives screen basically had the difficulty and the objectives on it and that's it. Are we planning on having anything else? Will the "playstyle" options be included here or will they be in the main-menu screen (and thus separate from the actual mission)?

[sparhawk]

Playstyle sould probably a seperate screen as there are potentially a lot of them.

[Springheel]

My thinking is that anything that could potentially affect the objectives for that particular mission should be included in the objectives menu. Anything that just affects basic gameplay should be done from the main menu.

 

The Main Menu would deal with things like: raising AI acuity, increasing player HP, setting lockpicking to auto, turning off bow zoom, etc.

 

The Objectives screen should include anything that might conceivably affect your objectives. Setting Extreme difficulty might add a "don't kill anyone" objective. Setting a "ghost" playstyle might add a "don't get spotted" objective, etc.

 

What I can't remember is if we were going to keep 'playstyle' and 'difficulty' separate, or whether they're just the same thing under different names.

[sparhawk]

Playstyle and difficulty should be definitely seperate. This doesn't mean that we should have a seperate screen, it suffices if they are visually seperated and can reside on the same screen.

[Springheel]

Ok, that works with what I have in mind then. I'd like to keep the book style fairly consistent for the 'in mission' menu screens. If we just had the difficulty rating and the objectives, there wouldn't really be enough to fill up 2 pages. Adding playstyles as well will do it, I think. I'll work on a concept for it soon.

[Napalm]

dit - Slightly OT, but something I just thought of: is it possible to do a "notes" screen like in Thief 2 with Doom 3's GUI? That is, the player can type things onto the screen, to keep notes. If it's very hard to do I guess it's no big deal.

 

Ive been studying the editdefs ingame for the options menu, but making a blank typing area with them would seem possibly. The only thing ide be unsure about is length (the defs have a cutoff at some pretty low chracter length so multiple ones might be need like pages in a book....might get prety lengthy, but itd be a cool effect)