Drumple & Napalm

[drumple]

a key binding area is unique, i cant think of any game where key's get bound in a list thats not seperate,

it just doesnt make sense to do it that way, it would look odd like something is missing when you think about it.

plus it's a scrolling area. the total amount of keys that are to be added to the game is not decided upon yet, so

it makes sense to have whatever amount added to a scrolling area.

 

having an item scroll off without some defined space for it to sit in would look out of place, like there's an

error somewhere in the menu.

 

my opinion of course. basicly it's akin to a popup window, where things are ajusted in that window alone,

since its on one menu page that interacts with the other selections not related to actuall binding, it looks

better overall.

[Springheel]

a key binding area is unique, i cant think of any game where key's get bound in a list thats not seperate,

 

A menu list for controls is no different than a menu list for options (bow zoom on, etc). Both have to use a list format, but you don't need an entirely different layout for them.

 

 

having an item scroll off without some defined space for it to sit in would look out of place, like there's an

error somewhere in the menu.

 

As for scrolling, we talked about that in the purchase menu screen thread. If each click of the down arrow moves down one option, it won't look odd at all (since you'll never have half a line visible). Barring that, a simple ink-like outline would look fine.

[drumple]

the idea i was trying to convey is to make the area defined, a top flourish and a bottom one to seperate it

from the overall look of the menu, or bars.. ect.. it doesnt need to have a dark background which is basicly

the 'box', but it does make the text 'pop' for the binds.

 

and there's basicly 3 different type of menu options,

 

a menu item that does something immediately, such as close and open a new menu,

a menu item that changes the state of a value/cvar or similar and a

menu item that prompts you for some kind of input such as binds/save game ect..

 

but overall i really think this area for bind should be defined in some manner from the overall look

of the menu.

 

anyone else have opinions on this?

[Springheel]

You know, now that I look at the concept art, we haven't really given you a lot to go on. Here's a rough idea of what I was talking about:

 

 

 

It defines the area but still looks like it belongs on parchment.

[drumple]

well, thats basicly what i was saying, having it defined at least. keep in mind though that you cant really

do any thing much in the way of enhancing the overall look of the text that the binds use or settings that

change state, since they use the built in text system. basicly they will always look rather plain.

 

but the options for visual/audio/controls/gameplay ect.. can be made to look more spectacular overall.

 

since those menu items basicly control which menu/items will be up for changing.

 

i dont know if im wrong on this, but has the idea of changing from the bluish flourishes changed to a more

burnt or paperish look? im going by the concepts that i have been going by, and basicly the ones presented

to me.

[pakmannen]

Do you mean we can't change to font of the text that displays the Action/Key?

[drumple]

Do you mean we can't change to font of the text that displays the Action/Key?

 

no, you can use any font you want and it will display it, what i mean is that you can't do impressive looking

text for those choicedef's or binddef's. basicly the text will look rather plain.

 

however.. it may be possible to completely ignore the choicedef's and fake in our own.. where they can use

better text display's. im looking into that now.

[pakmannen]

What do you mean by "impressive looking" text? You mean like using images instead of fonts or something?

[drumple]

yeah, using images for the text instead of the text system. the text in the doom3 menu's have some nice

transitions, but it's the border's and the background's that make them that way. the only real transitions

that doom3 does for text is to make it brighter/change color/ fade.. ect.

 

 

i'll put together a pak file of a previous menu i made and post it so you can see how i have it layed out

at the moment.

[drumple]

i uploaded a menu test to the ftp in the folder guis, called menu14.gui

 

to test it, type

 

testgui guis/menu14.gui

[Springheel]

The way the characters fade in and out is great (though probably needs to be slower). The text highlighting is the right idea, but right now it is too laser-neon-in-your-face, IMO.

 

The smoke swirling is the right idea, but it's quite hard to see at the moment. Can it be darkened/thickened or something?

 

Unfortunately, the Carelton doesn't seem to be showing up very well at the moment. Is it possible to show it in bold?

[drumple]

The way the characters fade in and out is great (though probably needs to be slower). The text highlighting is the right idea, but right now it is too laser-neon-in-your-face, IMO.

 

The smoke swirling is the right idea, but it's quite hard to see at the moment. Can it be darkened/thickened or something?

 

Unfortunately, the Carelton doesn't seem to be showing up very well at the moment. Is it possible to show it in bold?

 

 

yeah, im not to shure whats the right way to go with the text highlighting at the moment, a simple yellow faded

background doesnt seem to do much with the color of the paper.. red helps make it 'pop' a bit.

 

that background movement can be changed, and ajusted to make it more in your face, but maybe a more

subtle way is the best way.. something that ppl wont notice right away.. just a little depth. but im not really to

happy with the way it looks at the moment.

 

as for making the carleton more prominent, i think there may be a way to do that.. at least i had a test gui

somewhere that showed it more bold like.. but it was by accident with one of the backcolor or matcolor settings.

 

i'll look into that again, but thats why i prefer to make the text headers/sub text with images instead of the

ingame fonts, because for the carleton.. it just doesnt show it with enough detail.

 

i'll play around with it some more and see what i can come up with. for now i have the menu's flying off the

desktop just to add some more movement in the gui but that can be played with also.

[Springheel]

but thats why i prefer to make the text headers/sub text with images

 

I agree, we definitely should use images where we can.

[drumple]

im thinking here that it may be very possible to actually have a slider in addition to the scroll area for binds.

im checking it out now, but it may be possible with some minor code addition and a new cvar. basicly the

code would update a hud variable when changed.

[Springheel]

What do you mean by a 'slider'?

[drumple]

basicly what i have in mind is this, your concept from above, where it has the sub controls sections like

weapons/movement/look-attack/other which take you to the area in the binds, but the whole bind area scrolls

regardless if you select one or not, they just make it easier to get to a specific area, and you can scroll out

of that area just as easily. then we have arrows of some kind for the scrolling, but we also have a slider

that controls the scrolling...

 

here is a concept of sorts ( it's and in-game shot that actually works, the scrolling slider doesnt at the moment )

but the arrow butttons do scroll the binds area.

 

also, i added headers to each bind area that scroll with it also, so you can see which area your in.

i didnt add the control buttons to get you to an area quickly yet.

but you can see what i mean, some kind of slider button to slide the whole scrolling area up or down quickly.

 

EDIT: i changed the pic, since i didnt like that slider button, this one is more of a gemstone type of dealy

[Springheel]

That actually looks pretty good. I like the flourishes and the very slight shading of the lines. The slider graphic is a good idea, though that particular graphic isn't great for this concept.

 

Can we go with the sub-menu buttons at the top, like the concept in the other thread? That way it's easy to navigate through the various setting menus, without having to go back to the main menu each time.

 

http://www.mindplaces.com/save/menu16.jpg

[drumple]

the slider button doesnt suit the idea, but that can be ajusted.

 

Can we go with the sub-menu buttons at the top, like the concept in the other thread? That way it's easy to navigate through the various setting menus, without having to go back to the main menu each time.

http://www.mindplaces.com/save/menu16.jpg

 

thats what i mentioned in the previous post, there will be sub-menu buttons to get around to what binds,

as for the other menus, what im hoping is that ppl will see it's very easy and not complicated to get around..

 

hopefully anyways, im going to put together a working test gui for this menu ( without the slider button yet )

and see how ppl feel about it once they see it working.

 

in the meantime im running though the other menu gui since it needs a pile of repair's i noticed.. things are not

scaled right, i have to ajust it all.

 

so far.. the gui is about 70k, and should be over 100k in a day or so... so i need to get the small things

corrected now before it gets to large and becomes a headache later on.

 

im actually hoping to have a working gui template that ppl can replace the doom3 main one in the darkmod

folder in a week or so.. and from there we can discuss/ajust and tweak it. the transitions i have in mind will

probably be another 100k by themselves... but i dont want to add those until its more or less finalized.

 

right now i'll try and get this menu gui test up'd to the ftp once i have it together.

[Springheel]

thats what i mentioned in the previous post, there will be sub-menu buttons to get around to what binds,

 

Actually, I was refering to the audio, video, etc. That will make it easier to get around.

 

Also, a main menu button is a must at the bottom.

[drumple]

yeah, i see what your saying. i dont think there will be enough room to get all the options like that on a

single menu layout personally...

[Springheel]

I was able to fit them into the version I did. Your text box area is just slightly bigger than mine, but if you move it down that will free up a lot of space. You can also do away with the 'controls' sub-title. What is the size of the font you're using for the options?

[drumple]

i lowered the text box for the other example i mentioned, i'll post a screen of that as soon as i clean up

some text, as for the bind's area, the font scale is .24, but doom3 selects the bounding box for it, i can

ajust it smaller but it works nice as it stands right now.

 

i did manage to make space up top.

[drumple]

here's the updated binds menu test

 

[Springheel]

I think keeping the bind categories (weapons, etc) to one line would be the best use of space. There really aren't so many keys for interaction or maps that they need their own categories, IMO. That would free up the space needed for the setting-submenus.

 

And the Main Menu button is definitely needed somewhere.

[drumple]

oh, i didnt add that in yet.