Icons for Inventory System

[Springheel]

Make icons for inventory system.

[Gildoran]

Could we work together on the icons somewhat so their material designs could be planned out somewhat?

[Springheel]

Yeah, I was planning on conferring with you first.

 

My only thoughts about the icons was that they should be small and semi-transparent (except for things like the compass), though I think we had talked about making both of those into variables that can be edited in a config file.

 

I'd prefer that we not start adding pulsing or glowy particle effects either--the less visually distracting the icons are, the better.

 

What did you have in mind?

[Springheel]

Weapon icons will lean 45 degrees to the left. Inventory icons should generally be rotated 45 degrees to the right (like the current holy water icon) or straight on (for things like stacks of coins).

 

The icons themselves should not be transparent--that should be set in the GUI so it can be modified by players.

 

Icons will be created using pictures of the actual model.

[Springheel]

I've made a couple icons for readables, for whenever we get those working. There's largebook_icon and smallbook_icon for starters. Don't know what kind of variety we want in icons...there are plenty of skins to chose from as well.

 

Other than that, the lockpicks, the lantern, and the potions, do we have any other inventory objects yet?

[Springheel]

We had talked about adding some kinds of special effects (or at least larger icons) for the inventory icons for when we're cycling through them, and then they would shrink to the size they are currently after a few seconds. The text is also supposed to disappear after a few seconds as well, leaving only the semi-transparent icon and the number of stackable items.

 

Not sure what the best way is to accomplish that, or what kind of effect we want. I don't mind a spinning effect as long as it's only while you're cycling through, but don't know if that's possible with 2d icons.

 

If people were satisfied with just leaving them the way they are, that would certainly be easier, and I'd be fine with that. Feels like they're missing a little something right now though. This isn't a pressing issue for the coming year, but I'm curious about what people might be interested in.

[Ishtvan]

I'd say if we have a model for it, and we're definitely going to use it, make an inventory icon for it even if the item's code isn't done. I don't know if this actually applies to anything though, we don't have models yet for the looking glass, flashbomb, mine, etc. Someone modeled a holy water potion (drumple?) but I don't know if that's the "official" version or not.

[sparhawk]

Not sure what the best way is to accomplish that, or what kind of effect we want. I don't mind a spinning effect as long as it's only while you're cycling through, but don't know if that's possible with 2d icons.

 

That can definitely be done. Maybe I need to add additional variables to control the timing, but Gildoran has done this already, so he probably knows best. It would be nice if he could add this, because currently I'm quite busy with other stuff. If NH (our master tweaker ) wants to give this a try I can help him a little bit with it.

 

If people were satisfied with just leaving them the way they are, that would certainly be easier, and I'd be fine with that. Feels like they're missing a little something right now though. This isn't a pressing issue for the coming year, but I'm curious about what people might be interested in.

 

I focused more on the functionality, to get it feature complete, but I think currently it looks a bit drab. That rotation that Gild added, looked quite nice and smooth, and making the icons bigger when they are rotated in, might give it an additional nice touch I think.

 

Gild, NH, is anybody of you up to that task?

[Springheel]

I'd say if we have a model for it, and we're definitely going to use it, make an inventory icon for it even if the item's code isn't done. I don't know if this actually applies to anything though, we don't have models yet for the looking glass, flashbomb, mine, etc. Someone modeled a holy water potion (drumple?) but I don't know if that's the "official" version or not.

 

Yep, the holy water potion is already working.

 

I'm not exactly sure how readables are going to work, which is why I didn't make very many icons yet. We have three different book models atm (2 shut and 1 open) with probably a dozen skins between them, but I don't know if there's any value in making a dozen different icons at this stage. Will books be distinguishable in inventory by their titles? Will every individual book a player picks up have a separate entityDef?

 

Other than readables, there's nothing else I can think of that's an inventory object that we have a model for yet. Well, I could probably do an icon for a map...that was going to be an inventory thing, right?

 

That can definitely be done. Maybe I need to add additional variables to control the timing, but Gildoran has done this already, so he probably knows best.

 

Are you sure you're not thinking of drumple's T2 style HUD? It had spinning weapons but they were 3d models. I'm not sure how you would spin a 2d model and have it look good.

[Ishtvan]

Are you sure you're not thinking of drumple's T2 style HUD? It had spinning weapons but they were 3d models. I'm not sure how you would spin a 2d model and have it look good.

 

I think what Spar means by spinning is when you switch items, you could see the items on either side, and hte selected item would momentarily get bigger (I think) so the inventory selection would "spin" from one item to the other. You could see this in Gildoran's earlier test maps.

[sparhawk]

Yeah. I just meant a flat rotation side to side to get one item out and the next one in. Not a full 3D rotation. Wouldn't really make sense with flat 2D icons.

[New Horizon]

The icons look fantastic by the way. I do wonder if we should reconsider trying to use the models rather than 2d images, it seems like making icons for everything is going to be a lot of work. If we could get a system in place for using the model, then it 'should' be fairly painless. All they did in T3, was point to the same model that was being used on screen. Seems like it might save us a bit more work than having to create all these icons.

[sparhawk]

Correct. That's definitely an advantage for using the models, because we already got them. How can you put a model into a GUI? I have to look into this.

 

The gui from the Doom 3 main menu uses a model. The moon there is a 3D model being rotated, so that will be a good starting point to look at.

[Domarius]

It's likely the rotating planet is just another game map with the user looking at the planet, and not part of the HUD...

 

Well I reckon we should be able to do it anyway - even if we have to float mini duplicates in front of the player to appear as if they're part of the HUD.

[Springheel]

Adding models to the gui is easy. But you can't do anywhere near as much with them as you can with icons, including making them semi-transparent. That's the main reason we decided not to use them. There's also no way to make models look good against light and dark backgrounds at the same time. Currently the icons have a subtle black border around them that makes them visible against light backgrounds...that wouldn't be possible with a model (unless you just put a giant glow behind it like TDS). You also can't show only part of the model (like focussing on the arrowheads, for example). They just aren't as flexible.

 

It might be worth considering using models is the loot display, if we want to display whatever loot the player just picked up. That's already a separate gui set up to do just that, and it would save us making icons for every conceivable type of loot. But I wouldn't recommend it anywhere else.

[sparhawk]

It's likely the rotating planet is just another game map with the user looking at the planet, and not part of the HUD...

 

It's not a map it's a gui. Just check it.

[sparhawk]

Adding models to the gui is easy. But you can't do anywhere near as much with them as you can with icons, including making them semi-transparent. That's the main reason we decided not to use them. There's also no way to make models look good against light and dark backgrounds at the same time. Currently the icons have a subtle black border around them that makes them visible against light backgrounds...that wouldn't be possible with a model (unless you just put a giant glow behind it like TDS). You also can't show only part of the model (like focussing on the arrowheads, for example). They just aren't as flexible.

 

I take a look at it.

[Domarius]

I suppose it will be a requirement for anyone making new inventory models that it must have a 2D icon to go with it.

[sparhawk]

I suppose I said I take a look at it. And if it really doesn't work we can still decide what to do about it.

[Springheel]

Well, you could do a search on the topic--we discussed it two different times before deciding to go with icons.

[sparhawk]

Well, it's my time that I waste, right?

[New Horizon]

Really depends on how the models are done vs. the icons.

 

The basic icons for T3 were very well done, aside from all the fluff they used.

 

I think the 2D icons look good, but it's really sounding like it's going to be a lot of extra work for FM authors to add new icons, and if I know mappers...they will come up with plenty of things to add.

 

For arrows, T3 just used the arrowhead from each arrow as the icon, but they were using the attachment system, so all the arrowheads were just attached to a single arrow shaft model. The model you saw on the screen ingame, was the same one that was being displayed in the hud.

 

We're not using that type of attachment system for our arrows, so we would just have to break off the arrow head and treat it as a special case, but the majority of models would not be treated this way and would appear whole. For things like showing the lantern turn off and on...that should just be a simple skin swap.

 

There are definitely some neat things that can be done with models that will look better than icons.

 

I don't have it setup currently, but rdumple's T2style hud had flames flickering inside the fire arrow, and I believe some gas coming off of the gas arrow. They can be dressed up with live particle effects, blend stages on the textures..etc.

 

Not trying to throw a wrench into doing the 2D icons, but it's just sounding like the models...while perhaps not as easy to manipulate in some respects....would be easier for mappers to work with in the long run. Point to a model, set a few variables to setup its orientation on screen and you're off. Whatever effects the real one has, will be visible on the hud.

[sparhawk]

Adding models to the gui is easy. But you can't do anywhere near as much with them as you can with icons, including making them semi-transparent.

 

Why do they have to be transparent in the first place? I don't see the point anyway, because this doesn't really look nice.

 

You also can't show only part of the model (like focussing on the arrowheads, for example). They just aren't as flexible.

 

That's definitely not the case, because you can put any part of the model in focus that you want. Its simply just another screen that is rendered. So if you want to show only the tip of an arrow, you can put the definitions such, that only the tip is shown with a bit of the shaft maybe.

 

And considering that we would need icons for each and every object this sounds like a lot of work to me.

[Springheel]

Why do they have to be transparent in the first place? I don't see the point anyway, because this doesn't really look nice.

 

They don't HAVE to be transparent. But people decided they wanted the option of them being semi-transparent. Enough that it was put in the design documents, and enough that both times we discussed whether to use models or icons, we chose icons (even after SD brought up this very issue). But hey, that was before any work was put into it. The best time to change our minds seems to be AFTER someone goes ahead and spends time working them.

 

Going back to the most recent thread where everyone agreed to use icons, the reasons were:

 

Gil: Icons are easier to work with

 

Dram: Models at that size will look like crap without AA on

 

And before people start using drumple's HUD as an example of good-looking models, he remade all the weapon models with very small, low-poly versions, and even then they still looked pretty jagged:

 

[New Horizon]

I never thought they looked that bad really. Shouldn't really have to remake them, they didn't for T3 and they looked fine.

 

I'm indifferent either way really...whatever is easiest to setup from a technical standpoint is really my only consideration. From my experience with T3, using models was a piece of cake.