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mainmenu art


joebarnin

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I've been doing some coding for pre-mission stuff (purchasing items, difficulty, etc), which involves some changes to the mainmenu GUI. Right now for any new screens I'm not using any backgrounds, but it would be nice to plug in the real graphics (I can do the GUI work, I just need the canvas (background) images).

 

I'm looking for graphics for the following:

 

Purchase screen

Difficulty selection / objectives display

Gamma standard image (gamma adjust)

 

If anything already exists for these, I would appreciate a pointer to it. I looked through the concept art discussions, but it was hard to tell if conclusions were ever reached. I believe that the purchase screen should like something like this, except with page scroll arrows (up and down) for each of the 3 lists. The difficulty screen needs room for the 3 difficultly strings (which presumably will be specified in the map?), plus an area for the list of objectives (also with page scrolls). The gamma image will presumably go on the left-hand side of the Video Settings screen, am I correct?

 

If these graphics aren't people's priorities right now, that's cool. But since I'm in the mainmenu GUI right now, it's a good time to plug them in.

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I'm looking for graphics for the following:

 

Purchase screen

Difficulty selection / objectives display

Gamma standard image (gamma adjust)

 

I haven't done the final version of the purchase screen yet, just the mock-up, which needs a little bit of updating.

 

The objectives screen is finished and should be ....well huh. I just checked SVN and it's not on there. That's strange.

 

Ok, I found it in an old backup of mine...I'll have to upload it.

 

The gamma standard image was something Gil put together based on the old D3 menu. I haven't created any updated graphics for it yet. I can send you the actual gui code for it though.

 

We haven't designed any concept art for the difficulty screen, because I wasn't sure what was going to be on it. I'm still not, actually, so maybe we can talk about that.

 

In general I wouldn't worry too much about the graphics at this point. Once the functionality is there I'll be able to go through and update all the images.

 

If there's something specific you need in order to make it work, let me know and I'll make some time. :)

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I can certainly get the functionality working without the graphics. I guess I'll move ahead with the coding, and as the graphics become available I'll plug them in.

 

As for the Difficulty screen, at a minimum it has to contain space for the 3 difficulty strings, and room for objectives list. I presume the difficulty strings (e.g., "easy", "medium", "hard") won't be hard-coded, but in fact can (must?) be specified by the mod designer.

 

And I guess the screen needs forward and back buttons of some sort. I don't recall the order: briefing, difficulty, purchase, I think. So, back to briefing, forward to purchase?

 

As for the gamma standard, I'll take whatever you have. I'm still confused - is it a fullscreen GUI? So we replace the slider that's there now with a button that displays the fullscreen gamma standard?

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We have a big space on the left side of the menu though, it might be nicer if the gamma standard could be larger and fit in that space when you're adjusting the gamma settings?

 

As for objectives, I think we've agreed that we'll have standard FM author-defined difficulty levels and then the additional playstyle settings the player imposes on themselves would be off of another menu (that we're not worrying about for now since that isn't implemented yet). For the standard difficulty settings / objective display menu, I think what JoeBarnin describes should be fine.

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Ok, so that would just be the regular objectives screen with space for 3 difficulty options? What are we calling those difficulty levels? Easy, Average and Difficult?

Do we want to make it easy for the level designer to specify the difficulty names (say, worldspawn args in the map)? In other words, just leave a space for the names and I'll fill them in with text. We can define defaults (e.g, Easy, Average, Difficult) in some def file somewhere, to be used if the modder doesn't specify difficulty names.

 

I guess there should also be an option to go to the 'main menu', as well as, what, 'start mission'?

Actually, not "Start mission", but "Buy equipment" or something like that, because the Shop is the next screen.

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Do we want to make it easy for the level designer to specify the difficulty names (say, worldspawn args in the map)? In other words, just leave a space for the names and I'll fill them in with text. We can define defaults (e.g, Easy, Average, Difficult) in some def file somewhere, to be used if the modder doesn't specify difficulty names.

I would vote yes, we should allow the author to specify the names, and put in defaults. Some authors of T2 FMs used this quite creatively to create vastly different experiences with the difficulty settings.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm probably premature with this WIP but I hope the 'Buy Equipment' screen will be by-passable by the level designer? Many T2 FMs never used it but provided the equipment they wanted. I think some of the OMs did too.

 

Also semantically, selecting 'Buy Equipment' is not a logical way to start a game. 'Play Game' or 'Start Mission' makes more sense and then IF the mapper has provided the equipment store it automatically appears at that point as part of the start mission process (with default purchases) and a 'continue' or 'Start Mission' button.

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I'm probably premature with this WIP but I hope the 'Buy Equipment' screen will be by-passable by the level designer? Many T2 FMs never used it but provided the equipment they wanted. I think some of the OMs did too.

 

Also semantically, selecting 'Buy Equipment' is not a logical way to start a game. 'Play Game' or 'Start Mission' makes more sense and then IF the mapper has provided the equipment store it automatically appears at that point as part of the start mission process (with default purchases) and a 'continue' or 'Start Mission' button.

My next update will fix these issues. "Buy Equipment" will be renamed "Start Mission". If the shop_gold_start spawnarg is absent, this indicates there is no shop, so "Start Mission" will go straight to the map. Otherwise the shop menu will appear.

 

Should be checked in tomorrow.

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If the shop_gold_start spawnarg is absent, this indicates there is no shop, so "Start Mission" will go straight to the map. Otherwise the shop menu will appear.

 

There's another issue involved here that T2 didn't have. The shop screen is where players have the option of dropping all their default equipment and "iron manning" the mission. Shouldn't they have that option regardless of whether the mapper has provided equipment to purchase?

 

I don't see it being a big problem if that screen comes up with a "no items to purchase" description. If the player doesn't want to drop anything, they hit 'start game' and off they go.

 

Also, the shop screen is where players can find out what equipment does (by mouseovering it and reading the descriptive text that appears) so players new to TDM may want to do that to their default equipment, even if there is nothing to purchase.

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While the gui is being looked at another thought comes to mind. IF it is decided that pk4 maps will be run direct without unzipping and IF no separate manager such as Garrettloader is needed (players can just download pk4 files direct into the darkmod folder) then the mission's readme info file ideally should be displayed. This is normally done by Darkloader or Garrettloader but if they are not needed then the player needs to be able to read this without having to exit and extract it from the pk4, etc. etc.

 

Some will be plain text but really rtf or html is needed to do TDM justice. So mappers can put in different coloured backgrounds, text, fonts, and graphics (video?) Some of the info will be story introductory; some will be important info like 'Don't play this ironman! You need the broadhead and rope arrow to finish the game!'

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We still don't have a way of restarting D3 after loading in a different pk4 for some FM (the default way they provided, reloadEngine, just crashes). So we may still need an external loader to copy in the .pk4 before loading D3. Putting many different FM .pk4's in at the same time wouldn't work if more than one of them wanted to overwrite a file.

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OK, well at least it sounds like we can keep each mission packed up which is good imo. Then Garrettloader or similar can handle them, display the info, install as selected by copying the pk4 into the darkmod folder then launch Dark Mod which will deal with one mission at a time then exit back to Garrettloader.

 

I never played D3 other than the intro section but there seem to be different maps in the original pk4 files so presumably D3 can handle different levels, ie, progress from map to map?

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OK, well at least it sounds like we can keep each mission packed up which is good imo. Then Garrettloader or similar can handle them, display the info, install as selected by copying the pk4 into the darkmod folder then launch Dark Mod which will deal with one mission at a time then exit back to Garrettloader.

Yeah, that's how I think it will work.

 

I never played D3 other than the intro section but there seem to be different maps in the original pk4 files so presumably D3 can handle different levels, ie, progress from map to map?

Of course. It doesn't matter what files you put into which PK4; they'll show up as part of D3's virtual filesystem just the same.

 

(The one exception is dynamic libraries, like gamex86.so and gamex86.dll - they go in a special, separate PK4.)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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The DLL goes into the PK4 as well as any other file. There is no special rule for it. We just do it this way, because it needs to be in a PK4 file, while all the other files don't need to, which is the only exception I'm aware of. Otherwise you can deliver a single PK4 file with all the assets and a modified DLL included.

Gerhard

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There's another issue involved here that T2 didn't have. The shop screen is where players have the option of dropping all their default equipment and "iron manning" the mission. Shouldn't they have that option regardless of whether the mapper has provided equipment to purchase?

 

I don't see it being a big problem if that screen comes up with a "no items to purchase" description. If the player doesn't want to drop anything, they hit 'start game' and off they go.

 

Also, the shop screen is where players can find out what equipment does (by mouseovering it and reading the descriptive text that appears) so players new to TDM may want to do that to their default equipment, even if there is nothing to purchase.

How about this: By default, we go to the Shop screen after the Difficulty/Objectives screen, even if there are no items to purchase. This enables item dropping and display of item info. If there are no shop items, a suitable message will be displayed ("Nothing available for purchase" or something).

 

And, since there may be items that the mapper does not want dropped, I'll add a new spawnarg "startingItem_#_candrop 0", and the GUI will disable the Drop button for that item.

 

And (just to provide total flexibility to the mappers), I will provide a "shop_skip 1" spawnarg that will skip the Shop menu altogether, going straight from Difficulty to starting the map.

 

How does that sound?

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The DLL goes into the PK4 as well as any other file. There is no special rule for it. We just do it this way, because it needs to be in a PK4 file, while all the other files don't need to, which is the only exception I'm aware of.

I see. My bad. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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How about adding a button to the shop screen "Show mission info". When a player selects Start Mission, from the main menu, then we always go straight to the shop. The player can look at the mission info, buy items or throw them away, in any order he wants. When he is finished then he presses "Launch Mission" and this will load the map.

 

This way the shop will always be shown as the first part of a map, and the player can watch the info as often as he likes, or not at all.

Gerhard

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How about adding a button to the shop screen "Show mission info". When a player selects Start Mission, from the main menu, then we always go straight to the shop. The player can look at the mission info, buy items or throw them away, in any order he wants. When he is finished then he presses "Launch Mission" and this will load the map.

 

This way the shop will always be shown as the first part of a map, and the player can watch the info as often as he likes, or not at all.

I'm not sure what's in the Mission Info. Is this the Difficulty/Objectives? Or Briefing text? (Is there going to be Briefing text?).

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So would there be another button in the Shop to get to Difficulty/Objectives? Actually, you have to choose Difficulty first, since that may affect what you can buy. I suppose I could dynamically modify the shop contents if the user changes difficulty, but that starts to get complicated from the user point of view. For example, they start with Easy, buy a water arrow, switch to Difficult (which allows no water arrows for sale), and suddenly the water arrow they bought is removed from the purchased items. Confusing to the user. So I think you have to choose difficulty up front. But you probably want to get briefed before choosing difficulty.

 

So Briefing video/text -> Difficulty screen -> Shop screen. And Shop has links to replay the briefing. And a back button to Difficulty, in case they want to change difficulty (which would effectively be a restart on the Shop).

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So Briefing video/text -> Difficulty screen -> Shop screen. And Shop has links to replay the briefing. And a back button to Difficulty, in case they want to change difficulty (which would effectively be a restart on the Shop).

 

That sounds right.

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Confirmed this is exactly how T2 does it: Video briefing, Difficulty, Shop. Most FMs provide only a plain text (90%?) or rtf (10%?) readme with a briefing intro in there plus any odds and ends of info/credits etc. That would be displayed in Garrettloader along with all the other FMs until selection then DM is launched but if that text can be displayed in addition from one of the game menus it would be great. A few FMs produce their own video briefing (1 to 5%?) but this is in addition to their readme - their is always a readme. It might be possible to get mappers to produce a minimum of two text files - the general purpose info plus a true story briefing intro which would be displayed in DM if/or instead of any video?

 

Some T2 authors (myself included) produced a new game menu screen but whether that could work with DM I don't know.

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