MRTS Update #13

ID:88724
 
Dec 26 2009, 10:14 am (Edited on Dec 26 2009, 3:48 pm)
Keywords: ai, interface, menu, rts, ui, units
I woke up at 1am this morning and got right to work on the huds. My schedule is so out of whack.

Here's a revision of HUD when you click on a building. I removed the trim and corners.


Here's a revision of the Buildings HUD when you click on empty ground near your base.


Here's a revision of the Factory Mode HUD. This replaced all those buttons I had on the interface.


There are three issues with this design so far.
1. Obscures what's going on under the HUD
2. Limited to 8 items unless I create something like a "More..." which opens a second hud. I actually have plans to do this for upgrading individual units. I would click on the Factory upgrade icon (the up arrow), click on the unit to upgrade (currently 4), and then click on 1-n(8max) features to upgrade per unit. That would add two additional HUDs.
3. If you have less than 4 or 5,6, and 7 items, it might look "ugly" with a missing or protruding leaf. I'm thinking of using the full 8 at all times and just leaving them blank when nothing is in them.

Adding HUDs is no trivial task. Especially with the hover and current selected indicator. I'm a little worried but I haven't made one without changing behavior and looks so maybe it's not so bad.

We'll see.

What's Next?
I'm going to focus on the Factory and see it through to the end before adding additional HUDs. I've got to hook up the unit details and upgrade info.

Here's the latest on the whole interface with some mock unit details on the left. You get those when hovering over units.

ts
Dec 26 2009, 11:14 am
I think the skin would look more clean if you removed the map border, the avatar borders and the unused menu bar. Also, the chat sections could be made darker so that the contrast with the rest of the skin won't be blinding. =)
Dec 26 2009, 1:44 pm
ACWraith wrote:
I think the skin would look more clean if you removed the map border, the avatar borders and the unused menu bar. Also, the chat sections could be made darker so that the contrast with the rest of the skin won't be blinding. =)

Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking about adding some kind of theme appropriate border around the map. Not sure yet. Right now, it's just solid black turfs.

As for the interface stuff, I'm hoping to figure out how to do some cool background images to tie everything together. I've yet to try that.

I'll play around with the contrast issues. :)

Thanks,
ts