Author Topic: From Blue (Arcen Staff): What about the GUI visuals could I improve?  (Read 2589 times)

Offline Blue

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Hello there guys!

As we press forward, I'd like to take some time to see what all of you think about the GUI and interface art.

What do you think could be improved on?

Is there anything you feel should be changed?

Why?

Do let me know, I'd love your constructive feed back. :D

-Blue

Offline tbrass

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I would love an easy way to identify my various building types. Possibly via an overlay/report. Something that I could click and it's readily apparent that those are my crime reducing buildings, these are my defense buildings, and here are my attack buildings. I'd be fine if these were separate buttons/reports.

As important - reporting the same information for AI races. There are so many building types in this game, it can be hard to keep track (though obviously some of this will become second nature over time.)

Offline crazyroosterman

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personally the only thing id like introduced would be an over lay when you statistics check resource using buildings in the build menu that tells you what adjacency bonuses you can get from it and what resources it uses not having that has been bugging me for a long while.
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Offline Cyborg

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Hello there guys!

As we press forward, I'd like to take some time to see what all of you think about the GUI and interface art.

What do you think could be improved on?

Is there anything you feel should be changed?

Why?

Do let me know, I'd love your constructive feed back. :D

-Blue


Hello. Great job on the art. My suggestions:
Change the three colored hammers to represent what they are. You could still keep the hammer, but make it a radical in the corner, serving a more descriptive image. For inspiration, if you look at kanji, they are always using radicals to give meanings to more complicated character arrangements. These are used on signs and advertising every day, and it works well.


We need icons for crime events/warnings, just like you have for disease.


Make the icons on the left have a small number showing how much you have unlocked.
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Offline Captain Jack

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I know I've complained about this before, but I still don't think the header font is right in the Diplomacy/Technology/Linguistics/etc. screens is right. The current header font is a vast improvement over the cursive, but it still doesn't jive with the rest of the game.

I'll agree with Cyborg about changing the social progress hammers, would be nice.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2015, 10:54:12 pm by Watashiwa »

Offline Endymion

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First of all City Management screen feels very lacking(I've been assuming that it'd be something that would be worked on later on and made all pretty and useful since as it is it's horrible for a screen that in most 4xes is second most important after the main one), I wish it would at least show me in a nice way all the info I could get by mousing over every item in the 2 bars in top panel. Maybe it's the lack of things in it but I kind of dislike greying out of the map it does I'd kind of hope it would have it's own background and enough stuff to show to deserve it.

Other stuff:

I'm not sure what to do about it but I tend to ignore the notifications on the right and just occasionally go "I should maybe look at these" and realize that I already knew most of the stuff they tell me and right click all of them.

Greyed out parts in the top bar could be little less greyed out.

Also instead of "and then end turn" text on Plan Research/Social Upgrade something similar or the same as the effect "Buildings Until Lander Upgrade" text has might be better way to tell player that it's a thing(it's obvious once you mouse over it but until then you could see it as just a text telling you what you should do, if you even read it).
Now that I look at it it's just a bigger version of the lander upgrade text but without flashing so clearly it's a less urgent thing than the fact that with enough buildings your lander gets an upgrade.

On social progress screen maybe have the whole background of the section you have a point in light up.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2015, 01:59:13 am by Endymion »
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Offline nas1m

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One thing that comes to my mind is the panel at the bottom of the screen, which does not look very attractive to me, both in terms of panel design and with regard to the actual icons.
I know this is not really a tangible suggestion, but it just does not look that great in my opinion.
Definitely not up to snuff compared to a lot of the remaining art.

This might be an issue of size, though.
So maybe just making the panel bigger and/or using the same size for all icons would do the job...


A second point are the small racial icons.
These are really too small too look good in my opinion. This is definitely for the 16x16 ones for me and to some extend the 32x32 ones.
The 64x64 ones loon great, though.

At least getting rid of the very small ones and replacing them with the next bigger size would do wonders in terms of visual appearance at least in my book.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2015, 10:34:57 am by nas1m »
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Offline Blue

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Hi there guys!

Thanks for all the feedback. :D

I would love an easy way to identify my various building types. Possibly via an overlay/report.

Hi Tbrass, this is a bit more of a design thing. If you could plop this idea into Mantis for us, that would help immensely!

personally the only thing id like introduced would be an over lay when you statistics check resource using buildings in the build menu that tells you what adjacency bonuses you can get from it and what resources it uses not having that has been bugging me for a long while.

Great, if you could also Mantis that, that would be super helpful. :)



Hello. Great job on the art. My suggestions:
Change the three colored hammers to represent what they are. You could still keep the hammer, but make it a radical in the corner, serving a more descriptive image. For inspiration, if you look at kanji, they are always using radicals to give meanings to more complicated character arrangements. These are used on signs and advertising every day, and it works well.


We need icons for crime events/warnings, just like you have for disease.


Make the icons on the left have a small number showing how much you have unlocked.

Hi there Cyborg!

With your first, great criticism, I'll look into that! With the other two, could you look into Mantising that for me please? Thanks!


I know I've complained about this before, but I still don't think the header font is right in the Diplomacy/Technology/Linguistics/etc. screens is right. The current header font is a vast improvement over the cursive, but it still doesn't jive with the rest of the game.

I'll agree with Cyborg about changing the social progress hammers, would be nice.

Watashiwa, thanks for the opinion. Do you have any suggestions?

Bare in mind that this particular font has to jive with other elements in the UI as well. It needs to be a relatively straight forward font that's legible in the smallest possible ways while also not being over powering in larger formats.

We've also been trying to keep from going overpoweringly sci-fi, if that makes any sense.

Knowing that, what are your thoughts?

Thanks!

First of all City Management screen feels very lacking(I've been assuming that it'd be something that would be worked on later on and made all pretty and useful since as it is it's horrible for a screen that in most 4xes is second most important after the main one), I wish it would at least show me in a nice way all the info I could get by mousing over every item in the 2 bars in top panel. Maybe it's the lack of things in it but I kind of dislike greying out of the map it does I'd kind of hope it would have it's own background and enough stuff to show to deserve it.

Hi there Endymion!

City Management is one of those 'not finished yet' elements of the game. We're hesitant to do any art work for that until it's been perfected mechanically. Could you mantis your thoughts on the matter involving the mechanical aspects of the window?


Other stuff:

I'm not sure what to do about it but I tend to ignore the notifications on the right and just occasionally go "I should maybe look at these" and realize that I already knew most of the stuff they tell me and right click all of them.

Greyed out parts in the top bar could be little less greyed out.

Also instead of "and then end turn" text on Plan Research/Social Upgrade something similar or the same as the effect "Buildings Until Lander Upgrade" text has might be better way to tell player that it's a thing(it's obvious once you mouse over it but until then you could see it as just a text telling you what you should do, if you even read it).
Now that I look at it it's just a bigger version of the lander upgrade text but without flashing so clearly it's a less urgent thing than the fact that with enough buildings your lander gets an upgrade.

On social progress screen maybe have the whole background of the section you have a point in light up.

Thanks again! :), these are also more of a design related item and plopping these in Mantis would help.

On social progress screen maybe have the whole background of the section you have a point in light up.

Given how many points you can put into this particular screen, I'm unsure how you mean by 'whole background'.  Could you elaborate?

Thanks!


One thing that comes to my mind is the panel at the bottom of the screen, which does not look very attractive to me, both in terms of panel design and with regard to the actual icons.
I know this is not really a tangible suggestion, but it just does not look that great in my opinion.
Definitely not up to snuff compared to a lot of the remaining art.

This might be an issue of size, though.
So maybe just making the panel bigger and/or using the same size for all icons would do the job...

Hi Nas1m!

Great, thanks for the opinion.

A second point are the small racial icons.
These are really too small too look good in my opinion. This is definitely for the 16x16 ones for me and to some extend the 32x32 ones.
The 64x64 ones loon great, though.

At least getting rid of the very small ones and replacing them with the next bigger size would do wonders in terms of visual appearance at least in my book.

Great, I see what you mean about the super small ones. I'll look into that!



Thanks guys, your opinions are valued!

-Blue



Offline tadrinth

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It would be nice if the employment indicator could change to a new icon depending on whether you have unstaffed buildings, an entertainment surplus, or an entertainment/job shortage.

Offline crazyroosterman

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its done.
c.r

Offline nas1m

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Re: From Blue (Arcen Staff): What about the GUI visuals could I improve?
« Reply #10 on: May 26, 2015, 04:08:48 pm »
One thing that comes to my mind is the panel at the bottom of the screen, which does not look very attractive to me, both in terms of panel design and with regard to the actual icons.
I know this is not really a tangible suggestion, but it just does not look that great in my opinion.
Definitely not up to snuff compared to a lot of the remaining art.

This might be an issue of size, though.
So maybe just making the panel bigger and/or using the same size for all icons would do the job...

Hi Nas1m!

Great, thanks for the opinion.
Please mind that I really like the ornaments on the edges - that's definitely not the reason the panel looks poor to me, more of the opposite :). I think it's really the inconsistent sizes of the icons that are bugging me (and the fact that for me the style of the icons does not match that well with the style of the panel - which I like - at least in my book).

Thanks for asking :).
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: From Blue (Arcen Staff): What about the GUI visuals could I improve?
« Reply #11 on: May 26, 2015, 04:11:15 pm »
On social progress screen maybe have the whole background of the section you have a point in light up.

Given how many points you can put into this particular screen, I'm unsure how you mean by 'whole background'.  Could you elaborate?


I think he means to have a kind of border that splits the social progress screen into Government, Commerce, and Cultural panes.  Then, if you have a Government point, the Government pane is lit up, so it attracts attention away from the Commerce and Cultural panes, which are on-screen but aren't something you're supposed to interact with right now. 

Offline Blue

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Re: From Blue (Arcen Staff): What about the GUI visuals could I improve?
« Reply #12 on: May 26, 2015, 04:12:03 pm »
Please mind that I really like the ornaments on the edges - that's definitely not the reason the panel looks poor to me, more of the opposite :). I think it's really the inconsistent sizes of the icons that are bugging me (and the fact that for me the style of the icons does not match that well with the style of the panel - which I like - at least in my book).

Thanks for asking :).

Yes! I can see your point of view, and thanks for elaborating further on it.

Also very noted on not losing those pretty ornaments. :)

Offline Blue

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Re: From Blue (Arcen Staff): What about the GUI visuals could I improve?
« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2015, 04:13:28 pm »

I think he means to have a kind of border that splits the social progress screen into Government, Commerce, and Cultural panes.  Then, if you have a Government point, the Government pane is lit up, so it attracts attention away from the Commerce and Cultural panes, which are on-screen but aren't something you're supposed to interact with right now.

Ah hah!

Thanks for clarifying.

Toss that in Mantis for us?

Thanks!

-Blue

Offline tadrinth

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