Author Topic: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6  (Read 4515 times)

Offline ryguy_1617

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HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« on: January 17, 2006, 03:27:51 pm »
Ok, here is my latest HUD design that I just finished up.  Please leave me some feedback about it and tell me what you think:

Offline contingencyplan

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2006, 06:35:44 pm »
Well, alright for a startout, but I'd prefer to have more graphical feedback, rather than just having "Armor - 78%". I'm not saying you shouldn't have text, but this is a HUD. Be more pictoral, rather than more text-based. The problem with text-based is that it has to be parsed then interpreted. Graphical stuff doesn't need to be parsed; rather, you just have to look at it and interpret it, and it's a lot easier to interpret a picture than to interpret text.

Good start, but switch to graphics for the engine and shields and such. And the cooler it looks, the better - give it a sci-fi feel, rather than just a block colored strip.
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. 
    ~Robert Wilensky

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
    ~GK Chesterton

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
    ~Blaise Pascal

Offline ryguy_1617

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2006, 06:43:01 pm »
yea...thats what i was thinking.  But, I decided to just throw something together fairly quickly and then see what people wanted improved.  But, ok, I will get on that.

Offline Caenus

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2006, 07:04:08 pm »
Have you ever seen the control panel of an F/A-18?

Dials, knobs, displays out the ass. 

Give us bars, status graphics and such like crazy.
Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness.

Offline ryguy_1617

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2006, 07:34:55 pm »
Ok, I tried to make it look more sci-fi-ish and I added displays.  Please tell me what you think:

Offline Caenus

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2006, 08:30:55 pm »
I'm digging that.
Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness.

Offline contingencyplan

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2006, 01:09:20 am »
That works a bit better. Now, I'd say make it over the edge of the screen, and make it transluscent, rather than having a bar at the side with the information. Maximizes screen real-estate for dialogs and diagrams and whatnot. Much better - the more you can see, the better your chances of staying alive.
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. 
    ~Robert Wilensky

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
    ~GK Chesterton

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
    ~Blaise Pascal

Offline ryguy_1617

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2006, 05:32:25 am »
Well, its not supposed to exactly be a side bar...its supposed to be a tab system.  Like, you can click on the weapons or the engines to view stats for either.  But, I just realized that I need to add a way to minimize the tabs, so here is that (the second one is with the tabs minimized):
« Last Edit: January 18, 2006, 06:09:54 am by ryguy_1617 »

Offline Caenus

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2006, 08:01:58 am »
how exactly would you click while in flight?  will there be an option to force a pointer?
Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness.

Offline ryguy_1617

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2006, 08:20:37 am »
i was thinking more along the lines of hitting a key(s) to toggle the tabs (switch and minimize).

Offline Caenus

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2006, 10:02:41 am »
That's not a bad idea
Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness.

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2006, 02:01:09 pm »
Well great... now I have to work.

~Reynard

Offline contingencyplan

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2006, 01:02:25 am »
Well, I'd be more for transluscent with toggle, rather than tabs and toggle. The reason? We should decide what we want it to be like before we decide on toggling, since we will want to have some amount of that information up at some points in time. When it's up, the information display should be as least disruptive as possible. Then, we can add on toggling / levels of transparency later. Further, most people won't want to toggle stuff on or off - that's one more thing to have to keep track of. The principle of programming language design (as implied by Dr. Cooke) applies here as well - the fewer things you have to keep track of, the better off you are. So relying on a toggle system to overcome the loss of screen real estate is a bad system to get started.
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. 
    ~Robert Wilensky

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
    ~GK Chesterton

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
    ~Blaise Pascal

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Re: HUD Contest Design: Hudcomp6
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2006, 12:42:51 pm »
This actualy reminds me ALOT of my "GameHUD-Black1.1-SubLiteBlue"
The toggle system was one of the ideas that I was going for in that first design.
Of cource after that I got read the races and what they (g33xNexus) were looking for in each race. I figured a different HUD for each race would add more 'realism' to the game. So then I made one for the human race (Leagehud) and then one for the NorAellian. Keep up teh gud works.

~Reynard