Junker

I think support for animated portraits would be awesome. It would require circumstantial coding within the context of the game/conversations (ie: more work) but it could add so much to the atmosphere of the game. Even if it's just 3 "moods" for each portrait and the rest could be universal overlays such as a semi-transparent green bubbly liquid for "poisoned" or a layer of stone for "petrified". Maybe a slight shaking with the "angry mood" anytime damage is taken. I was thinking the "on the fly" formations could make your frequent individual character movements much easier by confining your mouse movements to a 1" square rather than across the entire screen. Maybe it can be tied to the minimap, killing two birds with one stone. You would get the overhead perspective, visual representation of objects/cover and a dynamic formation system all within the confines of a minimap. Could really add to the tactical aspects of the game!

Thanks for the feedback, fellas. I'll make some changes when I find some time and perhaps make a new GUI using only the bottom corners of the screen. A certain degree of imagination is required when looking at a static image. For instance, character details including known skills and spells would be accessed by 2X clicking the portrait. Good points on the icons + tooltips over button + text. I think I will seriously shrink the minimap so that it centers the selected character and only displays the perimeter within that characters LOS distance. What would you consider an acceptable number of hotkeys per character for spells and skills? Should we have full view of every party member's portrait at all times? What do you think of animated portraits to give physical personality to characters and provide status information, injury, etc.? Any more GUIs to be posted? I bet the devs would appreciate feedback on our concepts so they have something to reference when it comes time to make their own.

I know this topic was covered with some degree of vigor in update #54 but I feel like it's something that warrants more chat. I know the GUI is a hot topic with a wide array of tastes and opinions and we know this about Obsidian's viewpoint: "Tim and I have been talking about our user interfaces recently. We want to make sure that we improve the functionality of the original designs without completely losing the feeling of those interfaces. One thing we want to avoid is making the UI too "minimalist". We don't want it to feel bloated, of course, but we also recognize that the IE games had "solid" interfaces. They looked like they were made of materials -- wood, stone, and metal -- and had substance to them. When you look at the interfaces for the IE games, they help immerse you in each setting. We'd like to do the same for Project Eternity." One of my major beefs with those old Infinity Engine games is the ugly, bloated, non intuitive GUI'S. They had buttons and windows everywhere, running up the sides of my monitor and not a single obvious picture to tell me what they did. Why do I need a big button to pause the game when one of the first things I learned was... space bar pauses the game? Why is a ton of tiny, unread text flowing past me in a horrible window that is using half of my interface real estate? Anyways, enough with that. I tossed this together for fun using graphics off the internet. I took into consideration Obsidian's goals and tried to keep it old school while infusing some modern day innovations. Some new ideas including an updated formation system is included. Feel free to respond with your thoughts or post your own vision of the perfect GUI if, like me, you have fun doing it!