Update #54: Art Update - Work IS in Progress!

[J. Trudel]

UI looks suck. Please make it better becouse at this moment UI destroys the game concepts.

 

So do you have any ideas ? Perhaps you could explain what you would like or what you don't. At least your post would have the merit of being useful. 

[Karkarov]

 

Yes a large portion of the "audience" is going to be crazy hard core niche people and if you design the game around their tastes you are going to hurt your game.

You and i disagree almost completely in what is good game design. From my perpective it's the people who want a "modern"( whatever that means) game will hurt the game. I don't believe either of us is wrong, but at the same time is almost imposible to make a game that'll please both of us. That's why i said that in divisive matters like that they should follow as close to IE as they can. And i don't consider myself "hardcore" either. I have seen people who consider IE games "casual" and wanted a more oldschool hardcore experience like Realms of Arcania. I disagree with them as well.

As Avellone said, what matters is that the backers are happy with what we get. If the game has more broad appeal, great,we all hope for that. But the backers come first. And the only thing we have in common is love for the IE games. Sure, there were parts we didn't like, but that parts are different for each of us.

Well .... yes and no again. There is no uh.... how should I say it "options" when it comes to UI design. Your UI is either easy to use, functional, and enhances your experience without getting in the games way.... or it doesn't meet those criteria. I promise you if they go to production with the current UI mock up as the basis over half or more of professional reviews are going to comment on it and mention that the UI is bad, because it is. There is no other way to say it.

 

Lets look at modern UI designs in strategy RPG's. Like .... the game X-Com: Enemy Unknown. I know a lot of major review sites gave it game of the year. Almost everyone gave it PC game of the Year. Much like the IE games it has a top down isometric view even if it is fully 3d. Here is a link to a screen shot of the pc version during combat: http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/2kgames/xcom/enemyunknown/insideufo.jpg

 

Obviously I am not suggesting this UI.

 

That said... I want you to notice that every bit of info you could possibly want about the situation at hand is shown. I see my units hp and remaining action points, I see what skills and abilities my selected unit has, I see what he is aiming at, I can tell what my units name, rank, class, and buffs vs his target are, I can even tell how much ammo he has and what guns he has available. It is all right there at a glance. What else does this UI do? It doesn't block hardly any of the actual game screen. It is there, it is fully functional, it is easy to use, I have access to everything I would need to know or use on a regular basis, and my view is barely obstructed. That's a good UI.

 

So this is a turn based strategy RPG that won PC Game of the Year pretty much no contest, and there is one key take away here. The only time reviewers mentioned the UI that I saw... was to say the out of combat in base UI was clunky. By comparison to the project eternity mock up the in base UI in Xcom was sleek as all hell.

 

What scares me is the current posted mock up already blocks 16.3% (to be specific) of the screen at 720p and Sawyer said it was actually the smallest most compact UI mock up they had. Who knows how clunky and huge the other mock ups are. The statues are really neat looking and pretty, straight up, but they serve no function. Function is the core concept of the UI. I don't care how pretty and nice to look at the UI is, if it isn't functional, easy to use, all without obstructing or (distracting you from) the gameplay, then it is a bad UI. There is really no agree or disagree on that.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Karkarov

[Naurgalen]

About the UI it feels it wants to capture the style of the old games while having tons of "free" space, and I like that, but I think it should try at the same time embracing the new "minimalistic" design: intuitive, small and with lots of easy to read information. For example:

 

- Healths/Mana/Whatever resource bars: Go for the league of legends (and i think dota 2 too) approach, making the bar "segmented" to represent easy to read amounts of HP instead of guessing how much life is 30% of a line.

 

- Unite all kinds of HP in the same easily to read bar, but make them accordingly different (LOL, Mass Effect). That means: if you have a shield /extra life it goes to your health bar, but instead of "green" (or whatever) it is "white" if it works like normal health or "blue" if it only protects you from magic. (I wont recommend having more than 3 types of "extra health")

 

- Even more, improve that according to your game: make monks "injury's" be seen in his health: how much health they will have if they don't treat them. (this can be used with other DOTs too if you want it)

 

- Separate buffs from debuffs not only by color but position. Put them in order of their "actual" duration and if you can, find a way yo make that duration visually easy to read. (more trasparent? overline shich makes thiner? a clock line-border?)

Edited May 30, 2013 by Naurgalen

[Prometheus]

...

 

 

That is your opinion. I like the mock up more than the ui you linked and as in DA for example.  I think the ui you linked looks just bad. and you can't control your characters any better than with the mockup.

[khango]

One thing I was thinking about since there seems to be so much emphasis on keeping the UI near the mouse is whether the character portrait gallery and log/journal could be anchored and the button elements track the screen edge to remain closer to the mouse. In some respects it sounds like a bad gimmick, and probably is. But maybe there's a less ugly way the UI could be more reactive? Just a thought.

 

Edited May 30, 2013 by khango

[centurionofprix]

Well .... yes and no again. There is no uh.... how should I say it "options" when it comes to UI design. Your UI is either easy to use, functional, and enhances your experience without getting in the games way.... or it doesn't meet those criteria.

True. I think the IE interface was that way for many of us here. Remarkably easy to use, as well as aesthetic. I've never liked floating UIs or found them more effective, personally.

 

 

I promise you if they go to production with the current UI mock up as the basis over half or more of professional reviews are going to comment on it and mention that the UI is bad, because it is. There is no other way to say it.

Most of the people who funded the game disagree. The solid UI isn't bad by their preferences.

 

 

Lets look at modern UI designs in strategy RPG's. Like .... the game X-Com: Enemy Unknown. I know a lot of major review sites gave it game of the year. Almost everyone gave it PC game of the Year. Much like the IE games it has a top down isometric view even if it is fully 3d. Here is a link to a screen shot of the pc version during combat: http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/2kgames/xcom/enemyunknown/insideufo.jpg

 

Obviously I am not suggesting this UI.

 

That said... I want you to notice that every bit of info you could possibly want about the situation at hand is shown. I see my units hp and remaining action points, I see what skills and abilities my selected unit has, I see what he is aiming at, I can tell what my units name, rank, class, and buffs vs his target are, I can even tell how much ammo he has and what guns he has available. It is all right there at a glance. What else does this UI do? It doesn't block hardly any of the actual game screen. It is there, it is fully functional, it is easy to use, I have access to everything I would need to know or use on a regular basis, and my view is barely obstructed. That's a good UI.

 

So this is a turn based strategy RPG that won PC Game of the Year pretty much no contest, and there is one key take away here. The only time reviewers mentioned the UI that I saw... was to say the out of combat in base UI was clunky. By comparison to the project eternity mock up the in base UI in Xcom was sleek as all hell.

The Enemy Unkown interface looks ugly and tasteless to me. The HP floaters would detract from the aesthetics even more in PE than in EU. All that information is readily available in classic IE-style interfaces as well. Incidentally, the gamebanshee review, which probably is more representative of the sensibilities of PE fans than is the mainstream gaming press, noted the lack of customizable quick buttons: http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/109853-xcom-enemy-unknown-review/page-5.html

 

King's Bounty: Armored Princess was another recently well-received tactical game with a solid UI, and I haven't seen anyone complain about the interface. Googling it, even competitive games like the Starcraft, LoL and DotA sequels optimized for multiplayer efficiency still rock the solid look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems to me you're framing an idiosyncratic preference in universal terms here.

Edited May 30, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Malekith]

 

 

Yes a large portion of the "audience" is going to be crazy hard core niche people and if you design the game around their tastes you are going to hurt your game.

You and i disagree almost completely in what is good game design. From my perpective it's the people who want a "modern"( whatever that means) game will hurt the game. I don't believe either of us is wrong, but at the same time is almost imposible to make a game that'll please both of us. That's why i said that in divisive matters like that they should follow as close to IE as they can. And i don't consider myself "hardcore" either. I have seen people who consider IE games "casual" and wanted a more oldschool hardcore experience like Realms of Arcania. I disagree with them as well.

As Avellone said, what matters is that the backers are happy with what we get. If the game has more broad appeal, great,we all hope for that. But the backers come first. And the only thing we have in common is love for the IE games. Sure, there were parts we didn't like, but that parts are different for each of us.

Well .... yes and no again. There is no uh.... how should I say it "options" when it comes to UI design. Your UI is either easy to use, functional, and enhances your experience without getting in the games way.... or it doesn't meet those criteria. I promise you if they go to production with the current UI mock up as the basis over half or more of professional reviews are going to comment on it and mention that the UI is bad, because it is. There is no other way to say it.

 

Lets look at modern UI designs in strategy RPG's. Like .... the game X-Com: Enemy Unknown. I know a lot of major review sites gave it game of the year. Almost everyone gave it PC game of the Year. Much like the IE games it has a top down isometric view even if it is fully 3d. Here is a link to a screen shot of the pc version during combat: http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/2kgames/xcom/enemyunknown/insideufo.jpg

 

Obviously I am not suggesting this UI.

 

That said... I want you to notice that every bit of info you could possibly want about the situation at hand is shown. I see my units hp and remaining action points, I see what skills and abilities my selected unit has, I see what he is aiming at, I can tell what my units name, rank, class, and buffs vs his target are, I can even tell how much ammo he has and what guns he has available. It is all right there at a glance. What else does this UI do? It doesn't block hardly any of the actual game screen. It is there, it is fully functional, it is easy to use, I have access to everything I would need to know or use on a regular basis, and my view is barely obstructed. That's a good UI.

 

So this is a turn based strategy RPG that won PC Game of the Year pretty much no contest, and there is one key take away here. The only time reviewers mentioned the UI that I saw... was to say the out of combat in base UI was clunky. By comparison to the project eternity mock up the in base UI in Xcom was sleek as all hell.

 

What scares me is the current posted mock up already blocks 16.3% (to be specific) of the screen at 720p and Sawyer said it was actually the smallest most compact UI mock up they had. Who knows how clunky and huge the other mock ups are. The statues are really neat looking and pretty, straight up, but they serve no function. Function is the core concept of the UI. I don't care how pretty and nice to look at the UI is, if it isn't functional, easy to use, all without obstructing or (distracting you from) the gameplay, then it is a bad UI. There is really no agree or disagree on that.

 

You lost me at the reviewers part. Who cares about them? Notice how all your points come to "how someone who hasn't played the IE games and is used to "modern" games will think about this game?". To that i say who gives a ****? The whole point of kickstarter is to make games not in the way the "mainstream market" and the IGN reviewers want but the way backers want. Or else what's the point? There was no need for some of us to give 100-2000 $ 2 years before. We could simply buy DA:3 (IGN 9/10, i don't even need to wait for it to know)

Fargo answered in the question "how you will attract modern gamers who didn't know the originals?" with "i don't care about them. I want for them to like my game, but my focus is the people who backed me". That is how kickstarted games should be viewed.

Unless you believe that the backers would prefer a modern UI. Then and only then you have an argument.

The reviewers who said in BGEE reviews that the main problems of the game were the "outdated" feel and the point and click gameplay instead of the genuine faults of the game(and it had many) are idiots.

[Karkarov]

It seems to me you're framing an idiosyncratic preference in universal terms here.

Not really.  A few asides, first...  LoL and Dota are not strategy RPG's.  They are Moba games, which is a dumb name for Multiplayer Action Game.  They are designed to be fast and brutal, not slow and tactical.  Screen space as a result is less important, but their UI's are still crap anyway and anyone who understands design can give you a laundry list as to why.

 

As for complaints about why a 16.3% brick covering the screen is no different than the 5-8% of floating icons in a strategy RPG... well all I gotta say is uh..... if you think it doesn't make a difference I doubt you have ever actually played a strategy RPG.  Because you definitely need to see as much of the screen as possible.

 

For the haters who still think you need some retarded brick of graphics to do this UI right here comes Kark mark up 2.

 

 

So what do we have here?  Well the party window is pixel for pixel the EXACT same size as the original mock up.  There are 12 buttons, exactly like the original mock up.  The useless brick of buttons I personally will never use is still there just flipped on it's side and repositioned to take up less space.  It is literally the same exact UI as the mock up, just all the useless nonsense like statue graphics is removed, the chat box is bigger, and the chat box fades out when not in use.  That's it, everything else is the same just repositioned.  I didn't even change the size of the clock/pause button.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Karkarov

[Morgulon the Wise]

Some things came to my mind by reading Karkarvs post:

 

1. Will there be a shortkey again for showing HP bars and numbers? --> Please don't do it that way or make it changeable in circles to the characters feet which show the percentual health + numbers over their heads (also only showing by pressing a shortkey) Maybe the engagement range could also be presented in this way.

 

2. coloring of the character in some way if he has poison/ is blessed/buffed as in IWD2 -->I dont like that stuff. Only very potent magic shields should be visible all the time or magic which has the purpose to be shown (mantle of fear for example)

 

3. As it was said in the monk topic: Only show fire aroud the fists the moment they strike, magical barriers, when they repel and a good mix of shooting/weaving magic with the hands or with a possible staff. Not magic glows everywhere. There should be soul economy.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Morgulon the Wise

[centurionofprix]

That looks good; it's the best take on the floating interface IMO. If they should go with that style, I'd like to see it done like yours. Still, part of the bottom of the map is always obscured, whereas with a solid UI, (I imagine) the bottom bar can be made to extend over the edge of the map.

 

It seems to me you're framing an idiosyncratic preference in universal terms here.

Not really.  A few asides, first...  LoL and Dota are not strategy RPG's.  They are Moba games, which is a dumb name for Multiplayer Action Game.  They are designed to be fast and brutal, not slow and tactical.

True, but isn't seeing more of the map at a glance even more important given the fast pace of these games? You have time to look around in P:E. I ninja edited Starcraft 2 into the post; it also has a (gigantic) solid UI, and it's a purely strategy game, without even a pause function. Crucially, the professional reviewers didn't tear these UIs apart, or that of the slow and tactical Armored Princess, as you suggested they would with P:E.

 

 

Screen space as a result is less important, but their UI's are still crap anyway and anyone who understands design can give you a laundry list as to why.

Does this mean competitive players, or the professional reviewers to whom you alluded earlier, or now merely the few who happen to agree with your design sensibilities?

Edited May 30, 2013 by centurionofprix

[khango]

 

It seems to me you're framing an idiosyncratic preference in universal terms here.

Not really.  A few asides, first...  LoL and Dota are not strategy RPG's.  They are Moba games, which is a dumb name for Multiplayer Action Game.  They are designed to be fast and brutal, not slow and tactical.  Screen space as a result is less important, but their UI's are still crap anyway and anyone who understands design can give you a laundry list as to why.

 

As for complaints about why a 16.3% brick covering the screen is no different than the 5-8% of floating icons in a strategy RPG... well all I gotta say is uh..... if you think it doesn't make a difference I doubt you have ever actually played a strategy RPG.  Because you definitely need to see as much of the screen as possible.

 

For the haters who still think you need some retarded brick of graphics to do this UI right here comes Kark mark up 2.

 

 

So what do we have here?  Well the party window is pixel for pixel the EXACT same size as the original mock up.  There are 12 buttons, exactly like the original mock up.  The useless brick of buttons I personally will never use is still there just flipped on it's side and repositioned to take up less space.  It is literally the same exact UI as the mock up, just all the useless nonsense like statue graphics is removed, the chat box is bigger, and the chat box fades out when not in use.  That's it, everything else is the same just repositioned.  I didn't even change the size of the clock/pause button.

 

 

Not so bad, though I still feel it makes the characters feel less alive to box them in that way.

 

[Malekith]

The UI looks great for a 4:3 aspect ratio, but for a widescreen resolution the viewing area becomes too wide. It would be better if it had two sidebars like Baldur's gate

[Lephys]

 

 

 

 

A) Nice!

B) This made me think of an idea. I really like that parchment-like text log area, and I think it would utterly rock if, instead of just looking like a static piece of parchment and having a magical, transparent box that scrolls the text inside, it were actually like a scroll with a vertically-repeating-yet-seamless parchment-surface background texture, and whenever you scrolled, a simple animation actually made the scroll appear to literally scroll (the tops and bottoms would roll in the same direction, as if you were actually reading through a scroll).

 

It's not a big deal, I realize, but the idea 'twas sparked, and I felt the need to pitch it.

[Malekith]

What is this with the portraits to the left side?   Josh already said that if they do a vertical side in the UI it will be in the right side.

[centurionofprix]

Sawyer also said he wants the quick buttons close to the portraits while avoiding the (apparently) uncomfortable mouse movement of two to five o'clock. And I think he wanted the dialogue box on the right side for readablity. Portraits on the left seems to fulfill these criteria while distributing some of the wide bottom bar in a vertical way so as not to ruin visibility in the twelve-six direction in the already narrow widescreen viewport.

Edited May 30, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Malekith]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63851-update-54-art-update-work-is-in-progress/page-12?do=findComment&comment=1335403

[centurionofprix]

Sorry, I misremembered. In any case, many of the left-aligned UIs do prevent the eleven-to-five direction by having the quick buttons below the portraits rather than to the right of the screen, and avoid leaving a great deal of distance between the buttons and right-aligned portraits, as well as the aesthetic problem of only covering part of the bottom of the screen. The latter problem seems to be present in Sawyer's suggestion of a right-aligned vertical bar with log box on the bottom.

Edited May 30, 2013 by centurionofprix

[Ineth]

 

I'm not a fan of floating UI boxes for this kind of game, but in this mockup they are relatively unobtrusive and don't feel too out of place.

 

All things considered, I'd definitely prefer this UI to the previously presented mockups which placed the portraits (or the whole UI) in a side-panel.

[Morgulon the Wise]

I would prefer much bigger portraits - and thats where the side panel comes into play.

 

By the way: this gap between combat/quest log might give you an extra look down there but I think its unaestically compared to a closed bar on the bottom. If you want to keep that mockup please put everything in the middle of the lower screen . I'd also like some (not immersion-breaking) curves in the UI for a little less Windows/Program-Tab-aestetic.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Morgulon the Wise

[Lephys]

I also very much like Karkarov's mockup. But, it does seem like there's not a lot of space to present character-specific info (such as status effects and such). They feel kind of group-hugged down there.

 

What is this with the portraits to the left side?   Josh already said that if they do a vertical side in the UI it will be in the right side.

 

That seems kind of like it favors right-handed people. That's not very PC. A good compromise would be to have the vertical character-portrait rail be in the center of the screen, so that neither side gets favoritism, u_u...

 

[Malekith]

I also very much like Karkarov's mockup. But, it does seem like there's not a lot of space to present character-specific info (such as status effects and such). They feel kind of group-hugged down there.

 

What is this with the portraits to the left side?   Josh already said that if they do a vertical side in the UI it will be in the right side.

 

That seems kind of like it favors right-handed people. That's not very PC. A good compromise would be to have the vertical character-portrait rail be in the center of the screen, so that neither side gets favoritism, u_u...

 

[khango]

 

<snipped>

 

 

 

A) Nice!

B) This made me think of an idea. I really like that parchment-like text log area, and I think it would utterly rock if, instead of just looking like a static piece of parchment and having a magical, transparent box that scrolls the text inside, it were actually like a scroll with a vertically-repeating-yet-seamless parchment-surface background texture, and whenever you scrolled, a simple animation actually made the scroll appear to literally scroll (the tops and bottoms would roll in the same direction, as if you were actually reading through a scroll).

 

It's not a big deal, I realize, but the idea 'twas sparked, and I felt the need to pitch it.

 

 

I had thought of several ideas for parchment - both having a book with turnable pages and the endless scrolling scroll like you mention, as well as an absurd idea where lots of the UI was paperized and you could 'rip' it to make different parts into separate floating elements or change UI element locations. But they would have taken a lot of time and effort to try and mock so I didn't. But I do agree I think there ought to be be a lot of room to 'paperize' the log/journal, so to speak, and with the late-renaissance-age-of-exploration feel that's supposed to be going, there should be some room for paper done with printing presses.

 

 

 

 

What is this with the portraits to the left side?   Josh already said that if they do a vertical side in the UI it will be in the right side.

 

Lots of us started on mocks without seeing that update and/or disagree with some of the reasoning. That's all.

[Lephys]

I had thought of several ideas for parchment - both having a book with turnable pages and the endless scrolling scroll like you mention, as well as an absurd idea where lots of the UI was paperized and you could 'rip' it to make different parts into separate floating elements or change UI element locations. But they would have taken a lot of time and effort to try and mock so I didn't. But I do agree I think there ought to be be a lot of room to 'paperize' the log/journal, so to speak, and with the late-renaissance-age-of-exploration feel that's supposed to be going, there should be some room for paper done with printing presses.

Understandable. I don't fault you for not slapping something so extensive into a mockup. 8P

 

I was just thinking, along the whole "the UI fits into the setting and mood of the gameplay and therefore doesn't feel like a space age, out-of-place frame" idea, that you quite often have such detail put into readable inventory items and such, to make it appear as though you're simply reading the actual parchment/documents in the game world. So, why not the UI log area? As it is more notorious for vertical scrolling, I simply felt that an actual scroll-type functionality might be nice. It would still work the same as pretty much any other text log in any other RPG. But, you'd get that nice "Oooooh, this FEELS like I'm actually reading a log on some parchment!" effect that might help anchor the UI that much more.

[Eiphel]

Wanted to come and weigh in on the UI discussion. I've no doubt I'll be echoing comments from the other 17 pages of this topic, but nontheless:

 

I understand the desire for an 'IE style' User Interface. PE is trying to evoke those games, and UI design is part of what they were. But the IE games had pretty bad UIs, and nostalgia shouldn't trump functionality. The PE UI should attempt to capture the aesthetic of the Infinite Engine, but reworked into a much more functional form. This current attempt is, to me, pretty poor.

 

First off, it uses up a huge chunk of real estate on the screen. So much effort has been put into these fantastic landscapes, blotting out an enormous bar of them is pretty saddening. Some form of rectractable/hidable/modular UI could work well here if simply shrinking the space allowed is off the table. (Arcanum even did this a bit.)

 

Secondly, within the UI area itself, it's full of dead space. Large patches of blank wood texture or stone texture or whatever are very ugly and also poor for functionality since they're using up the amount of actually 'operational' screen space.

 

Thirdly, the text window is right aligned. If this is where all of the game's dialogue and writing is going to appear, I very much feel it needs to be centralised. If I'll have 500k words to read across my playing of PE, I don't want to be constantly looking off to the bottom corner when the focus of the scene will be centred. I want to just be able to glance down.

 

Those are my main thoughts, and by far my biggest concern is the amount of wasted real estate in this sample. I don't want to sound too critical, but on the other hand I was really taken aback by how poor and dated this UI looks. By all means you want to evoke the IE spirit, but you need to do so within a functional and up-to-date design paradigm. Evocative shouldn't mean dated, and it shouldn't cost functionality or aesthetics.

[khango]

Wanted to come and weigh in on the UI discussion. I've no doubt I'll be echoing comments from the other 17 pages of this topic, but nontheless:

 

I understand the desire for an 'IE style' User Interface. PE is trying to evoke those games, and UI design is part of what they were. But the IE games had pretty bad UIs, and nostalgia shouldn't trump functionality. The PE UI should attempt to capture the aesthetic of the Infinite Engine, but reworked into a much more functional form. This current attempt is, to me, pretty poor.

 

First off, it uses up a huge chunk of real estate on the screen. So much effort has been put into these fantastic landscapes, blotting out an enormous bar of them is pretty saddening. Some form of rectractable/hidable/modular UI could work well here if simply shrinking the space allowed is off the table. (Arcanum even did this a bit.)

 

Secondly, within the UI area itself, it's full of dead space. Large patches of blank wood texture or stone texture or whatever are very ugly and also poor for functionality since they're using up the amount of actually 'operational' screen space.

 

Thirdly, the text window is right aligned. If this is where all of the game's dialogue and writing is going to appear, I very much feel it needs to be centralised. If I'll have 500k words to read across my playing of PE, I don't want to be constantly looking off to the bottom corner when the focus of the scene will be centred. I want to just be able to glance down.

 

Those are my main thoughts, and by far my biggest concern is the amount of wasted real estate in this sample. I don't want to sound too critical, but on the other hand I was really taken aback by how poor and dated this UI looks. By all means you want to evoke the IE spirit, but you need to do so within a functional and up-to-date design paradigm. Evocative shouldn't mean dated, and it shouldn't cost functionality or aesthetics.

 

Deadspace is probably at least partially there to illustrate padding required for different size and aspect ratios of screens most likely. So long as UI covers full horizontal or full vertical there will probably be a need for some sort of padding-filler-moodsetting textured non-interactive bits to take up the gaps.