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

[Stun]

What's deeplinking?

Don't know, but you shouldn't be doing it! lol

[LadyCrimson]

What's deeplinking?

That's weird phrase to use for what they mean, yeah.

[Ineth]

Everyone has a wide screen nowadays

 

The majority of gamers do, but not everyone.

 

Here are some statistics on the prevalence of display aspect ratios among gamers:

• Data from the latest Steam Hardware Survey (May 2013):

   percentage | aspect   | resolutions in this category
     of users | ratio    | (most common first)
   -----------+----------+----------------------------------------------
       62.14% | 1.78 : 1 | 1920x1080, 1366x768, 1600x900, and 15 more...
       20.64% | 1.60 : 1 | 1680x1050, 1440x900, 1280x800, and 6 more...
        8.25% | 1.25 : 1 | 1280x1024, 853x683
        5.15% | 1.33 : 1 | 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x960, and 5 more...
        2.68% | 1.77 : 1 | 1360x768, 1176x664
        0.94% | other    | 1280x768, 1024x600, 5760x1080, and 8 more...
  
   Percentage of users with non-widescreen displays (4:3 or narrower): 13.60%

• Data from the Star Citizen backer survey (Feb 2013):

   percentage | aspect   | resolutions in this category
     of users | ratio    | (most common first)
   -----------+----------+----------------------------------------------
       55.91% | 1.78 : 1 | 1920x1080, 1600x900, 2560x1440, and 18 more...
       29.76% | 1.60 : 1 | 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 1440x900, and 7 more...
        4.70% | 1.25 : 1 | 1280x1024
        3.35% | 1.33 : 1 | 1600x1200, 1024x768, 1280x960, and 6 more...
        1.54% | 5.33 : 1 | 5760x1080
        4.73% | other    | 3840x1080, 1360x768, 1600x1024, and 11 more...
  
   Percentage of users with non-widescreen displays (4:3 or narrower): 8.05%

So while the percentage of non-widescreen users is small, it is not negligible.

 

And the following considerations might provide further reason to also optimize PE's user-interface for non-widescreen displays:

• Conserving screen real-estate  is most important for smaller displays, and those are more commonly non-widescreen than bigger displays.

• The PE target audience likely includes a smaller percentage of modern "hard-core" gamers than the Steam users or Star Citizen backers. It suspect that many PE backers were the young gamers of the late 90s / early 00s - who now have jobs and families, and computers which primarily serve productive purposes (rather than high-end gaming rigs optimized for modern PC games).

  So the percentage of non-widescreen users among the PE target audience might well be higher than that shown in the above tables.

[Stun]

Wow, neat info. Personally, I think Obsidian is in a position to eliminate the guesswork on something like this. They could send all their Project eternity backers a short Questionare (via email or whatever) asking them what type of monitors/screen displays they have.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Stun

[Monte Carlo]

Hmmm. I want to play this on my 1920 x 1200 Asus ProArt monitor and on my 15" MX15 laptop.

[Morgulon the Wise]

Tablet Pc if possible

[Monte Carlo]

^ trololololo!!!

[Abbie]

I personally love everything you did with the mockup.  I love the IWD/2 feel, I love the understated minimalism, and I like the portraits on bottom.  I love it all.  Sorry to be boring, but...yeah. 

[khango]

Hmmm. I want to play this on my 1920 x 1200 Asus ProArt monitor and on my 15" MX15 laptop.

 

That's funny - I also use a 1920x1200 Asus ProArt.

[ryukenden]

Hey guys, I originally started drawing in design by digitally but it didn't work out because we still don't know what the game should have.

 

Anyway I hope you like my design here. There's some free space on the left side. I couldn't figure out what to put there. I like the idea of khango and Lephys. 

 

You can Hide the combat log you don't want to look at it when doing stuff. It can also be Expanded to half the screen when entering a important dialog like the one in Baldur's gate.

 

And In honor to Chris Avellone, I made him appear in this mockup! See if you can spot it!

 

Edited June 3, 2013 by ryukenden

[Sakarabu]

Unfortunately I feel I have to mirror the opinion of a lot of the earlier posts, I'm just not liking the UI at all. 

 

As others have said nostalgia can be a great thing, but the UI looks blocky and outdated for 2014. I realize it's just a mock up.. but there is so much wasted space there. Honestly though, everyone has already voiced some great opinions on it, so I don't feel like I can add much more input except to listen to previous criticisms in this thread. It should retain that oldschool look (no DotA "cartoonyness" or flash), but it needs to go on a diet and be customizable if possible.

 

Personally I find Hotkey's and UI depth to be far more important than overall aesthetics, and by that I mean.. everything has to be hotkeyable, and it should never take more than one keypress to get to any page on the UI (and no long animations). That was a huge problem I had with the fallout games (the modern ones at least), the map took 3 key presses and long animations to get to.. another example is Skyrim, although i'm sure that UI has been talked to death. That type of thing is my main concern for any UI though, it has to be fast and usable.

 

Thanks for the update as always, and don't feel like you have to rush to show progress! Take as long as you need  

[Karkarov]

 

I'll repeat that this sort of UI is absolutely fine for a 3D game that can be rotated. PE is not one of them so various considerations need to made.

 

Or you could just make the area transition the entire southern side of the map?  You are using the proverbial  cannon to swat a fly solution. 

 

Meanwhile I would not make the same false assumption most of the other die hards are.... that the brick ui is overlayed on a viewported map.  It isn't.  It still blocks the area transition too, you still have to sometimes move your screen around a little to see things.  No matter what UI they design this is going to happen sooner or later.  There is no such thing as a ui that covers up "nothing" at least in this type of game.  So the idea is you make something that works but covers as little as possible. 

 

The brick ui covers a large portion of the screen, 16.3% at 720p to be exact.  To be more specific the ui mock ups I make actually progressively cover less and less of the screen the higher resolution you go, even factoring in increasing their scale by say... 20% in 1080p versus it's size in 720p.  It may "look" like the screen stops at the edge of the UI on the brick mock up, but it doesn't, there is still map there, the UI just blocks the whole bottom 16% so you can't tell.  Meanwhile when you play at 1920x1200 my mock up is now far enough left your area transition (even the small one you started with) is perfectly visible.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Karkarov

[Aedelric]

Most of the user interface mock ups people have posted are fairly bad, try not to be inspired by them Obsidian.

 

I like the UI presented, though it really does need to be customizable, no one will be happy unless they can have the text window where they are most satisfied or the character portraits horizontal or vertical, even the artsy elements of the UI should have a transparency slider for those that prefer a minimal interface. It may take a lot more work but for a modern game with a diverse fanbase, I think customizing is very important.

 

Remember not all that backed are die hard Baldurs game fans, some were fans of Planescape Torment, Fallout 1&2, Divine Divinity, Icewind Dale and many other isometric games. Each UI was vastly different, so you are dealing with fans that have extremely different opinions of what should be done, the only way to satisfy most of them is by letting them move the hud around, hide various aspects, perhaps resize it, tint colours and even alter transparency.

 

By the way, the health and specifically mana/stamina/ability? bars are a bit garish and distracting, perhaps toning down the colour would be advisable for the next iteration?

[rjshae]

In the IE games it was possible to expand the dialogue window so that you can read lengthy messages without needing to scroll repeatedly. It's not clear that you can do that here. Otherwise though it appears fine.

[JWestfall]

Most of the user interface mock ups people have posted are fairly bad, try not to be inspired by them Obsidian.

 

I like the UI presented, though it really does need to be customizable, no one will be happy unless they can have the text window where they are most satisfied or the character portraits horizontal or vertical, even the artsy elements of the UI should have a transparency slider for those that prefer a minimal interface. It may take a lot more work but for a modern game with a diverse fanbase, I think customizing is very important.

 

 

Yeah, after reading through all of these posts, I agree with this.  Please consider (if not already) having the UI fully (or nearly fully) customizable, even if just exposed through XML.

[khango]

Hey guys, I originally started drawing in design by digitally but it didn't work out because we still don't know what the game should have.

 

Anyway I hope you like my design here. There's some free space on the left side. I couldn't figure out what to put there. I like the idea of khango and Lephys. 

 

You can Hide the combat log you don't want to look at it when doing stuff. It can also be Expanded to half the screen when entering a important dialog like the one in Baldur's gate.

 

And In honor to Chris Avellone, I made him appear in this mockup! See if you can spot it!

 

 

 

I like it.  Definitely one of the more polished-looking mocks so far. That said, the button locations will lead to mouse chasing. Move them around a bit to make it more usable and it'll be much improved.

 

If the sidebar extra space bothers, one thing you could do is increase portrait sizes.

[LadyCrimson]

Will there be a "screenshot" type option that removes the UI entirely, when I want a screenie of only the glorious in-game goodness rather than having to crop out UI bars all the time?

 

 

Also, I agree with Aedelric from a few posts above ... if you make a lot of the elements movable/resizable etc. it solves a fair number of possible nitpicks for people with various wants.

[Sensuki]

Most popular (controversial) update yet

[Garviel Tarrant]

I pretty much made an account just to say this but

I would heavily prefer a BG style layout in that i would like to have larger portraits on the right hand side (Although i guess i could get used to the left)
 

The portraits are basically the face of the character and its hard to connect with something you can barely see.  This may be just because of my immense love for BG but i don't think so..

[Jarmo]

 

 

 

 

 

This and the original are the two I like the most so far.

 

But anyways.

The two things I'd mostly like to see are:

 

1. Floating help texts when hovering over UI element or stuff. So I can know if the sword is attack or sheathe weapons or what.

2. Right click-doing-stuff kind of things, ideally ToEE/NWN kinds of selection wheels.

3. Ability to quickslot actions and spells and whatever, and bind them to keystrokes. ("a" for attack, "****f-a" for power attack, "alt-a" for secondary attack)

4. Have keys mapped for the actions in the interface. 

 

And those are the four things I'd mostly like to see. Beside macros for multiple action sequences.

[radioactivelullaby]

no one has added a mini map to their mock ups...there will be a mini map in the game right?

[Stun]

no one has added a mini map to their mock ups...there will be a mini map in the game right?

That's a good point, actually. I wonder how that's going to be incorporated with regards to the UI.

 

The IE games all had an icon/button you press to bring up the area/world map. And that's how I'd prefer it with PE, but I wouldn't be completely averse to an "always there" minimap on the top left or top right corner.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Stun

[Jajo]

no one has added a mini map to their mock ups...there will be a mini map in the game right?

 

I don't see a need for one. If it is, fine. If it isn't, also fine.

 

The only real argument I can think of [for or against the minimap] is actually against it, from an immersion point of view.

If you get lost in an unknown city, you have to stop and look at the map...

[Monte Carlo]

^ You used the word 'Immersion.' Pay a small fine and start again.

 

[rjshae]

 

 

 

 

I like it.  Definitely one of the more polished-looking mocks so far. That said, the button locations will lead to mouse chasing. Move them around a bit to make it more usable and it'll be much improved.

 

If the sidebar extra space bothers, one thing you could do is increase portrait sizes.

 

The lighter bar along the bottom does less to draw the eye downward, so that's a plus. Also purple and gold go together well. However, too much of the interface is effectively wasted space when all you're doing is exploring. The message window in particular bites a big gouge out of the view and is a complete mismatch to the remainder of the motif.