User Interface: Character Creator

[Osvir]

I think I figured out, personally, what bothers me about the character creator UI in Pillars of Eternity.

There's so much empty unused space.

Here are all of the originals compressed (.zip), or you can tab through these: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 010, 011, 012, 013. Use them as you wish.

Here's the unused .empty1 .empty2 space that I'm talking about.

 

.Suggestion1: Character Portrait+Character Appearance

// Merging these elements together will lessen back and forth clicking. 

.allofem: All of the options (except ability option), and truncated/compressed a lot, almost fits the same space. If I "squeezed" (making smaller) a bit more, all of it would fit on one screen, and possibly show the character model as well, top-down on-screen size (smaller window).

I've simply thrown out all of the cards, I have not sorted them. Portrait could be in upper-left corner for instance, attributes in the middle or whatnot. A simulated Character Sheet. Furthermore, neither "Portrait" or "Character Appearance" needs to be on this screen, if Portrait+Appearance had their own screen. Name could be above the character on the "Appearance" screen, or on the "Character Sheet" screen.

// Character Sheets are cool  I really like the background art in the Character Creator, and it's stylish, but it's not a "Character Sheet".

.Suggestion2: Speaking of appearance, there are 3 windows that affect the appearance during character creation. Culture, Color, Portrait. I merged them together with a simple "tab" trick in Paint. Simulating that "These values affect the Character's appearance" on one screen.

There also only needs to be a single "Information" window on a "Character Sheet", compared to PoE's, that has an Informations window on almost all of the "Screens". Culture's information could be displayed on the Character Sheet, but on the "Appearance" screen it wouldn't show any information.

Thoughts?

Edited December 11, 2014 by Osvir

[ISC]

The more I think of it, the more the more suggestion 1 makes sense. Beyond the additional click saved, some of us do care about matching portrait and appearance to such a degree that one might be going back and forth to match these. However, I am not sure about the culture tab, it could easily be missed and since it affects gameplay and not only appearance/flavor it's kind of important. 

 

Regarding the all-in-one character sheet: I get it and kind of like it. This has been done more than once and it is kind of old school and brings back pen and paper nostalgia etc. But the current set-up is more noob friendly and allows for the text window to explain things one at the time, rather than overwhelming new players with tons of digits which may be a bit off-putting to some.

[RoughOne]

You still need room to display skills.

 

Personally, I don't mind the linearity of the character generation process.  Empty space on the screen doesn't bother me.  Perhaps the process is longer due to your being in the beta and creating a series of characters?

[Osvir]

Every time I make a character, I come to the colors screen and skip it entirely, pick a portrait I like, then I go back, adjust colors and edits gear. I might even go all the way back to Culture, if I don't like the gear or it doesn't fit the character portrait. A "Culture" tab button could be clarified and easy to notice.

Another solution would be to, instead of "Culture", add the option to the Player to pick starting gear on the "Appearance" screen. Maybe the character is a spy from the Living Lands, dressed up as an Aedyran. Or a traveler who simply passed through Rauatai etc.

 

Regarding the all-in-one character sheet: I get it and kind of like it. This has been done more than once and it is kind of old school and brings back pen and paper nostalgia etc. But the current set-up is more noob friendly and allows for the text window to explain things one at the time, rather than overwhelming new players with tons of digits which may be a bit off-putting to some.

Depends how well presented the Character Sheet is, I tried making another mock-up of it. Cleaner and even more compressed. Still not fantastic but, trying to prove a point. EDIT: Attributes and Class could be swapped with one another as well (You can compare with this one, all of them, in an additional browser tab)

EDIT: Skills/Talents become don't fit, or might fit up in the upper-right corner with Background.

Or even..

1st: Character Sheet
2nd: Abilities/Talents
3rd: Appearance (EDIT: Not relevant as a Character Sheet could be all in one except Abilities/Talents as seen in the above mockup. Isn't it common in PnP to have a spell list/abilities list sheet as well?)

It could boil down to 2 screens.

Right now, it is around 13 Screens.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Osvir

[Yonjuro]

I think I figured out, personally, what bothers me about the character creator UI in Pillars of Eternity.

 

There's so much empty unused space.

 

Here are all of the originals compressed (.zip), or you can tab through these: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 010, 011, 012, 013. Use them as you wish.

 

Here's the unused .empty1 .empty2 space that I'm talking about.

 

.Suggestion1: Character Portrait+Character Appearance

// Merging these elements together will lessen back and forth clicking. 

 

.allofem: All of the options (except ability option), and truncated/compressed a lot, almost fits the same space. If I "squeezed" (making smaller) a bit more, all of it would fit on one screen, and possibly show the character model as well, top-down on-screen size (smaller window).

 

I've simply thrown out all of the cards, I have not sorted them. Portrait could be in upper-left corner for instance, attributes in the middle or whatnot. A simulated Character Sheet. Furthermore, neither "Portrait" or "Character Appearance" needs to be on this screen, if Portrait+Appearance had their own screen. Name could be above the character on the "Appearance" screen, or on the "Character Sheet" screen.

// Character Sheets are cool  I really like the background art in the Character Creator, and it's stylish, but it's not a "Character Sheet".

 

.Suggestion2: Speaking of appearance, there are 3 windows that affect the appearance during character creation. Culture, Color, Portrait. I merged them together with a simple "tab" trick in Paint. Simulating that "These values affect the Character's appearance" on one screen.

 

There also only needs to be a single "Information" window on a "Character Sheet", compared to PoE's, that has an Informations window on almost all of the "Screens". Culture's information could be displayed on the Character Sheet, but on the "Appearance" screen it wouldn't show any information.

 

Thoughts?

 

 Yes, and there's another problem with the empty space. On screens like .empty1 in your OP, you have buttons to select on the far left and the description of what you get by clicking them on the far right.

 

 With a large monitor, it is too easy to click the wrong button by slightly moving your mouse when you look over to the right. I submitted a bug report about this (so far, no response).

[Osvir]

Regarding the all-in-one character sheet: I get it and kind of like it. This has been done more than once and it is kind of old school and brings back pen and paper nostalgia etc. But the current set-up is more noob friendly and allows for the text window to explain things one at the time, rather than overwhelming new players with tons of digits which may be a bit off-putting to some.

Greying out, highlighting, "unlocking" each "section" as you go. A small button would be required to click "OK" to unlock next part. It fulfills the same function as "13 screens", but you keep all/most of the information on one single page.

 

.grayed1

.grayed2

 

I also realized that "Gender/Sex" should be above "Portrait".

Edited December 12, 2014 by Osvir

[Osvir]

Late-Bump.

Still curious if something can be done with Portraits in the Character Creator (the reason I made this thread, but I went off on a larger mock-up spree ).

[ryukenden]

Not just the character creation but the leveling screen to. It would be nice if the UI wasn't so streamlined. I would like to see a tab where they have a summary of stats gain on leveling or changes in stats. Maybe a tab for your current character stats.

 

Also, the beta contains a forest-like background, I don't like how it looks. Most of the time, the game is dark and gloomy, but here we get a green looking forest. it would be more fitting if they change it to look like the mines/caves or something. 

 

Here is my 15minute mockup. Just changing the background looks a bit better than the forest background. Also I notice the character model is lacking proper lighting. It would be nice if they added a light source somewhere, to get it a more darker feel.

Edited February 16, 2015 by ryukenden