New track loading screen for next release?

[ArDanWol]

Hi everyone,
I have always thought that the track loading screen could be improved and I recently had an idea for making it better. I posted a concept below:

Loading Screen Concept

Loading Screen Concept with labels

My proposed loading screen would have a screenshot of the track as a background (chosen randomly from a collection of screenshots), a gameplay tip or interesting fact about the current track (also chosen randomly from a collection of tips and facts), a loading bar consisting of the icons of the karts that are in the current race (in order of their starting positions), and and indicator for race type and difficulty. It would be somewhat similar to the loading screen that shows at startup.

Please let me know what you think of the idea and how easy/hard this would be to do. I would be willing to contribute and work on this.
Thanks!
ArDanWol

[l-homme-d-action]

Hi,
It Seems to be a good idea , from what i know it might be not difficult to do (A loading image file in each track directory)

[ctdabomb]

I think I like this idea, if it looks cool when implemented, and doesn't slow down the loading, I'm for it.
edit: 9_9 I just realized how stupidly obvious my comment sounded.

[Tuxfan]

ArDanWol, I like your suggestion. It is just a small detail (the loading screen shows up only for a few seconds), but it will improve the first impression of many users.
If a text element is placed in an (almost) random picture, I suggest to put an opposite colored box around the text for better readability.
In a mockup that would mean that the white text is surrounded by a dark grey frame and a dark grey and semi transparent background. The text element needs to be translated in various languages. It will take some effort to get it done - it might be worth it. The user is forced to wait while the game is loading anyway. If however the game is loading too fast, a user trying to read the hint might get frustrated, since there is no way to read everything in a short amount of time.

[Tuxfan]

By the way ArDanWol:
If you provide me with 5 cute, epic, badass or just amazing looking splash screen images AND the development team appreciates your idea, I will add the random splash screen feature to STK. However at this point of time, I do not promise to take care of the hint.

[ArDanWol]

Hi,
Thanks for your feedback.

ArDanWol, I like your suggestion. It is just a small detail (the loading screen shows up only for a few seconds), but it will improve the first impression of many users.
If a text element is placed in an (almost) random picture, I suggest to put an opposite colored box around the text for better readability.
In a mockup that would mean that the white text is surrounded by a dark grey frame and a dark grey and semi transparent background. The text element needs to be translated in various languages. It will take some effort to get it done - it might be worth it. The user is forced to wait while the game is loading anyway. If however the game is loading too fast, a user trying to read the hint might get frustrated, since there is no way to read everything in a short amount of time.

I totally agree with what you're saying about the text. If this was implemented, I would definitely take care of that. What I posted was just a simple mock-up that I did in GIMP in around 30 minutes just to give you the general idea. I know only English, so someone else would have to translate the tips. I would probably pull a lot of the tips from the "Racing maneuvers you may not know and tips and tricks" thread started by Wuzzy.

By the way ArDanWol:
If you provide me with 5 cute, epic, badass or just amazing looking splash screen images AND the development team appreciates your idea, I will add the random splash screen feature to STK. However at this point of time, I do not promise to take care of the hint.

What exactly do you mean by this? Do you want just good looking screenshots, or do you want a full mock-up like the one I posted initially? I don't know how I would make this idea work in the game itself, so I would need guidance and help with that. If we fully implemented this idea, I think we should ask for screenshot contributions and vote on the best ones to be included in the game to be placed on the loading screen.
Also, do you want them for just one particular track, or 5 different ones?

Thanks for you feedback, suggestions, and guidance everyone!
ArDanWol

[0zone0ne]

Do you think the screenshots could have a colour wash over them to send them into the background a bit more? Perhaps the colour could be specific to each track, e.g. a green wash for Cocoa Temple, a gold wash for Shifting Sands, a red wash for Fort Magma, etc.

[charlie]

Do you think the screenshots could have a colour wash over them to send them into the background a bit more? Perhaps the colour could be specific to each track, e.g. a green wash for Cocoa Temple, a gold wash for Shifting Sands, a red wash for Fort Magma, etc.

Yes! The screen is too busy in the OP's example. I nearly suggested a blur effect but I didn't think it was a good enough idea - yours sounds like the solution.

[ArDanWol]

Do you think the screenshots could have a colour wash over them to send them into the background a bit more? Perhaps the colour could be specific to each track, e.g. a green wash for Cocoa Temple, a gold wash for Shifting Sands, a red wash for Fort Magma, etc.

Do you mean just a slight tint, or a totally red, green, blue, etc image? I actually like Charlie's blur idea.

[0zone0ne]

Do you mean just a slight tint, or a totally red, green, blue, etc image? I actually like Charlie's blur idea.

I was thinking a strong tint, almost like a single colour but not quite.

[GunChleoc]

I think a color wash would be better than a blur, with reduced contrast. I hate fuzzy images.

Regarding the screen tips, you should plan screen space for about 300% of what the original English texts needs, and no hard-coded line breaks.

[XGhost]

I like the idea of a nice loading screen.
Instead of gameplay tips, we could add some typical loading texts, something like:
- Planting vegetation...
- Drawing main road...
- Building up structures...
- Mounting tires...
- Filling up tanks...
- Giving Tux some delicious fishes...
...

[samuncle]

While it seems a good idea there is some issues like:
We can't currently update the loading screen (that would require to add a thread to do that).
Usually STK's loading time are very fast so we might not have the time to read an advice
Using just a picture might be "confusing" I prefer clean loading screen that make a bit of a pause, maybe a screenshot with a color wash is a good idea, not sure.

If I would update the loading screen it would be only to add a little animation that shows something is happening but nothing much.

The typical yet funny loading text might be interesting :P. Like

Planting some trees
Building a nice road
etc

[ArDanWol]

Update: Here are some edits of my original:

Original edit with bigger text and a grey box around it.

Status console style textbox

Colorized Background

I liked Xghost and Samuncle's idea for the loading status text, so if we did this, I would like to go with that in the textbox. I'm still not sure that I like the colorized idea, but it's up for consideration.

While it seems a good idea there is some issues like:
We can't currently update the loading screen (that would require to add a thread to do that).
Usually STK's loading time are very fast so we might not have the time to read an advice
Using just a picture might be "confusing" I prefer clean loading screen that make a bit of a pause, maybe a screenshot with a color wash is a good idea, not sure.

If I would update the loading screen it would be only to add a little animation that shows something is happening but nothing much.

Not quite understanding what you mean by "We can't currently update the loading screen (that would require to add a thread to do that)"
I think we should definitely use the status box instead of the racing tips. I still like the screenshot idea without the colorization, but if everyone thinks that would work best, I can go with that.

Please tell me which edit you like best and keep up the good feedback!

ArDanWol

[WillemS]

Usually STK's loading time are very fast so we might not have the time to read an advice

Not everyone has such a fast computer I have a laptop on which the races just run fine (on not too high settings), but the loading screen is there for quite some time. This is especially the case for the new-generation tracks. I timed it for some tracks:

• Cocoa Temple: 7 seconds
• Gran Paradiso Island: 8 seconds
• Shiny Suburbs: 2 seconds

Personally, I think 7-8 seconds is quite a lot to look at a rather boring screen. Even if updating the screen is not possible, I think having a screenshot of the track, like ArDanWol's suggestion, already goes a long way to fix this.

[ArDanWol]

Usually STK's loading time are very fast so we might not have the time to read an advice

Not everyone has such a fast computer I have a laptop on which the races just run fine (on not too high settings), but the loading screen is there for quite some time. This is especially the case for the new-generation tracks. I timed it for some tracks:

• Cocoa Temple: 7 seconds
• Gran Paradiso Island: 8 seconds
• Shiny Suburbs: 2 seconds

Personally, I think 7-8 seconds is quite a lot to look at a rather boring screen. Even if updating the screen is not possible, I think having a screenshot of the track, like ArDanWol's suggestion, already goes a long way to fix this.

Same here.

• Cocoa Temple=17 Seconds
• Gran Paradiso Island=16 Seconds
• Shiny Suburbs=5 Seconds

[capricom45]

Cocoa Temple is around 5 seconds
Gran Paradiso Island is around 10 seconds.
Shiny Suburbs loads up almost instantly.

and my PC is considered "ancient" by today's standards

[GeekPenguinBR]

The current screen doesn't bothers me, but, I think this is a nice idea. Why not just only one standard screen for all tracks?

[ArDanWol]

The black screen doesn't bothers me, but, I think this is a nice idea. Why not just only one standard screen for all tracks?

I think we need to have at least one for each track.

[GeekPenguinBR]

It's better, for sure. To be honest, I don't have a inflexible opinion about this subject, but, since this improve the general appearance of the game, I agree.

[GunChleoc]

Quick edit - I have desaturated it somewhat and added a bit of the original colors back in. I think the green was too extreme.

screen.png (160.87 KiB) Viewed 10001 times

[ArDanWol]

I definitely like that better than the completely color washed one, but I think I still like the original.

[ArDanWol]

I made some more concepts for other tracks:

Loading Screen for Gran Paradiso Island

Another Loading Screen for Gran Paradiso Island

Loading Screen for Around the Lighthouse

Loading Screen for Fort Magma

[capricom45]

Wow, they look awesome.

[charlie]

I like the desaturated wash. I still think that the screen is just too bold with a normal-coloured screenshot. It just needs something to background it a bit, and the edited version by GunChleoc seemed to be about right.

I think ideally it should be done as a shader, but that's getting into programmers' territory.