FreeGameDev

This is a small and simple suggestion for the racing HUD.
This is about the rank number.

I suggest to colorize it depending on your rank.

Rules for Normal Race and Time-Trial:

• 1st: Blue
• Top third (except 1st): Green
• Middle third: White
• Bottom third (except last): Yellow
• Last: Red. Flashes in the final lap

Rules for Follow the Leader:

• The ranks behind the Leader are colored like in a Normal Race (except for the flashing). The first kart behind the Leader counts as “First”. Only karts in “legal” positions are considered
• If you have overtaken the Leader: Red and flashing
• If you're last and there are 10 seconds (or less): Red and flashing

Additional rules for Story Mode challenge in which you must obtain a particular rank (not for GP):

• The color is the same as for the race type being used for this challenge, with one exception:
• Ranks that would fail the challenge: Red. Flashes in the final lap

I mean... I know I wouldn't like it, but most others will. If it were an option I'd be ok with it.

For reference, I did some color-coding tries a while ago, and the result wasn't convincing at all. I know it can be done well, but maybe not just by changing the color of the numbers we use at the moment.

It's good to know that you've experimented with this earlier. Do you mean it looks ugly with all possible colors with the current font?

I won't claim it was with "all possible colors". I tried several variations without success, but there are more possible variations. One of the main issue was that in any color palette, you'd get colors with very poor contrast in some tracks.

This was before I added code which allows to give an outline of arbitrary color (instead of only a black outline). So, maybe using appropriate outlines, it is now possible to do something good.

My main concern with that part of the UI still is that the location of this number is rather confusing. This link shows some of the attempted variations to solve this : https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/pull/3472 However, none got a clear enough approval to be merged.