GUI Improvements

[hiker]

Hi,

as some might have noticed our new graphical engine video was added to omgubunto, and we had some interesting discussion. With permission from Daniel I copy&paste some relevant parts of it here, so that we can discuss it:

Edit: Okay, so I got it installed. I have to say the biggest let-downs aesthetically aren't really the tracks and carts (though they are pretty lame). The worst are the fonts and icons. Specifically the HUD during the race isn't very good.

This is the HUD in STK. Can you tell what place I'm in? http://imagebin.org/309222

Compare that to the HUD from SMK 8 which is extremely minimal, yet extremely clear: http://mii-gamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/mario-kart-8-gif.gif (BTW, holy crap that looks good. That's just not fair. Look at all the damn particle effects and the motion blur and DOF, omg)

This isn't really technically or artistically challenging work (except for SMK 8 is insane and the reflection on the place number changes. We can ignore that). But it is good UX. It gives me all of the stuff I care about and none of the stuff that has nothing to do with making the game fun. Which seems to be an overall problem with trying to set up a race in STK.

Instead of "Easy, Medium, Hard" there's "Novice, Intermediate, Expert". Which basically sums up the problems with the game.

If I want to just jump in and race I'm greeted by a track screen with 17/21 tracks locked and it's really hard to tell at a glance which ones aren't locked.

SMK assumes that a race has 12 karts and 3 laps, STK makes you choose and the defaults number of karts is like 3.

The sound effect associated with boosting sounds more like slipping on a banana peel (which btw instead of spinning out when you hit a peel, the banana transforms into a parachute and latches on to your kart. weird.) There's no sound affect with nitro, which I'm not sure why is separate from your other items.

So yes, better graphics is great and can definitely add to the experience. But that's not why SMK is fun and it's definitely not the biggest problems with STK

And later:

Though you know that the rank is in the top right corner and I know after stopping and looking, it's not immediately obvious when you're racing. This is a very important piece of information, but it's visually less prominent than your units of speed (which imo holds no actual value). I would consider that the labels (rank, lap, etc) are visual noise. It should be clear what 1/3 is and what 12th means in the context of kart racing.

Part of the fun of powerups is surprise. Constant rank changes due to powerups are what keeps the game interesting. If you have tools to avoid powerups, why have them at all? Useful != fun. But I can also already see who's coming up behind me on the mini-map so we have duplicate information here.

The header font could be worse, but whatever body font you're using should probably be replaced with a normal legible font like Open Sans. Try going over some of these screens with a contrast checker, the string "Number of AI karts" is extremely difficult to read. Consider adding a background behind the text or changing the checker flag.

As for sounds, I don't really know any sound resources. I imagine that would be pretty difficult. But I think no sound is probably better than a sound that doesn't fit.

It is visually difficult to immediate find unlocked tracks. Almost all of the tracks on screen are locked and the unlocked ones are not sorted in any meaningful way. In SMK, tracks are divided into Cups. At the beginning you have access to the tracks from the first cup and as your progress through the story you unlock new cups and thus new tracks. They make this extremely clear on the track selection screen by replacing the cup icons with a question mark: http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/a/a7/Unlock-All-Characters-in-Mario-Kart-Wii-Step-9.jpg/670px-Unlock-All-Characters-in-Mario-Kart-Wii-Step-9.jpg

I can't imagine what kind of hardware can't run this game with full carts at some setting. I have 13 karts on (accidentally, might I add. I was trying to do 12 but I couldn't read that label) on the absolute highest settings at 1440x900 (so HD resolution) and it's extremely smooth. I'm not sure which of these numbers is my FPS (because there's like 4) but at least two of them are >=60 at any given time.

and finally:

In case you're interested, I made 1st-12th place numbers: http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/Place-Numbers-452364463
The SVG source is uploaded in case you'd like to modify. I tried to base the colors on the STK logo. I imagine someone could break out the numbers 1-9 and the suffixes into a sprite so you could generate whatever numbers you'd like.

Feedback welcome!
Joerg

[hiker]

Hi,

so to clearly distinguish my opinion, here some separate comments:

If I want to just jump in and race I'm greeted by a track screen with 17/21 tracks locked and it's really hard to tell at a glance which ones aren't locked.

SMK assumes that a race has 12 karts and 3 laps, STK makes you choose and the defaults number of karts is like 3.

We should perhaps consider making at least one GP available from the beginning. This would require some changes to the challenges,but hopefully with ghost-replay being fully supported, we could replace some existing challenges with ghost replays, so we wouldn't need to change the overworld itself.

Konstin is also working on a random/all-track GP, part of which would be to add a default number of laps for each track (so you avoid the problem that a fixed number of laps takes too long on long tracks, not long enough on shorter ones).

...

Though you know that the rank is in the top right corner and I know after stopping and looking, it's not immediately obvious when you're racing. This is a very important piece of information, but it's visually less prominent than your units of speed (which imo holds no actual value). I would consider that the labels (rank, lap, etc) are visual noise. It should be clear what 1/3 is and what 12th means in the context of kart racing.

Bigger numbers would indeed be good, luckily we might be getting somewhere, see below
...

But I can also already see who's coming up behind me on the mini-map so we have duplicate information here.

I don't think the mini map is detailed enough to show this kind of information (at least not in a crowded situation). What do others think of the icon list? Too distracting? At this stage it's the only place that shows which karts are affected by powerups.

The header font could be worse, but whatever body font you're using should probably be replaced with a normal legible font like Open Sans. Try going over some of these screens with a contrast checker, the string "Number of AI karts" is extremely difficult to read. Consider adding a background behind the text or changing the checker flag.

Maybe that depends on the resolution. Could you perhaps send us a screen shot? This text is actually orange, and that on grey/black background just works fine for me tbh. Some of the other text might be more of a problem (black on grey/black ).

...

It is visually difficult to immediate find unlocked tracks. Almost all of the tracks on screen are locked and the unlocked ones are not sorted in any meaningful way. In SMK, tracks are divided into Cups. At the beginning you have access to the tracks from the first cup and as your progress through the story you unlock new cups and thus new tracks. They make this extremely clear on the track selection screen by replacing the cup icons with a question mark: http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/a/a7/Unlock-All-Characters-in-Mario-Kart-Wii-Step-9.jpg/670px-Unlock-All-Characters-in-Mario-Kart-Wii-Step-9.jpg

I seem to remember that we had something like this, and actually made the tracks visible so that users can see what other tracks to exist. Tracks in general should be sorted (well, they are sorted ... by internal name=directory name, which is useless). At least alphabetically sorted, but also perhaps first columns or rows to show the unlocked ones, then the locked ones?

I can't imagine what kind of hardware can't run this game with full carts at some setting. I have 13 karts on (accidentally, might I add. I was trying to do 12 but I couldn't read that label) on the absolute highest settings at 1440x900 (so HD resolution) and it's extremely smooth. I'm not sure which of these numbers is my FPS (because there's like 4) but at least two of them are >=60 at any given time.

Yes, you are lucky with that (for the record, the 3 fps are minimum, average, maximum). Imagine that we even had people on windows 2000.

In case you're interested, I made 1st-12th place numbers: http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/Place-Numbers-452364463
The SVG source is uploaded in case you'd like to modify. I tried to base the colors on the STK logo. I imagine someone could break out the numbers 1-9 and the suffixes into a sprite so you could generate whatever numbers you'd like.

I like the idea of big numbers, and I actually like the ones you did for us, but unfortunately I see a few problems with them:

• They are quite close (if not identical) to the fonts used in MK
• They don't fit with our normal heading font (which is a 'rounder'_.
• We have some issues about translations.

Maybe we could just use 1. 2. etc - any feedback from translators? Would that be easy enough to understand in other languages (i.e. using 1. etc as rank, and 1/3 for current lap)?

Cheers,
Joerg

[DanRabbit]

Hey Joerg,

I definitely think the text is less of a resolution issue and more of a color contrast issue: http://imgur.com/pJ0SVPo
To me that doesn't count as legible.

While we're talking about this screen, throughout the UI there's this thing where you have to hover over some icon in order to see the description. That really should be replaced with simple text buttons. There's a lot of mouse movement required to navigate this UI and things aren't obvious. It feels like the design is trying to be clever instead of easy.

Also (back to the kart number), that selection should probably appear at the bottom since it doesn't apply depending on the mode you select. Silly to have someone make a choice about something and then say "just kidding". That label should probably be "Number of karts" as well so that the number can reflect what's in game.

That's part of the fun and mystery is not knowing all the tracks and characters. It generates intrigue and suspense. Want to know what's behind door number 2? Have to play the story mode.

I also noticed that the characters are sorted in alphabetical order, which again puts locked characters in the middle instead of at the end of the selection.

Windows 2000? Surely you gotta cut 'em off at some point. At least have good defaults. This sound like setting the defaults based on the edge case.

The logo is pretty identical to the fonts used in MK. But, I figured that was a little more canonical than the heading fonts (which are not as nice as the logo and look like they were made in much less time). I color picked slightly less extreme parts of logo and made a slightly thinner stroke because I didn't want it to be way overboard for something that you're going to see throughout a race. But I could always make a fatter stroke and a crazier gradient.

For the translations, I saw the thread. I'd be willing to redo the required letters for suffixes in a simpler font (I think Raleway Ultra Bold would work here), but this blocky cartoony font style would be way too much work.

[GunChleoc]

I think for the numbers it would be best to use a font that has a good range of glyphs. As long as we stay within Latin languages, things are fairly easy, but as soon as we have somebldy translating to languages that use non-Latin scripts for their numbers, we will need new symbols. Have a look at the "Minimal Pairs" here to get an idea of the glyphs needed:

http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/late ... rules.html

I agree locked karts/tracks should be at least sorted to the bottom, that's a good idea.

[MCMic]

But I can also already see who's coming up behind me on the mini-map so we have duplicate information here.

I don't think the mini map is detailed enough to show this kind of information (at least not in a crowded situation). What do others think of the icon list? Too distracting? At this stage it's the only place that shows which karts are affected by powerups.

I like very much the icon list as it is, please keep it.

Sorting locked things at the end in kart and track selection sounds like a good idea.

[WillemS]

Sorting locked things at the end in kart and track selection sounds like a good idea.

I think it would be weird to change the sorting when a kart / track is unlocked, because then on every unlocked track, the position of all tracks is different.
Perhaps they can be sorted in order of unlocking?

[GunChleoc]

Perhaps they can be sorted in order of unlocking?

That would depend on the possible routes one could take in the overworld - maybe there is more than one possible order of unlocking.

We also need to fit in downloaded add-on tracks.

[Totoplus62]

There's no sound affect with nitro, which I'm not sure why is separate from your other items.

I've already created a thread but it currently doesn't seem to interest lot's of people.

What do others think of the icon list? Too distracting?

I would like something like this with the character icon list: not more than four icons --> http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51R3SJG6ZHL.jpg
There are too much informations with the current list (in fact: too much characters in the list)

It should be clear what 1/3 is and what 12th means in the context of kart racing.

I 200% agree, translation for ranking is useless, i've proposed this solution ->

I've also answered on this thread -> viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4040

[hiker]

Hi,

sorry for the delay in answering, I haven't had much time for stk in the last few days

Hey Joerg,

I definitely think the text is less of a resolution issue and more of a color contrast issue: http://imgur.com/pJ0SVPo
To me that doesn't count as legible.

Well, we can look at different options - use a white-ish background (like we have in the option menu), or get a border around the letters?

While we're talking about this screen, throughout the UI there's this thing where you have to hover over some icon in order to see the description. That really should be replaced with simple text buttons. There's a lot of mouse movement required to navigate this UI and things aren't obvious. It feels like the design is trying to be clever instead of easy.

Hmm - we have some tool tips implemented, but they should not strictly b e required.

Also (back to the kart number), that selection should probably appear at the bottom since it doesn't apply depending on the mode you select. Silly to have someone make a choice about something and then say "just kidding". That label should probably be "Number of karts" as well so that the number can reflect what's in game.

Good point.

That's part of the fun and mystery is not knowing all the tracks and characters. It generates intrigue and suspense. Want to know what's behind door number 2? Have to play the story mode.

Hmm - I would have to go back through history to see what we did and why. Maybe we showed only unlocked tracks originally, then the list would indeed look too empty

What do others think - better to display track/kart image with a lock symbol, or just a big '?' instead?

I also noticed that the characters are sorted in alphabetical order, which again puts locked characters in the middle instead of at the end of the selection.

Yes, we'll look how to resort character and karts.

Windows 2000? Surely you gotta cut 'em off at some point. At least have good defaults. This sound like setting the defaults based on the edge case.

It is really difficult to find good defaults. E.g. #karts might be restricted by GPU (esp. if using some of the high-res addon karts), or CPU, ... My laptop will be struggling driving with 12 karts tbh. But yes, it might be time to increase the number of karts somewhat, but tbh: most people figured that out by themselves

The logo is pretty identical to the fonts used in MK. But, I figured that was a little more canonical than the heading fonts (which are not as nice as the logo and look like they were made in much less time). I color picked slightly less extreme parts of logo and made a slightly thinner stroke because I didn't want it to be way overboard for something that you're going to see throughout a race. But I could always make a fatter stroke and a crazier gradient.

There seems to be agreement to use a larger font for the number, and then drop the additional text. We just need a good font. Your font is just too close to MK tbh. Perhaps we can extend our current title font to include numbers?

Another minor thing (if we remove the text): how do we distinguish between #laps and position? We can't just use 3/4 and 3/4 So it's probably going to be 1. for position (not 1st to avoid translation issues), and 3/4 for #laps.

Cheers,
Joerg

[hiker]

Sorting locked things at the end in kart and track selection sounds like a good idea.

I think it would be weird to change the sorting when a kart / track is unlocked, because then on every unlocked track, the position of all tracks is different.
Perhaps they can be sorted in order of unlocking?

My idea would be to sort them in two group of rows: rows at top: all unlocked ones, then (starting on a new row) the locked ones. Though we have to see how our current widgets support this kind of layout

Cheers,
Joerg

[hiker]

Also (back to the kart number), that selection should probably appear at the bottom since it doesn't apply depending on the mode you select. Silly to have someone make a choice about something and then say "just kidding". That label should probably be "Number of karts" as well so that the number can reflect what's in game.

Good point.

Actually, I have to contradict myself: clicking on the game mode ends the screen, so if we would move the #karts to the bottom, we would then need a separate 'ok' button or so. A better option might be to move the #kart selection to the last screen (which is actually a dialog, but I want to change this anyway), where you select #laps. This would have the advantage that by then you know which track you want to race, so that you can adjust the number of karts depending on track (if you want to).

Cheers,
Joerg

[hiker]

Sorting locked things at the end in kart and track selection sounds like a good idea.

I think it would be weird to change the sorting when a kart / track is unlocked, because then on every unlocked track, the position of all tracks is different.
Perhaps they can be sorted in order of unlocking?

My idea would be to sort them in two group of rows: rows at top: all unlocked ones, then (starting on a new row) the locked ones. Though we have to see how our current widgets support this kind of layout

For people not following out master: karts and tracks are now sorted by locked/unlocked stratus, and within each of those alphabetically (translators will actually be able to specify the sort name for tracks).

Cheers,
Joerg

[Yannick Richol]

Hello to the administrator of this page, I'm not English but I like your game especially Supertuxkart version 0.8.1. I wanted to say that I need help deny that is to say I have slightly modified version 0.8.1, the problem is that I need to change the interface in this version as in previous (0.6.1 and 0.6.2), can you give me a tutorial or example please it's urgent because I really like your game. thank you.
That way, for example, help me
https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=547DAC1B