User interface overhaul and discussion

User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby amuzen » 19 Mar 2012, 23:18

tl;dr:
  • Major user interface rewrite
  • Unified layout system
  • Mouse controls work like before
  • Added support for keyboard controls
  • You can use the UI while controlling the player character at the same time
  • Still needs a better theme (help wanted)
  • Uses less memory and renders faster
  • Easier to extend and maintain
  • Removed separate equipment slots from the inventory
  • Perk-based character customization instead of clumsy sliders
  • Testing, feedback and ideas welcome
  • Check out the screenshots

I have overhauled the user interface of the game. The new interface uses completely new user interface scripts that radically change both the controls and layout of the user interface. Controlling the interface is possible with either mouse or keyboard. Mouse controls work like in the old system, interrupting player character controls until the user interface is closed. On the contrary, the new keyboard controls allow you to use the user interface while controlling the player character at the same time.

The user interface is still a bit incomplete, but I decided to push the changes regardless since I already did over 100 rewrite steps in my local repository. Out of the missing features, the most notable one is the lack of a better theme. The theme currently uses graphics from the old user interface as a placeholder, but it is far from pretty or usable. The theme being replaced with something that fits the new layout and the more cartoonish looks of the 3D graphics would be great, but I will be kept busy fixing issues other issues for a while. If someone wants to help with designing the UI graphics, it would be great.

Despite being incomplete, the user interface already shows great promise. It has better performance than the old system since it uses a simpler layout and does not need to keep all widgets in memory. The old system kept hundreds of widgets in the memory all the time, but the new one only keeps those contained by the current state. The new system also renders faster than the old one; there is no significant cost in any state, whereas the old system could cost nearly 20 FPS when lots of widgets were visible. The new system is also much easier to mod and maintain since it provides better separation between the the user interface, data and logic.

In addition to the user interface system being modified, the game now also has heavily modified inventory and skill systems. The inventory differs from the old one in that there are no separate equipment slots, but equipped items stay in the main inventory and just get tagged (like in Oblivion and friends.) This approach offers two improvements to usability: the inventory can be managed with the keyboard and the order does not get messed up when you swap equipment. For similar usability reasons, also the skill system was changed. The old system used sliders for allowing customization of character stats, but it was slow to use and the effects of the sliders were hard to grasp. Because of that, the new system uses a perk-based approach in which you can toggle perks such as health, magic and movement speed bonuses.

Despite all the work done so far, there are still several usability issues and missing features, not to mention the theme needing a redesign. Testing, feedback, ideas and contributions would be helpful since it is not easy to do all of those alone.
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Re: User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby Imerion » 21 Mar 2012, 16:10

Hi!

I've been following this project for a while and I really like it. A co-op RPG with anime-style characters, advanced graphics and lots of other interesting features sounds fantastic!
I'd like to help with testing and feedback. Problem is, I don't think I have the time or skill to compile it myself. How about setting up a dev-PPA for testing? Or if that takes to much time, I could just wait for the next stable release and test it then.
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Re: User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby amuzen » 23 Mar 2012, 18:12

Maintaining a development PPA would be too much effort for me to handle currently. Besides, the existing PPA was already supposed to be updated frequently since we were supposed to release frequently. However, releases have been stalled for quite a while due to issues caused by the rewrites and not having enough manpower to fix them quickly. That effectively makes the Git repository the only useful way to the test the game for the time being.

Even if you don't have time to test the Git version, there will be a new release eventually. Until then, it should still be possible to comment on the screenshots and discuss the user interface design or other things in a more general level. That kind of feedback doesn't necessarily require playing an up to date version, and discussion pertaining to broader design issues tends to benefit us more than very specific issue reports (unless they are fatal bugs) because we are not a mature project yet.

By the way, I have made some changes to the UI already. The name of the current UI state is now displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. I also reimplemented the quest list for the new UI and fixed a couple of nasty bugs reported in IRC.
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Re: User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby Imerion » 24 Mar 2012, 14:32

That is true, Ill take a thourough look at the screenshots and see if I get any ideas. It will be a day or two first though, since Im currently writing from a mobile device which cant display the screens very well.

Will have some feedback eventually at least!
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Re: User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby gruntunbur » 27 Mar 2012, 14:28

awesome work so far
the switch to ogre3d made it work way better and less glitchy
and I think the new UI is a great improvement!
here are some nitpicks:
1) hiding the mouse by pressing esc when not yet ingame also disables the mouse outside of the window.
not a big one but odd when windowed
2) focus not set on menu item when hovering on the buttons:
Image
3) pressing escape ingame to show the menu sets the mouse to topleft position
I think in the middle of the screen is more logical
4) there is always a button or menu item focused. even when your mouse is not hovering on top of a button or menu item
Image
5) focus stays on back button if you move your mouse fast enough or just at the right position/moment or something
the image should give a better explanation:
Image
6) dragging the scrollbar only works inside the small space of the scrollbar. this scrollbar:
Image
7) same goes when using scrollwheel to slide the scrollbar.
using the scrollwheel works but it moves the stuff by tiny fractions. which is quite useless

I think the button focus related stuff is important. for it gives the wrong feedback when using the mouse. confusing me where the focus is
everything works quite perfect using just the keys. where it makes sense that there is always a button or menu item focused for example
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Re: User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby Imerion » 27 Mar 2012, 18:18

Had a better look at the screenshots, and it looks good so far. Probably need to try it to find some real feedback.
One small thing though: when talking to other characters, does the GUI use this small menu on the top left as well? One of the screenshots seem to suggest this. Perhaps you should have a separate, bigger dialogue-window positioned in the lower center of the screen with a bigger font for dialogue between characters? That would separate speaking from the rest of the menu system, as is often the case in this type of game, and will show dialogue in a clearer, more legible way. Perhaps this would also allow small boxed-in 3D-versions of the characters faces next to their speech, which might look cool.
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Re: User interface overhaul and discussion

Postby amuzen » 28 Mar 2012, 13:03

gruntunbur: Thank you for the detailed feedback. I just finished fixing 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7. 3 cannot really be fixed since OIS does not support manually setting the position of the cursor. 4 could potentially be solved with theming choices so it will be fixed when the placeholder theme is replaced.

Imerion: Yep, the same menu is used for talking to NPCs. The font should definitely be bigger, but placement and other things can be done in several different ways. It is primarily a theming issue so it needs to be solved when the new theme is designed.
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