HUD design examples?

[fromhell]

Given that OA3 is going to have a new hud what would be ideal for the players here?


Like, how would it scale with widescreen? Would it make use of the widescreen extremities? Or should it be still stuck in the center?  What about multimonitor users that chain up 2 or 3 monitors for a very wide view?

How would the background elements behind the numbers be blended?  A background is neccessary to read in things like bright lighting conditions which there will be plenty of.

Are graphical elements like metal border textures around elements necessary? I mean all those fancy high fantasy hotbar games have them.  It would make a nice aesthetic when done right, though I don't want to obscure the view a lot.  TA's hud sucked for that reason.

I also want the hud to be fully discernable in 640x480

(unfortunately due to some hardcoding, the weaponbar and notification text area can't be scripted right now.  If they could I would stick the chat stuff in the bottom left corner raised above what number would be there. this would also allow room for game status stuck at the very top of the screen)



cg_HUDFiles is a cvar that exists that would switch this HUD to something else specified and isn't pure protected FYI.  I'm not even sure if these Qlive hud layout files are or will be compatible.

[Gig]

Uhm... to make the text readable also with a light background, is it possible to just add a dark outline around the characters? That may allow to do not need a background for the HUD at all.
In case we weed a background for the HUD, I can guess just a semi-transparent gray-ish (red-ish/blue-ish in team-based modes?) "big line" at the bottom of the screen may fit (maybe with a cvar to customize its transparency level?)...
Instead, a darker backround just around individual text fileds, like in your screenshot, does not seem to look too good, IMHO. However, maybe some "metallic border" artwork around fields, or to the whole hud as you suggested, may make it look much better...

I hope you may find some way to edit TA UI to customize parts of the hud like the weapon bar, too... because it's a shame to remove useful already-existing features like the various kinds of weapon bar OA 0.8.x has got... and because the weapon bar may have got further enhancements (like making it possible to show the name of the item you just picked up also with cg_alwaysweaponbar enabled, or writing somewhere the name of the weapon you are selecting like the original Q3 did -I don't know the reason why this has been removed in OA, maybe some extra space in the hud was required for something else?-).

[andrewj]

Uhm... to make the text readable also with a light background, is it possible to just add a dark outline around the characters? That may allow to do not need a background for the HUD at all.

For the big numbers (health and ammo), that would probably work well.

For smaller stuff, I'm not sure.

I think some HUD elements should gravitate to the edges in widescreen mode, it looks awkward to have big gaps at the edges of the screen, plus players will generally want the center of the screen (where they are looking most of the time) to be as open as possible.  E.g. holdable items.

For backgrounds, I personally prefer a simple blended black (50%, but value could potentially be a cvar).  Dunno about bordering, sometimes they take over and distract too much from the actual content.

Chat at bottom would be better (imo).

[Gig]

Chat at bottom would be better (imo).

Maybe a (stupid? Just a brainstorming...) idea could be an option to show chat messages in a different place than all the rest of console messages, for better distinguish them (of course, when pulling down the console, everything would be shown as usual there)...

[sago007]

I think ammo count, health and armor needs to stay centered or be written with large numbers. They are the numbers I want to know all the time. I have tried mods that moved them around and it seriously effected my ability to take the right decision.

I imagine chat on the left, combat information centered and game gametype related information, score and items on the right.

I do think the current layout is fine. It is rare that the numbers in the bottom of the screen covers anything useful anyway.

[Marterzon]

You could make the hud looked a little tilted away, or if you don't really know what I meant: Well.. you get the idea...
Also we could have the weapon bar look like QuakeLive's, but a little bit different in terms of contrast, icon and colour. I do know we had the option to change it to like QuakeLive's, but make it a little not like QuakeLive and not like the current blue one.
Chat should be coming from the bottom left as it would be more familiar to new players, but we should have the option to change back to original. 
That's all for now.

[Gig]

Uhm... I'm not sure I would like a "tilted" HUD. Yes, it may be cool... but isn't there the risk infos would be less readable?

[Marterzon]

Uhm... I'm not sure I would like a "tilted" HUD. Yes, it may be cool... but isn't there the risk infos would be less readable?

Hmm, don't know, but we should also have the option to go back to the more original: classic/non-tilted HUD. This way, people can choose what HUD they want to use.

[Reticent]

This is what I use for CPMA. Of course, this is very specific to me as the numbers at the bottom are ambiguous as to what they indicate (it's health on the left, armor on the right). I read left to right and I consider health to be most important so I put that first. The armor type indicator is in the middle mostly for aesthetics, as I would rather know how much armor I have at all rather than what type it is. While it doesn't bother me personally, it's probably not a good idea to have HUD elements obfuscate the weapon view model.