HUD Magic Ambiguity Solved! (image-heavy)

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TacticalTrickery
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HUD Magic Ambiguity Solved! (image-heavy)

Post by TacticalTrickery »

Completely unstacks the congested and pointless spell-icon associations used by your enemies, all trapped objects, and all found-on-the-ground magic items (whether you've found 'em already, or not!) Re-associates every one of these to a reasonable classic graphic, with strong themes of both color and shape. This enables Icon Override for all categories listed above.

Also affects default icons shown for spells in guilds, at time of purchase.

:arrow: :arrow: DOWNLOAD NEWEST Release - See README at Nexus for installation and impact to savegames.

Realtime Slider-Graphic Comparison (loads slowly)
Last edited by TacticalTrickery on Tue Sep 06, 2022 6:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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#2 -- HUD Magic Ambiguity Solved! (image-heavy)

Post by TacticalTrickery »

Sept2022:
> Everything updated to reflect v1.0 Icon Arrangement release
> Image hosting moved offsite to unload forum
> All posts edited for clarity and digestibility

==\/== Edited MainPost =\/==/\= PostChangeLog ==/\==

:) Hello, new here, but DF veteran from the ancient days. Monitored DFU development since ~2016, maybe earlier (best guess). Unfortunately until now, due to serious real-life, I've never been able to participate in this project; only observe. Over the years, I've noticed the way in which many of you have come together to form genuine community... with difficult hurdles overcome, real art created, and success won thru incessantly hard work. All are to be commended. I have benefited; time to give back.


The Goals (rank-ordered)
  1. :evil: Unstack all of the overused icon Atlas-slots (spells sharing icons!)
  2. :idea: Create new intuitive effect-symbology-relationship, easily learned by the player's subconscious
  3. :roll: Fully respect the atmosphere of the original game (duh)
  4. :twisted: Avoid re-stacking unrelated spells on new selections
  5. :mrgreen: Create an arrangement for RedHP, and a lightly modified one for GreenHP
  6. :cry: Still account for any malformed or broken cr-spells; w/ the full intent that they will be repaired eventually by the community

Key Terms
  • Atlas --> which this does NOT change: The ordered arrangement of magic icons in a single graphics file (defaults to ICON00I0.IMG in both DFU & DFC)
  • Circinate (cr-): Standard guild-spells that are always the same. Each one is capitalized; proper noun.
  • DFC: Daggerfall classic (the original DOS game)
  • Icon Override: Modifying the order of the icons in the Atlas, or replacing them; NOT what this does.
  • Retroactive: A change that takes place later in time, but affects things from the past, as-if that change had been made in the past.
  • SPELLS.STD: The DFC file that controls which cr-spell is assigned to each icon-slot in the Atlas, for all magic cast, by anything!

DF's entire set of m-icons represented (the Atlas):
Image
These symbols have poorly assigned defaults for spells cast by the enemy, for traps, and for all found-on-the-ground magic items that cast cr-spells. Also poor defaults for spells bought from a guild, for potions, and customizable (only) for your cast spells in your own spellbook.

For newbies --> They would appear on the HUD when:
  • You cast a positive spell on yourself
  • ...or use a magic item to do the same.
  • When a debuff is cast upon you by another character
  • ...or by a trap.
  • One of them appears for each currently active potion.
  • Another use is to see which spell you have just been directly damaged by
  • ...or that you recently resisted:!:
You can see there are a lot of different uses for these icons on the HUD; it gets freakin' busy (& really ambiguous)

If the default assignment of these icons (to magic) does not follow a solid pattern & consistent theme, the player will be left at best confused and at worst really annoyed!! :x

Unfortunately, the lack of consistency :roll: in the original game's assignment of all these things issss CRAZY


DF's forced defaults (enemy-spells, traps, found magic-items):
Image
Orange differentiates Attribute Boosting spells from the rest. You can see that the yellow block icon is massively overloaded, while the orange block is bad enough on its own, even the light blue one to the right of that is filled w/ four completely unrelated effects! There is virtually no theming whatsoever, and most of the icons are freaking left UNUSED! :evil: Just, wow...

We can definitely do better than that... :twisted:

:?: Did you know, the icon-to-spell associations shown for each cr-spell for sale, from someone like a Mages Guild Academic (spell-seller dude), are also the icon associations used by all enemy spellbooks, by all traps, and all found-on-the-ground magic items? ...if you've played for a while, you may have noticed that.

:idea: Did you also know, that if you change the default icon-associations (the associations, NOT the icons), one at a time, for each of the spells shown by the seller-dudes like that Mages Academic, then you've now retroactively:!: changed them in all enemy spellbooks, for all traps, and all found-on-the-ground magic items (whether you own 'em already, or not! :P ) ...literally, everywhere?!

...and that's entirely controlled by the core gamefile, SPELLS.STD... Let's see what we can do with that knowledge.


Let's go back to the 1st image & break into visual groupings:
Image
We can start to see where they intended to go with these, as-if they designed many of them for a specific purpose.

Years ago, I thought about these visual groupings and came up with themed categories. Back then, using a hexeditor as a teenager, I created entirely new default icon-to-spell assignments in SPELLS.STD for every cr-spell, traps, and all found-on-the-ground magic items. I played multiple DFC characters this way in the old days. Wanting to share it with the community in advance of DFU's v1.0 release, I decided that I can optimize things further and started this project.

Thinking about the visual groupings again for a few weeks while recovering from illness, I came up with categories that are a notch better than my original ones from the old days...

The NEW rough-categories:
Image
Daggerfall is a game best played w/ a strong sense of immagination. Best to apply that to everything that follows... Category Explanation (spoiler):
Spoiler!
These categories are NOT strict; operating that way is a poor design-choice, given the limited base-icons to work with (I tried "super strict" multiple times... it doesn't work). Though, I do attempt to maintain the category whenever easily possible.

Hexes: Magic directly preventing doing stuff. So, in the base game, that would exclusively be forms of paralysis & being silenced.

AroundCaster: Viewed from above the caster for some things, and dead-on from the side for others. A good one for imagination.

Stealth&Recovery: I picture it like "Ninja smoke" thrown on the ground :twisted: (lol, think Batman). I also picture it as a tiny vial hidden in the hand, held near the chin and crushed or popped open suddenly... like a perfume or medical vapor that you want to breath in deeply.

For Area@Range, I picture the icon as being what the spell looks like after it reaches the target; not what it looks like mid-flight.

Due to inherent limitation of the base-icon-set, there can never be a perfect solution :( :cry: ...that's life. On occasion, I took the liberty to assign an icon that simply "really fit" in its feel, regardless of category; with respect to quite a bit of game experience. If it adds to the atmosphere of the game and is out of category, but only done seldomly, then that's a net positive; not a net loss.

With color-choice, I aimed for a multi-dimensional synergistic array of themes :shock: :mrgreen: -- Challenge: How many themes can you spot on your own below? There's color-association to the health-bars whenever able... -- :idea: :arrow: Remember, when looking this over with an eye towards design, when using pro-HUD-settings, your own spells appear on the HUD at the top, but Debuffs and inbound damage appear near the health bars. That's crucial.

The NEW DEFAULTS (enemy-spells, traps, found magic-items, guilds):
Image
Image
This is an ACTUAL REASSIGNMENT of spells to new generic Atlas positions; regardless of icon-replacement package used. It affects everything downstream.

:arrow: Vertical word-order per icon is unimportant. Spell labels in ALL CAPS refer to the entire category of that spell type.
:arrow: You can play w/ whatever red/greenHP color-version you want, whenever; it's only about theming, and only w/ 4 different spell slots... like matching VampTouch and Sleep to the HUD-bar's color... it doesn't matter otherwise.


For now, I'm not well (Jan. of '22), so I'm about to go back to mostly resting.

:idea: Before being critical, I ask that you load the mod and look at the changes in-game. Go to a fav guild, with the music playing, and don't think about it too hard... just, see how it feels. Slow-scroll thru the list of spells for sale, as you look at their names next to the associated "how they work" icons, all on screen at once. Play the game with this for a while to learn how you really feel.

I expect this project to make life easier in the direct development of DFU, especially when making system-comparisons to DFC in DOSbox. More so, I would like everyone to have some frickin' joy in knowing their buffs & debuffs!! ...consider this fine polish, to a system that needed a grinding wheel.

TT
Last edited by TacticalTrickery on Tue Sep 06, 2022 6:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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#3 -- HUD Magic Ambiguity Solved! (image-heavy)

Post by TacticalTrickery »

A few non-obvious color-theme examples: Light-green for nature, and for returning to nature (disintegration). Poisons come from nature, and Endurance is the attribute that is the natural resistance to poison; how convenient that it is also green... Yellow for movement, or lack there-of (your own movement, or that of something else). Purple for the undead, because it's mysterious and kind of different. And Purple for advanced magic when it doesn't require being tightly themed w/ another color (think: reflecting a spell, vs just resisting it; or invis vs its lesser cousins). The ability to practically cast very expensive advanced spells comes from high Willpower; what color should that be then? Light blue is agile, open like a clear sky, like a bird able to freely go in any direction; hence levitate and slowfall. Red signifies power, and strength is truly powerful. Physical strength comes from blood; w/o blood there can be no strength. Dark blue for water, and spell points; the ability to cast magic, shield from magic, or stop the casting of it... more basic and direct spells than purple. Lastly, white/grey when something can apply to an array of diverse things, colorless, like vastly differing creatures, or luck.

If red is strong, and blue is magic; red+blue = strong magic. 8-) ...think about it.


:!: The SPOILER that follows is a freakin' wall of text :roll: about technical communication, original goals, direction (going forward), requests for assistance, the original release-file, and other works-in-progress. (EDIT-Sept2022: As they generally were in Jan2022)
Spoiler!

A communication-aid for the future:
Image
A whole bunch of people referencing different icons, spells, and effects in conversation... can become very ambiguous, very fast.

Please reference symbols from the Standard Icons as follows: sN :arrow: Where N is the number from the chart, and s (always lowercase) refers to (s)tandard icon.

Example: s60 (refers to the full moon)
...or s26 (the blue swirly whirlpool, going down the drain)

This should make conversation clear. Also, if you're referencing a cr-spell, always capitalize it, so we can tell that you're talking about the circinate spell Paralysis, which causes paralysis. Or how Spell Shield and Spell Resistance function as a spell shield. In rare cases where it may still seem ambiguous, I'll use cr-Paralysis to clarify that I'm referring to circinate-Paralysis (the spell bought from Guilds).


Regarding potions:
I read thru a ton of hex in DFC files, and tried! :mad: :evil: :cry: I'm not addressing them at this time. Obviously they're referencing hex 00 in the atlas (because they always use the s0 icon), but there's 0x00 padding everywhere in DFC files, so it's very hard to reverse-engineer... contact me if you know the hex location(s)! --> I'm extremely suspicious that it's a 0x00 reference in SPELLS.STD, per spell, but surrounded by 0x00 padding. If the correct hex byte is changed from 0x00 to 0x01, and then you drink a potion of that spell, money says the icon is now s1, not s0. :mrgreen:

Currently, for me personally, potions are now priority-none. I strongly encourage someone else to take up that task, and I will assist where possible. There are too many other things I want to build upon instead, and I wont have time for 90% of those things, as-is. A single icon override of s0 to a good looking all-encompassing magical bottle, and we're in decent shape for now.


How DF references Atlas icon-location:
Image
References in SPELLS.STD are made to Atlas positions in hexadecimal, NOT decimal! That's key.


From the original Jan2022 goals:
All of this is about creating a unified standard of spell-position, for use with ANY 69-count icon Atlas.

The aim here is to make something that we're mostly relatively happy with, for packaging w/ DFU as default asset injection, in advance of DFU's v1.0 release. This will improve the game experience significantly for pros and new players alike, all by itself. Furthermore, once we have a standard, everyone who makes icon override packages will have a consistent foundation of Atlas-spell-position to build upon. The sooner we benefit from this new standard, the sooner we can begin to make truly professional m-icon HUD overrides w/ all of the beautiful icon packages that have already been released. Doing so will take substantial effort, to do it truly right, with a high degree of polish. It would be wise to begin laying the foundation sooner, rather than later.

:!: We don't want a ton of uncurated entirely different Atlas-position-assignments floating around as mods; that will create chaos, and be logistically inefficient for everyone.

Due to work in multiple industries, I will often disappear here for long lengths of time. It will be rare that I can invest large chunks of effort into carrying the flag further down the field so, when I can, I will be eager to carry it far.


What I would like from the community: (original from Jan2022)

CORE DEVS
  • Please confirm for me whether SPELLS.STD can currently be overridden, thru the asset injector.
  • What do you think about having a SPELLS.STD.R & SPELLS.STD.G, then having the asset injection auto-switch based on the Launcher's current Swap Health&Fatigue setting? (EDIT-Sept2022: will attempt entirely w/ SpellRecords.json)
DF-VETS, ARTISTS, AND OTHERS
  • Can someone please confirm, in DFC: All potions were always, no matter what, s0 on the HUD?
  • Like I have done, would anyone be interested in leading the area of potion HUD icons, if it was made clear how to make the new associations?
  • As I did for the "Dec#" files in the Zip attached here, to help get the ball rolling for the future, can one or more people please do the same for:
  • ...Alyndiar's VMB Recolors -- https://i.imgur.com/6mZNnN6.jpg
  • ...Kokey's Handpainted Icons -- download/file.php?id=6279
  • ...The BG3 icons in this DFU mod -- https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/241
  • ......and then post those #'d graphics here? I'll integrate that into everything else as an aid.
  • There's an absolute boatload of icons in the OpenGameArt package (incorporated in DREAM), spread across multiple files, so let's deal w/ that a lil' later (unless someone really wants to!) -- https://opengameart.org/content/painter ... ons-part-1
  • For QA - Two different people (non-core-devs, core-devs are busy): Please load the change, step thru the spells for sale in a high-variety guild, and please confirm that every cr spell marked in my new arrangement-graphic (RedHP) matches what is for sale. (2 ppl is enough) (EDIT-Sept2022: did my own QA)
Please refer to icons in Alyndiar's VMBlast-recolors as avN (such as av14), Kokey's as kN, and the BG3's as bgN.


Related things, currently in-progress:
  • A simple ICON00I0.IMG override in the works that eliminates the duplicates, and takes better advantage of a few less-than-stellar now-unused slots. (sticks w/ the pixel-art graphics) (EDIT-Sept2022: Abandoned)
  • I would like to collab w/ every1 on this board who has AI image-upscaling experience to fully remaster (and manually redraw) the ICON00I0.IMG icons, in a hybrid way, between smoothness and intentional pixelation.
  • Long term: Prepare for the organization of a fully curated HUD magic-icon mega-project, between all previous contributors in this area, released in a variety of styles. I would like to help lead the logistics organization of that, where I can, with a few other people who would lead in their own ways; since my available time for all this is likely to quickly expire. (EDIT-Sept2022: No longer interested)

OLD-ORIGINAL ~ Jan. 2022 Release (not recommended - historical):
Graphics & SPELLS.STD (v0.90).zip
(1.78 MiB) Downloaded 98 times
Last edited by TacticalTrickery on Tue Sep 06, 2022 6:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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#4 -- Mastery of Magic Icons in both DFU & DFC

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#5 -- Mastery of Magic Icons in both DFU & DFC

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Tuntain
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Re: [WIP] HUD Magic Ambiguity -- Solved!

Post by Tuntain »

TacticalTrickery - Thanks for all this info! It pointed me in the right direction for the 'Icon Overhaul' mod I'm working on.

I've gone in a different direction than you were thinking - Completely replacing the 'mystery meat' classic icons with more visual and easily recognisable icons. I bought a license to use an existing icon pack in the game then filtered them to remove detail and make them fit into the retro Daggerfall aesthetic.

I've found ways to skip modifying the original game files and instead do everything in a single dfmod file so it's clean and easy to install. Managed to fix the MageLight icon issues as well.

It's fully working, testing in game right now to see how the icons feel on screen so might be some changes. I'm enjoying knowing my characters buffs/debuffs at a glance!

Should upload to Nexus in a couple of weeks.

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Re: [WIP] HUD Magic Ambiguity -- Solved!

Post by Alderwood »

I like the logical grouping of spells. Not so much for casting but for understanding what I've been hit with :)

It would be nice if there was an option to show the name of the spell next to the icon like in the image with the PC hit with Toxic Cloud, though it might be complicated when there's more than one effect.

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Re: [WIP] HUD Magic Ambiguity -- Solved!

Post by billyloist »

Alderwood wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 12:08 am I like the logical grouping of spells. Not so much for casting but for understanding what I've been hit with :)

It would be nice if there was an option to show the name of the spell next to the icon like in the image with the PC hit with Toxic Cloud, though it might be complicated when there's more than one effect.
You can sort of do that already if you press Enter (default bind) and hover your cursor over the icon.

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Re: HUD Magic Ambiguity Solved! (image-heavy)

Post by TacticalTrickery »

Tuntain wrote: Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:13 pm TacticalTrickery - Thanks for all this info! It pointed me in the right direction for the 'Icon Overhaul' mod I'm working on.
You're welcome. I'm glad it helped someone! This is a unique art-style; I think you did a great job putting a 1st-version together. I'd be interested to see the whole icon-pack you paid for, and am down w/ recoloring some of these w/ you, if your license allows it & you're interested. I also couldn't help but appreciate the way you created a layout-legend in a similar vein to my things... smooth 8-)
Tuntain wrote: I've gone in a different direction than you were thinking - Completely replacing the 'mystery meat' classic icons with more visual and easily recognisable icons...
Actually, this is exactly what I started this project for... I was hoping quite a few ppl would do precisely this, but w/o needing mod-creation experience. The whole idea was for artist-types, who are shy of coding, to be able to just build a graphic and go. I always wanted to get away from the mystery meat nature of the built-ins, as a solid alternative option (for everyone, and for myself).
I've found ways to skip modifying the original game files and instead do everything in a single dfmod file so it's clean and easy to install. Managed to fix the MageLight icon issues as well.
I'm extremely interested in this... I sent you a PM a while back asking if you could share the way you did all of that, so I could duplicate the process w/o modifying DFC built-in files. Let me know if you're still around! :)
It's fully working, testing in game right now to see how the icons feel on screen so might be some changes...

Should upload to Nexus in a couple of weeks.
Totally down w/ working together and helping you test this, if you'd like. I searched Nexus for username-derivatives of yours, but couldn't find you... Is the mod published there??
I'm enjoying knowing my characters buffs/debuffs at a glance!
I know, right... :P nooo freaking joke...

====================================================
Alderwood wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 12:08 am I like the logical grouping of spells. Not so much for casting but for understanding what I've been hit with :)
Thank you 8-) first thing I wanted this for, personally.
Alderwood wrote: It would be nice if there was an option to show the name of the spell next to the icon like in the image with the PC hit with Toxic Cloud...
You know, you gave me a really good idea... While billyloist is right that the tooltips are a few quick moves away, it's pretty annoying to be checking that way if you're doing it routinely, and would be optimal (by far) for it to be entirely seamless, and 100% intuitive. A new user isn't likely going to know about the tooltip availability for spell icons (whether they're a DFC-pro, or rookie; either way).

One of the things I just finished is creation of an "EasyMode" layout, kinda geared to new DF players, but for others as well.

I wonder, as a compliment to all this... if I can get some legible shorthand text -- high contrast -- literally right on the icon itself? Would allow ppl time to get used to new arrangements, with words attached to each icon on-HUD, and would obviously be a godsend for noobs! Required only on a small fraction of the total spells, too; hostile ones you're targeted by being the only priority for text, I think.

Wanna help me test this Alderwood / billyloist :?:
Last edited by TacticalTrickery on Tue Sep 06, 2022 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ENEMY SPELLBOOK @Nexus: Yellow-square spam, be gone!!
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Re: HUD Magic Ambiguity Solved! (image-heavy)

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