Banshee's UI Ideas for Modern Resolutions (WIP)

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
User avatar
pango
Posts: 3344
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:14 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Banshee's UI WIP

Post by pango »

BansheeXYZ wrote: Wed May 01, 2019 1:48 pm
Well it depends on the use case, if you're looking for say heavy objects, or things you could sell, then multiplying categories actually get in the way.
It depends. It's slightly slower for weapons/armor, but avoiding the "misc" hodgepodge makes selling those items faster. Classic combined provisions (torches, bandages, potions), clothing, jewelry, books, letters, parchment, maps, recipes, and relics in one category. That's a lot of stuff, especially now that people have a reason to carry torches. And jewels went into ingredients even though they're not.
My point was, if you're looking for objects that match some criteria that doesn't align with categories, then you'll have to check several categories, or in the worse case all of them. For those, having more categories makes search effort larger instead of smaller, and the number of categories becomes a trade-off.

[They're alternatives, for example you could replace categories with more abstract "views" concept that combine adhoc filtering and sorting.
Say you notice players often get overloaded and look for heavy items to drop; You could add an "heavy objects" view and shows only objects over 1kg (or the 20 heavier objects you're currently carrying), sorted by deceasing weight, etc.
It'll probably display weapons and armor, but also maybe those 15kg statues, all in one go.
The drawback is that it's no longer a partition in the mathematical sense: each object does not show up exactly once, so it could confuse some players ("where does that second statue come from?")]
Mastodon: @pango@fosstodon.org
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
-- Charles Goodhart

BansheeXYZ
Posts: 555
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:19 pm

Re: Banshee's UI WIP

Post by BansheeXYZ »

pango wrote: Wed May 01, 2019 2:11 pmThey're alternatives, for example you could replace categories with more abstract "views" concept that combine adhoc filtering and sorting. Say you notice players often get overloaded and look for heavy items to drop; You could add an "heavy objects" view and shows only objects over 1kg (or the 20 heavier objects you're currently carrying), sorted by deceasing weight, etc.
It'll probably display weapons and armor, but also maybe those 15kg statues, all in one go.
There's not a lot of space to work with, and the weight of an object is visible when you pick it up. Moreover, the only really heavy items are statues, cuirasses, and gold. Few enough to remember. I personally like the category system that classic used, I just don't think there were enough of them. And I think magic items going in their own category was a result of that. It sucks right now to scroll through the misc section looking for a potion or something. Consumables and papers need their own section. And recipes need to act like maps and be recorded into a book, they take up way too many slots and they use the same graphic as letters, parchments and maps.

BansheeXYZ
Posts: 555
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:19 pm

Re: Banshee's UI WIP

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Reworking the shapes of things and adding some simple bevel shading.
inventory11simplegraybezel.png
inventory11simplegraybezel.png (410.34 KiB) Viewed 3307 times

BansheeXYZ
Posts: 555
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:19 pm

Re: Banshee's UI WIP

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Finally got a chance to work on this again. More mockups:

One thing I forgot to mention on first post: I've been stretching the character portrait vertically by 20%. Much of classic's art is drawn to compensate for stretching to 4:3 aspect. The portraits stand out the most and are noticeably squashed. Men go from looking 5ft tall to 6ft tall.

I've made the inventory slots square rather than rectangular. Costs a few slots, but this is aesthetically better and matches the square jewelry slots. The jewelry slots are also stacked differently now for better symmetry.

This layout also illustrates how resolution, space, and easily adjustable text is important as a gateway for certain mods. The inevitable "Reputations" mod is just a matter of adding a line here. So is a "Disease History" mod that shows what you've caught how many times and how much natural resistance you've built up from it. So is "Vitality" as a new attribute distinct from "Endurance". When it comes to adding totally new properties, the old UI is a brick wall.

The onHover item attributes window should illustrate the ease of adding more interesting loot and item properties. Besides avoiding the clickfest to see magic properties, it will hopefully lead to some balance mods where found loot has better and more enchantments than a certain guild's DIY loot maker. You can see two games that do this well here:
https://youtu.be/B618nbIjaIY?t=6
https://youtu.be/PrNTvYVW1ow?t=76
bnsinvent2h.png
bnsinvent2h.png (236.36 KiB) Viewed 3161 times
Here's my progress of the logbook: Instead of having Active vs Ended, I've divided sections between Main Quest and Side Quests. This is because of how annoying the main quest being at the top all the time is. Ever notice how classic can fit a grand total of 2 entries on screen at once? Notice how those two entries tend to be main quest related, and you're constantly scrolling past them to see guild quests? Yeah, screw that. And screw not using black either. With higher resolution, we can use fonts that actually look inky and written.

Another thing I've done is add line separators between quests. There are quests that have multiple journal entries, not just one. Grouping the entries like this is much less confusing.
bnslogbook6.gif
bnslogbook6.gif (193.42 KiB) Viewed 3161 times

BansheeXYZ
Posts: 555
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:19 pm

Re: Banshee's UI Ideas for Modern Resolutions (WIP)

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Even within the tiny confines of classic's 320x200, onhover windows are powerful additions. They can potentially help the logbook more than any other window. By categorizing quests by giver type and representing entries as plus signs that can be hovered over to read, we go from being able to see 3 entries per page to hundreds.
logbookc1.png
logbookc1.png (10.8 KiB) Viewed 2978 times

Narf the Mouse
Posts: 833
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 6:32 pm

Re: Banshee's UI Ideas for Modern Resolutions (WIP)

Post by Narf the Mouse »

I like the idea of a more modern UI, but would prefer a more classic texture. :)

Overall, I'll be looking forward to this coming out.
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

BansheeXYZ
Posts: 555
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:19 pm

Re: Banshee's UI Ideas for Modern Resolutions (WIP)

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Narf the Mouse wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 12:41 amI like the idea of a more modern UI, but would prefer a more classic texture. :)

Overall, I'll be looking forward to this coming out.
I designed it so that the background texture was just a big replaceable thing. The slots and text are their own layers. If this were more ornate and had beveling and gilding and stuff, you wouldn't be able to so easily theme it. For example, here's a wood texture theme.
inventory3bwood2.png
inventory3bwood2.png (685.02 KiB) Viewed 2832 times

azmanian
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Aug 13, 2019 12:59 am

Re: Banshee's UI Ideas for Modern Resolutions (WIP)

Post by azmanian »

This looks bomb. Putting this thread on follow for sure!

Post Reply