Ben Nadlers

[willieharper]

A place for Ben's

[BenNadler]

Here's my first, basic UI concept. Barely fleshed out so that comments and critiques can be taken into account before going into a more advanced design.

[Jack Sampson]

Here's my first, basic UI concept. Barely fleshed out so that comments and critiques can be taken into account before going into a more advanced design.

Off the top of my head -
Would it make sense to time-multiplex the "incoming transmission" area with any other short-term event handling (i.e. have multiple different displays pop into and out of existence at that location when relevant)? Basically, a more general "notification" space.

How do we want to do 3D radar? single, 3D sphere with variable distance=radius control, or the WC-style paired 2D fisheye radar displays?

In an often mostly empty 3D environment, what makes the most sense to display on a map? Direction toward objectives? nearest other stellar objects? What does it need to convey that can be done in a small part of the screen vs. full-screen map mode?

How do we best display damage to particular systems?

Assuming a more robust level of gameplay in terms of fooling sensors, how do we want to display partial knowledge concerning a targeted object (i.e. knows it's small, but haven't ID'd it, or uncertainty as to distance == uncertainty as to size, or ?? )

For ammo remaining - current weapon seems to make most sense to devote screen real-estate to, but usually can fire missiles as well as current "guns", and missile ammo usually more important to keep track of - may need easily readable display for missiles as well as guns.

Should probably reserve space for some number of small indicator lights (turrets on/off/auto, FTL, etc.) or other mechanisms conveying same or similar information.

May want to keep track of coolant, heat properties. Also, but less importantly, fuel.

Maybe have different display sets for docking, FTL, combat?

[kohldude]

Possible HUDs to look at: MechWarrior 4, MechWarrior Living Legends, Steel Battalion, Star Trek Online, EVE Online, Ace Combat 6.

In terms of a 3D radar, a sphere with blips at varying distances from the center might work. Possibly multiple spheres inside of each other to represent distance from the player's craft (although that would have to be done carefully with appropriate materials to maintain visibility and avoid clutter.)

Small tooltips attached to sensor contacts could display very minimal information (classification, distance, and a "stick" pointing in the direction of contacts) and a 'targeted' sensor contact would get its own area of the HUD for more thorough information like its health etc. (STO does this at the top of the HUD, but it would be best to put it right next to our radar).

The player's ship would be represented as an icon in the center of the sphere. Would we want the radar to be slaved to the ship's orientation so that if you rotate, the radar follows, or would we want the radar to have a mostly fixed direction, and the player's icon in the radar change orientation? (In fighter craft or other maneuverable speed demons, if the radar is pinwheeling too fast it could confuse the player thoroughly.) Possibly after a few moments the radar would slowly follow the orientation shift of the craft.

Alternatively maybe it could be a cylinder instead of a sphere. In any case a holo-tank sort of radar is tough to do without taking up too much screen real estate. How do other 3D space games handle radar? Homeworld, Bridge Commander, Klingon Academy, etc..

Since this is 'teh future' I imagine that HUDs and augmented reality will be commonplace in military cockpits, allowing for projection of important data on displays or whatever they use to 'see' outside the ships such as tooltips (again, see STO's tooltips under sensor contacts).

[Jack Sampson]

Quick thought:
It's certainly safe to assume augmented reality (we can worry about, for a given group, whether that means augmented at the optic nerve or displayed on the helmet visor, but that's rather secondary). When it comes to UI, I'm much more concerned (certainly at this juncture) about whether we're adequately and usably displaying all the necessary information than what I'll write to justify how the player can "see" it.

I'll have to go check out screen shots from some of the games mentioned in the above post - I'm not actually familiar with their interfaces.

[kohldude]

Saw this on the concept ships blogspot:
http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2010/ignus/IgnusDei_04.jpg

It's not quite true 3D, unless those targets actually are sitting on multiple 'vertical' planes/tiers.