Guild of Writers

If I had to choose I'd also prefer the city location over the cleft unless it was created as professional as
Tweek's, but still city locations feel more appropriate and Tweek also offered various other GUI versions ...

What I generally don't like is the background being obscured, which wouldn't be necessary if the
options being foregrounded had a brilliant and clear display ... However thanks all for your efforts
to move and change something ...

Personally, I'd rather see the city too. I like the lighting and color scheme more.

Anyway, you rarely see the Cleft; the city is where most of the "action" happens.

Okay it's been a few days. I decided to try my hand at doing both the City and Cleft concepts. So I spent the last three days redoing the materials, and the objects to fit the city version: So here we go:

The main screen:

Main Screen Show Spoiler

[img]http://www.thedeepcity.com/DIRTDev/images/CitymainLarge081912.jpg[/img]

The delete screen:

Delete Screen Show Spoiler

[img]http://www.thedeepcity.com/DIRTDev/images/CityDeleteLarge081912.jpg[/img]

and the create a player screen:

Create Show Spoiler

[img]http://www.thedeepcity.com/DIRTDev/images/CityCreateLarge081912.jpg[/img]

The shadow without an object under it is where the avatar will stand. There's still a bit to be done in the lighting for the railings. Believe it or not this is indeed a 3d screen. It may still look flat but that's entirely because of the camera that enables the GUI. Remember you're seeing it through the eyes of the GUI not through a normal camera. So the curvature of the railings is not as pronounced as it looks in Tweek's concept. Evidence of this is in the light glares. I had to rotate them to point toward the GUI even though they're supposed to be sprites. Without an avatar in the scene the sprites don't know which way to rotate to and stay in their default positions.

I personnally preferred the Cleft version. It's more inviting than this dark version. It's too dark. I can compare this to this forum, GoW. Since almost 6 months, this forum is more inviting because of the background colours. I never found it appealing as a forum when the main colour theme was all black and dark. I like this new shade of grey (not talking about a...novel here )

Personally, I think it's a significant improvement. Good job.

Personally I like neither one - the first is too bright and the second is too dark.
Plus they are both too easy to identify and reach for the first time explorer.

What I would like to see is one of the Garden Ages. Either Eder Delin, Eder Gira, Eder Kemo or Eder Tsogal...

This one is very much improved already, GPNMilano, though I also never understood why the city
interface had to be so dark as it was also presented by Tweek and others who put their hands on it ...

Annabelle mentioned something very important, the interface, the place or environment where you
prepare yourself to enter a beautiful, thrilling and magical world should be inviting and make you
expect exactly that, to enter such a world ... Our Teledahn explorers choice window e.g. feels
inviting and promises something special and extraordinary ...

I am not against the desert interface as it'd be only logical to start there instead of directly some
place in D'ni, but it had to be more beautiful, more inviting ... So, the desert background as well as
the options dialogs had to be very well chosen as of warm colors, ambience etc. and to be of a good
quality ... One should get the feeling, wow, yeah, I wonna go and explore there ...

So, if we'd like to have the city, why not use a city background which isn't so very dark ...

Show Spoiler

[img]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p132/janaba/Shards/GEHN/AeguraFerryLanding2.jpg[/img]

And for the desert, this is not so easy, but possible by adjusting the colors a bit so that it is
more nice and feels good and inviting ...

Show Spoiler

[img]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p132/janaba/Shards/GEHN/Cleft-desert1c.jpg[/img]

One could even go so far and choose the desert only with nothing being revealed or in the way ...

Show Spoiler

[img]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p132/janaba/Shards/GEHN/Cleft-desert3b.jpg[/img]

Huge improvement - but why so dark? I don't think there's any examples of it ever being /quite/ that dark, and the contrast is quite extreme in those pics.

I'd also like to note the modelling does need improvement, but I'm /hoping/ those are temporary models.

You're right, Kaelis, yours is not so dark, though Tweek's is almost even more dark, but,
of course, very professional, well elaborated and coordinated graphics and nice fonts etc...

It is so very difficult, of course, to please and to be appealing to everyone's general and also very
personal ideas and wishes ... Some want it more and some less dark, some don't feel good in
the dark at all, some want to link to a garden environment etc., and additionally everyone has
a different notion of where it'd be more appropriate to start and prepare for this adventure lol ...

The rating scale and expectation for the GUI is quite high as this is an important part of the
experience ... not in MOULa just for changing the avatar, but in future generations with shards
selection, maybe news or even clothing included etc. ... One must feel great and good with that
job, otherwise one cannot succeed ... Yeah, this just came to mind, thanks, however, for trying ...

Okay three days later and we have some more improvements. I've tried making it a bit lighter, adding a bit more color and adjusting the brightness of the background image.

Also I took Kaelis' suggestion and tried tweaking the models, so it looks a bit more like his concept.

I've also adjusted the positioning of the landscape of the dock so that it makes the area feel more 3 dimensional despite the camera's FOV.

The main screen:

Main Screen Show Spoiler

[img]http://www.thedeepcity.com/DIRTDev/images/CitymainLarge082212.jpg[/img]

The delete screen:

Delete Screen Show Spoiler

[img]http://www.thedeepcity.com/DIRTDev/images/CityDeleteLarge082212.jpg[/img]

and the create a player screen:

Create Show Spoiler

[img]http://www.thedeepcity.com/DIRTDev/images/CityCreateLarge082212.jpg[/img]

EDIT: LMAO And I just noticed the Female text on the creation screen was missing the semicolon.

EDIT 2: Also, and I don't think this has been talked about in prior discussions of the GUIs in any of the forums. But what about sounds? Most games I've recalled playing had sounds when activating stuff in their GUIs. you select a character you hear a sound. you click a button you hear sound. And then there's ambient sound within the GUI itself. IE a peice of music that plays on a loop. I logged into Skyrim today for instance and noticed not only the music on the GUI but also the sound for the buttons, and I realized, Uru never really had sound for it's GUIs. Even the KI only has the opening and closing sound of the KI and the sound when you pick up a marker. It's entirely flat feeling to me when playing other games and then going into Uru.