Redesign the HUD

[quiltyquilty]

Wire and I both thought it was a good idea to resprite/redesign the current hud. I made two redesigns. One is a minor reorganization and the other is a total overhaul with new sprites.

HUD 1:


Changes:
- Cleaning up color inconsistencies/shading on the hud elements
- Health and other stuff swapped around with abilities, kinda Zelda inspired.
- Spacing between certain elements made more consistent
- Colors of text is easier to read

HUD 2:


Changes:
- Total resprite of all hud elements to a darker tone, matching the unfinished SS13 remake's hud color.
- Elements organized into four grops on each side of the screen, so the design is less localized.
* Top for status.
* Bottom for hands and the pockets, since a pocket is right next to your hand IRL. Ha ha...
* Left for toggles involving your hands.
* Right for inventory and running/resisting.
- Basically it's much more simplified.

Considering HUD 2 is my brainchild, I'm very biased toward it, but at the same time I completely understand the issues with a non-localized HUD. This isn't meant as a poll thread, instead, Wire wanted me to create a thread where people can submit their own designs and give each other feedback, and eventually we may reach a consensus of whoever does it best.

Since not everyone here knows how to or wants to sprite, if you have an idea you can sketch up an mspaint design or something with a general idea of what you want, and I will draft it for you if I have the time.

[quiltyquilty]

EXTRA NOTE: HUD 2 is of course very WIP. It might be missing things/have misaligned elements, I'll probably go through and fix those later and post updates here.

[Ed Venture]

Hud 1 is the better one. Hud 2 WIP or not just does not sit well with me. Having the UI broke apart like that looks messy and would be annoying to shift across the screen to switch intents or to check my backpack. While with the default and Hud 1 I could quickly do all of that.

[Vitatroll]

I had always wished we could have some level of transparency in the bottom UI. It's a quality of robustness to attack from and retreat to the bottom of your target's screen. Sorta silly.

Well, any change to the UI will be met with screams of discontent. This goes especially for changes that move EQ slots since our brains will automatically try to carry out the old actions due to muscle memory.

I honestly don't care how the UI looks. As long as any changes increase functionality I'll be okay with them.

[Mageziya]

The only big UI change I can think of would be to make the Abilities/Powers button/tab-thing larger and more obvious, instead of the little slit thing it is now that almost all, and even a lot experienced players, are unaware of until someone direct mentions that it exists. Currently, the button looks literally tacked on.

Hell, the button's so tiny and easy to miss that you forgot to add it in in your HUD 2. Also, in my opinion spreading things out makes it more complicated, not simpler.

[Wire]

Anyone else have suggestions or...whatever. Remember you can suggest a redesign too (just how the buttons look) if you like the layout but not the visual style.

[Rocket]

A more cleaner, futuristic hud

[Carlarc]

A more cleaner, futuristic hud

8<

Pretty neat, futuristic. Maybe a little too futuristic? I mean, we're using TERMINALS on the station!

[Mageziya]

Here's an insanely rough mock-up I threw together for the Abilities button. Image was spliced together from Rocket's post.



Here's another alternative:


The ability button, as it is, is generally unnoticed. The first proposal is to give it a larger button where room is available, and the second is to re-position it into a spot where it would be more easily noticed, such as in the middle-ish of the UI, as opposed to hanging off of the Inv button, a button I feel like most people ignore despite it's ability to allow for auto-equip. I placed it between the intent buttons and the targeting button because I feel like that there's enough of an odd separation between the buttons that they can be placed there. Other positions could be anywhere else in-between a set of buttons, and potentially made larger.

If we're re-designing the UI, we could try burning everything down and rebuilding from scratch. Doing so we would ask ourselves why every button is where it is and why they each look like they do.

General reminder that both of these are very rough mock-ups.

As for rocket's UI aesthetics, I feel like the colors look too faded.

[Frank_Stein]

I feel like the ability thing ought to be positioned up in the far left, since that's where the abilities appear.

I actually played this game for years without knowing that the inv button could swap gear. It was a game changer when I found that out, because swapping uniforms was a pain of managing items and IDs. These days I just use the hot key to do it.

[Wire]

Ok yeah I feel like with the colors beefed up in Rocket's design, those buttons would look really good. Nice job!

As for the possibility of completely redesigning the HUD in terms of deciding which buttons should remain: absolutely this is a thing we can do. Mind you I'm not really confident on making decisions here, player input is deffo needed.

[Vitatroll]

Outside of transparency which can be a bit wonky to begin with, being able to minimize the lower HUD would be nice. A hotkey toggle would work well with that. I remember thinking of this when I was using the v-key to swap EQ in wasd and seeing it minimize the inv tier in certain situations.

As for style, while I said I don't care how it looks, I do prefer HUDs to be downplayed so they don't draw unwanted attention from my eyes. This generally implies desaturated and-or monochromatic color schemes. I also like the idea of getting rid of the embossed look of the current HUD. The ABIL button? Would it be possible to create a button that toggled an inventory of abilities? Imagine a backpack full of ability buttons to click on and you have what I mean. That's the best solution I can think of for abilities.

Given byond, I assume having multiple HUDs to choose from is out of the question. A shame, that would be really neat.

[UrsulaMejor]

hey guys, I just mocked up what I believe to be the most disgusting UI ever:

Spoiler!

TBH though i was imagining something like this though:

Spoiler!

[Rocket]

Here are 3 different color versions, middle one being my favorite:

[somepotato]

Loving the subtle scanlines. Torn between the middle and bottom themes, but otherwise I think those are the best choices.