Whilst developing an interface for the Forbidden Planet game I planned some time ago, I have learned many things, the most important of which is that GUI design is no small task.
Initially I had many new ideas for an interface that I felt were innovative, not just for myself but for the industry as I had never encountered these types of interfaces before. This may have been the case but I quickly found that my ideas were incredibly ambitious for me to undertake in the time given as they would require extensive programming knowledge which I simply do not possess. My original idea was for an interface that used a controller but with motion sensing technology such as Microsoft's Kinect which would provide an almost 3D like experience, similar to the video shown below.
Whilst creating a fully working prototype was out of the question I began to explore the idea of simply creating the illusion of motion by using 3D models and camera motion to try and simulate the 3D perspective experience.
I found that in order to get a convincing sense of depth it would be much better to use 2D layers rather than the single 2D plane as demonstrated above. The issue with this though was that it would take a great deal of time to create each image to layer up the HUD elements. An example of what I mean is shown below.
Due to the time that the process of making these layered elements would consume I decided to leave the 3D design and focus on creating something new that could be used with controllers, this is when I came up with the dual layered quick switch radial menu.
Many modern shooters utilise weapon wheels for rapid weapon selection but due to there usually only being 6 weapons in the wheel players don't have many options available to them about what to use. Some games do try to counter this issue such as Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs which allows the weapon wheel to be opened and then each weapon on the wheel can be changed by using left or right on the d-pad.
While this is one way of removing the hindrance of menus I found it really wasn't suitable for an RPG with multiple sets of equipment available such as helmets, gloves, guns etc. I decided to replace the main wheel's weapon tradition with icons for each category of gear. The radial menu would still operate similarly to all others. A button press would open the menu and the left thumb-stick would operate the selection cursor, additionally once a category is highlighted another wheel would then open. This second wheel would show the ten best items of a category and would be operated with the right thumb-stick. Items could be equipped with the right trigger as it is an easy button for players to reach and doesn't require any awkward hand stretching.
I feel as though I spent a great deal of time trying to optimise this UI feature and I would have liked to take it further but unfortunately I just don't have the time or knowledge to create a fully working version at the moment. For this part of the user interface I am very happy with the technical quality although it could ideally be properly implemented and tested in a game which would allow me to further develop it and gather feedback. I did create a finished design for the quick switch wheel but looking back at it now I think that the aesthetic quality could be refined in order to make it fit with the overall visual style of the game.
I typically used this holographic blue style throughout the UI but I decided to use colours for the weapon wheel in order to help differentiate the categories. Weapons on the wheel were meant to be red to indicate damage while the armour was green to indicate health. I think the idea to use these colours was good but poorly executed and next time I may use the same colour throughout and simply put a green or red trim around the edge of them, this way it reduces the amount of intrusive colour whilst maintaining a small amount for information communication.
I am quite pleased with the default in-game HUD (above) that I created due to it's aesthetics. Both the weapon panel and minimap have a clean modern look to them and although they don't necessarily do anything new I think that they fit with the themes of the game. Technically, they were quite simple to create as I just manipulated shapes and edited the already drawn landscape to give them a futuristic, almost ghostly look. These elements were inspired by ideas that have been around for years so they definitely are fit for their purpose as they provide all the necessary information such as shields, ammo etc.
Another part of the UI I think went reasonably well was the main menu. I tried to create it with the intentions of having an extremely simple menu system that would fill as little screen space as possible. Typically game menus are formatted vertically which often fills up at least a third of the screen which I felt was unnecessary and I thought that all of the screen space could be used for something else. I like the menu style in The Last of Us as the background was a 3d scene rather than a 2d image.
This inspired me to have a 3d environment for the menu background which would be animated with things such as water flowing and grass moving in the wind. There would also be music and ambient sounds on the menu to help create a more complete UI. I think that the visual style for this section is almost right but it seems slightly more grey than the rest of the colour scheme. After creating the main menu I decided to create a logo for the game so I could have a start screen appear once the game loads. I also created the logo because i feel that they are one of the most important parts of design work in the later stages of development. Although they are not necessarily UI they are often shown in game and on the game box which represents the games style so it is important to get it right.
I am quite pleased with the default in-game HUD (above) that I created due to it's aesthetics. Both the weapon panel and minimap have a clean modern look to them and although they don't necessarily do anything new I think that they fit with the themes of the game. Technically, they were quite simple to create as I just manipulated shapes and edited the already drawn landscape to give them a futuristic, almost ghostly look. These elements were inspired by ideas that have been around for years so they definitely are fit for their purpose as they provide all the necessary information such as shields, ammo etc.
Another part of the UI I think went reasonably well was the main menu. I tried to create it with the intentions of having an extremely simple menu system that would fill as little screen space as possible. Typically game menus are formatted vertically which often fills up at least a third of the screen which I felt was unnecessary and I thought that all of the screen space could be used for something else. I like the menu style in The Last of Us as the background was a 3d scene rather than a 2d image.
This inspired me to have a 3d environment for the menu background which would be animated with things such as water flowing and grass moving in the wind. There would also be music and ambient sounds on the menu to help create a more complete UI. I think that the visual style for this section is almost right but it seems slightly more grey than the rest of the colour scheme. After creating the main menu I decided to create a logo for the game so I could have a start screen appear once the game loads. I also created the logo because i feel that they are one of the most important parts of design work in the later stages of development. Although they are not necessarily UI they are often shown in game and on the game box which represents the games style so it is important to get it right.
Overall I am quite happy with my entire UI design and although there are some simple issues such as aesthetics I feel that some interesting ideas were tried out. Some ideas were not achievable to the standard I would have liked such as the 3d UI and this led to me spending too much time in some areas and not enough in others which I would definitely try to avoid in future projects. Unexpectedly I am sure that due to this task I will return to UI design and continue to experiment with different ideas and build upon existing skills.
