Buttons!

[Carim123]

So, yet again, I'm redesigning my UI a bit, because it looks pretty cluttered, so I thought I'd start with the buttons.

Attempt 3; just made the text black. Kept the gradient outline, though, I find it makes it look engraved.

Attempt 2; darkened the buttons, and the text…do you think it's easier to read?

Icons from silk icon set from famfamfam.

Opinions, and Constructive Criticism, please!

[Justin Knight]

ooo I like it, better than I could do.

[IdoFreePixel]

The text on the buttons are very hard to read.

[azure]

16 buttons is still pretty cluttered.

[Justin Knight]

I'm not really sure how this works but the text could turn red when you roll over it.

[Carim123]

@Azure::

> 16 buttons is still pretty cluttered.

I'm aware of that.
That's why I'm trying to make it look functional, and simple, to take that aspect of feeling cluttered away.

The text is hard to read, so I'm going to try and make it brighter, or the metal darker…

[azure]

@7:

> I'm aware of that.
> That's why I'm trying to make it look functional, and simple, to take that aspect of feeling cluttered away.
>
> The text is hard to read, so I'm going to try and make it brighter, or the metal darker…

I would just not use the gradient on the text, but that's just me.

[Carim123]

@Azure::

> I would just not use the gradient on the text, but that's just me.

Actually, it's an inner shadow, with a pattern overlay of a brushed metal texture I had lying around.
When I had it as white, black, just about every other standard colour, it either wasn't coherent at all, or was easy to read, but just didn't look good…

Attempt 2; darkened the buttons, and the text...do you think it's easier to read?

There's a comparison on the first post.

EDIT: Stupidly of me, I only saved a base button template as the .psd, and the rest as .png. xD

[luriok]

Take out the inner shadow and the metal pattern overlay, and just make the text a nice dark gray. Other then the text I don't mind it.

[shadowdeath]

Not bad. Not bad at all.

[Kusy]

can't see shit captain… still.

[Robin]

Grey on grey is a terrible idea. Stop having terrible ideas.

Oh, and if you really think Web 2.0 website icons belong in your game then you should just uninstall Photoshop right now.

[Marsh]

Still damn hard to read, im no graphic artist but i think that if you are making text that small a gradient may be a bad idea. Plain text will be fine if the rest of the button looks good. If you really want to use a fancy font.

[azure]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who mistook it for a gradient.

[Carim123]

@Robin:

> Grey on grey is a terrible idea. Stop having terrible ideas.
>
> Oh, and if you really think Web 2.0 website icons belong in your game then you should just uninstall Photoshop right now.

Eh, they were the only icons of the right size that I could find.
I've found some new ones, that look pretty good, and they're free-to-use.

Edit; eh, after using them, I found them too big to use.

@Marsh:

> Still damn hard to read, im no graphic artist but i think that if you are making text that small a gradient may be a bad idea. Plain text will be fine if the rest of the button looks good. If you really want to use a fancy font.

Yep, it's black now, lemme just get a screenshot…


[Kusy]

Howabout just making them like… bigger? I would be damn annoyed not only by reading this but also by trying to aim into that tinny thing in a game... I think this is the main reason this idea is bad.

[Anna Comnena]

Their general design is alright for modernish interfaces, but the text is really hard to read; it's either too blurry or has no contrast against it's background.

[Carim123]

@Kusy:

> Howabout just making them like… bigger? I would be damn annoyed not only by reading this but also by trying to aim into that tinny thing in a game... I think this is the main reason this idea is bad.

The problem is, that before, the buttons where already pretty small, so I ended up having to move more stuff around to free up space, so I don't really have enough space to put the buttons…

@Anna:

> Their general design is alright for modernish interfaces, but the text is really hard to read; it's either too blurry or has no contrast against it's background.

I'm trying to aim for a modernish/brushed metal effect, which I'm finding a bit difficult, I've only tried it once, and this is still pretty similar to my old UI, anyway…

Here's what I've got so far, it's definitely unfinished, and I've got a way to go, but any comments, criticisms, that can help me out will be appreciated.


[Kusy]

7… have you ever seen a game with such a littered UI and I'm not even asking about MMOs, even deep single player RPGs have cleaner interfaces? Your design is outright wrong. You don't put all that shit in the game interface, you put that into subcategories. Nobody needs quick acces to Music, Who's online, Trade, Clans and such, those are menus that you use when you have time for it and want to tweak stuff. All that shit can be in the options ore some other thing subcategory. You could group Party, Friends, Clans, Trade, Who's on? into a "SOCIAL" category, while Music if it's what I think it is should be in the options.

The only things a player needs to acces from this level of interface are Inventory, Statistics, Skills with Map and Mail as a possible option if there is space.

If you would actualy think when making the UI you would have space not just for bigger and easier to read buttons, you could even add icons to them.

[Carim123]

> 7… have you ever seen a game with such a littered UI and I'm not even asking about MMOs, even deep single player RPGs have cleaner interfaces? Your design is outright wrong.

I'm nowhere near complete, I've got a whole load of stuff drawn that I'm trying out, and I'm trying to find a UI that works. Pretty much why I'm coming here, no idea what to do with it…

> You don't put all that shit in the game interface, you put that into subcategories. Nobody needs quick acces to Music, Who's online, Trade, Clans and such, those are menus that you use when you have time for it and want to tweak stuff. All that shit can be in the options ore some other thing subcategory. You could group Party, Friends, Clans, Trade, Who's on? into a "SOCIAL" category, while Music if it's what I think it is should be in the options.
>
> The only things a player needs to acces from this level of interface are Inventory, Statistics, Skills with Map and Mail as a possible option if there is space.

Good point, never really occurred to me on having subcategories. Will do that right now.

EDIT: Managed to get it down to 8 categories. (Inventory, Skills, _Player_, _Options_, _Social_, World Map, Prospect, Log Out) (italics are the subcategories)

> If you would actualy think when making the UI you would have space not just for bigger and easier to read buttons, you could even add icons to them.

With something as cluttered as this, and I'm trying my best to make use of the space. Don't you think I've tried my best into giving a good amount of thought? My personal target with this UI is to have as much game space as possible, and to support an 800x600 screen resolution.

With the amount of revisions I've made to this, I've since made the buttons bigger, because they were previously VERY small, I wanted to have as little obstructing the game screen as possible.

I've thought about how I wanted to have the UI function a lot, now it's just the matter of designing that, and what I'm having trouble with.

>! 

[Kusy]

I was not implying you don't think, only that you should consider it from the player's perspective. What fascinates me is that people don't look for so called inspiration and simply start doing something out of the blue. Look at UIs of sucessfull MMOs, utilize things you could use. Player's perspective is always the most important one.

[azure]

@Kusy:

> I was not implying you don't think, only that you should consider it from the player's perspective. What fascinates me is that people don't look for so called inspiration and simply start doing something out of the blue. Look at UIs of sucessfull MMOs, utilize things you could use. **Player's perspective is always the most important one.**

This gets forgotten quite a bit, not just in games.

[Carim123]

@Azure:

> This gets forgotten quite a bit, not just in games.

I love how some members of this community, the moment you ask for a comment, they seemingly know every aspect of your thoughts, and know exactly what you're thinking of. Azure, you're one of them.

I've thought about the player's perspective _constantly_, seriously, I've based IP primarily off of functionality. I've thought about the standard users thoughts, not the over-critical Eclipse users thoughts, because I know that there'll always be a complaint with at least one user. Example? After showing this to a couple of people, who know nothing of game development, and simply want to play an RPG, they liked the fact everything was there for them, and those with 800x600 screen resolutions liked the fact that I considered them, they liked they could easily get to the hotbar, easily change chat channels, etc.

**Granted, I appreciate that Eclipse is helpful in helping me think of where I've made flaws, and there are loads of them at the moment, but comments like that, where you apparently know my thoughts aren't helpful at all.**

[/eclipse criticality rant over]

* * *

@Kusy:

> I was not implying you don't think, only that you should consider it from the player's perspective. What fascinates me is that people don't look for so called inspiration and simply start doing something out of the blue. Look at UIs of sucessfull MMOs, utilize things you could use. Player's perspective is always the most important one.

Yep, definitely. I've got notepads full of ideas, and various designs on interfaces, and I've had a good look at several other Eclipse games, but it's obvious that I haven't yet looked at several flaws. I'm pretty much listing those flaws, and problems right now, and looking for solutions to them, ie; your subcategory idea helped me out a lot. Thanks for the help. ;D

From this topic, I've got myself a little list of criterion.

- Text is hard to read; plain colour would do.
- Grey on grey; incoherent
- possibly bigger?
- Group buttons into subcategories.
- Outline makes it seem blurry.
- No contrast against button itself.
- extremely cluttered, maybe make the game screen smaller to free up more space.
- Add (good) icons to the buttons)
- Icons only?

I'll take into account over what everybody said, and I'll make a new thread with the improvements sometime soon…Thanks!

[Robin]

@7:

> I love how some members of this community, the moment you ask for a comment, they seemingly know every aspect of your thoughts, and know exactly what you're thinking of. Azure, you're one of them.

When you've dealt with people doing the exact same thing for 7 years it's very easy to understand someone's thoughts.

@7:

> I've thought about the player's perspective _constantly_, seriously, I've based IP primarily off of functionality. I've thought about the standard users thoughts, not the over-critical Eclipse users thoughts, because I know that there'll always be a complaint with at least one user. Example? After showing this to a couple of people, who know nothing of game development, and simply want to play an RPG, they liked the fact everything was there for them, and those with 800x600 screen resolutions liked the fact that I considered them, they liked they could easily get to the hotbar, easily change chat channels, etc.

Your friends are lying to you. As well as that the general public don't know what's best for them. Here's how to make a GUI: Do what the Japanese do. And stop doing what you're doing.

@7:

> **Granted, I appreciate that Eclipse is helpful in helping me think of where I've made flaws, and there are loads of them at the moment, but comments like that, where you apparently know my thoughts aren't helpful at all.**
>
> [/eclipse criticality rant over]

You specifically made a thread showing off a GUI and asking for feedback. You need to take the good with the bad. If you don't like someone's opinion then just ignore it. Stop making a big deal out of nothing.

@7:

> I'll take into account over what everybody said, and I'll make a new thread with the improvements sometime soon…Thanks!

Improvements won't cut it. You've tried this style of design twice now. Both times failed hard. Delete everything, stop using those notes you have and go do something completely fresh. Your GUI is like the old EE/ES shit we used to get. You need to make a new GUI to match a new engine.

Go look at all the good GUIs from Eclipse history. I still use Seb's work as a standard for my own GUIs.