New game menu UI concept

Improving the artwork in Warzone2100 - not for mod discussions
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Alphaeon
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New game menu UI concept

Post by Alphaeon »

Hello everyone, first off i will introduce myself, I am a future web designer/developer from Florida (US) and i have lots of interest in this game. I started playing last night and noticed this game has lots of potential :3 So... today i create a little new menu concept for the game.. its attached to this post if you would like to see it. I would also like to work with the developers on re-designing the entire game UI, although keeping the same overall layout i could really update the graphics in this game ;)

Below where the attachment is i have also uploaded an animated version of the menu (I'm not so good with animation but i could work on it)

Now if anyones interested we can start collaborating on the new overall UI, i will be refreshing this thread every couple minutes so expect a reply.

Regards, Alpha
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Animated version.
Animated version.
2100 Menu concept.png
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Zarel
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Zarel »

It's interesting. Where did you get the background? It doesn't look very Warzone-esque, unfortunately. :/ While I like the general idea, we do wish to retain our logo for the main menu.

That said, your new design looks very good. I'm not sure if that shade of blue suits Warzone, though. It looks like it should be a bit less saturated.

We've been meaning to improve the interface for a while now. We have a new widget engine, but we haven't used it for anything yet. Do you happen to know any C?

You may wish to view the mockups Elio made a while ago:

Image

Image

By the way, it's "2100", not "1200". ;) It's usually abbreviated "WZ" or "WZ 2100" or "wz2100".
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BlueMaxima
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by BlueMaxima »

Holy crap, I absolutely love it!
Bring back...ducks!
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Olrox
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Olrox »

Zarel wrote: By the way, it's "2100", not "1200". ;) It's usually abbreviated "WZ" or "WZ 2100" or "wz2100".
:cool:
xD
I really think that if we're going to change the UI, it must keep an uniform style. In-game menus and hud should all look similar, that is.

I'd dare to say I think that we should work further on elio's proposal, making menus look more beautiful also (the current menu font is really simplistic, and the lack of mouse hover/button relief/click effect really makes it strange and sort of unfriendly. Doesn't make me want to click any buttons actually.
I particularly like the stats of all 3 droid parts being shown simultaneously.

Regards,
Olrox :!!!:
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zoid
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by zoid »

It only looks cool because of the background. Put in a current background and it isn't quite as breathtaking.
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Alphaeon
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Alphaeon »

zoid wrote:It only looks cool because of the background. Put in a current background and it isn't quite as breathtaking.
Thanks for the negative feedback if you want to contribute to the thread tell me how to improve on the concept. ;)
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Olrox
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Olrox »

Alphaeon wrote:
zoid wrote:It only looks cool because of the background. Put in a current background and it isn't quite as breathtaking.
Thanks for the negative feedback if you want to contribute to the thread tell me how to improve on the concept. ;)
Heh, I agree that just saying "it's not good", without proposing anything different just makes people stop improving - That's not what we want.

I can try to work on some backdrop screens when I get some free time - not right now, really. But I must say that the menus would look better using the same frames as elio's GUI concept do. They look good, I think, and if the menus mantained the same "template" and were more detailed, they'd be very nice.

I've forgot to say that before, but it's a habit of mine welcoming new art producing members! Your efforts are really welcome, and you may count on my help whenever I can help you.

BTW, your avatar cracks me up xD
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zoid
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by zoid »

Alphaeon wrote:Thanks for the negative feedback if you want to contribute to the thread tell me how to improve on the concept. ;)
I only said that the menu design may look better with your background image than with one of the current backgrounds. In order to focus on your menu design and not be distracted by the different backgrounds, as well as to better facilitate comparison, I recommend that you use a default background.

Now, what was so negative about what I said?
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by GiGaBaNE »

Alphaeon wrote:
zoid wrote:It only looks cool because of the background. Put in a current background and it isn't quite as breathtaking.
Thanks for the negative feedback if you want to contribute to the thread tell me how to improve on the concept. ;)
i have to agree with zoid a little bit, but dont take offence. negative critisism is just as important as positive reinforcement.
welcome to the club and very glad to have you aboard! xD

i have 2 things to say and i hope it wont demoralise you.
1) is it possible to replace the bouncing screen (im sorry but it just looks like a 2 frame bouncing gif) with something more like occasional flashes of TV white noise (like its an imperfect transmission).

2) what is with the 1200 instead of 2100? is it a mistake, numerical dislexia or some meaning so deep we cant see it?


for a new guy you have certainly jumped in at the deep end, so as i had to learn very quick, you better grow some thick skin in this place because critisism can be brutal! ;)

your work is definatly due some respect and i really hope you have some stamina, cos its not uncommon to see bright new promise burn out and fade away and lets face it the devs have so much work to do its nice when someone comes along that can help!!!


once again welcome to warzone! :3
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Olrox
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Olrox »

zoid wrote: I only said that the menu design may look better with your background image than with one of the current backgrounds. In order to focus on your menu design and not be distracted by the different backgrounds, as well as to better facilitate comparison, I recommend that you use a default background.

Now, what was so negative about what I said?
You meant to say that but you didn't - Omiting part of your true opinion could be considered unproductive, and thus negative regarding the objective of development. As we aren't chatting IRL here, saying everything we think is essential so that we don't misunderstood each other.

But anyway, let's keep focused on the objective of improving Alphaeon's work (I dare to ask even though I'm not even helping with it, yet) ;)
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Zarel
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Zarel »

lol, took me a while to realize the first one is the animated version.

As for fonts, I like his, but we use our font mostly because it's free. We can't use any font that's GPL-incompatible. I like his text effects, though; we would probably implement that with a bitmap font and probably a Chinese font for backup. It would fix all the font issues, too.

As for the main menu, I've been working on some main menu concepts. Such as having the hexagonal menu pattern like in the game menu.
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by javierkaiser »

Well, I like the first screen, and it could be easily the first of a "Menu changing mod category" ... or something like that :rolleyes:
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Olrox
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Olrox »

Zarel wrote: As for fonts, I like his, but we use our font mostly because it's free. We can't use any font that's GPL-incompatible. I like his text effects, though; we would probably implement that with a bitmap font and probably a Chinese font for backup. It would fix all the font issues, too.

As for the main menu, I've been working on some main menu concepts. Such as having the hexagonal menu pattern like in the game menu.
I'd love the hexagonal shaped menu, seriously :D

And I always get annoyed when playing with my friends because we cant write properly on portuguese. Because when you write "ç", "ã", "õ", "á", "é", "í", "ó", "ú", "à" and so on, all of the text goes blank. So, instead of writing "Você está tirando a minha concentração", we must write "Vosse estah tirando a minha conssentrassaum". Also, to write "?" we must press ctrl+alt+w... :stressed:
Perhaps (in the next month) I can work on custom WZ2100 fonts. :rolleyes:
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Zarel
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Zarel »

We could use a custom bitmap font for the menu system, and just use non-custom fonts for everything else.
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Olrox
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Re: New game menu UI concept

Post by Olrox »

Zarel wrote:We could use a custom bitmap font for the menu system, and just use non-custom fonts for everything else.
Yep, I agree - I don't care too much about chat fonts, but the missing text issue I've mentioned is really weird. Is that because DejaVu doesn't support those characters?
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