GUI themes

In every game the GUI has a theme that it follows through out the game. This is important, because we are going to have ALOT of GUI's. So we need to choose a theme so that people can make their GUI and have it in the game, without the game looking like something mom would "put on the frigde". I was thinking of scientificish GUI with lot of angles and holograghics, but that would make much scense in the creature stage. So we obviously need to discuss this a little.

the default style will change along with the point were you are i think we shouldnt change it all at once; like when you get fire some of the things change, then other a bit later and so on. but you will be able to change the style i think

I think the menus should be very simple. Something to the effect a transparent grey box with a variety of buttons. (It looks better than you think) It would work with all stages of gameplay.

In game GUI should be very minimalistic, having just the bare minimum for Org mode, and visible but non-obtrusive in Strategy mode. As for menus theme, I would go with a natural theme for main menu and ingame escape menu could use what Eumesmo said.

BTW, I don't think simplistic GUI would work well for us. Half Life 2 did it that way and it's quite ugly.

The advantage to rectangles and text is the fact that it's easy to create dynamic, moddable menus.

Otherwise, somebody needs to get creating the large images for every menu.

Do not make it like spore. At all. No bubbles, and no excessive blue.

I am going to design a minimalistic GUI guideline style very soon.

By "moddable" I mean:

Has the ability to be customized in a way such that said menu may have any number of sub-menus as well as any combination of buttons within each sub-menu in a way that the developers might not have originally intended.

In other words, all you have to do to implement some feature is to write a menu for it.

The menu could have text boxes, drop down menus, etc.

If you've ever used gtk, something like that.

Anyone here played Operation Flashpoint/Arma/Arma 2? Their menus (called "dialogs") are defined simply as rectangles of any size and position, but somehow they use pictures to create good-looking menus. Those dialogs can handle anything any menu needs, be it simple text, editable text, button, dropdown menu, images, video, anything.

I don't know how it's implemented, but considering it's used in the very core of all those games, it must have been developed very early.

We can spice up a basic interface with some fancy pictures and borders. Much like this site.
Although, what we don't want to do is say "This button WILL go here, and build the rest of the menu with one single image around it."

Maybe I should post a screen from Arma to show how I mean it..

Have any of you ever played Star Trek Online... In the game the HUD can be moved around by the player in a special edit option. This is something that could be very useful in Thrive. The player could move around the HUD to customize it to their own specialization. This however doesn't solve the problem of what the individual HUD element GUI themes are.

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking, however I haven't played that game.

I was thinking that each submenu/feature should be able to float around the screen.

You would then be able to dock them all at the bottom, where the main menu is.

I do have an opinion on this, but it appears my opinion is the same as Roadkill's, Scio's and various others. Waiting to see your concept, Scio.

Very basic concept right now- I want it to be as clean as possible, minimal, too, obviously. The top black bar is your save/options bar for options, switching game modes, etc. The bottom arc is in-game control options and such.
The Two white nodes at the side bring up Tools, maps, etc,whatever is needed in the game type you're using.

How exactly does the circle at the bottom work?

roadkillguy wrote:

How exactly does the circle at the bottom work?

I suppose buttons will be on it.. however, it could be enlarged somewhat so as to allow viewing of the special 'health' function we talked about a long time ago. We'd show a wireframe/transparent model of our creature with vital organs inside, and whenever you saw red here, that meant you felt pain. So say you were hit on the chest; you'd see a sudden flash of red on both your skin, and if you could make out your heart it'd only add to the redness. If you had a stomachache it might be less opaque, but greyish-red nevertheless.

Whew! Well that post was more about the health system than the GUI, I have to admit. Summing it up, someone said we'd use more than plain old health bars so that thingy might have to be enlarged.

roadkillguy wrote:

How exactly does the circle at the bottom work?

i was thinking click+ drag to scroll through different options/toolsets on it.

The only problem I see here is that modders may have a hard time creating a menu of their own. If you've ever used blender, I was thinking of writing something to the effect of what they have at the bottom of the screen.

roadkillguy wrote:

The only problem I see here is that modders may have a hard time creating a menu of their own. If you've ever used blender, I was thinking of writing something to the effect of what they have at the bottom of the screen.

Yeah, but that's a pretty daunting menu, and people wouldn't use that type of thing while playing.

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

The only problem I see here is that modders may have a hard time creating a menu of their own. If you've ever used blender, I was thinking of writing something to the effect of what they have at the bottom of the screen.

Yeah, but that's a pretty daunting menu, and people wouldn't use that type of thing while playing.

Yeah. Imagine you're in a fast-paced, andrenaline-rushing situation involving you being chased by flying predators. You're feet away from your cave, when all of a sudden, your mouse misses some twig you wanted to pick up from the ground and throw to distract them, and you end up dragging the menu up to the top of the screen while being eaten.

Perhaps we could access a "Customize GUI" function via options menu.

Well, yes of course. You'd be able to add and drop anything from the main one.

this is my menu-concept. Hope you enjoy it!

andry796 wrote:

this is my menu-concept. Hope you enjoy it!

Not bad. It's pretty simple though.

~sciocont wrote:

andry796 wrote:

this is my menu-concept. Hope you enjoy it!

Not bad. It's pretty simple though.

Why is it simple? It's complete and pratical. what should I add?

I'm not saying simple is bad, I'm just saying it's simple.