Mod Authors: Simplify your UI's!

[Dan]

Everyone is experimenting with different ways to show UI that shows items such as a "backpack" or "equipment." With Warcraft, there was a built in location that was supported by the editor. In SC2; however, there is no obvious support, and we are allowed to put dialog boxes wherever we please. The spot where the Warcraft backpack used to be is where the portrait for the selected model now sits...

but who cares about the selected model portraits anyways?

my big idea is that people need to stop putting dialog boxes all over the screen for their maps and need to simplify them so that they are more immediately playable instead of being playable after you get the hang of all the crazy UI that people are implementing. I get it... it's fun to put boxes all over the place... but calm down already. I never know if a box is going to pop up on the right side or left side or the middle... map editors need to calm down. There have been some very nice maps with some serious coding done... and still the most boneheaded attempts at dialoging equipment and talent trees, etc...

There can be some originality while still being some basic logical placements for your boxes!


One thing that I would really like to see mod authors do is put your "backpack" ui OVER THE PORTRAIT AREA... It would then not be in the middle of your screen... it wouldn't have to be MINIMIZED and could serve JUST AS THE ONE IN WAR3 did... Why I haven't seen a SINGLE map do this, I have no clue... it's SO SIMPLE and serves such a very basic need without being annoying as hell to find your equipment space pop up box.

Does anyone agree with me? Or have some suggestions that we, as mod authors, can share so that our maps don't all get cluttered and disgusting to look at? Because I personally am seeing some horrible attempts at this recently from very well put together maps. I think our freedom in being able to do dialog boxes is making us dumb.

 

[N(O.O)B]

I haven't tried it, but afaik the position of the portrait changes when you change your resolution, thus it will only work with one resolution (and will block the unit information on all others) as you cannot get the screen resolution of a player through triggers.

 

[Dan]

Good point though! I didn't think of that...

Hmm... but aren't the positions of dialogs relative to the size of the screen too? can't you do them by %'s instead of pixels?

wouldn't the resolution effect other similar things about dialogs that could potentially get in the way then?

 

[Frozenwind]

If %s were included, we'd be done. Sadly, they aren't. All we can do is set a certain pixelsize, which may be your half screen or may be your entire screen.

 

[Flare]

but who cares about the selected model portraits anyways?

Me :3 While, obviously, it has little functionality (possibly none - does it allow you to pan to the selected unit, like in WC3), it is visually appealling (IMO).

Does anyone agree with me?

Not really - while a particular UI set-up may not work for you, it may work for others.

If I get a chance, I feel like playing around with dialogs to see how (if any) they could be better managed, it at all. I wonder how dialogs take to player-controlled resizing and repositiong...

Or have some suggestions that we, as mod authors, can share so that our maps don't all get cluttered and disgusting to look at?

While I haven't played many maps that make heavy use of dialogs, what I, personally, would like to see would be to have dialogs which are frequently interacted with at the bottom (unit interactions, preferably, over the command card and anything else at the left side), and stuff which is interacted with less frequently (e.g. a shop UI) at the top where it's out of the way and gives the impression that there is more screen space available

But I wouldn't go so far as to call anything I've seen 'disgusting'

 

[Dan]

But I wouldn't go so far as to call anything I've seen 'disgusting'

I've gotten through ten minutes of a game without realizing that they had a "talent tree" system that opens up by clicking some random picture...

and your equipment should be able to be visible at all times without having to be minimized and re opened so that you can move things around... well at least if at all possible. cause some of these equipment things are like wow status in your face... and this is a game of micro much more than wow.

so yeah...

imo UI shouldn't be on the player screen. it should be tucked away underneath all of the regular UI portions of the screen so as not to interfere. Also, Blizzard's number one priority (part of their mission statement) is that playability comes first. Taking on that attitude, the player portrait matters little.

 

[Flare]

and this is a game of micro much more than wow.

Depends entirely on the map-type in question to be honest - personally, I'd be a little shaky on the meaning of micro P) but what is the case for one map-type may not be the case for others. With that, the amount of information required on-screen may be different as well.

imo UI shouldn't be on the player screen

Wait... what good is any UI (pre-existing, or created by a map author) if it's not clearly visible to the player? Why on Earth would you deliberately hide UI elements (particularly if they are an important part of the map)? Since you mentioned WoW, I'll go with that - would you want to move your own player and target frames off-screen where they were no longer visible, or your party/raid frames if you were a healer?

Although, I think you're just getting awfully hot and bothered over something small

 

[Dan]

Depends entirely on the map-type in question to be honest - personally, I'd be a little shaky on the meaning of micro P) but what is the case for one map-type may not be the case for others. With that, the amount of information required on-screen may be different as well.


Wait... what good is any UI (pre-existing, or created by a map author) if it's not clearly visible to the player? Why on Earth would you deliberately hide UI elements (particularly if they are an important part of the map)? Since you mentioned WoW, I'll go with that - would you want to move your own player and target frames off-screen where they were no longer visible, or your party/raid frames if you were a healer?

Although, I think you're just getting awfully hot and bothered over something small

The built in ui would be the few inches at the bottem with the minimap on the left and the comand card on the right with info in the middle. that's where a lot of the buttons should be located imo. not on the SCREEN where the action is going on. some maps are getting really crowded... and i have a big screen.

and no matter how you make your map in sc2, the engine is the same and thus there is much more clicking involved in general to choose units and do things with them. minus maybe some of the tps style games that make up a small % of the total custom games out there... so with that respect there really are a lot of things getting in the way of the screen and it would be nice for some of these maps to place some dialog boxes in an easy to see but not in the way place... like over the portrait area or above the command card.