Gooey ... Very Gooey ...
by Steve Acaster · 07/22/2010 (11:50 pm) · 43 comments
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when the hell does this buzzing in my ears go away!?
Gooey gooey gooooooey .... I'm not saying Gooey - it's just too "world of double entandres". So, been working on GUIs for general gameplay. Can't say that I really knew much about GUIs previously, so I taught myself with a bit of the old "trial and enormous ballsup". Made a list of various things I'd need on screen at any one time. It's mostly the "usual suspects", health, energy, stance, inventory, info HUD ... that kinda stuff.
From the top left - toggleable inventory, displays all 20 available weapon slots, using a HL2 style weapon selection system, and their relevant loaded ammunition/extra ammuntion. Displays a blank space if you haven't picked up the weapon. Hold down the key to display, release to hide ... cos it takes up a sizeable amount of screen space.
Below left - Compass and Bearing. Originally from Deepscratch's resource which I repackaged with SomethingToPlay's EULA on the compass textures and uploaded to eb|'s storage here. Since that, I've actually designed my own because I only needed the basic functionality.
Left Bottom - chat HUD, single line of info telling the player what they've picked up or selected.
Right Side Top - Directional Hit Detection Warning, get hurt, and this warning texture pops up to show which area you got hit in, fades out after a moment.
Lower Right Group - from the top - Aiming (doubles as walk) icon, and stance icon (stand/crouch/prone). Below that is grenades and ammuntion weapon/in backpack. And the lowest line is energy and health. Energy works but isn't actually hooked up to do anything yet ...
Warning texture border is used to alert the player that they are in danger. Comes in two stages, amber/black when player health has dropped to the point when a single shot from the most powerful weapon would be fatal, and then red/black when a single shot from most weapons would prove fatal.
In the upper right hand corner is the Communication HUD, loosely based on the idea from Freespace where you'd get a little animated pic of who was talking to you over the radio. Thus the Comms HUD displays a static picture of the messenger and 5 lines of text to hold whatever the player needs to be told dynamically.
And finally maps which toggle on when you hold down the "show map" button. I'd had a bit of an um-and-ah about maps and radar and the sort, and eventually decided against what most games have - the dynamically updating radar showing the player's position. Instead I've decided to go down the map reading route - the player would have to orientate themselves using visual clues such as heightmap and buildings and then move from one point to another using the compass and heading as "dead reckoning", akin to realistic map reading.
Currently the map on the left is only a heightmap for testing, but would include buildings and roads/tracks like a real map as well as possibly target/goal information. The map on the right is what displays when no map is available.
That about wraps the gameplay HUD up, apart from maybe linking energy to something like a sprint/breath underwater/shielding/energy weapon/etc ... have to have a bit more of a think on that one.
Next up, that demo I might have mentioned aeons ago ... and I've also got an idea about using dynamic, random placement of enemies as a way of increasing replayability for it. And eventually get back to looking at the save/load game system I mentioned many moons ago in some forum ...
[edit]
Followed a few recommendation on the feedback
when the hell does this buzzing in my ears go away!?
Gooey gooey gooooooey .... I'm not saying Gooey - it's just too "world of double entandres". So, been working on GUIs for general gameplay. Can't say that I really knew much about GUIs previously, so I taught myself with a bit of the old "trial and enormous ballsup". Made a list of various things I'd need on screen at any one time. It's mostly the "usual suspects", health, energy, stance, inventory, info HUD ... that kinda stuff.
From the top left - toggleable inventory, displays all 20 available weapon slots, using a HL2 style weapon selection system, and their relevant loaded ammunition/extra ammuntion. Displays a blank space if you haven't picked up the weapon. Hold down the key to display, release to hide ... cos it takes up a sizeable amount of screen space.
Below left - Compass and Bearing. Originally from Deepscratch's resource which I repackaged with SomethingToPlay's EULA on the compass textures and uploaded to eb|'s storage here. Since that, I've actually designed my own because I only needed the basic functionality.
Left Bottom - chat HUD, single line of info telling the player what they've picked up or selected.
Right Side Top - Directional Hit Detection Warning, get hurt, and this warning texture pops up to show which area you got hit in, fades out after a moment.
Lower Right Group - from the top - Aiming (doubles as walk) icon, and stance icon (stand/crouch/prone). Below that is grenades and ammuntion weapon/in backpack. And the lowest line is energy and health. Energy works but isn't actually hooked up to do anything yet ...
Warning texture border is used to alert the player that they are in danger. Comes in two stages, amber/black when player health has dropped to the point when a single shot from the most powerful weapon would be fatal, and then red/black when a single shot from most weapons would prove fatal.
In the upper right hand corner is the Communication HUD, loosely based on the idea from Freespace where you'd get a little animated pic of who was talking to you over the radio. Thus the Comms HUD displays a static picture of the messenger and 5 lines of text to hold whatever the player needs to be told dynamically.
And finally maps which toggle on when you hold down the "show map" button. I'd had a bit of an um-and-ah about maps and radar and the sort, and eventually decided against what most games have - the dynamically updating radar showing the player's position. Instead I've decided to go down the map reading route - the player would have to orientate themselves using visual clues such as heightmap and buildings and then move from one point to another using the compass and heading as "dead reckoning", akin to realistic map reading.
Currently the map on the left is only a heightmap for testing, but would include buildings and roads/tracks like a real map as well as possibly target/goal information. The map on the right is what displays when no map is available.
That about wraps the gameplay HUD up, apart from maybe linking energy to something like a sprint/breath underwater/shielding/energy weapon/etc ... have to have a bit more of a think on that one.
Next up, that demo I might have mentioned aeons ago ... and I've also got an idea about using dynamic, random placement of enemies as a way of increasing replayability for it. And eventually get back to looking at the save/load game system I mentioned many moons ago in some forum ...
[edit]
Followed a few recommendation on the feedback
About the author
One Bloke ... In His Bedroom ... Making Indie Games ...
#22
To be honest, a lot of what I initially planned revoloved around how far one bloke, in his bedroom, with a budget of loose change found down the back of a sofa, could get trying to make a ridiculously epic game (the exact type that no-one should try to make - especially on their first game attempt), using just time to learn how to do stuff and scrounging free resources. otherwise I would have bought sticks-and-twigs which looks awesome but I want to do it all myself (pureLight being an obvious exception 'cos I could never do that myself)
Whilst I might have aimed to purposely bite off more than any sensible person would want to try and chew, I did choose to do something which I am very familiar with after a few years of modding my own singleplayer campaigns for Call of Lawyers. But I didn't want to do modding anymore, I wanted to make my own game, own Ai, and all that jazz. I had a fairly good idea what would be involved, so my decision of " I shalt maek teh HUEG gaem lol!11! " was based on reason rather than being a dicksh@t - well, not a total one anyhow ;o)
07/24/2010 (2:40 pm)
SinglePlayer ... possibly expanding into co-op - as a sort of bonus add-on for reusing all of the SP maps, hence my thoughts on randomizing AI positions and numbers in a "clear/capture the town" type gameplay. I'd rather avoid the dreaded feature creep though. But no classical DM/TDM/CTF/MP style stuff.To be honest, a lot of what I initially planned revoloved around how far one bloke, in his bedroom, with a budget of loose change found down the back of a sofa, could get trying to make a ridiculously epic game (the exact type that no-one should try to make - especially on their first game attempt), using just time to learn how to do stuff and scrounging free resources. otherwise I would have bought sticks-and-twigs which looks awesome but I want to do it all myself (pureLight being an obvious exception 'cos I could never do that myself)
Whilst I might have aimed to purposely bite off more than any sensible person would want to try and chew, I did choose to do something which I am very familiar with after a few years of modding my own singleplayer campaigns for Call of Lawyers. But I didn't want to do modding anymore, I wanted to make my own game, own Ai, and all that jazz. I had a fairly good idea what would be involved, so my decision of " I shalt maek teh HUEG gaem lol!11! " was based on reason rather than being a dicksh@t - well, not a total one anyhow ;o)
#23
Do you think you'll be a one hit wonder, or is there another game idea in the pipeline?
07/24/2010 (3:07 pm)
sounds a bit like me really. I jumped in the deep end with no gaming experience whatsoever, well... apart from the days when I ran a 20 line bulletin board running doom, quake and duke nuk'em 3D - then the internet took off and killed off the bulletin board.. after that I had a 10 year stint in IT before returning back to games again (full circle, but on the other side of the fence) so I know what it's like to start with a big project and all credit to you, it's looking really good now, Its been a learning curve and not much money goes down the sofa in our house! The wife and kids take most of it before it gets there lol. Don't know about your game..but my characters have had several prototypes... they we're just not good enough for T3D :) Do you think you'll be a one hit wonder, or is there another game idea in the pipeline?
#24
I've got plenty of gameplay ideas, would like to do a proper "Dynamic Thinking Person's First Person Action/Adventure" which isn't a half-arsed compromise (I'm looking at you Far Cry2). But figured I'd be better off stick to the sort of things that I'm familiar with for a fullblown first attempt.
07/24/2010 (4:02 pm)
My art ->models have changed a few times, mostly because I'd never done any 3D modeling before, so a bit of extra practise helped. I'm satisfied with what they look like now, how they deform to animate (read as - I'm not redoing them again! Time to crack on.)I've got plenty of gameplay ideas, would like to do a proper "Dynamic Thinking Person's First Person Action/Adventure" which isn't a half-arsed compromise (I'm looking at you Far Cry2). But figured I'd be better off stick to the sort of things that I'm familiar with for a fullblown first attempt.
#25
07/24/2010 (5:10 pm)
Your UI looks pretty cool! Nice progress. 
#26
Hehe, similar background decision here... the biggest reason that I ended up with Torque a couple years back was the 6-8 years of modding Tribes. Decided I didn't want to finish another total conversion but wanted to make my own game from the ground up -- and now my dumbass is working on 2 games, 1 architectural project, and a couple of content packs all at the same time. I need to be more focused - like you - everytime I read one of your blog I think that to myself.
07/24/2010 (8:52 pm)
Quote:
I did choose to do something which I am very familiar with after a few years of modding my own singleplayer campaigns for Call of Lawyers. But I didn't want to do modding anymore, I wanted to make my own game, own Ai, and all that jazz. I had a fairly good idea what would be involved, so my decision of " I shalt maek teh HUEG gaem lol!11! " was based on reason rather than being a dicksh@t - well, not a total one anyhow ;o)
Hehe, similar background decision here... the biggest reason that I ended up with Torque a couple years back was the 6-8 years of modding Tribes. Decided I didn't want to finish another total conversion but wanted to make my own game from the ground up -- and now my dumbass is working on 2 games, 1 architectural project, and a couple of content packs all at the same time. I need to be more focused - like you - everytime I read one of your blog I think that to myself.
#27
Actually one of the reasons I chose Torque back in the TGE days (apart from source - regardless that I can't cpp, I do understand the value of code though) was because TorqueScript seemed quite nice to work with.
07/24/2010 (9:32 pm)
Modding Tribes? That's cheating!Actually one of the reasons I chose Torque back in the TGE days (apart from source - regardless that I can't cpp, I do understand the value of code though) was because TorqueScript seemed quite nice to work with.
#28
Always have been a fan of TribesScript - I mean TorqueScript! I've done things in script that most people would swear could only be done in the source. There's a lot that it can do with some creative thinking and/or problem solving...
07/24/2010 (10:17 pm)
Nah, modding Tribes was only a headstart :DAlways have been a fan of TribesScript - I mean TorqueScript! I've done things in script that most people would swear could only be done in the source. There's a lot that it can do with some creative thinking and/or problem solving...
#29
07/25/2010 (11:24 pm)
Thanks for the feedback, chaps. After a bit of a think, I made a few tweaks/changes/additions based on it.
#30
The grenade/ammo indicators are definitely much more clearer now as to their function.
07/26/2010 (2:52 pm)
Nice! See a few extra guns in there already :DThe grenade/ammo indicators are definitely much more clearer now as to their function.
#31
[edit] Added video to main blog.
07/26/2010 (3:56 pm)
And had a little "field test" of how all of that playGUI looks in-game.[edit] Added video to main blog.
#32
The directional damage indicators look much better than what I had cobbled together in the old FPS kit (might have to borrow some inspiration, hehe). Still think it would be cool if the Warning Border was to pulse -- maybe some sort of heartbeat to damage ratio where the closer to death you were then the faster it would flash. At one time I had the numerical health hud hooked up to do so, but forget why I had removed it.
07/26/2010 (4:28 pm)
Video looks good.The directional damage indicators look much better than what I had cobbled together in the old FPS kit (might have to borrow some inspiration, hehe). Still think it would be cool if the Warning Border was to pulse -- maybe some sort of heartbeat to damage ratio where the closer to death you were then the faster it would flash. At one time I had the numerical health hud hooked up to do so, but forget why I had removed it.
#33
I think some sort of audio warning pulse would probably be good, maybe a little irritating after a while ...
07/26/2010 (4:33 pm)
Is there an alpha issue with fading bitmaps? I had a little play with the ... guiFadeInBitmapCtrl and it leaves a horrible black splodge when activating.I think some sort of audio warning pulse would probably be good, maybe a little irritating after a while ...
#34
The audio warning would indeed get irritating. At one time I'd had one hooked up to the mission area boundary - once you ran outside the mission area it would damage you and play a sound -- it got very annoying :D
EDIT: I kept a copy of the old FPS Genre Kit before it got stripped down to the FPS Example and removed from the repo... gonna have to dig that old thing out.
07/26/2010 (4:53 pm)
Ewww... yeah, i see what you mean. Thinking back my old health pulse effect was more of a blinking thing.The audio warning would indeed get irritating. At one time I'd had one hooked up to the mission area boundary - once you ran outside the mission area it would damage you and play a sound -- it got very annoying :D
EDIT: I kept a copy of the old FPS Genre Kit before it got stripped down to the FPS Example and removed from the repo... gonna have to dig that old thing out.
#35
[edit]
Actually I could schedule it to blink all the time, and have it as the child of a container, and do visibility on that parent (thus transfered to it's child) when required.
07/26/2010 (4:57 pm)
Blinking with a schedule? Or with a custom guiBitmapCtrl?[edit]
Actually I could schedule it to blink all the time, and have it as the child of a container, and do visibility on that parent (thus transfered to it's child) when required.
#36
07/26/2010 (5:27 pm)
It was a scheduled blinking. Had also done something similar with an out of bounds warning that only scheduled itself when needed. Send me an email and once I find wherever I stashed that backup I'll send it to you as an example.
#37
07/26/2010 (6:10 pm)
That's okay, already done it. :) 
#38
It never ceases to amaze me, even after over a decade of making games, how little things like a hud make everything feel, well, gamey.
07/26/2010 (6:24 pm)
Looks like some nice progress made already.It never ceases to amaze me, even after over a decade of making games, how little things like a hud make everything feel, well, gamey.
#39
07/26/2010 (7:09 pm)
Very nice. =)
#40
I don't know of a way to just kill off a schedule, so I threw in a small dynamic field to check whether the schedule should repeat or not
07/26/2010 (7:30 pm)
Flashy damageHUD when very low health. Noticed that the schedule didn't clear itself up after exiting the level, so you could end up with multiple instances of the same schedule if you exit and reload the mission - so maybe something to watch out for with other in-game schedules ...I don't know of a way to just kill off a schedule, so I threw in a small dynamic field to check whether the schedule should repeat or not
Torque Owner Jules
Something2Play