just looking for some last minute feedback on this thing i've been working on over the past few nights. it started as a small resolution upgrade for the old darkwood ui that comes with oldrpg, but I decided to run with it a little. it's supposed to be boring and unobtrusive, but still functional and somewhat aesthetically pleasing.
here's a preview shot on steam. Lemme know what you think so far!
things i still want to do:
1. figure out where the inventory window's shadow is located so i can remove it, it's causing some weird stuff with the transparency
2. figure out what i'm going to do with the gold area on the player panel
3. re-do the icons in the bottom right corner and add a similar wood frame to them
4. re-do the inventory item slot icons
5. add some minor decoration to the very top of the inventory window to cover the gap around the fill bar
6. ?
i'm working on a mock-up of something i'd like to add as a feature to this ui, and i'll edit this post to put that pic up soon. but, basically i want to create a new panel for the ui that holds the positive and negative current effects. the new panel would only take up a static, rectangular area of the screen, but would still be able to hold all of the current effects by resizing the icons on the fly. when it gets too full, the icons are shrunk and tiled in an efficient manner. this would prevent the effect icons from overlapping other parts of the ui, and also keep the resize and move functions of the other ui panels. also, it should be divided down the middle with an actual divider for positive/negative effects.
after that, i'd like to try to do the same for the health/mana/etc bars. make a new panel that holds all those bars in an efficient manner, can be resized, and takes up a set portion of space and cant overlap others
finally, separate the ammo into it's own panel, and let that float around by itself. so you can put it directly in the center of the screen if you so choose, or at least leave it floating somewhere close to the action so your eye doesnt have to move far, but far enough away so it stays out of the way.
the final goal is to take all of the separate information panels in the ui, make them somewhat similar dimensions by default, and allow them to lock into each other and the borders of the screen, for a fully customizable layout that you can keep for an entire game without having to tweak along the way. If you wanted just a bar along the bottom of your screen, with the player info on the left, then the health/stamina/paradox/equilibrium bars right next to that, followed by the positive effects on the top and the negative effects directly beneath, then the talents on a 3x15 or whatever grid, with the main menu/ inventory/ etc buttons tucked neatly in the bottom right corner of your screen, then dammit I am right with you on that. i would really really like a taskbar of sorts, or a command strip if you wanna sound really tactical. i don't really care what its called, i'd just like to see it in tome a real lot so i'm goin to see what i can do about making it
anyways, check out brightwood ui and leave some feedback please! i'll get working on that mock-up i was talking about. pictures always say so much more! if anyone wants to help out with a project like this, let me know and we can work together!
