Displaying Character Names
First you should think about the goal, then the representation. It is a UI, therefore useablitly >> prettiness
So, break down the elements you want to communicate:
1. name
2. alley/neutral/opponent
3. title
4. in combat
5. health
...
Then think about what is really important for the game, which should be hidden, what should be optinonal. Then try to use secondary tools to distinguish between elements
color encoding (alley/neutral/opponen), icons (master=*, overlord=** , in combat=crossed swords).
And finally think about what impact your game have on the kind of communicating, e.g.
1. lot of people crowded in a fast paced game => you need to quickly assign and read informations about an entity => overhead, iconized
2. you select an object to interact with it, slower paced game => select it and display all necessary information in the hud
So, break down the elements you want to communicate:
1. name
2. alley/neutral/opponent
3. title
4. in combat
5. health
...
Then think about what is really important for the game, which should be hidden, what should be optinonal. Then try to use secondary tools to distinguish between elements
color encoding (alley/neutral/opponen), icons (master=*, overlord=** , in combat=crossed swords).
And finally think about what impact your game have on the kind of communicating, e.g.
1. lot of people crowded in a fast paced game => you need to quickly assign and read informations about an entity => overhead, iconized
2. you select an object to interact with it, slower paced game => select it and display all necessary information in the hud
This feels more like a UI design question than a programming question.
A floating overhead marker should perhaps be scaled for readability instead of being stuck at the character's scale. There's no point in showing floating text at all if it's too small to read, and on the other hand, there's no point in growing the text beyond a certain point no matter how close a character comes to the screen.
Also, I think it's worth considering whether to show a different amount of information for characters at different distances. Just to give some ideas:
- a character at very long distance does not have a marker
- a character at long distance has a simple downwards-pointing triangle marker that is color-coded to facilitate friend/foe identification
- a character at middle distance has name, HP bar visible
- a character up close has name, title, affiliation, HP bar visible
A floating overhead marker should perhaps be scaled for readability instead of being stuck at the character's scale. There's no point in showing floating text at all if it's too small to read, and on the other hand, there's no point in growing the text beyond a certain point no matter how close a character comes to the screen.
Also, I think it's worth considering whether to show a different amount of information for characters at different distances. Just to give some ideas:
- a character at very long distance does not have a marker
- a character at long distance has a simple downwards-pointing triangle marker that is color-coded to facilitate friend/foe identification
- a character at middle distance has name, HP bar visible
- a character up close has name, title, affiliation, HP bar visible
Design, maybe, but coding.... well i wanted to talk about HOW one might do it. Not the design. It kinda spun off to be design ( which I dont mind either ). My idea was to have it only show up when they are in range, and when not in combat mode. That different elements would be showing. I also want to kinda mimic what forge did. Show the health and skill points of the character in the indicator under them.
One more thing to note, we need to know the stuff behind how to do this, not really the design. So any idea or help in that direction is greatly appreciated
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
