Excuse my tangent, but I have a question for the people who want to play in native 1080p, 1920x1200, etc.
Do you realize how IE games look at very high resolutions? Much of the character art, map art, is lost at extremely high resolutions. The fallout community recognized this, which is why resolution scaling has proven so popular. Lower resolutions allow the appreciation of the art, while accommodating modern aspect ratios and increasing available screen real estate. I think the Beamdog devs understand this, which is why they're supporting scaling.
The game looks better, to me, at a lower resolution (aspect ratio correct) scaled to a modern screen resolution.
In defense of my case, I present you with a screen cap from my monitor's native res (1920x1200) and lower but scaled (1280x800) to native. I would argue that the scaled 1280 image provides for better appreciation of the world detail, and easier reading of text.
@agris This is what I've found using the widescreen mod as well. Though my screen supports 1920x1080, it makes the view too zoomed-out for my tastes, with characters and portraits being too small. Out of all the resolutions I've tried, I prefer 1280x720.
@Paladin The most difficult part is to add a frame around the portraits, i think that i'll need to paint the frames on the panel, something like that :
The second problem is for edit the BAM (max 256 colors).
IMO, the backgrounds look amazing at higher resolution, but I would usually go for a compromise when using the widescreen mod to avoid super tiny text and character sprites... BGEE will hopefully offer the best of both worlds.
Wanted to try make a different kind of GUI while listening to different kinds of people advices.
I changed the button layout a little bit, extended the text box, made the GUI's backgrounds color resemble somewhat Baldurs Gate 1, kept my portrait frame borders, kept the new icons which "Overhaul" made while making a little bit changes in color scheme, tried to use up all the free space without suffocating GUI too much, changed the new NPC portraits saturation a little bit to make them in harmony with other BG portraits (though Neera still stands out thanks to all that pink) and that's about it.
I hope I didn't mess the GUI up too badly, 'cause i have been painting with mouse instead of a pen and it took a little bit of time, therefore i am "blind" to my own work 'cause I have stared the same picture for far too long, losing my objectivity in the process. So the screenshot mockup might be a little too detailed and gaudy...
P.S Apologies if my explanation and writing sounds weird, I am little bit of tired for not sleeping well thanks to my neighbors party rumble for all night long.
P.P.S And while at it, thanks to all folks for kind comments for my mockup screenshots! I appreciate it.
Took out the extra button which expands the dialogue/battle log.
IMO this is by far the best GUI suggestion I've seen in this topic. I'd only get rid of the second button that expands the dialogue/battle log, it's redundant.
just to add my opinion to the rest of the same; i like blue color, but dislike combination with brown/gold. oversaturated, and not very harmonic choice of tones. portraits need borders.
some might say people will always criticize and that is true, but those seem to be complaints most people have voiced, so that is something to take into account. as for it being to aggressive, i think that depends on current background- no UI will be in perfect harmony with every background game can throw at you.
at first i was underwhelmed. today i liked it. go figure.
Knettgummi is right, I don't like the graphics you've used (but I bet plenty of us will) but the layout is great. The weirdly shaped portraits aren't so good.
Now combine that layout with BG1 HUD and it's epic.
Can you be more specific about what graphics you didn't like? Did you only mean the portraits, the combat log graphics or something else? I would appreciate the feedback.
@Daylight Remove the edgings off the GUI and portraits and it's perfect. It doesn't need them. I still prefer the vanilla one though, it's just BG1's thing.
Seeing how every man and his dog are offering UI improvement suggestions I also decided to chip in ).
I love blueish tone this new UI has... always hated original with it's bland grey stone texture and cardboard cutout buttons. The only thing that I find needs improvement are borders between portraits. Here's my take on this:
And another one with the old selection marker:
I really don't see why thouse buttons on the lower right side should be that big... so I decided to go with BG2 way and place them side by side. I don't know what that magnifying glass button does so the 2 coupled together buttons could be differen depending on their functionality (You won't find yourself pushing the lantern button alot).
P.S.: You can rightclick on pictures and choose "open in a new tab" to see them in full resolution.
Wanted to try make a different kind of GUI while listening to different kinds of people advices.
I changed the button layout a little bit, extended the text box, made the GUI's backgrounds color resemble somewhat Baldurs Gate 1, kept my portrait frame borders, kept the new icons which "Overhaul" made while making a little bit changes in color scheme, tried to use up all the free space without suffocating GUI too much, changed the new NPC portraits saturation a little bit to make them in harmony with other BG portraits (though Neera still stands out thanks to all that pink) and that's about it.
I hope I didn't mess the GUI up too badly, 'cause i have been painting with mouse instead of a pen and it took a little bit of time, therefore i am "blind" to my own work 'cause I have stared the same picture for far too long, losing my objectivity in the process. So the screenshot mockup might be a little too detailed and gaudy...
P.S Apologies if my explanation and writing sounds weird, I am little bit of tired for not sleeping well thanks to my neighbors party rumble for all night long.
P.P.S And while at it, thanks to all folks for kind comments for my mockup screenshots! I appreciate it.
Took out the extra button which expands the dialogue/battle log.
Comments
Do you realize how IE games look at very high resolutions? Much of the character art, map art, is lost at extremely high resolutions. The fallout community recognized this, which is why resolution scaling has proven so popular. Lower resolutions allow the appreciation of the art, while accommodating modern aspect ratios and increasing available screen real estate. I think the Beamdog devs understand this, which is why they're supporting scaling.
The game looks better, to me, at a lower resolution (aspect ratio correct) scaled to a modern screen resolution.
In defense of my case, I present you with a screen cap from my monitor's native res (1920x1200) and lower but scaled (1280x800) to native. I would argue that the scaled 1280 image provides for better appreciation of the world detail, and easier reading of text.
The second problem is for edit the BAM (max 256 colors).
I changed the button layout a little bit, extended the text box, made the GUI's backgrounds color resemble somewhat Baldurs Gate 1, kept my portrait frame borders, kept the new icons which "Overhaul" made while making a little bit changes in color scheme, tried to use up all the free space without suffocating GUI too much, changed the new NPC portraits saturation a little bit to make them in harmony with other BG portraits (though Neera still stands out thanks to all that pink) and that's about it.
I hope I didn't mess the GUI up too badly, 'cause i have been painting with mouse instead of a pen and it took a little bit of time, therefore i am "blind" to my own work 'cause I have stared the same picture for far too long, losing my objectivity in the process. So the screenshot mockup might be a little too detailed and gaudy...
P.S
Apologies if my explanation and writing sounds weird, I am little bit of tired for not sleeping well thanks to my neighbors party rumble for all night long.
P.P.S
And while at it, thanks to all folks for kind comments for my mockup screenshots! I appreciate it.
Took out the extra button which expands the dialogue/battle log.
Its beautiful!!
IMO this is by far the best GUI suggestion I've seen in this topic. I'd only get rid of the second button that expands the dialogue/battle log, it's redundant.
oversaturated, and not very harmonic choice of tones. portraits need borders.
some might say people will always criticize and that is true, but those seem to be complaints most people have voiced, so that is something to take into account. as for it being to aggressive, i think that depends on current background- no UI will be in perfect harmony with every background game can throw at you.
at first i was underwhelmed. today i liked it. go figure.
Silly me. This is what happens folks, when you don't have enough beauty sleep...
That looks really good!
Some of the details feel a tad too steampunk-y for what I associate with BG, but the quality is impeccable.
Now combine that layout with BG1 HUD and it's epic.
Also the chat log should be square not oval.
I love what you've done to the buttons, and the texture of the HUD is top notch.
I love blueish tone this new UI has... always hated original with it's bland grey stone texture and cardboard cutout buttons. The only thing that I find needs improvement are borders between portraits. Here's my take on this:
And another one with the old selection marker:
I really don't see why thouse buttons on the lower right side should be that big... so I decided to go with BG2 way and place them side by side. I don't know what that magnifying glass button does so the 2 coupled together buttons could be differen depending on their functionality (You won't find yourself pushing the lantern button alot).
P.S.: You can rightclick on pictures and choose "open in a new tab" to see them in full resolution.
Wood, stone & gold :
http://nsa30.casimages.com/img/2012/09/08/120908042852360211.jpg