Skarma
September 9th, 2010, 02:36 PM
Well, where do I start? I can't seem to get over this question. I simply suck at design and planning, but it's warranted by this entire project and I need to start somewhere. This is where you come in, if I am lucky today. There are so many great artists and designers around this forum it gives me goose bumps and yes, I need you as much as you need me to program Forge for Custom Edition. Yes folks, it's in the works and with the powerful OpenSauce development kit, things have been moving very quickly for only a one man team -- cheers to Kornman00. He has been a great help so far since I have migrated to OS, even though I bug him a lot.
I have a buggy gravity gun working, thanks to Abyll. Currently, I have been working on monitor mode to freely roam the camera about the level. Unfortunately, I do not have a mouse or a middle mouse button, so I cannot operate Halo's built in camera mode yet. E: Got camera working with configurable options. I plan on hacking around this and as Kornman00 suggested, to make these controls configurable. No, I can't even afford $4 to buy the cheapest mouse on newegg.
Kornman00 suggested that I look into Forge World for Reach to get ideas. So I did and I started drooling. I never have owned an Xbox 360 or anything Halo 3 or greater, so Forge to me is new and it's awesome. I only know what I have seen in Reach videos and that isn't much, but what I have seen is great and it's the direction I want to go with this project. So here is the first question for you guys -- should Forge CE be a mimic of Forge Mode in Halo 3 / Reach? The color scheme, font, layout, functionality, etc of the GUI be the same? I like it personally, but it is really all up to you, the guy using this to create his maps. I'm not a modder yet, so I don't know how you would want it.
Reach Forge Interfacehttp://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a343/iambic5/nudging.jpg
I don't know about ripping Forge textures from Reach tags, if that is even an option at this point. I will assume we are creating our own...
From a programming stand point, I will be using a single texture to draw the entire user interface. How is this done? I can import one image file that contains all the pieces of the interface, sort of like an unwrapped model. With this I can render individual sections of the texture, instead of importing, creating, and drawing a bunch of individual textures. This will cut down on file size and increase performance when drawing onto the scene. There shouldn't be too many elements in the texture. As you have seen in Forge, the interface is very simple.
Crappy interface texture example1665Of course the background will need to be transparent.
We need to discuss all this layout stuff as well as have someone create this interface texture. I am no good with paint programs. :saddowns:
Next, we need to figure out user interaction with the interface. Can the mouse interact with the menu or should it go with keyboard only? When hovering your cursor over an object, there will be different keys you can press, like in Forge World, to bring up options (Grab Object, Object Tools, Object Options, Delete Object, etc.) Once you press a key, for example Object Options, should the game world freeze and you can interact the mouse with object options or should you still be able to move in the game world and interact the object options with the keyboard? I vote keyboard only menu. If I was modding, I would still want to be able to play around while I adjust object properties. This is something to think about though.
Next is the HUD. In monitor mode in Forge World, the HUD has a lens feel to it. It's alright I guess, seems distracting. This is just something visual we don't really need, but would be cool to feature. Then we need a cursor. I like the semicircle and green hand thing but if we aren't going for a Forge World copy pasta, then we need to get creative.
Sooo, what do you think? Thanks guys.
I have a buggy gravity gun working, thanks to Abyll. Currently, I have been working on monitor mode to freely roam the camera about the level. Unfortunately, I do not have a mouse or a middle mouse button, so I cannot operate Halo's built in camera mode yet. E: Got camera working with configurable options. I plan on hacking around this and as Kornman00 suggested, to make these controls configurable. No, I can't even afford $4 to buy the cheapest mouse on newegg.
Kornman00 suggested that I look into Forge World for Reach to get ideas. So I did and I started drooling. I never have owned an Xbox 360 or anything Halo 3 or greater, so Forge to me is new and it's awesome. I only know what I have seen in Reach videos and that isn't much, but what I have seen is great and it's the direction I want to go with this project. So here is the first question for you guys -- should Forge CE be a mimic of Forge Mode in Halo 3 / Reach? The color scheme, font, layout, functionality, etc of the GUI be the same? I like it personally, but it is really all up to you, the guy using this to create his maps. I'm not a modder yet, so I don't know how you would want it.
Reach Forge Interfacehttp://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a343/iambic5/nudging.jpg
I don't know about ripping Forge textures from Reach tags, if that is even an option at this point. I will assume we are creating our own...
From a programming stand point, I will be using a single texture to draw the entire user interface. How is this done? I can import one image file that contains all the pieces of the interface, sort of like an unwrapped model. With this I can render individual sections of the texture, instead of importing, creating, and drawing a bunch of individual textures. This will cut down on file size and increase performance when drawing onto the scene. There shouldn't be too many elements in the texture. As you have seen in Forge, the interface is very simple.
Crappy interface texture example1665Of course the background will need to be transparent.
We need to discuss all this layout stuff as well as have someone create this interface texture. I am no good with paint programs. :saddowns:
Next, we need to figure out user interaction with the interface. Can the mouse interact with the menu or should it go with keyboard only? When hovering your cursor over an object, there will be different keys you can press, like in Forge World, to bring up options (Grab Object, Object Tools, Object Options, Delete Object, etc.) Once you press a key, for example Object Options, should the game world freeze and you can interact the mouse with object options or should you still be able to move in the game world and interact the object options with the keyboard? I vote keyboard only menu. If I was modding, I would still want to be able to play around while I adjust object properties. This is something to think about though.
Next is the HUD. In monitor mode in Forge World, the HUD has a lens feel to it. It's alright I guess, seems distracting. This is just something visual we don't really need, but would be cool to feature. Then we need a cursor. I like the semicircle and green hand thing but if we aren't going for a Forge World copy pasta, then we need to get creative.
Sooo, what do you think? Thanks guys.