[FVG]: User Interface

[Mike Ciance]

I've done some pretty scrappy jobs in Paint for concept drawings, but this may take the cake and the guy who baked it. It is my misproportioned concept sketch of how the UI will look.

[Ryan M.]

Wow, quick response!

That's exactly what I meant, quick.

One thing: would we like the view to be from where a real FIRST driver would be? IE, from a driver station? And what's the box up in the corner for?

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by Ryan Morehart

Wow, quick response!

That's exactly what I meant, quick.

One thing: would we like the view to be from where a real FIRST driver would be? IE, from a driver station? And what's the box up in the corner for?

i guess i was too worried about making a quick response and didn't think about explaining the picture!

the box in the top left corner is the song info box. this tells the player what song they ar listenign to and who sings it. by clicking there, the player pauses the game and enters the music menu, consisting of volume and playlist options

the box in the bottom left is the voodoo box. the red dot is a handle. this particular fictional robot has an extentable hook for getting up to the bar. the player clicks the handle and drags. the mouse's angle to the pivot joint controls the angle of the joint on the robot, and the mouse's distance from the joint controls the extension of the hook. this, of course, will be different for each robot, and some robots will have multiple handles.

and as far as view, i think a toggle would be best

[Astronouth7303]

I always imagined the voodoo window being in the lower-right, the score in the lower-left, and the song being a ticker (top or bottom); and the view being from the driver's station. My $0.02.

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

I always imagined the voodoo window being in the lower-right, the score in the lower-left, and the song being a ticker (top or bottom); and the view being from the driver's station. My $0.02.

we can have options to set the positions of the windows

[Dorienne]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

we can have options to set the positions of the windows

I don't know if we really need that. They won't really care as long as they can see what they're doing.
--d0ri

[Ryan M.]

Originally Posted by Dorienne Plait

I don't know if we really need that. They won't really care as long as they can see what they're doing.
--d0ri

I agree. Let the whiners get over it.

And what are you guys talking about?!?! It needs to look like the score board for official games. In the center top! But I don't really care.

[Dorienne]

I honestly think it should look like the scoreboards we have now in Regionals. I think it'd be more realistic and also let them experience the real competiton as we experience it. Let them see everything we see, do everything we do.
--d0ri

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by Dorienne Plait

I honestly think it should look like the scoreboards we have now in Regionals. I think it'd be more realistic and also let them experience the real competiton as we experience it. Let them see everything we see, do everything we do.
--d0ri

it will look like that, i just can't draw

[Joshua May]

Looks nice, yet another paint masterpiece. i was thinking about the voodoo in the lower-right like what Jamie was talking about. I'll try and get a sample interface in a 3D environment up tomorrow.

[Joshua May]

Allright, here's my test UI.

The camera angle is just a test. I figured the 50% opacity on the displays would allow the user to both see the field and the readouts. The lower-right box is the voodo display, but I didn't have any robot to demo with.

[mtrawls]

Originally Posted by Ryan Morehart

One thing: would we like the view to be from where a real FIRST driver would be? IE, from a driver station? And what's the box up in the corner for?

In Crystal Space you can move a camera anywhere in space, and point it in whatever direction ... so you can quite easily have multiple views with minimal work on your part (since the graphics engine handles it). Well, that's how it was several years ago ... but I imagine it's the same now.