"Snap to sprite style" GUI

D4N005H

Hello.

Please have a look at the workflow of choosing a GUI button in order to select a car part in Need For Speed 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RklKAswSbX4
I've tried to replicate the behavior in Unity3D but with a mesh object always looking at the camera. Also, an Event gets fired when player "clicks" on it. But this concept doesn't work with a gamepad. Any suggestion would be appreciated. Watch my test scene below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPoeTO07s8
Thanks.

Eric Chadwick

They have refined their camera movement very carefully. The camera moves smoothly between the parts. There is always a transition, never a sudden switch.

They move the camera target to the center of the part, but it uses an ease curve (slow start, fast move, slow end).

Your UI seems to have a lot of scrolling. There seems to be empty space between options. Can you condense?

RN

At 0:14 of the NFS video you can see how it goes back and forth to the same door position, I think they're using preset camera positions for each part.

You're using the mouse to pick a car part, but the NFS video seems to use a "cursor" way, you use arrow keys or a gamepad to switch the cursor to the next parts.
You don't visually select a part with a cursor, you just say "go to next part" by pressing left or right, and the game shows the cursor on the next part automatically. Internally you have all parts in a list, so all you do is advance the index to pick the next part in the list (cycling back to the beginning if necessary), and then find out what preset camera position you have for that part. This camera position is something that you authored previously, like in Maya, choosing different camera positions and storing them with several camera objects that can be loaded from FBX.

You can then do a transition in scripting, between the current camera position and orientation to the preset camera position and orientation.

D4N005H

Eric Chadwick said:

They have refined their camera movement very carefully. The camera moves smoothly between the parts. There is always a transition, never a sudden switch.

They move the camera target to the center of the part, but it uses an ease curve (slow start, fast move, slow end).

Your UI seems to have a lot of scrolling. There seems to be empty space between options. Can you condense?

Hello Mr.Chadwick. Good points, Thanks!!
The spacing, scrolling, and smoothly camera transitioning are not the case in this scene. In fact, I'm going to fix those afterward.

RN said:

At 0:14 of the NFS video you can see how it goes back and forth to the same door position, I think they're using preset camera positions for each part.

You're using the mouse to pick a car part, but the NFS video seems to use a "cursor" way, you use arrow keys or a gamepad to switch the cursor to the next parts.
You don't visually select a part with a cursor, you just say "go to next part" by pressing left or right, and the game shows the cursor on the next part automatically. Internally you have all parts in a list, so all you do is advance the index to pick the next part in the list (cycling back to the beginning if necessary), and then find out what preset camera position you have for that part. This camera position is something that you authored previously, like in Maya, choosing different camera positions and storing them with several camera objects that can be loaded from FBX.

You can then do a transition in scripting, between the current camera position and orientation to the preset camera position and orientation.

Hello RN. That is it!! Thank you for the info. Honestly, I've not played the video game.I think I was complicating the problem for myself, that is easy then. Thanks again.

RN

I had first seen this on Star Wars Episode 1: Racer (1999) for the N64, check this video at 10:36 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvXIAnVzYE&t=10m36s

D4N005H

RN said:

I had first seen this on Star Wars Episode 1: Racer (1999) for the N64, check this video at 10:36 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvXIAnVzYE&t=10m36s

I see, Amazing.
Thanks!

D4N005H

@RN, @Eric Chadwick I had enough time yesterday to work on it, Here is what happened to it based on your information. The thing is, how do you think it is possible to add the white pointer in the NFS video that I've shared in the first post here? The white pointer acts like a magnet.

D4N005H

Here you would see a newly updated scene with the Snap to Sprite feature. I love it .
(The slow frame-per-second playback speed is caused by the MP4-to-GIF converter)

RN

That looks pretty cool!