what do u think Interface designer? give me advice

backpack

hi
I worked as a graphic designer. I quit 2D design and learned 3D and illustration to be a game artist. I think I'm doing very well.

Here's the thing company likes me because of I can do both interface and 3D. But I don't like doing a graphic design again. And I believe being a 2D design in the game industry means low money. If my thought is wrong give me some evidence.

I think I sould have told that I can not do graphic design.
It is really important issue for me. Please give me any advice.

Daz

If you really don't want to do it, and really want to reinvent yourself solely as a 3D artist, remove graphic design from your portfolio.

I wouldn't look at UI design as a lowly job though. Studios everywhere are starting to realise how important it is, and with so few dedicated UI artists out there, that should stand in their favor. We've spent months and months at our place trying to find someone suitable for this role, to no avail.

backpack

thank you.
I don't think UI isn't important. But some company doesn't care about it as well as salary for artist who is doing UI thing. That's my opinion waht are you guys thinking?

gauss

well it has more to do with what you want to be doing, like Daz said. don't advertise skills that you'd rather not exercise or haven't actually developed that well, because you might very well end up getting a job on just those qualifications. UIs are certainly a big feature for games these days--it just depends on if you want to be doing them.

skankerzero

I love doing interface design.

I do all our current menu systems for our porting projects.

It's a great way to break up the monotony of 'next gen' game development.

Luxury

Finally a question that is right up my alley.

I'm a senior UI designer at my company and it's not a lowly job at all. I'd actually say that I am in a position somewhat above many of the 3D artists because I have a heavy hand in the overall tone of the game because it's not just UI but also all the graphic design and cinematics and everything.

But it certainly isn't an easy job because of all the localization and TCRs and the scripting I do.

But it is a position that more and more studios are realizing that they are sorely lacking. Having the FX artist crank out the UI in his spare time just isn't cutting it anymore.

If you don't want to do it, then just say so. That just means that they will continue to look for someone to do it, the job will become harder to fill, and my salary will continue to rise. $_$

danr

I feel for daz (oooh yes) - we searched and searched for a good graphic designer with game (read: UI) experience for probably well over a year. We couldn't find one, so went with a very talented designer with no actual game experience , and decided to bolster him with the experience of some of the existing guys. Currently yhis means one of the 3D guys with lots of previous ui experience working purely on 2D - similar to what you're describing - which he's more than happy to do. No way is it a lowly job, the respect for these guys is huge, and the place in the wage scheme is not defined by the fact its 2D rather than 3D. Its all a vital part of the development, with its own set of required skills - and if you do continue with it you should be able to make your mark just as clearly and impressively as some of the 3D artists. Oh, just like luxury posted above. Yes. What he said

MoP

Good UI artists are bloody hard to find!

Joao Sapiro

ill use this thread to gather some knowledge, but what is exactly the task of the ui artist ? does he make the art of the menus etc only ? or he does other stuff ? i really have no idea :S

MoP

Usually menus, HUDs, in-game interactive screens, weapon overlays... anything which requires some sort of interactive user interface, really. I guess in some cases it could also extend to installer or game launcher design too.

blankslatejoe

ui guys can get just as much industry respect and $$ as 3d guys..they just get thanked/praised a lot less since everything they make will be broken/changing in some way up until the very HOUR you ship. its really not as easy job

Pedro Amorim

fuck, i totally love ui work
but that because i was brought up as a graphic designer and only recently (like 2 or 3 years ago) started in the arts of 3d.
but yea. the ui is somethnng i love in a game. its so awesome. for example the SKATE game has a fucking gorgeous UI which is perfect for the game.
half life for example... i dont like so much. sure it works and what not. but i would prefer to have little or no ui. just to give a litle more cinematic experience to the game

backpack

really? I didn't know that. If they give me good salary, I am willing to do it. cause I know it is very important. I see a lot of lame designs which I don't want to see. But my feeling is company still doesn't care about it. I hate it.
anyway thanks good info. Let me hear other guy's thinking

backpack

yes. i want same respect as much as 3D guys, If that is true. yes I will.
thanks

Slum

A lot of companies care about UI work. I know Raven is looking to hire a UI artist, and I've seen multiple job posts around the web looking for the same thing.

dnorth

I totally know what you mean. When I started working in games I was a UI guy. Back then, it was like what a lot of people were saying: sort of an afterthought. I was working on Madden, where the UI is very important, so we actually did have a dedicated group for it. But I think most projects just used whoever was free and had the inclination do it. On Madden, there was sort of a track where you stated as UI or "team art", then maybe stadiums, then maybe player. I think all that's been rethought a lot since UI is a totally different skillset.

It's true a lot more places are looking for and value UI people and it's a really different and important skill. BUT, there are a lot of different kinds of companies and projects and some of them are still kind of old school. It seems to me that the larger and more organized a project is, the more the UI designer is valued - but that could be total speculation on my part. I don't know if any of that helps, but I feel your pain kind of being at a crossroads there. It sort of comes down to what you feel like you really want to do. Maybe you sort of slipped into the UI thing because you were sort of good at it and liked it to start with, but you really would rather be making environments of characters. Or maybe UI is really what you're intersted in. To me, it seems better to really try to do what you want so you're not kicking yourself for not having tried.

One thing I remember though, is that the hardest thing about UI was how subjective it was. Everybody had an opinion about what it should look like. One other issue was that there was sort of a phenomenon where you'd create a look, everyone would think it's all cool and fresh, then a month or two later after everybody had been looking at the game all day everyday, that shine would sort of fade and you'd sort of end of having to redesign some things almost purely so they'd look fresh again.

Bronco

intresting discussion.

I know this off-topic and I don't mean to hi-jack the thread,but its more of a curiocity question than anything else...peace to all etc ect .

Anyway how is the general art of the UI done,oviously the functuality is coded or scripted but what software is the art done in? think I remember seeing flash being used for UI design. is this correct?

Just a curious one,sorry again.

John

Luxury

Bronco,

I work in Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Flash.

Here at my work, we are using Scaleform which is a Flash based program that takes vector art and spits it out into triangles in the game engine. So what I do is concept it out in PS, and once I get a look I like, I take it into AE and play around with how everything is going to move. Again, once I get a good look at how everything moves, I move back to PS, clean up, tweak everything and revise and reduce as much as I can.

Then I go into Flash, recreate as much as I can as vector, and what I can't, I use bitmaps for. I recreate the animations, and then set to work on the scripting - which is also done in Flash using Actionscript. Button behaviors, "what happens when I press up in this instance?" kind of stuff. Everything I do is basically 'dumb' which means that the designers can send any info to it and I have no idea what they send. And everything is dynamic so it will all work if there are 0 buttons, 3 buttons or 200. The hard part is because of this fact, I have to take into account long lines of text (German especially), multiple lines of text and whatnot.

If your company isn't using a Flash based system, then it is a hell of a lot easier on the artist, but a hell of a lot harder on the UI programmer. In this case the artist only supplies bitmaps (easy) and the programmer has to animate it all by code (hella hard).

backpack

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One thing I remember though, is that the hardest thing about UI was how subjective it was. Everybody had an opinion about what it should look like.

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally agree with you. I really hate lame UI. I believe people in games are mostly 3D and they think 2D is low level? heck no. I know there's heck of good UI design in market only recently. like NY Deff jam, street soccer. But if I see UI on domm3? I wanna through out my joystick. However I think lame design is still common. My opinion is bring the professional 2D guys instead of someone who can partly good at grahpic design. however I don't wanna be the frontier, unless company think UI is really important.