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Interface design

TheMadArtist
polycounter lvl 12
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TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
So one of the many hats I wear at work (we're a small software team) is the occasional interface design. On top of games, we do a lot of military simulation work where the comment that drives me nuts most of the time in regards to interface is "don't make it look too 'gamey'." They prefer crisp, clean, techy looking interface most of the time. Anyways, I've been beating my head against a wall on this latest design and didn't know if there were any other polycounters that worked on interface as well and if they had sites or games in mind they went to for inspiration.
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  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    I've not found many resources, I just tend to look at other game's UIs for inspiration.
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  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    Lance Thackeray has a bunch of badass stuff that's always good, his site is down but his deviant art site is still around:
    http://pureav.deviantart.com/gallery/
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  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    Maybe look at some future based movies, like Minority Report or Avatar? They futuristic interfaces in the movie, and even in the menu system for the Blu-ray/DVD.
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  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    bad company 2 had a clean interface that looked pretty good, no crazy designs or borders, just a simple 3 color scheme that looked clean and awesome.
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  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    http://www.2advanced.com
    - check portfolio & their clients

    http://blog.coleran.com/category/portfolio/screendesign

    id suggest studying stuff, how people orient things, how text looks, how things move, and incorporate that into your own cool ideas.
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  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    Cool stuff guys. Moose those links are pretty cool, definitely some inspirational stuff there. I was also looking at The Orphanage's work on Iron Man 2. I'm kinda at the whim of my boss on this, who frequently will find interfaces he likes, and then hits me with "Ok, I like this, but I like this from this one, and this from this one, make it work!" Those are some really cool examples to get the juices flowin' though.
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  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    word, know how that goes ;)

    The 2Advanced stuff is very distinctive, as is Coleran's work. I always find myself looking back to Final Fantasy (the movie), and The 10 second shot in the 2nd Matrix film, where the ships are landing in Zion. That, and Metal Gear :)

    45 degree angles are good. Solid, clean colors.

    Could also try using the Kuler extension for photoshop, or the one on the website for some monochromatic color scheme help!

    Good luck!
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  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    lulz, I look like jerk because I just skimmed over your post. I can't really share what games I looked at but I did reference DocRob's blog entry on designing the Warhammer UI. Doesn't really apply to tech-like UIs but I figured I'd post for anyone else having to deal with UI work.
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  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    When I had to do interfaces, I always did it on paper in the form of a hierarchy, plastered it all over the wall. But this was after the programmers gave me what functions were to be available to the end user. I then took the functions and grouped them 3 or 4 times on cards. From there they usually had some kind of idea of what they wanted and I worked with the engineers to come up with something somewhat solid. And it was military, they didn't like flashy stuff at the time and didn't like too many icons other than what represented units. A lot of text and sub-menus...

    Justin Meisse - May your avatar and the horse it rode in on burn in hell. I totally freakin though I drank too much when it blinked, then it didn't blink for a long time when I looked, then out the corner of my eye I saw it freakin' looked at me.
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  • DerDude
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    DerDude polycounter lvl 10
    http://dietrichmagnus.blogspot.com/2010/06/future-of-ui-design.html
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  • Vito
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    Vito polycounter lvl 18
    I don't do visual design, but I'd be interested in discussing the structure, layout and interaction.

    Looking at movie stuff (like Coleran's stuff that Moose linked to) is great for visuals, but terrible for organization, layout or consistency. The point of a movie UI is to convey a single concept that works in a performance, which is not the same as working for productivity.

    I really liked how the objectives in Splinter Cell: Conviction were projected onto the environment. I don't know what other recent games do that, but the E3 videos for Bulletstorm showed their in-game status/achievement text being projected contextually around the enemies they were about, and that looked well done.
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  • Eric Chadwick
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    Eric Chadwick admin
    Added a new section to the wiki.
    http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryUserInterface

    Only links to this thread so far, but at least it's a start. We've had threads about UI before, anyone care to look for them?
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