HUD and UI ideas - mockups

[bszlrd]

Played a bit with the orbital map:

• The top button row acts almost like they were tabs. Their icons would be visible over the map header.
• The map header would also have the system name in it.
• The system overview on the right is independent from the map, and could be visible above other views too. Possibly with a way to even show near-by systems, too. Useful for trade or mission planning for example.
• The overview lacks search/filter now
• All windows/tabs should remember their position in my opinion. Like if you switch from the BBS while talking to somebody, you should be able to go to the map tab, and back to where you left the BBS.
• Top left there are some display toggles for orbits, apses, body icons, labels, player and other ships.
• Under that a collapsible window for orbital data.
• No maneuver planner yet, but the the third row on the orbit data is for the maneuver orbit.
• Time controls for the map on the bottom left, so it's close to the current date and time display. I'm planning on putting the maneuver planneer above it.
• There's a slight atmospheric perspective to enhance the spatial awareness.
• By default I'd keep the body representations flat white. This way as you get close, they'd naturally hide the icons. The body label could stay at the center, but would need a dark mask behind it to stay visible over the white body.
• There could be a toggleable latitude and longtitude grid, maybe even a projected ground track.
• There could also be a simplified ground/water display, maybe even a full-on rendered one.
• Settlement icons could also be displayed on the surface, if the view is close enough.
• Sub-body (moon, orbital, etc) icons could be hidden when afar, similar to how they are handled in the world view currently.

Possible input handling.
I'm planning on putting buttons in there too, at least for zoom and centering.

• Left mouse should select thing you clicked.
• Double left could zoom to a good close view.
• Shift left mouse for targeting. (Disparate from world view, but more handy for map usage this way in my opinion)
• Ctrl+left mouse could set it as frame of reference.
• Right mouse on a body could bring up a popup for autopilot commands maybe?
• Home could reset view (if you got lost)
• Middle mouse (and even right mouse?) could rotate the view, shift+middle could pan (Blender works this way)
• And if we follow some blender cenventions, numpad 7 could rotate to 'top view', 3 could rotate to 'side view' and 1 could be 'front' (based on current orbit and ecliptic, or just the ecliptic plane.). Might be useful for orbit planning.
• In a same manner 4862 could be used for incremental rotation, and 9 could be view from opposite direction. (these Blender view shortcuts are quite clear in my opinion). Also, 5 could be used for recentering the view (since toggling between perspective and orthographic view doesn't seem applicable in this case).
• Wheel and +- could be used for zoom

What do you think?

[bszlrd]

And a more closer view, still WIP:


Things like the coordinate grid and city icons, the map detail, and the day/night distinction could fade in if you are close enough.
The orbit is also projected on the planet surface (might need several orbit passes to really show where the ship will pass due to planet rotation, and the ship position, and the apses are indicated on the surface projection with a line between the point in orbit and it's surface position.

[impaktor]

Looking pretty amazing!

[sturnclaw]

I'm posting another set of mockups, this time for the InfoView. We're looking at moving the InfoView away from a full-screen View and splitting it into several dockable windows, displayed in the main Game View, either free-floating or in one of several re-sizable docks.


Full album here

[bszlrd]

I've played around with a landing aid idea for a bit:
It would work like this: A circle/dot with a crosshair is drawn onto the scanner indicating the location of the landing pad when the player has clearance for landing.
- The size of the circle indicates height above the pad:
- If it is as the same size as the circle at the center of the scanner, then the player is 25 meters (or so, would need some testing) above the pad.
- It would scale to the size of the scanner at 0 height.
- There would also be a dot in the center of the circle, which would grow to the size of the central scanner circle at 0m.
- This dot could also serve an additional function: could show roll and pitch alignment by moving around.
- No need for any other aid for orientation, since we already have a pitch and roll indicator. Maybe they could be colored yellow during landing to draw more attention to them though.
- The crosshair part doesn't rotate, and only serve as visual aid for positional alignment.
- There could be a fainter line across the pad dot that would rotate, indicating the orientation of the pad.
- Additionally the gear button could be colored red if it is not lowered, to make sure that the player doesn't forget about it. It could even faintly blink.
- It could maybe also be shown at takeoff, maybe until the player raises the landing gear for example, to give a bit of a feel for the takeoff.

This is how it would look on approach:


When the ship hovers above the pad, aligned properly:


At touchdown:


I've also uploaded a mockup video of it.
The same approach could also work with the azimuthal radar, but since that's facing forward, there might be some confusion about its directionality. On the other hand the pseudo-perspective of the ellipse radar, I think is well suited for this aid.
It could also work for the orbital landings when that gets finished, but with the caveat that the roll and pitch indicator should use the orientation of the pad.

For external docking this display could work to a level, but the ellipse shape of the radar isn't too suited for it in my opinion. And I'd say for external docking collar cameras are a must, thus the docking hud could live in the reticle. Since you are essentially aiming the ship towards the receiving collar.