Resubmission (Critical Reflection A)
Yes - that was all the work for my original submission. It's pretty much purely research. The beginning of a project with nothing coming from it. Before I continue, I have to actually review all the work I have and decide what I should do next.
HUDs and Screen Space
What I do here is simply measure what is called 'screen space' for a few games. Basically, screen space is what it implies - how much space is present in the screen, and how it is used. When it comes to UI, the less 'screen space' the UI takes, the less intrusive the UI usually feels. What this research did, however, showed that there is a trend in where UI typically goes. Specifically, the top and bottom edges of the screen. I've come to call this the letterbox space, as this is also where the black boxes (Letterboxes) go for movies. This letterbox area seems to be the most common places for UI - especially in corners. I can keep this in mind for my future work.
Shape Vs Environment
This is probably the most pointless bit of research - as it's effectively just putting boxes inside pictures that match the environment. There is a little bit of merit to it, however, as keeping this in mind when designing the UI can help lead to a UI that fits in with the game itself. I should've taken actual references of the UI for the games to compare, but I didn't do this originally.
Colour of the World
Something I consider crucial to UI design is colour - this is due to the fact that colour can mean anything when it comes to art. The 'research' I did here came down to simply creating a palette of the most colours in the scene, but this could come useful when designing UI for the game. However, both with this and 'Shape Vs Environment', it should be noted that the examples are using singular scenes. I know that when it comes to games development, you must keep in mind the game as a whole when creating the UI. Using multiple scenes and doing these 'experiments' on them could still be fruitful, however.
Existing UI
This post simply analyses existing UI in games - when I made this, I had planned to attempt to 'redesign' these UI elements to what I feel would fit more, but that went almost nowhere. What this post does have in merit, however, as it does have a tiny textual analysis of the UI in question. What I could personally use this for in the future, I don't know, but it does express my opinions on the UI.
Looking Ahead
Now, I need to decide what to do from now on to actually add physical work to my resubmission. And well, I decided to take it to a rather different path, but I feel could actually fit in more with my original word for 'To weave'. VR.
I know, it's a bit out there and I usually bring up VR when it comes to games development nowadays, but I've been in love with the idea of Virtual Reality for as long as I can remember. So, of course I'd want to pursue it with my studies, especially since I have the ability to do so now (I now own a VR headset).
Earlier I mentioned that I hadn't even done any work on any personal projects. Well, I'm going to change that statement now by focusing on working on my own VR game's UI for this. It's something I've had ideas on for a long time and have always been wanting to explore it, but never had the motivation to do so. Now I do. I can't thing of anything else that's interesting to do so this is my safest choice.
The game in question that I'll be developing for has actually been talked about in a previous project of mine, the platformer project. I originally started working on this game during the platformer project, as it was a VR game I wanted to work on. Since that project, however, I didn't work on it much more. Now's my chance to actually do some more work on it. So, that's what I'll be doing.
HUDs and Screen Space
What I do here is simply measure what is called 'screen space' for a few games. Basically, screen space is what it implies - how much space is present in the screen, and how it is used. When it comes to UI, the less 'screen space' the UI takes, the less intrusive the UI usually feels. What this research did, however, showed that there is a trend in where UI typically goes. Specifically, the top and bottom edges of the screen. I've come to call this the letterbox space, as this is also where the black boxes (Letterboxes) go for movies. This letterbox area seems to be the most common places for UI - especially in corners. I can keep this in mind for my future work.
Shape Vs Environment
This is probably the most pointless bit of research - as it's effectively just putting boxes inside pictures that match the environment. There is a little bit of merit to it, however, as keeping this in mind when designing the UI can help lead to a UI that fits in with the game itself. I should've taken actual references of the UI for the games to compare, but I didn't do this originally.
Colour of the World
Something I consider crucial to UI design is colour - this is due to the fact that colour can mean anything when it comes to art. The 'research' I did here came down to simply creating a palette of the most colours in the scene, but this could come useful when designing UI for the game. However, both with this and 'Shape Vs Environment', it should be noted that the examples are using singular scenes. I know that when it comes to games development, you must keep in mind the game as a whole when creating the UI. Using multiple scenes and doing these 'experiments' on them could still be fruitful, however.
Existing UI
This post simply analyses existing UI in games - when I made this, I had planned to attempt to 'redesign' these UI elements to what I feel would fit more, but that went almost nowhere. What this post does have in merit, however, as it does have a tiny textual analysis of the UI in question. What I could personally use this for in the future, I don't know, but it does express my opinions on the UI.
Looking Ahead
Now, I need to decide what to do from now on to actually add physical work to my resubmission. And well, I decided to take it to a rather different path, but I feel could actually fit in more with my original word for 'To weave'. VR.
I know, it's a bit out there and I usually bring up VR when it comes to games development nowadays, but I've been in love with the idea of Virtual Reality for as long as I can remember. So, of course I'd want to pursue it with my studies, especially since I have the ability to do so now (I now own a VR headset).
Earlier I mentioned that I hadn't even done any work on any personal projects. Well, I'm going to change that statement now by focusing on working on my own VR game's UI for this. It's something I've had ideas on for a long time and have always been wanting to explore it, but never had the motivation to do so. Now I do. I can't thing of anything else that's interesting to do so this is my safest choice.
The game in question that I'll be developing for has actually been talked about in a previous project of mine, the platformer project. I originally started working on this game during the platformer project, as it was a VR game I wanted to work on. Since that project, however, I didn't work on it much more. Now's my chance to actually do some more work on it. So, that's what I'll be doing.
Comments
Post a Comment