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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

New Game Menu


Guest Jim69

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If you remove the bevel, save it as a seperate file so you still have both. IMO the bevel looks better, and I think having the static in the main screen less overwhelming would be good. It would be more of an animation issue, where the screen has almost no static as a base, and occasionally it flickers with a few lines of static. Then when the player clicks a button to go to a new screen, the static becomes real heavy like you're showing in the last pic, and the screens fades/switches to the next screen.

I think Deimos is out there, but mostly working on artwork rather than chatting on the forums. My position is just the opposite, I have little time with access to modelling but plenty to chat while at work.
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Same as that, my modelling time is about 1 hour per day plus Saturday and Sunday morning. BTW, I had a bigger reply 4 the one above but my MD caught me on the net and made me do some work :crying:

[quote]kill the bevel. it doesn't make the menu look professional and pulls it away from the bridge between the main screen and ingame menus.[/quote]

I actually feel the opposite personally. I feel that the flat version looks very dull and unprofessional, I know u aren't particulary found of the bevel effect in general, and I do think it could be more understated but it's an improvement on the flat 1, and I was making a general comment on all of the menu's in game, it's just I happened 2 use the menu as the example. I will switch back 2 the original 4 now tho and I have the bevelled 1 saved, I think we should discuss somewhere how 2 improve the overall menu bars that look like this as they look very obviously 2D IMO. Edited by Jim69
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I agree.
IMHO the best looking menus are the tight and crips ones, whether they are 2d 3D or "actual 3D".

f'r instance I liked the freelancer menus which had tight 2d menus over a 3d scene. That worked very well.
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Yeah, the menu's are nice in Freelancer but they are also a heck of a lot more interesting than the 1's we have right now, they have blue edges flowing inwards 2 transparancy. If we go 4 something like that then they need 2 be changed, if we want something that looks more interesting that at current then they need 2 be changed. I feel personally that something needs 2 be done about it, maybe not now, but eventually. Edited by Jim69
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Quite possibly.

The best way to build an interface is to make it as flexible and easy to change as possible.

It doesn't matter how final you think it is the layouts will -always- get changed during development. and the graphics will -always- get changed (no matter how great they were when first went in), because developers will get sick of them after a few months.
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I already have put some code to support that. Vaaish had some encounter with it already.

There will be a file where you can specify location and size of controls and the textures to use. The code does not need to be recompiled, so after the initial design is done, the application could be handed to artists to make final tweaks for the art.

Also, it will be useful for translation, because you might want to have different layout in Japanese, than it is in English.
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Hey Jim, not too shabby :D
However kill the bevel. I understand why you've put the bevel in, basically to physically seperate the manu panel from the bg pic. You could try a very small drop shadow which would do a similar job and keep the menu system looking uniform across the game.

Nit pick time ;) The mars pic is ok but Deimos and Phobos are basically huge missshapen rocks. IE Deimos looks like a 'spud' (well not me but... oh you get what I mean :D) I've included a reference render of Mars and its moons if you want different angles and so on give me a shout and I'll render them up for you.
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[quote name='Jim69' date='Sep 5 2003, 11:47 AM']So, actually in game it will be very easy 2 swap menu background lines then?[/quote]
Yes, if they are textures used
No, if they are drawn programmatically (that is by calling command like DrawLine()).
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[quote name='Deimos' date='Sep 5 2003, 07:44 PM']Hey Jim, not too shabby :D
However kill the bevel. I understand why you've put the bevel in, basically to physically seperate the manu panel from the bg pic. You could try a very small drop shadow which would do a similar job and keep the menu system looking uniform across the game.

Nit pick time ;) The mars pic is ok but Deimos and Phobos are basically huge missshapen rocks. IE Deimos looks like a 'spud' (well not me but... oh you get what I mean :D) I've included a reference render of Mars and its moons if you want different angles and so on give me a shout and I'll render them up for you.[/quote]
K, I can try a dropped shadow, I am also think of a BG for the menu since it seems 2 be blending 2 much in. I think u misunderstood what the picture is actually showing. Including some 'roids floating around would add 2 it tho. I dunno bout the Avenger tho, since what I was thinking was that this pic, along with the 1s used 4 the main menu screen, would have a theme of b4 X-Corps is created, the sorta chaos b4 the war, and I was thinking of having this as a camera feed from the ISS, with parts of it shown 2 be broken off as tho it had been hit ( I was thinking captured by the Aliens and dragged by 1 of their ships back 2 Cydonia )Here is the colour pic:
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It's a nice pic, but seen from Mars earth doesn't look that big, it would look like a blue dot, like Mars looks like a red dot from here (though earth is about double the size, so it would be a slightly bigger dot ^_^ )
Granted, that definitely does not look cool, 'oh there, I see a blue dot, must be the aliens looking to earth from Mars. That or an alien bug just splattered against the UFO windshield :D ' But this just isn't realistic...
maybe try adding some sort of zoom, like the centre part of the picture (earth) is seen through a telescope? You know, with the cliche crosshairs on it and all :spank: Edited by j'ordos
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Maybe not human bodies, but stuff like the solar panels floating round would be cool.

Edit: And the pic of Mars is from the NASA website ( I am allowed 2 use it ) so I'd say the colouring is accurate. Edited by Jim69
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Huh, must be the static distorting my screens color! Or my screen is faulty.

You may want to change it from the international space station, as I don't think everyone will understand that the aliens hijacked it. Just say the aliens attacked the first manned mission to mars or the first martian space station.

And whats wrong with human bodies floating in space? We can even make body parts float around, heads, hands, phallu- I mean legs, etc. I think it would be cool.
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1. Experimentation, why do they abduct humans? Plus they wanted 2 see how advanced our space fearing technology is. Not vary being the answer. I seriously doubt if I will see more than 3 manned missions 2 Mars in my lifetime and I still got a good 60 years in me.

2. It's a background remember, no need 4 loads of stuff floating round a couple of solar panels will surfice.

All the stuff about ISS can be explained in prologue type X.Net entries, like what has happened in the time leading up 2 X-Corps being founded. Edited by Jim69
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Is the stuff about the ISS finalized? I don't see any reason for any assault on the ISS to be undertaken. It's not a threat to their plans- destroying it wouldn't lead to any political ends. I don't think it even has any active external sensors (active meaning broadcasting). It would be like a battleship blasting a rowboat from beyond visual range just for the heck of it. All it would do is arouse suspicion.

I think in order to make it some kind of means to an end you would have to tie it in with other unexplained disasters whose origin is unknown until the number of UFO reports and missing persons reports becomes too large to be statistically insignificant.

You could see what the BG looks like with a large blue star in the background (the earth). The desaturated and distorted earth is not recognizable as earth... which would probably make the large blue star (earth at a distance) would not be blue or recognizable as earth either... but whatever.

Also explore different lighting. In space, everything that isn't directly lit and doesn't generate light on its own is in deep shadow- like the crescent moon. Edited by fux0r666
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I concur with fux0r, I see no real reason for the aliens to attack the ISS.
Now, I could them attacking the first mission to mars, because they might be discovered, but attacking a research base for no reason? I don't think so.

I didn't know we were going to do x-net prologues. Whos going to write them?
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[quote name='Cpl. Facehugger' date='Sep 6 2003, 01:45 PM']I concur with fux0r, I see no real reason for the aliens to attack the ISS.
Now, I could them attacking the first mission to mars, because they might be discovered, but attacking a research base for no reason? I don't think so.

I didn't know we were going to do x-net prologues. Whos going to write them?[/quote]
All ideas, and why not have x-net prologues? Just an idea I thought of. Big thing floating round in space, they want 2 know how advanced we are. Why do they abduct humans? And my point is this: We are not going 2 have a manned mission 2 Mars any time soon. I would bet on it. Maybe 50 years, not 4 a LONG time tho the ISS will only just be finished in 10-15 years and will be an example of our technology. And if that research base happened 2 be seeing all the UFO activity to and from Earth then they would block their transmissions and take the whole damn thing.
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But why would they see ufo traffic? The Iss won't have radar will it? Maby im wrong.

But about the abductions, nobody cares when farmer hick is drinking one night and thinks he gets abducted by aliens. There is no plausable evidence that he was abducted. Now if the aliens start stealing space stations, then I think a few people are going to notice. :D That is excactly what the aliens don't want until they have the battleships needed to subjugate humanity.

What im trying to say is that the aliens would try to stay low key until they think they are prepared.
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[quote name='Cpl. Facehugger' date='Sep 6 2003, 02:20 PM']But why would they see ufo traffic? The Iss won't have radar will it? Maby im wrong.

But about the abductions, nobody cares when farmer hick is drinking one night and thinks he gets abducted by aliens. There is no plausable evidence that he was abducted. Now if the aliens start stealing space stations, then I think a few people are going to notice. :D That is excactly what the aliens don't want until they have the battleships needed to subjugate humanity.

What im trying to say is that the aliens would try to stay low key until they think they are prepared.[/quote]
Whereas 4 the last 50-60 years they have been dormont :rolleyes: Sending UFO's all over the world in the skies doesn't seem very lowkey 2 me.

AFAIK the ISS will have RADAR to avoid collisions with any meteor showers etc. there will be. Plus there is the old Human radar :D
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What im saying is that the aliens start with scouting missions, right? Those scouts are really vlunerable, so their only real defense is relying on the fact that mainstream humanity doesn't believe they are there. Now if they take something like a space station, people are going to start wondering where the ISS went, when we come to the conclusion that aliens did it, there goes secrecy. If the aliens took the ISS too early, they would not have the ships to conquer earth.

And the aliens are staying low key, there is little, if any credible evidence that ufos and aliens exist. People can always put down abductions to hysteria/insanity. But when you have physical proof, like a station dissapperaing, then people will start to believe that the aliens are really out there. This would probably happen too early in the aliens' time table, so they lack the potent warships they would need to defeat earth's military.

I suppose that the ISS would have radar as you said, but xcom's base radar can only get 5% of all ufos in the air at one time. And that is a military radar system designed to find ufos. I figure that the iss personell would assume that any ufos were just some anomyous floating crap.
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[quote name='Cpl. Facehugger' date='Sep 6 2003, 03:12 PM']What im saying is that the aliens start with scouting missions, right? Those scouts are really vlunerable, so their only real defense is relying on the fact that mainstream humanity doesn't believe they are there. Now if they take something like a space station, people are going to start wondering where the ISS went, when we come to the conclusion that aliens did it, there goes secrecy. If the aliens took the ISS too early, they would not have the ships to conquer earth.

And the aliens are staying low key, there is little, if any credible evidence that ufos and aliens exist. People can always put down abductions to hysteria/insanity. But when you have physical proof, like a station dissapperaing, then people will start to believe that the aliens are really out there. This would probably happen too early in the aliens' time table, so they lack the potent warships they would need to defeat earth's military.

I suppose that the ISS would have radar as you said, but xcom's base radar can only get 5% of all ufos in the air at one time. And that is a military radar system designed to find ufos. I figure that the iss personell would assume that any ufos were just some anomyous floating crap.[/quote]
Right, (my) last word on the subject. What is the reason why X-Com is created. Coz there are aliens invading. Nowhere does it say that peeps don't know the aliens aren't attacking, they just don't know how it is so bad that there needs 2 be a specific army 2 combat them.

Part of UFO was winning hearts and minds, if loads of UFO's are allowed 2 fly over a country, land whenever they want 2 and perform terror missions then the country starts 2 lose their illusion that their leaders are combatting the alien menace and they panic. The country sees this and begins 2 wonder is X-Com is even doing their job when they are payin them all this money and reduce their funding. If the other countries see a lot of these things going on that aren't being stopped then they reduce their funding, and eventually they all pull out and try 2 sort it out themselves. I never remember anywhere something saying that the people of Earth are so dense they don't realise that there are 100's of UFO's flying around, that the activity they thought was just rumor was now increasing and that now big ships full of aliens are landing in major cities to kill all the peeps they can. Sounds like a pretty s*** secrecy plan 2 me. Edited by Jim69
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I think you guys are deviating from the plan here as in waaaay off the page. You're arguing over trivial things that really don't make any difference to the game. Its a pic. It can be replaced with other pics. Chill out and lets get this back on topic.

Oh and can we please keep work stuff seperate from the lab. Thank you.

Fuxor, eye of the beholder and all that :)
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AFAIK this is on topic. What else is there 2 discuss? The options are pretty much a moot point until v1.0 is out, I have no freedom 2 alter the menu design so other than finalising a believable BG design and style there is little else 2 get back on topic 4. 2 that end, I think that the BG style ( including the 1's used 4 the startup screen ) should have a theme of b4 the actual war starts, like survaliance photos etc. 4 the record, that are at the commander's disposal. This could also include scenes from the Roswell incident and other UFO sighting incidents.
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Im sorry Jim :(

Deimos is right, we were argueing over something stupid.
I think you are right Jim, I would like to see some background pictures that help explain what is happening before xcom is formed. Blurry sectoids and ufos, crop circles, anal probes...
Ok I went a lil too far with that last one.

I figure most of the background info/pics would be in the x-net though. I think we should be focusing on making the intro and menu as cool as possible before we start worrying about if it makes sense. The ctd can always explain it later... :D
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On the subject of the pic I was offering alternatives, not criticizing it.. cept for the first take of it.

I just realizing I'm replying to a comment about which I have no idea what it is in reference to.


2001: A Space Oddessey and it's sequel had some nice space photography. I would suggest renting those and checking out how the shots were set up for inspiration. It had a lot of good shots where it managed to encorperate a lot of elements onto the same screen whilst it captured an excellent feeling of deep, suffocating distances.
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Another thought to toss out here, until the new player researches the live aliens they have no idea Mars is used at all, right? So I still vote for having the close-up planet be Earth, with Mars and its sattelites in the distance.

As to the screen, I think the static is still too overpowering, it makes the menu blend in too much. Try using less static, and make what's there less opaque. I know it could eventually be animated, etc. Maybe show the screen without any static at first?
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Try to preserve some of the contrast of the original picture by using different blending modes for the static. Try out screen or multiply... (I use it for painting animation cell like picture and I know what they do but I am not too sure about how it will translate at a static pattern. Otherwise see what happens when you go a little heavier on the contrast and make the whole thing darker. The dark/cold colours of the frames are the challenge in the composition.
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LOL, fair play, u may have problems understanding it anyway, reason I do it is coz my typing accuracy is pretty poor so the less I type means the less mistakes.

From last post:

Hmm, I should make the image in colour I think before I do anything and see what it looks like with that. Then I'll tweak it a little to make it look more cold.
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[quote]Hmm, I should make the image in colour I think before I do anything and see what it looks like with that. Then I'll tweak it a little to make it look more cold.
Hmm, I should make the image colour methinks b4 I do ne thing 2 it and see what it looks like with that. Then I'll tweak it a little 2 make it a more cold look.[/quote]

It barely matters in length, now does it. Typing it in full even made it shorter! :D


But I think the static's a bit much too, you still might want to see it's Earth or Mars you're looking at ^_^ Edited by j'ordos
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I'm gonna switch the camera angle round so it is looking at Earth, with Mars in the BG. That will solve the problem coz u will be able 2 make out the countries ( just about ) and tell it is Earth.
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The only thing I suggest is reducing the static a lot, perhaps not even have it for a static picture. Just use a little when it's animated in the game, and that would work quite well.
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I haven't actually given up on the static yet, tho if peeps still don't like it I will get shot of it. Well, here is the new background in glorious technicolour :D

Edit: I want something that will give a hint of the impending alien invasion as well, but not quite sure what. Ne1 got any idea's? Subtlety is key methinks. Edited by Jim69
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Remember that, at least for the time being, it will be a still image. However something like that would be alright I think, better than anything I have thought of ( which is nothing :) )
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That background looks nice, the static has a good balance there, as you can see the other colors underneath pretty good. The previous ones made it look like monochrome I guess. I think the falling stars idea would be good, you could have a random star get a little brighter and start falling towards the planet as it spins (very) slowly on its axis. I wouldn't worry about making the static picture equivalent right now though.
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Yeah, I'd imagine when we get to that stage we will want to remodel the globe anyway so little will be reused. Do peeps think that the pic needs to have some more relevance, which I do, or is it fine as is? Problem being I can't really think of anything that doesn't involve having some big arse UFO in front of the screen which isn't very subtle and would look kinda lame IMO. Best films have been the things you don't see but are alluded to, and I'd like to incorporate that into this design.

Just had a thought: If the globe is slowly turning it should be like half a revolution for 5 minutes. But u wouldn't notice that right? Well imagine this situation, you get to this screen and the doorbell rings/nature calls etc. Then you come back to see the globe that was facing Eastern Europe is now on the States :o I personally love little touches like that in games, maybe its just be tho.
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[quote name='Jim69' date='Sep 10 2003, 06:42 PM']I haven't actually given up on the static yet, tho if peeps still don't like it I will get shot of it. Well, here is the new background in glorious technicolour :D

Edit: I want something that will give a hint of the impending alien invasion as well, but not quite sure what. Ne1 got any idea's? Subtlety is key methinks.[/quote]
hey I like this. for the final we could put the in game globe in there and have the meu fade out into the geoscape once the new game is started.
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