Space Shooter Project. Blog 3. HUD Mockups
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So for this blogpost I am going to go through some different HUD variations that I have been working on for our game Mole Munch. Our HUD does not have to feature a lot of different information but what it entails still needs to be displayed clearly and work artistically with the rest of the game. We have also pretty recently begun working on our interface and not everything is set in stone as far as its design goes. These images are to serve as quick looks at how the HUD could look as well as bring ideas towards the rest of the interface as well. So keeping the design simple, flexible and editable is a good thing so it’s easy to change color and position on different items. Hence every item are set on separate layers and structured into maps. The images are to be presented on Friday (27/2) in a design meeting where we sample a variations of mockups and come to decisions regarding the art and structure of the game. So to give me an idea of how everything would fit in I simply took a few screenshots from our alpha game to test the different HUD ideas on. This is important because we have two different state in which the player will visit (surface and underground) and these states looks a bit different in color and tones so the HUD needs to be able to work with both of them. An example of a problem with this when I tried a frame around the entire screen with the intention of it looking like dirt with grass on.
As you can see the green “grassy” outlines are visible against the brown/black tones of the underground. However on the surface the green outline does not work because it mixes with the green grass layout on the surface.
A possible fix for this would be to add a dark outline to the grass (or to the entire frame itself) to set the two apart. A dark outline works well with our current cartoonish art style so it could be a viable solution.
Another idea is to split the HUD up into more distinguishable separate pieces. One idea was to make cartoony looking signs for each HUD item. Once again it was important to make them stand out in both the underground and the surface.
Actual final versions of these that can be created and implemented into the game once the mockups has been discussed and a decision has been made regarding composition, color, position, fonts, size etc. so that the entire GUI will feel consistent.  |
