Hi guys, I know I've been going on and on about transparency/alpha blending for the GUI, but I only realized a while ago that I haven't actually given any example of how I think the menus/GUI should be implemented. So here's a picture and explanation of what I had in mind (keep in mind this is just an opinion).
Here is what I think the menu definition in the .ufo scripts should be like:
// ==================
// MAIN MENU
// ==================
..........
// ==================
// buttons
// ==================
// SINGLEPLAYER
pic button_singleplayer
{
click { cmd "mn_push singleplayer" }
pos "640 170"
image menu/button_big
texl "0 0"
texh "256 64"
mousefx true
out { *string_singleplayer color "0 0.5 0 1" *button_singleplayer texl "0 0" *button_singleplayer texh "256 64" }
in { *string_singleplayer color "1 1 1 1" *button_singleplayer texl "0 64" *button_singleplayer texh "256 128" }
// ##### now here is one suggestion: #####
blend "Alpha" // None, Alpha, Add, Multiply, Invert etc.
opacity "1" // Master opacity level of this element/button
}
string string_singleplayer
{
font f_menubig
color "0 0.5 0 1" // For some reason the alpha percentage (4th number) gets lost when the item is redisplayed or moused over
string "_Single-player"
pos "768 202"
align cc
}
.......
I split the "Background Image" and the "Menu Background" because of the faint possibility of animation at a later stage. Since all Buttons etc would be child objects of the "Menu Background" , they would inherit all the positional changes of their parent.
I hope that this clarifies what I was hoping for, Laters