New, minimalistic battlescape HUD with transparency

[bayo]

To use my own music i disable music (it works with TV and radio too)

[MCR]

Update:

* 1. Thicker and longer bars with 70% opacity for the bottom panel (soldierselection)
* 2. Thicker real-time TU-bars with 80% opacity (main panel)
* 3. MouseWheelUp also switches view to next visible enemy
* 4. Fixed "Ammo>99 was not correctly displayed" bug
* 5. Delete cvar:mn_icon_level and cvar:mn_chrrank_img (if existent == in campaign mode) on window close
* 6. Enable reload by RMB click on the weapon container
* 7. Work on tooltips and comments
* 8. Mousewheel over the soldiername cycles through living soldiers now
* 9. Mousewheel for soldier selection now works over large parts of the bottom panel also (everywhere, except over deco or bars), work on tooltips

Screenie 1:

[MCR]

Screenie 2:

[MCR]

Update:

1. Changed angles of the head models in the bottom panel (not the final version)
2. Fixed "head7 off by 8 points"
3. Mousewheel over realtime TU bars now switches soldiers also
4. Added possibility to switch to previous visible enemy by RMB and to cycle through visible enemies by mousewheel
5. Buttons for music control (stop, forward) now glow on mouseover

[MCR]

Update:

1. Allow switching of the visible weapon hand by mousewheel (valid over weaponcontainer and below of it, also on top of the weaponstring)
2. Changed invisible panel easy_hand_switch to button to allow usage of the mousewheel
3. Updated tooltips
4. Removed redundant chat button and fixed button background rendering for multiplayer

[MCR]

Update (once again):

1. Fixed chat button background rendering by removing the double definition of the chat button background image (bar_chat_bg)
2. 90% opacity for the borders, minor fixes for bar_right_mini
3. Fixed unsafe usage of ui_addcvarlistener by using the new cvarlistener (thanx, Bayo)
4. Fixed incorrect display of soldiernumbers for < 8 soldiers, minor color adjustments, comments
5. Reduced code duplication by optimizing the show/hide panel buttons

You can switch to the new HUD in the options menu in latest master:

Options -> Gameplay -> Battlescape Gameplay Settings -> HUD Design -> Minimal HUD

Please help testing it and report issues here.

[MCR]

Guess what  :

Update:

1. Fixed interaction with the battlefield outside of the main panel while preventing that interaction inside of it
2. Fixed missing interaction possibility with the battlefield outside of the top panel
3. Added possibility for interaction with the battlefield outside of the bottom (soldier) panel
4. Fixed some issues with the decoration introduced with recent optimizations
5. Replaced all excluderect code
6. Ghost property for the soldiernumberstrings
7. Added mouseover effects to all numberstrings (bold on mouseover)
8. Soldiernumberstring of the selected soldier is now white as well
9. Added ghost property to nodes, where mouseover detection is not needed
10. Respective bars (of the selected soldier) get 100% opacity and gain brightness on mouseover on the string (health, morale, TUs)
11. Minor changes to tooltips/comments

As always:

Please help testing it and report issues here.

[Watered_Down]

MCR, this project looks really interesting, but I guess I have to ask a stupid question...where's the download link?

 

Thanks for your work.

[Crystan]

Theres no dl needed. The HUD is featured in the nightly builds

[homunculus]

updated the game and played with the min hud a bit.

I think it is good that you have increased the size of the levels button, because while the mouse is over the levels button, the level number and the icon are covered by the cursor so that the player cannot see it.

is it really necessary to show all the help in tooltips, maybe show the level number instead?
well, that's a matter of taste, as you are probably aware i decided to take a different approach in my own hud.

putting the end turn button near the other buttons, as i remember it was my own suggestion, might have not been such a good suggestion, because people develop automatisms, which means that when they see a button they click it before they think what it does (sounds stupid, but it is true), and i accidentally managed to click end turn twice when i didn't really intend to.
conventionally, as far as i remember examples, end turn is always in the very lower right corner of the screen, it might be worth experimenting with moving it to the right edge at least, if it is to stay more or less where it is right now.
by experimenting i mean that the right edge is also something that might be intuitive and therefore useful for some other button.

i was bit surprised that the hide\show functionality (default hud, if i remember correctly, but also min hud) uses lmb for opening a window, and rmb for closing it.
as far as i have seen that functionality in gui frameworks, the same mouse button is used for both opening and closing.
for example, the player might want to just view the soldier stats window, click nothing there, just view it and close it, then it might be slightly more convenient not to make the player coordinate between lmb and rmb.
and, as the standard that the player expects might be that hide/show works with the same mouse button, then if it doesn't, and the player is not saintly careful, the player might not notice that the other mouse button is needed for closing and might derive that the hide/show just does not work correctly.
(lol, lots of text on such small thing)

[MCR]

MCR, this project looks really interesting, but I guess I have to ask a stupid question...where's the download link?

 

Thanks for your work.

The MiniHUD works with recent master versions (v2.4dev) only, because it utilizes latest ufo:ai tech. You cannot use it with other, older versions of the game.

Theres no dl needed. The HUD is featured in the nightly builds

Well, a download of a recent UFO:AI version is still necessary
You can ofc also use Muton's tool for Windows to keep the game up-to-date, or download a nightly build from our Downloads page to try it out.

I think it is good that you have increased the size of the levels button, because while the mouse is over the levels button, the level number and the icon are covered by the cursor so that the player cannot see it.

is it really necessary to show all the help in tooltips, maybe show the level number instead?

?
The level number is shown already, why should I want to present the same info to the player via tooltip ?

well, that's a matter of taste, as you are probably aware i decided to take a different approach in my own hud.

Yes, I think tooltips are here to explain stuff . If you do not like/need them or find them disturbing you can turn them off in the options menu.

putting the end turn button near the other buttons, as i remember it was my own suggestion, might have not been such a good suggestion, because people develop automatisms, which means that when they see a button they click it before they think what it does (sounds stupid, but it is true), and i accidentally managed to click end turn twice when i didn't really intend to.

It is the only button there. It is twice as big as other buttons on the main control panel to make it stand out more.
You suggested to put it on top of the soldier panel, which is not a good solution for my design.
The thing with clicking a button before knowing what it does really just sounds stupid, should I come back to tooltips ?

Twice    ?

conventionally, as far as i remember examples, end turn is always in the very lower right corner of the screen, it might be worth experimenting with moving it to the right edge at least, if it is to stay more or less where it is right now.
by experimenting i mean that the right edge is also something that might be intuitive and therefore useful for some other button.

No, as I am very happy with the current position. It does not need long ways to get the mousecursor there and having the end-turn button on the main panel makes sense to me as well.
But the look of the button might change in the near future to make it easier identifiable 4 the player.

i was bit surprised that the hide\show functionality (default hud, if i remember correctly, but also min hud) uses lmb for opening a window, and rmb for closing it.
as far as i have seen that functionality in gui frameworks, the same mouse button is used for both opening and closing.
for example, the player might want to just view the soldier stats window, click nothing there, just view it and close it, then it might be slightly more convenient not to make the player coordinate between lmb and rmb.
and, as the standard that the player expects might be that hide/show works with the same mouse button, then if it doesn't, and the player is not saintly careful, the player might not notice that the other mouse button is needed for closing and might derive that the hide/show just does not work correctly.
(lol, lots of text on such small thing)

Tooltips are there to explain all of that to the player and LMB/RMB buttons are used consistently for showing/hiding buttons (soldier & top panels, decoration). Also you can close inventory and physdata windows with the RMB as well.
But I get your point here and have noticed some players really might have problems to check that the green lights are actually buttons, that is why recent versions use mouseover effects for those buttons as well.

Thanx 4 your review. (As always) I will consider your points.

[MCR]

Upgrade:

1. Update for the soldier selectbox background gfx
2. New versions for on/off buttons gfx (on/show==green, off/hide==red)
3. New background gfx for the Physdata & Inventory HUD windows (seperating deco & inside)
4. New on/off mouseoverfx-icons
5. New MiniHUD background mouseover-gfx
6. Close the Inventory window if the Physdata window is already open and vice versa
7. Inventory deco and inside are two seperate background gfx now
8. Ability to hide the decoration for Inventory/Physdat windows as well
9. 90% Opacity for the TU bars to make them more visible
10. Hide soldiernumberstrings for dead soldiers
11. Minor changes to comments
12. Main Control Panel now is built up from multiple inner parts (enemy, civilian, level, name, info, hand)
13. Level Control: Changed position and enhanced clickable area
14. Enemy Camera Control: Now green if no enemies visible, background turns red when enemies in sight, hide string if no enemy visible
15. Hover Effects for all inner parts of the control panel (enemy, civilian, level, name, info, hand)
16. Hide morale, TUs & TUs reserved strings if they are 0
17. New hover effects for the show/hide on/off buttons to make it more obvious for the player that he can interact with them
18. Closing the Inventory/Physdat windows if decoration is switched, so those can update (consistency: all deco is on or off)
19. Removed a unused confunc
20. cvar:mn_minihud_enabled gets created onWindowOpened and deleted onWindowClosed (needed for Physdata & Inventory window checks)

[homunculus]

?
The level number is shown already, why should I want to present the same info to the player via tooltip ?

Because when the player is using the levels button, the mouse cursor is over the button, and especially when the button was smaller like it previously was, the mouse cursor covered the level number and the level number was not visible while using the button.

[MCR]

I forgot those:

* Implemented "smart" weapon hand behaviour - the weaponhand gets now stored and restored for each soldier
* The cvars created for storing the info about the weaponhand get deleted onWindowClose (stored just for 1 battle)
* More verbose tooltips for the info panel (TUs and TUs_reserved now display the cvar:mn_tu_tooltips)
* Enlarged the area on top of the namestring the player can interact with (Wheel:Cycle soldiers/LMB:Inventory/RMB:Physdata)
* Actor string's font now also turns bold if the manipulatable area is hovered
* Spotted enemies string is now red to better blend in with the background
* Better structuring of the code, work on comments

[MCR]

MiniHUD Upgrade (mainly for the soldier selection panel)

* 1.Simplified the way the inside of the soldier panel is built up
* 2.Added mouseover fx to the soldier panel
* 3.Grayscale background for dead soldiers
* 4.Replaced the bold soldierstring on mouseover with a more decent colorswitch from grey to white
* 5.Minor colorchange for the soldiernumberstring of the selected soldier to white
* 6.Removed unused cvarlistener