KHI makes a KH game! Discussion #3: Art Direction and Interface Design

[DarkRiku-12]

@Ethnic Woman- WOW. This is your first time using Photoshop? I'm really impressed, great job! And what do you mean by 3d menus?

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

@Ethnic Woman- WOW. This is your first time using Photoshop? I'm really impressed, great job! And what do you mean by 3d menus?

Like they don't have to be flat 2D images in a menu. 3D shapes (or faux 3D done by using shadows and gradients like I'm doing with the buttons I'm making) and maybe actual 3D character models can be in the menu.

Thanks! Yeah, I've only "used" Photoshop during some boring classes where I opened it up and started drawing with the calligraphy brush. Nothing like what I'm doing right now.

 

[disneyfreaksXIII]

Blender is also a game engine iv'e played around with it a little bit and it seems pretty solid. not saying im an expert or anything i actually prefer to sit back and watch

 

[Tanner22]

I posted some stuff in the other forum about the "main world" i thought would be cool since there was a handful who liked the idea in the other thread. Idk if this is the thread that we should post pics in for that kind of stuff. We are REALLY getting ahead of ourselves since we haven't even decided on a story OR the characters. We probably need to narrow that down.

 

[DarkRiku-12]

@Tanner22- I agree, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. We should decide weather we really want to make this or not after we get everything together. If we're all still in this and we have the resouces by the time all of these threads are done, then we'll decide if we're going to make this game. It would be a shame to have this be one of those projects that is going really well and then dies out once the summer ends. So we should just focus on the designing stage/cleaning up whatever holes still remain in the story. And btw, everyone has pretty much decided on main chars./a story. Just read the posts on page 18 and up on the previous threads.

 

[kingudamu]

Re: We're not a very ORGANIZED organization, are we?....

i agree with tanner-this is fun and all, but we're not very organized with this. i remember someone suggesting on doing a poll for the threads and such (cant remember who tho, sorry >,>) we proble need to go back and vote on which story we should do (same with the chara thread).

btw ethinic woman- those menus look boss^^ you doing better on your first day with PS then i ever did in the two years i used it xD

and, when you guys say art direction, are you talking about doing world design and storyboarding? (???) or just trying to organize what we have now?

 

[Able_Beard]

Actually I could work on CGI-ish openings, some character models, some stage areas, and keyblades...but it would take a really long time and some cooperation with other people and the graphics would be super early PS2 par...

 

[disneyfreaksXIII]

are we planning to do gummi ships or some sort of transportation between worlds?

 

[Tanner22]

I was the one who suggested starting new threads for character and story submissions for voting ONLY, but no one seemed to care for it at the time. That is not every one who voted by the way. That was like 5 people who voted their own designs in XD We should have an official thread that ALL KHI users could vote on, not just the people who have been a part of these threads who have formed favorites/alliances. I'm not meaning to accuse you guys, but one day there was just a picture of 4 characters that popped up and everyone started acting like those were the chosen 4! I'm not saying this just because mine isn't one of the 4 (it really is more Riku's_Artist7 and mine), it is because there really wasn't even discussion on the matter. It seems like they talked about it amongst themselves then just decided :/ I saw some works that I thought had way more potential, but we never officially voted. That is why I think we need an official voting thread-so EVERYONE can voice their opinions, even those who maybe were a part of the thread once, then forgot about it or are unable to access it anymore.

 

[MATGSY]

are we planning to do gummi ships or some sort of transportation between worlds?

I'd like gummi ships to stay, if for no other than so some Tailspin villains could be bosses.

That's something gummi ships lacked: true bossfights.

 

[DiceKiller]

I don't think we're getting ahead of ourselves. We do have quite a bit if time to discuss everything. Since there are a lot of people contributing and a lot more who would like to vote on the ideas, it probably might be a good idea to just have a skeleton of ideas that we could easily make changes to instead of making any permanent decisions early on. If anyone still seriously has a problem with the process, take it to a new thread where it won't interfere with this thread's purpose.

 

[Tanner22]

Well you can't really determine characters and fine tune them without knowing the story? You can't design a start screen without knowing what characters are being picked? We need to determine what's what before people get confused and then get into arguments about what they think should have been which way :/

 

[DiceKiller]

Jeez, did you seriously not read the last thing I said?

I was going to write a lot more for this, but then I got carried away, so I'll cut down on it. It's like I said before, all we're doing is making an outline of different ideas. You're crazy if you think you absolutely must have finished characters to come up with an outline of a title menu screen. Yeah, you can't fine tune characters without knowing the story, but you can definitely create characters based on what the story might be. Again, we're just coming up with outlines for right now.

And what's wrong with arguments? Again, it's not like we're trying to jump right to the finished idea. We're suppose to debate and argue at times about what we feel would be the best for the game. If you have an idea you like, you propose it. If people like it, it will be shown through their support. If people don't like it, you both give your reasons as to why you do/don't like the idea. If people still don't like it, then maybe it wasn't that good of an idea. You accept it and move on instead of still trying to argue and making a mess of everything. Organization requires effort from everyone contributing, and that includes people reading at least some of the thread so that they don't get confused.

To keep the thread somewhat on track, I guess I'll try to come up with some basic ideas on how the battle HUD could look like.

 

[Shamdeo]

I would like to note that this is an opportunity to do something new with the game's interfaces rather than make what already exists.

 

[FriendsArePower]

This is not real people now can we stay on topic and discuss the interface designs.

 

[DarkRiku-12]

I posted this back on the second thread for a health bar. ---> ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting
It mirrors the KH1 bars more closely, but with a KH2 drive guage esque bar to the left (Why fix what ain't broken, right? ). I labled it useless because we haven't really worked out gameplay specifics yet. Mabye a Limit guage or something? :/

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

I'm definitely doing something new with my interface...but I am keeping the "KH look" to it.

 

[DiceKiller]

While trying to come up with a very basic layout for the battle HUD, I realized that it ended up being pretty much the same as the KH1 HUD. This is just for enemy/boss fights for right now. I might add on later the elements involving environmental interactions.

Dear God, forgive me for the most basic of basic designs, but I needed some sort of visual representation and this is mainly to show how I would like the positioning to be something like T-T

Yellow - Command Bar (or whatever name we come up for it)

Green - Health Bar/Magic Bar/Character Portrait/Any meter we decide to add

Red - Enemy Health Bar + Enemy Portrait(?) + Lock-On status (around the portrait if
using portrait, underneath the health bar if not)

Blue - Ally's Health Bar/Magic Bar/Character Portrait/Any meter we decide to add

Purple - Where the timer would go if any time-based fights occurred


I wanted to start with the position of the command menu since it's going to be the most used object on the HUD, so it would be best for it to be located in the "center" of the enemy's health bar and your health bar. My reason for this is that it should be easier on the eyes like this. The command menu requires the most focus (besides the actual gameplay of course), so any shift of attention away from the command menu should be as smooth as possible, meaning nothing on the HUD worth glancing at during a fight should be located diagonally from the command menu, where you would have to cross through any action at the center of the screen. There's usually no reason to be looking between your's and the enemies health bars too often, so it doesn't matter if they are diagonal to each other.

Having said that, maybe I should consider moving the timer to the bottom, but the timer seems like something that would only be used occasionally, and I like the timer at the top, so idk...

Anyways, any sort of comments are welcome.

 

[MATGSY]

I have an idea: no more information bar. Instead party members shout the relevant info during.

 

[disneyfreaksXIII]

that sounds like having navi Hey listen his health is 200! hey listen he's weak to fire! i say normal hud like kingdom hearts has always had