Simple improvements to the character creation screen

[bluap]

A couple of weeks ago, Radu asked me to make a few simple changes to the character creation screen: That there should be a permanent indication that it was the character creation screen and that there was some indication that you should use the icons at the bottom of the screen. We could debate that more substantial changes might be nice but please let me know if you think these simple changes are a step in the right direction.

 

Here is what you now see when you enter the character creation screen:

 

The "Character creation screen" text is permanently on screen and cannot be removed. The help text at the base of the screen "Click the eye icon below to customize your character." initially flashes for a couple of seconds then remains stable.

 

Once you click the eye icon and the window is opened, the help text changes to "Click the person icon below to choose your character name and password.", again flashing for a couple of seconds before remaining stable.

 

Once you click the person icon and the window is opened, the help text changes to "When ready, click "Done" to create your character and enter the game.", again with temporary flashing.

 

From now if the username/password window is closed, the help message changes back to the "Click the person icon..." message and then back to the "When ready, click Done..." message once opened. If you do not open the character customisation window but go straight to the "username/password" window, the "Click the eye icon..." message remains on-screen until the customisation window is opened.

 

Finally, previously any message displayed in the username/password window was cleared after six seconds. I do not know why this was done but I have disabled this for now. If we can agree this is better and the auto-clear is not needed then I'll remove that code properly.

Edited November 8, 2010 by bluap

[Elgoran]

[Roja]

Looks good!

[Usl]

Definitely an improvement. Maybe we could also remove the health bar (it doesn't make much sense at character creation; plus, not having numbers shown, it really conveys no meaning to the user). And maybe, the default name should be "NewPlayer" or "YourCharacter" instead of just "Player"? The latter does not imply neither the need for customization, not the fact that at this stage, that character is YOU.

 

Good job so far (as always)!

[Nova]

Looks good Maybe instead of saying Character Creation Screen it could say Create Your Character. Not sure why. Just an alternate i guess. Awesome job blu.

[saxum]

Certainly better than when I started my character and had no idea about customizations so have generic person as character.

[bluap]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. I'm happy to make some/all the suggested changes as required. It's up to Radu and Roja.

[Roja]

Ok here's another idea. What if we get rid of those 2 icons, and put the windows up on the side permanently? The only thing looking out of place then would be that the character is not centered in the view. This doesn't matter much with higher resolutions, but with lower(like the 800x600 pictured here, it looks kinda off. Also ideally because of lower resolutions, the right bar would be better off gone.

 

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=viewimage&img=1204

[Ateh]

having the customization tabs open from the start makes much more sense

[Maxine]

I like the screen with the two windows already open.

The text about "click the person icon..." can then be removed.

I would prefer to have the windows non-transparent, then they are easier to read.

[bluap]

I wholeheartedly agree that having the configuration and user name/password options always on screen would be a great improvement. I did look into the possibility of doing just that; removing the right-hand hud bar and creating a new wider bar with all the controls visible. The main "game" window would also need to be resized to put the player back in the centre. There would be some issues with the very small window sizes, particularly 640x480 but nothing too major.

 

However, the thing that stopped me doing this was that it was going to be a lot of work. The title of this thread was my obviously too subtle hint that these are simple changes. If they help then we can use them for now but plan for the bigger change for another time. In support of this, when I added the help text at the bottom of the screen, I was reasonably happy that this would help a new user through the "work-flow" of creating a new character.

 

What is being suggested is basically a rewrite of the new character code. We would also need to write some new code for the resized main window as it may be difficult to reuse the main game window code as it is now. I'd be happy to work on such a rewrite but I may not be able to complete it before the next release. If someone else wants to do the work I'll happily support them as/if needed.

[Roja]

Ok bluap, np, I totally understand about it being tons of work. What you've done is good enough, thank you!

[bluap]

Ok bluap, np, I totally understand about it being tons of work. What you've done is good enough, thank you!

Thanks, I hope I did not overdo my objection. I will have another look at doing the more radical change but I'm glad these initial, small changes are OK for now.

[Wind_of_Change]

I think that there don't need to be big changes to remove the vertical hud-bar. It's basically setting hud_x to 0:

hud.c:
159	void init_hud_interface (hud_interface type)
160	{
161	        static hud_interface last_interface = HUD_INTERFACE_NEW_CHAR;//EDIT: Make this variable public, so that it can be accessed in draw_hud_frame
162	
163	        if (type == HUD_INTERFACE_LAST)
164	                type = last_interface;
165	
166	        init_hud_frame ();
167	        init_misc_display (type);
168	
169	        if (type == HUD_INTERFACE_NEW_CHAR)                         //EDIT: Add hud_x=0 in this case
170	        {
171	                free_icons ();
172	                init_newchar_icons ();
173	        }
174	        else                                                        //EDIT: Add hud_x=64 in this case
175	        {
176	                free_icons ();
177	                init_peace_icons ();
178	                init_stats_display ();
179	                init_quickbar ();
180	                init_quickspell ();
181	#ifdef USER_MENUS
182	                ready_for_user_menus = 1;
183	                if (enable_user_menus)
184	                        display_user_menus();
185	#endif
186	        }
187	
188	        last_interface = type;
189	}

Other than that one needs to use the "last_interface" variable in "draw_hud_frame" to determine whether the bar should be drawn or not.

This works for me. If you want I can also make a patch out of it.

[bluap]

I think that there don't need to be big changes to remove the vertical hud-bar. It's basically setting hud_x to 0:

You also need to make sure the aspect ratio of the main window is adjusted, then create a new window to replace the two existing windows. Just positioning the existing windows along the right side of the screen would look odd IMHO. Plus they would not fit for some screen resolutions. What I was thinking, was to enlarge the right-hand hud, remove the current stuff and put the setting controls there. In effect a permanent window. The aspect ratio would still need to be fixed though.

[Wind_of_Change]

Ok, I can imagine what you mean and see how it would be more than a minor change. It would be a nice thing though...

[bluap]

Ok, I can imagine what you mean and see how it would be more than a minor change. It would be a nice thing though...

Yep, it would be nice. Please don't let me put you off doing a patch though. I'll happily help with testing etc. I'm sure Roja would be happy to discuss the detail more, we already have her suggested layout image from earlier in this thread.

[nathanstenzel]

The screen resolutions letting things fit would be an issue with automatically opened windows. If we had an auto-stack option or a auto-fit-on-screen option, it would help, but we don't. I wish you luck if you try to get the windows to be open automatically when you get to the character creation screen.

 

The initial changes you made do look good. Blinking the eyeball icon would be a good indication that you need to click it. If in that menu, you click something saying you are happy, it could blink the other icon or pop up the other window. Perhaps this would be be easier. If you don't got with blinking, you could just have one window open with a button at the bottom saying "choose name and password" which would open the other.

 

Just some different ideas for ya. Good luck with the decisions. There are alot of different ideas in this thread.

[Wind_of_Change]

If I understood bluap correctly he means something like

.

Of course it doesn't look good like that but maybe one can get the idea. Miraculously, the aspect ratio seems to be correct and the player is centered.

But I also may have misunderstood bluap completely...

[bluap]

If I understood bluap correctly he means something like....

Yes, that's what was being suggested. The tabbed account/look could be a good way to overcome the screen size problem. When I was hacking away with this I was able to move the character to the centre of the remaining screen space but not without losing the aspect ratio, so great! I note the bottom hud has gone. Although the window icons would not be needed we also have the help and options down there so may be that should return. Some minor movement and adjustment of the on-screen help and changing the line colour to the normal orange/gold and it's looking good IMHO. Using tabs provides plenty of space for extra help text and there's probably even room for the EL icon to pretty it up a bit. However, it's Roja we have to please.

[Wind_of_Change]

To fix the ratio a very small change was necessary but I have no idea whether it might break something existing. Look at

In gl_init.c (in the function resize_root_window)
956	        //window_ratio=(GLfloat)(window_width-hud_x)/(GLfloat)(window_height-hud_y);
957	        window_ratio=(GLfloat)window_width/(GLfloat)window_height;

and used the commented out calculation instead. The line seems to have been added in revision 1.20 of "gl_init.c" in 2004 but was never uncommented. There are also some other commented out lines. Maybe radu can say something about it.

Your further suggestions would be nice and I think that they won't be too difficult to implement. But before that let's wait for radu and Roja.

[Roja]

Hi there, that looks pretty good!

 

I think it would be best though if we don't use tabs, and just have all the information on the side to make it even easier. This is the mock up I did before: http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=viewimage&img=1204

The bar should be opaque like you have it, and the help text can just be centered on the 3d view screen at the bottom-or even possibly in the bottom bar. And like bluap said, keeping the bottom bar is probably best.

 

Thank you for volunteering to work on this

[Wind_of_Change]

Thanks for the image. I tried to imitate it.

This is the right bar at 640x480800x600. As you can see everything still fits and there is still some space left. For example for the titles "Design your character" and "Choose name and password".

The name/password section looks completely different because I wanted to use the widgets. If you don't like it I can try to get it as close to the previous design as possible.

In the background of this picture is the usual texture of the vertical hud bar. Alternatively we could use a solid color instead.

I have still some small problems with the window order. But I'm sure that others will know how to fix that.

Two things are missing now. That is the "back" button and the error message field. I'm unsure how to compensate for that. How should we tell the user if for example the passwords don't match or they got disconnected from the server?

Edited December 11, 2010 by Wind_of_Change

[Roja]

That looks very nice!

 

I think it's best to make the background a solid color.

 

Add the Design Your Character title to the top, and them move up the UN/PW stuff so there can be room for the error message below the show password line. The back button can go right next to the done button-the oval around done can be made smaller.

[Wind_of_Change]

Back button: done

The error message will need some time...

I said something wrong in my last post. The resolution in the picture is 800x600 and not 640x480 as I stated. 640x480 will be very problematic: