Improving ToEE's User Interface

You mean just use a different font? We can do that for "EXP" "STR" etc. because we are putting those letters there in the art rather than have the game draw them in dynamically. However we have to use a font that actually 'works' - not any old font will do. I can try a more serif-like one though and see.

The font 'working' is a complicated matter though - has to be legible in what is really a fairly small area etc., and some fonts just display at certain sizes better than others.

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Here is a more stylish font that actually looks a bit like Priory - the one that will be taking over the game, lol.

 

Not sure what you mean here ... if you're talking about the Priory font that we'll be switching virtually all text to, I assume that's compatible as it's a vanilla font. If you mean the font used to show stat names in the image above, well no that won't translate because it won't actually be a text-based font at that point, just a part of the .tga. We can actually use the Priory font for those things but it looks a bit shabby and has to have it's position for each of element plotted on the x,y axes. Never looked particularly good in the original trials.

 

Sadly that would be way too labor intensive to do as a TFE-X option (nor do I want to support multiple choices, lol), so it will be a wholesale change. However, it can be altered fairly easily on the individual level simply be deleting a folder.

Okay, here's how the inventory UI will look in-game.



Note that being as this is being done piecemeal, not everything appears changed yet. Some text is still in the awful arial font - that being text controlled in the .dll, which we will change later (and probably last) thanks to random's .dll hacks from last year. Also, as you can see, the drop and use item buttons have moved in order to reclaim as much UI real estate as possible. This is necessary in order to show enough lines of text in the description box to fit the larger Priory font (which again isn't there yet but it will be at some point). I also can't find the inventory grid art in the dats, so the slots appear black now. I had hoped we could make them transparent so the stone texture could show through but I still think it looks okay. Lastly the silly bright blue line around the inventory grid and the backpack has been removed. The only reason it existed originally was because you were supposed to have multiple packs to choose from. That never happened, and yet the 'this pack is active' ugly blue line remained. It's gone now.

 

Those are the travails of this method of approval; comparatively few people actually see and get involved in this thread, so like with most polls we do here, the consultant base is likely not statistically relevant to what the larger playing base may or may not want. That's why imo it's actually preferable to just put your faith in somebody who is doing it and give them creative license (inasmuch as there's really any creativity involved - we're not remaking the UI after all, just tweaking it).

After having seen the bolder colors in the stats area, I actually don't like the pastels so much anymore lol. I have to admit though that I think the ToEE subdued blue and the new warm stone background texture actually go well together. I wasn't expecting that. I think we will stick with the current workup regardless, mainly because I don't have the necessary time to tweak the colors over and over and still expect to get something useable out the door for the modpack.

Speaking of which, I guess I never really stated what the plan is as of taking this up again this year. Basically we are going to put in whatever's done in time for 7.6 at the end of this month. That almost certainly won't be everything, as there is a ton of stuff to go over, not the least of which is everything that will be affected by the universal changes to font in the .dll. Whatever's left undone will probably come in 7.7 next year. It's been over a year since we were threatening to do this initially, so no more delays. The time has come.

We'll see about that when we get there, though the solution to that issue is just to change your drivers.

 

No worries, lol ...

Re: buttons, that's pretty much the way it has to be with the overhaul, as the space they normally sit in has to be reclaimed to show an extra line of the larger font or that info will spill out of the bounding boxes and look sloppy and amateur. I suppose there might be a few misclicks before you get used to it, but I'm not too concerned being as you can just pick something up again that you accidentally drop and re-drop and item you accidentally tried to use.

The many UI interfaces are coming along btw. I'll probably post shots of them all here eventually. As of now I suspect that dialog, party pool, and party creation won't make it in yet but we'll see. Those are by far the most complex, aside from the character sheet.

 

Okay, Christmas update time! So far I have 18 UI interfaces reskinned with high def (but mellowly reserved) textures in place of the antiseptically blank vanilla backgrounds. The following images show the backgrounds as ToEE assets, not as they appear in-game with text. Bear in mind of course that Priory 12 point will eventually take over all of ToEE and accessorize these images nicely in-game. Ignore the pink; it represents transparency. Also, empty black boxes generally contain buttons that are drawn dynamically in-game, like 'yes' and 'no.'

ALERT | This is for popup boxes like area descriptions.



FORMATION | This is for formations. Interestingly, the dialogue box below the formation squares is never used, AFAIK.



GENERIC | These are the boxes that randomly popup to randomly tell you things, like warnings about leaving your stuff on random encounter maps. Some have checkboxes, some don't. [ed. - the second is now our adapted larger box.]





HELP | The Help interface.

 

LEVELUP | This is an overlay in the main character window during levelups for some reason.



LOAD | This is the load screen. Like with formations, that box on the lower right is never used. _O:



LOOT | The looting interface.



MAIN | The main character UI that we've seen before.



IRONMAN | The Ironman version. Why? Because if we don't, sooner or later some sour puss is going to play ironman no matter what we say and then declare how much Co8 sucks for "never even considering!" the ironman interface for the UI overhaul and blindly forgetting it like a pack of idiots. "The fools!" Rather than spend a lot of time redoing this, I just repainted the buttons 'iron-colored,' obviously.