Author Topic: Possible new UI systems for FSO  (Read 14843 times)

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Offline Eli2

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
I am watching the game gui space for a few years now, and to be honest, i am not sure what the right course of action is.

Freeablo recently removed libRocket (https://freeablo.org/?p=105) not sure if mygui is the best choice thou.
Overgrowth switched their editor gui (in Beta 2), from embedded browser (awesomium i think) to imgui.
CEGUI seems to be the largest/active library in this space.

I don't have any solutions to offer but i am eagerly watching this space to see how it plays out.

 

Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
CEGUI seems like a good idea for a UI controlled by the engine C++ code but scripting access is an absolute must-have for the new UI system and I can't find much information about lua support for CEGUI.

 

Offline Bryan See

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
CEGUI seems like a good idea for a UI controlled by the engine C++ code but scripting access is an absolute must-have for the new UI system and I can't find much information about lua support for CEGUI.

There's lua support for CEGUI. Check this out: http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/Getting_Started_with_Lua_and_CEGUI

And what about the interface.tbl support? Can CEGUI support this?
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Offline The E

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
interface.tbl currently does nothing and we have made no firm decisions about how we are going to define interfaces in the future.
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Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
There's lua support for CEGUI. Check this out: http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/Getting_Started_with_Lua_and_CEGUI
I am aware of that page but I first need to check if integrating CEGUI into FSO is possible at all.

And what about the interface.tbl support? Can CEGUI support this?
No, CEGUI would use its own markup language for defining interfaces so there is no need to use our own markup language.

 

Offline Bryan See

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
interface.tbl currently does nothing and we have made no firm decisions about how we are going to define interfaces in the future.
I'm keeping this in mind when it comes to this, as with other features I've planned since 2009.

And what about the interface.tbl support? Can CEGUI support this?
No, CEGUI would use its own markup language for defining interfaces so there is no need to use our own markup language.
What about mission loading screens? Animated? Pre-rendered? Real-time? 3D? Independent-resolution ones? Can they be in 3D theoretically (as cockpit displays or space signages)?
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Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
What about mission loading screens? Animated? Pre-rendered? Real-time? 3D? Independent-resolution ones? Can they be in 3D theoretically (as cockpit displays or space signages)?
I have no plans of adding support any of those applications at the moment.

 

Offline jr2

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO

 

Offline Bryan See

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
Anyone has updates on any UI system selected for FSO? It's been almost three months since the last post made on this thread...
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Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
There are no updates here.

 

Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
I have evaluated the integration of CEGUI and have come to the conclusion that integrating that system would take a lot more work than libRocket for no apparent benefit. Unless someone finds a very good reason for not using libRocket, I will submit the changes for code review within the next few days so that the system can be tested in the nightly builds.

 

Offline BirdofPrey

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
Hey, just noticed this.  Is there a good place to learn how to use this to make a custom UI?
I was bored a year or two ago, and started working on what was supposed to be a higher resolution, widescreen version of the old FS1 UI before everyone stopped me and told me the engine wouldn't support it, then everyone spent a few weeks arguing what would be the best solution.
I should still have my files and workflow somewhere.
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Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
The proposed system (libRocket) uses a markup language similar to HTML and CSS. User interaction will be controlled by Lua if custom actions are required.
There are a few tutorials available in the homepage of the project: http://librocket.com/wiki/documentation
There will be a few special things to consider when using libRocket in FSO but for the most part everything will work just like the tutorials explain.

 

Offline BirdofPrey

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
Thanks, that's helpful.
Are there application specific tags for FSO I'd need to worry about, though?  I'm guessing at this stage you don't have proper documentation on what all the bits do.

On a side note, is this just game menus, or are you expanding it to be able to replace the Mainhall and HUD code as well eventually?
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Offline The E

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
The Mainhall, maybe. The HUD, probably not. The HUD in particular is already very customizable and scalable, so the two major factors driving the effort to introduce a new menu system aren't an issue there.
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Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
Mainhalls also have support for HD graphics and Lua-scripted doors, so I'm not sure there's much need there, either (but I guess making the whole menu system consistent might be desirable).
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Offline BirdofPrey

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
The Mainhall, maybe. The HUD, probably not. The HUD in particular is already very customizable and scalable, so the two major factors driving the effort to introduce a new menu system aren't an issue there.
Very true (though the 3D radar is in need of a refresh, both to look better/more modern and consistent with the rest of the HUD and also to work properly with radar icons).  I also had some recommendations for altering how radar icons are tabled to allow for a graceful fallback if a ship isn't specifically tabled for a specific icon (and would also separate the UI aspects out of the game interaction aspects in the ship tables), but I don't think anyone cared at the time.  That's not entirely on topic here, though.
Mainhalls also have support for HD graphics and Lua-scripted doors, so I'm not sure there's much need there, either (but I guess making the whole menu system consistent might be desirable).
Consistency is what I wondered more about.  I know the Mainhall and HUD codes work fairly well right now, but at the same time that's three separate systems to both maintain code for, and multiple syntaxes modders have to learn and remember to change the entire UI/UX for a mod.
There are, of course, arguments on both sides; particularly, the current HUD code is fairly easy to understand because it's a simple system, merging it with this might make it more complicated.
The Great War ended 30 years ago.
Our elders tell stories of a glorious civilization; of people with myths of humanity everlasting, who hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear.

In testing: Radar Icons

 

Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
You can already replace the entire mainhall UI with a scripted interface so it would be very easy to use this new system to recreate the mainhall UI but it currently does not have enough features for actually rendering a proper mainhall since animated images are not supported yet.

Also, the 3D radar is (as the name says) a 3D element so that absolutely cannot be replaced by libRocket since that can only handle 2D interfaces.

 

Offline m!m

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
I created the pull request for these changes: https://github.com/scp-fs2open/fs2open.github.com/pull/1466

 

Offline BirdofPrey

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Re: Possible new UI systems for FSO
You can already replace the entire mainhall UI with a scripted interface so it would be very easy to use this new system to recreate the mainhall UI but it currently does not have enough features for actually rendering a proper mainhall since animated images are not supported yet.

Also, the 3D radar is (as the name says) a 3D element so that absolutely cannot be replaced by libRocket since that can only handle 2D interfaces.
I was more intrigued than anything.  The current stuff works already, so I have no pressing desire to see the HUD and mainhall stuff replaced, I was more interested in how far you were planning to take this.
The lack of animation support is quite a bummer, though.  Does it at least allow for embeded video?  Without those, the command briefings aren't going to work, since they usually include video clips. 
The Great War ended 30 years ago.
Our elders tell stories of a glorious civilization; of people with myths of humanity everlasting, who hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear.

In testing: Radar Icons