Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: herkie423 on October 16, 2022, 04:21:55 am
-
I noticed that most mods don't use weapon loadout icons in loadout screen like in retail FS2. Model icons are really tiny to look at. So why don't modders make weapon loadout icons anymore?
-
Effort . That's it really.
That's serious by the way, the general outlook is that since the icons are being autogenerated, why bother making the icons too when the dev already went through all the effort of making the model in the first place?
-
The weapon icons and rotating model are very low utility - even if you have external weapon models, how much time do you actually have to visually identify a weapon loadout during gameplay?
-
The weapon icons and rotating model are very low utility - even if you have external weapon models, how much time do you actually have to visually identify a weapon loadout during gameplay?
Uh plenty? Mission doesn't start until you hit go.
-
The weapon icons and rotating model are very low utility - even if you have external weapon models, how much time do you actually have to visually identify a weapon loadout during gameplay?
Uh plenty? Mission doesn't start until you hit go.
I was talking about ships that are not part of player loadout, e.g. enemy fighters. Hence the addition of " during gameplay"
-
Also some people absolutely still do make loadout icons. Best example I can think of is WoD, which color codes its icons to immediately tell the player if a weapon is Kinetic, Energy or Neutron, and its secondary properties that could make or break a mission. Although in that case it's actually just the weapon's name with a colored background, rather than an icon of the weapon itself.
For me personally, I'm no graphical designer outside of HUDs, but I can model somewhat competently, so I choose to model the weapon and let the engine handle icon-ization.
-
The weapon icons and rotating model are very low utility - even if you have external weapon models, how much time do you actually have to visually identify a weapon loadout during gameplay?
Uh plenty? Mission doesn't start until you hit go.
I was talking about ships that are not part of player loadout, e.g. enemy fighters. Hence the addition of " during gameplay"
This topic is about the briefing/ship/weapon select screen.
-
The weapon icons and rotating model are very low utility - even if you have external weapon models, how much time do you actually have to visually identify a weapon loadout during gameplay?
Uh plenty? Mission doesn't start until you hit go.
I was talking about ships that are not part of player loadout, e.g. enemy fighters. Hence the addition of " during gameplay"
This topic is about the briefing/ship/weapon select screen.
My point being that those graphics on that screen are not applicable elsewhere in the game, therefor being low utility, therefor not really worth the effort.
Things would be different if, for example, the animation didn't show a spinning gun model but the weapon in action.
As for the icon, I don't see any utility to it over text spelling out the weapon's name as it appears in the HUD.
-
Model icons are really tiny to look at.
This should be actually adjustable with the Tables. You can change the size of the Icon so that it fill up the whole box.
However afaik it is this way for retail weapons for better size comparisons, so that you know, especially for missiles, how big they are.
-
This should be actually adjustable with the Tables. You can change the size of the Icon so that it fill up the whole box.
However afaik it is this way for retail weapons for better size comparisons, so that you know, especially for missiles, how big they are.
Technically - in case Herkie wants to make some edits - you have to fudge detail0's bounding box and/or the model radius in the .pof (I learned that when I fixed them just recently (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=98367.0)). The original .ani icons were never like that, so I assume it's just been a "fix this later" thing since the beginning.
-
Actually, the weapon loadout icon is very easy to make if you knowledgeable in Photoshoppe. And I don't mean the rotating image, that is extensive work to build an anim for that. That's why we use models and it's good. I mean the icons on the left panel.
It took me only 9 minutes to make one. 5 minutes for the design idea on how it looks (it doesn't take much because the PCX image is very very small), 3 minutes to edit, then 1 minute or less to build the anim file.
-
I mean I stand by that it's just unnecessary extra work when there's perfectly fine and functional models to use for the icons. Of course, other people are more than fine to do it but that's just how I feel about it.
Also I don't have Photoshop and GIMP sucks so hard to use I actually think I'm developing an aneurysm each time I need to launch it.
-
Yeah, I am kind of a "detail freak." As you can see in AFR, I even completely changed the Game User Interface and every button icons. I love doing the small details, it's fun for me.