http://www.tweek.org/glass.zip
My spherical target gauge...Take all the code and/or graphics from there you want
imagine this for a sec...
if a - is equal to 1 bubble of health in the current health bar...
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That layout would show you that the bars empty right to left. So...
----#
.---#-
..--#--
...-#---
....#----
The hash symbol shows the visible portion of the gauge...This would allow you to see the gauge empty each bubble of health right-to-left on a new line. For more accuracy, you must use a smaller visible portion of the gauge per line and more line with a smaller height.
Now each line of a sphere would represent one line of health on the bar right? So you would have to overlap gauges not only vertically, but horizontally in a spherical shape.
If you notice, the person who watched his frame rate increase by 37fps when turning off the vertical gauge that used 100 gauges...and decrease by 10fps with the gauge on (in comparison to his normal frame rate)...
Its not impossible to create a spherical gauge that fills vertically...Its just totally and completely impossible to actually play EQ with a gauge like that on your screen.
But if you figure out a way to do it that is actually playable...Sure I would love to see it