T.King Art Based EQ2ish UI - Updated
 

So, I have just finished the layout of UI i'm constrcuting that's based loosely off of the idea behind the default UI for EQII. I used the artwork from T.King's Celtic SE to create just about all of the graphics behind this. This isn't a functional UI yet, just some art put ontop of a screenshot.

So first: The Hotbuttons

The four buttons on the far right will be reserved for two inventory slots, and the primary and secondary weapon slots. The rest will just be normal hotbuttons. On release, i'll probably have a little patch that will move the inventory and primary/secondary slots to the other side for people that wish to have it that way.


The group window is horizontal, and runs across the bottom border of the viewport. I'm not sure where I want to put the Invite/Disband/LFG buttons yet (if at all, since i use /lfg ctrl+i and ctrl+d) for all those functions.


The compass, yay. More importantly the little gem that's there. I'm not sure what I want this to do yet, but I'm hoping I can make it customizable from user to user. I'm open to suggestions on this, so please provide them :)


The buffs and the short duration buffs will run across the top part of the screen, in the black area.

And finally, here is a large screenshot of what everything will look like put together:
Screenshot Link


I'm not completely sure what else i'm going to put into the top black area to fill it out, but I'm thinking that I might put player stats, and the mp3 player will definatly go in that area. I'm open to comment, critisism and suggestions on every aspect, so please provide. I want to make my first UI a success.

Update!

I've thrown out the idea of using T.Kings artwork, and am going to stick with the artwork that's found in the actually eq2 screenshots. The health bars are going to stay green, because it's such a nice change from red. Below is a peliminary screenshot of what it will look like when I get to coding. I'm hoping that drakah will let me use the hotbuttons, window selector, and compass that he has in the screenshot he posted here, to help save me some time on the xml coding of this thing. Let me know what you think please.

Screenshot

Very nice work indeed. I've only 1 suggestion about the chat windows. If yo have the Tking windows kit, I'd use that same border around the chat windows. But great work!

/me falls in love

i'm such a dumb ! i was always stuck, i could not figure out how to lay my too numerous chat windows... i've never thought of viewport-cutting the upper AND the lower parts of the screen...

i guess i'm too narrow minded :p

edit : btw, why not change the gem below the compass for the targetwindow making it changing colors with the /con of the target ?

Thank you!
 

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I saw the EQ II UI and I thought it was so awesome and wished that sombody would make a UI for EQ based on it. You've done just as I wish! You rock! I have one request, try and make the UI as minimalistic as possible. Make the UI so that I don't have to see my stats or experience bars if I don't want to. I'd much rather just open my inventory to see my stats and experience when I need to. I don't need to look at them all the time. I would like it to have just the stuff thats seen in the EQ II UI if you can do that. There are absolutely no UIs out there that don't have all that garbage like stats cluttering the screen.

I just want my health, party health, spells, hotkeys, buffs and chat window. Everything else is extras thats not needed and just adds clutter. I'm sure that will add black space to the top and bottom of screen but thats okay too. It makes it look like a widescreen movie and thats neat.

~Shogok Stonecrusher

Suggestions
 

Could you put the Health bars for the group members up in the top black area + target health bar (put target health bar directly above personal health/mana/stamina bars. That way the only thing in the viewport is your own health/mana/stamina. The less stuff in the viewport the better.

I think it might also work better if the compass is moved to where that green gem is. Will I be able to simply move the compass over top of the green gem? That way the group health bars could go straight accross the bottom part of the top black bar like I want em.

I don't think you need invite/disband/lfg buttons either. I think most people use alt-i, alt-d and /lfg and if they don't, they should. Adding the buttons will just make clutter. Also, I think the chat windows SHOULDN'T have the T. King style borders. Just because that will draw attention away from the border around the viewport which should stand out. I don't think there should be any other borders around anything else besides the viewport. Even the fancy border around the spell bar isn't really needed in my opinion.

~Shogok Stonecrusher

I plan on making it extremely minimal, I'm not too into the clutter either, but I will mostly likely make a minimal and feature-packed one, to play to both sides of the croud.



I might be moving the entire playerwindow to the far top right corner, just like in the eq2ui, but I haven't decided yet. I'll try sticking the target ontop of the player info, to see what it looks like, but I most likely won't.


I'm not even sure if I'm going to include the gem, it really depends if I have the extra windows to do so, but I think i'm going to leave the compass right where it because I like it there, and that's how it was in the screenshot I have of the eq2ui.



I tried putting the t.king borders in before I even posted and I didn't like them, but all it's going to be is turning the opacity down to 0%, so if you like them, you can put them back in pretty easily. Also, I'm no XML coder, which is why I left the spell bar how it is, because t.king has a horizontal spell bar released, and I want to keep the coding down to a minimum so I don't have to do that much coding (I'de rather play).


That's actually not a bad idea, thanks! It will take some graphics editing, and I'm sure it will take eight million hours of editing and tweaking pre-existing code to get it to work, but I like the idea. I could also make it the flashing attack indicator... hmmmmm... it has loads of possibilities.

--

Thanks so far for your suggestions. I haven't started the coding yet because I'm really dreading sitting down for a couple days and pumping out a UI, though I am pleased to see that I am supported in it :)

So, look for a beta soon (I might just do coding beta with minimal graphics, I'm not really sure yet) so wee can get some people testing this to the fullest, because when it hits release, I want to go the opposite route of SOE and have it bug free.

Thanks for the tips thus far!

Where exactly did you see this EQII default UI?

at IGN ?

inc EQII emulated, Drakah ? :)

Actually I already have an EQII UI made that I am currently using, but not based on the actual game UI as of yet.

I threw this together to see how it feels. I guess if this is the "skeleton" idea of how EQII will be, it will take some getting used to. /shrug

Anyway here is what I threw together..

Screenshot here

I like it
 

Looks very good so far. I noticed that the health bars are red now. I kinda liked how they looked green. I don't know why but green is just easier on the eyes perhaps. It could also be that its just different than the norm and change is nice. I can't wait for the beta.

~Bilgort

I found some actual high res screenshots of the new EQ2UI, so i'm reworking the graphics to be more suited towards that, since I think that the celtic SE look doesn't quite fit the look that i'm going for with this UI (minimalism). So, look for an update on the screenshot soon, along with me starting to release UI parts.

Woops
 

I didn't notice it was Drakah who posted his UI and that it wasn't Laroden's work. The UI looks pretty good Drakah, especially since you didn't actually base it off the real EQII UI. I'm hoping Laroden can make one though that looks... well... just like the real EQII UI or as close to it as possible. I don't even really mind if it has that celtic look for the viewport border. Well, it looks like there are two of you working on an EQII UI so hopefully with the calaboration you can make a cool UI. I can just imagine how popular it will be when EQII comes out and people want to play both games. If both games have pretty much identical UIs then it will be much easier plus EQ will feel much more like an updated game when the new graphics engine gets implemented and EQ gets a face lift. Supposeably the graphics of EQ are gonna be on par or close to that of EQII so I'd just love to have this UI to go along with all the improvements to help make the game feel more polished and *new*.

I dunno if you guys say it but Ive released my eq2 ui for eq1

http://www.eqinterface.com/download...nfo.php?id=3638