The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

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claudiurentea
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Joined: November 18th, 2021, 8:02 pm

The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by claudiurentea »

Hello everyone,
My name is Claudiu Rentea and i'm a huge fan of BFW. I played it since i first installed Debian Linux on my computer, years ago.
The fact is i'm an UI Artist/Designer too, working in the game industry for 3 years and i've made some concepts of the UI in the main menu and in game HUD.

Please tell me your feedback and if you love it why not maybe we can implement it in the main game.

Regards,
Claudiu Rentea
Attachments
InGame.png
Battle of Wesnoth - Preferences.png
Battle of Wesnoth - MainMenu.png
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WhiteWolf
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by WhiteWolf »

While they look a bit out-of-style compared to the current house style, these actually look pretty sick. The dark shading is excellent. I'm not sure about the current limitations of themeWML, and whether this can be implemented or not, but I'd love to see something like this as an optional alternate theme.
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Astoria
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by Astoria »

I am not entirely sure about the technical feasibility of a project like this but in a vacuum I like all of the screenshots a lot! Though I think the in game UI might be a bit too minimalistic at the moment, how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?
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shevegen
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by shevegen »

> how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?

Personally I'd love more information in general, so perhaps the threadstarter can think about UI display of units
too, and add it to the above screenshots as additional "teaser". E. g. your comment in regards to when there
is a LOT of information that can be displayed.

At the least in the main UI for wesnoth, in some add-ons when there are many abilities for a unit, one does not easily
see which ones are all there (like in that invincible campaign which has TONS of unique new abilities). It's possible to
see them via on-mouse-hover then I get some kind of "pop up" or something. But perhaps there may be better
solutions, such as some in-widget scrolling display or something. Not sure how difficult it is to change the UI of
wesnoth. Would be nice if this could be easy to change.

To the proposed UI (and thus the thread here), I think the first picture makes reading the text a bit too difficult
as it seems very dark; the second one is quite nice, looks a bit cleaner in principle than the main preferences
option in wesnoth (I have no real issues with it though, so it is not really that relevant to me either way).

Last picture is also fine in the sense that it could remove a bit clutter and be visually cleaner. IMO that would
require more discussion though, because while the looks and aesthetics may be better, functionality is also
a concern. At the least for me personally, I love fast navigation, so that should not be forgotten if any re-design
consideration is to be done. What could perhaps be tried is to offer some visual alternatives, like a choice of
UI, and get people to "switch skins". That way they could try these things on their own, and then if at one
point a majority may think that some skin is better than the current default, to try it. That way new ideas could
be more easily experimented with while people still have the same old default, and an option to experiment as
such. I don't really know that much about UI design, though; in my own GUIs I focus on functionality first and
foremost, looks secondarily. (All my CSS is super-simple; compare it to Iris' homepage which is much more
epic and visually appealing. My own websites are really boring ... I try to focus on simplicity all the time because
my brain can not handle complexity very well.)
claudiurentea
Posts: 5
Joined: November 18th, 2021, 8:02 pm

Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by claudiurentea »

WhiteWolf wrote: November 18th, 2021, 9:01 pm While they look a bit out-of-style compared to the current house style, these actually look pretty sick. The dark shading is excellent. I'm not sure about the current limitations of themeWML, and whether this can be implemented or not, but I'd love to see something like this as an optional alternate theme.
Thank you and yes, maybe it's a good idea for now for an alternate theme.
Astoria wrote: November 18th, 2021, 9:09 pm I am not entirely sure about the technical feasibility of a project like this but in a vacuum I like all of the screenshots a lot! Though I think the in game UI might be a bit too minimalistic at the moment, how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?
I'm thinking at expanding more the vertical panel attached to the Hero circle (on the left) or maybe a horizontal layout. i will try these days to play a bit with this idea and i will post here the update.
shevegen wrote: November 19th, 2021, 3:49 am > how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?

Personally I'd love more information in general, so perhaps the threadstarter can think about UI display of units
too, and add it to the above screenshots as additional "teaser". E. g. your comment in regards to when there
is a LOT of information that can be displayed.

At the least in the main UI for wesnoth, in some add-ons when there are many abilities for a unit, one does not easily
see which ones are all there (like in that invincible campaign which has TONS of unique new abilities). It's possible to
see them via on-mouse-hover then I get some kind of "pop up" or something. But perhaps there may be better
solutions, such as some in-widget scrolling display or something. Not sure how difficult it is to change the UI of
wesnoth. Would be nice if this could be easy to change.

To the proposed UI (and thus the thread here), I think the first picture makes reading the text a bit too difficult
as it seems very dark; the second one is quite nice, looks a bit cleaner in principle than the main preferences
option in wesnoth (I have no real issues with it though, so it is not really that relevant to me either way).

Last picture is also fine in the sense that it could remove a bit clutter and be visually cleaner. IMO that would
require more discussion though, because while the looks and aesthetics may be better, functionality is also
a concern. At the least for me personally, I love fast navigation, so that should not be forgotten if any re-design
consideration is to be done. What could perhaps be tried is to offer some visual alternatives, like a choice of
UI, and get people to "switch skins". That way they could try these things on their own, and then if at one
point a majority may think that some skin is better than the current default, to try it. That way new ideas could
be more easily experimented with while people still have the same old default, and an option to experiment as
such. I don't really know that much about UI design, though; in my own GUIs I focus on functionality first and
foremost, looks secondarily. (All my CSS is super-simple; compare it to Iris' homepage which is much more
epic and visually appealing. My own websites are really boring ... I try to focus on simplicity all the time because
my brain can not handle complexity very well.)
Yes, as i told to @ WhiteWolf maybe an alternative theme would be a first step. Also i will think about new panels and see what changes should be made.
I will look over the contrast issue and try to fix that. Thank you for your feedback.

How can we start to implement this theme as an alternative to main UI?

I also attached a concept video for the Start Screen.
Attachments
BFW Loading Screen.mp4
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Ben24626
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by Ben24626 »

These look sick, would be cool if they were implemented in the game.
claudiurentea
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Joined: November 18th, 2021, 8:02 pm

Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by claudiurentea »

Astoria wrote: November 18th, 2021, 9:09 pm I am not entirely sure about the technical feasibility of a project like this but in a vacuum I like all of the screenshots a lot! Though I think the in game UI might be a bit too minimalistic at the moment, how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?
I'm thinking at an expandable vertical panel. I've made an example attached here.

So, what steps we can take to implement this theme/ UI in the real game?

Thank you!
Attachments
Hero - Normal vs Expanded.png
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Pentarctagon
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by Pentarctagon »

I guess the first thing that would need to be clarified would be what part(s) of the work are you willing/able to do yourself vs what are you asking others to do. Overhauling parts of Wesnoth's UI is not a small task, and that's even if the custom UI toolkits that Wesnoth uses are capable of implementing the what your mockups are showing.

I'd say the best scenario for something like this would be if you're able to look into creating an add-on that has an alternate theme (see the Combat Information Theme for 1.14 as an example), distribute the theme like that, get feedback on it, and go from there.
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claudiurentea
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by claudiurentea »

Pentarctagon wrote: November 26th, 2021, 4:56 pm I guess the first thing that would need to be clarified would be what part(s) of the work are you willing/able to do yourself vs what are you asking others to do. Overhauling parts of Wesnoth's UI is not a small task, and that's even if the custom UI toolkits that Wesnoth uses are capable of implementing the what your mockups are showing.

I'd say the best scenario for something like this would be if you're able to look into creating an add-on that has an alternate theme (see the Combat Information Theme for 1.14 as an example), distribute the theme like that, get feedback on it, and go from there.
Thank you for your answer, I will try yoour suggestion, really helpful info. ;)
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Tom_Of_Wesnoth
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Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

claudiurentea wrote: November 26th, 2021, 4:20 pm
Astoria wrote: November 18th, 2021, 9:09 pm I am not entirely sure about the technical feasibility of a project like this but in a vacuum I like all of the screenshots a lot! Though I think the in game UI might be a bit too minimalistic at the moment, how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?
I'm thinking at an expandable vertical panel. I've made an example attached here.

So, what steps we can take to implement this theme/ UI in the real game?

Thank you!
Do you not think that having to click every time you want to see a unit’s attacks would get inconvenient?
If presented with the opportunity, I would take great pleasure in becoming a world ruler.
claudiurentea
Posts: 5
Joined: November 18th, 2021, 8:02 pm

Re: The UI of Battle For Wesnoth

Post by claudiurentea »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: November 28th, 2021, 1:57 pm
claudiurentea wrote: November 26th, 2021, 4:20 pm
Astoria wrote: November 18th, 2021, 9:09 pm I am not entirely sure about the technical feasibility of a project like this but in a vacuum I like all of the screenshots a lot! Though I think the in game UI might be a bit too minimalistic at the moment, how do you see the UI looking for especially unit information when there is simply more information to show?
I'm thinking at an expandable vertical panel. I've made an example attached here.

So, what steps we can take to implement this theme/ UI in the real game?

Thank you!
Do you not think that having to click every time you want to see a unit’s attacks would get inconvenient?
Maybe we can put a "pin" function for some panels on desktop mode (let me know about this idea). I designed this for both PC and Mobile and in a small display we can't put so much information, because it will be a terrible UX. Also it's very important to be consistent in design even if you play on your PC or on your mobile device (smartphone, tablet).
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