Improving the GUI

[Nozoki17]

Well I'm not sure if it's the right place to do it, or if it's in the aim of the mod, but I had some ideas to improve the User Interface while working on my translation and on the tips icons. Really not the most important (nor seen in any previous releases of higurashi for one), but felt quite nice in-game when I toyed with them.

First idea: Make a better version of the logo, it hasn't changed since the original release and feels a bit unpolished compared to the rest of the graphic assets used. My idea was to make an inbetween this original logo and the one from Hou. (Here's an example closer to the og french logo, but I can work it out to match the english one)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1107639120

Second idea: Add name chapter for the logo used between days in-game, there's two instances of the logo in the files (one for menu and one for the end of a day) and it looked really cool when I toyed with it in game

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1107638751

Third idea: Unique scenario screens for each chapter, more related to it while being very subtle to add more variety instead of having the moon each time (example: for Onikakushi, I used the riverside where Keiichi learns about the curse)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1259769563

And finally, fourth idea: Use black and red menu items to be closer of the menus of the ps2 version, it looks far more nicer than the bright blue ones. (here are some really quick tests I made in photoshop, haven't tried it ingame yet)

[enumag]

While UI improvements was never on our list I don't think it's out of scope for our mods. We just add whatever improvements we can think of. This might be a good addition.

Can you post some screenshots of the new GUI in the game? I can't imagine how it would look.

Personally I like all the ideas you posted here. What do you think @ItaloKnox?

[Nozoki17]

I'll try to recompile the game with those (for some reason I had some trouble yesterday)

And obviously, I'm willing of doing them all myself, I'm quite good with photoshop and already very familiar with Higurashi's Assets, so it wouldn't be a problem

[ItaloKnox]

I'm ok with GUI changes but I think we should wait a bit because we're getting an extra button for chinese translation. I'm afraid that will break the changes.

[Nozoki17]

Here's what a very basic recoloring of the menu looks like, keep in mind that I just recolored with a filter and for the final one, I'll probably remake the buttons from scratch using darker shades.

Also, I just realised that I can't seem to find the file for buttons of the extra menu?

[InochiPM]

I have made a better version of the Higurashi logo for Sui.

[Nozoki17]

It's the kind of thing I wanted to do, but with "Hou" to go with the current release. But it looks really sharp and good, great job!

[InochiPM]

Yeah, I'm currently making the better Hou logo in photoshop. I would also like to entertain the idea of changing the shape of the buttons to look more like the sui buttons more rounded and such.

[Nozoki17]

I need to take a look at how they are in Sui, for now I thought about basing myself on Matsuri but I can give it a shot

EDIT: Well apparently they are the same so I'll try it out, I have Matsuri already on my pc so I'll try to extract them if possible to take a better look

[InochiPM]

Oh also! The background part of the log, and the right click menu, would it be possable to extend the opaque gray backing to fit the whole screen while leaving the menu in the center? or moving it around to make it look nicer maybe? i have Sui on my PC and my PS3 ill have a look into the menu buttons and such in a second.

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 Would it be possible to make the red textlog somehow less "aggressive"? There is too much red in my opinion.

[Nozoki17]

@InochiPM I'll have to try, I don't know yet if those are bound to a 4/3 ratio like the background image of the tips menu.

@enumag Sure! I'll have another try tomorrow when I wake up (getting quite late here xD)

[InochiPM]

@Nozoki17 Here is the Hou logo i made. And okay, i'm hoping that its not fixed and can be stretched or at least just the back extended to the edges.

[Nozoki17]

Looks really cool, cudos to you!

[Grelo]

I think we will need the Sui one, so console arcs can use it too.

[Nozoki17]

I'd rather have something consistent rarher than something really "canon" and anyway those arcs will be modded into hou aren't they?

[Grelo]

They are not part of the Hou but yea i think @DoctorDiablo will eventually mod them all.

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 Any progress with the backlog?

@ItaloKnox What is your opinion about the new GUI and logos?

Does anybody know where the image for blue buttons is located and if we can replace it? Maybe @P-Chang might know?

[Nozoki17]

@enumag Sorry this week I got back to school so I haven't had much time to try it out, I'll make progress during this weekend ^^

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 There is no rush, I'm just checking the status of all current issues. Take your time and thanks for your work! :-)

[Nozoki17]

I'll probably sketch a thing or two that I thought could be nice too for menu items, instead of just recoloring them, to get some feedback before taking them to the next step ^^

[ItaloKnox]

I have no big feelings about the UI changes so if you guys are okay with it I'm also okay. It never bothered enough to want to change it.

[Nozoki17]

It's mostly just toying around a bit to see if there's something that could look better to be honest, totally optional stuff..

It started when I played Matsuri and saw how cool the UI looked in grey/red/black compared to the bright blue UI we got.

[Nozoki17]

Looks like it's hardcoded to a 4/3 ratio, I tried to make a 16/9 it got messed up. But here's a quick try at a textlog inspired by Matsuri

Here's the original for comparsion

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 The background behind "TEXTLOG" was better in your first attempt in my opinion.

[InochiPM]

@Nozoki17 Oh that sucks, if it wasnt hard coded it wouldnt look so out of place in the middle, but good job on the text log.

[Nozoki17]

@enumag Alright, I'll try to put the other header back. What do you think of the grey though?

@InochiPM Yeah, I need to look a bit more into it to see if I can put it into a 16/9 ratio, or atleast try to fadeout the edges to see if it looks a bit better

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 The grey is ok-ish? It feels a bit dull but it's still better than the completely red background imo. I'm not quite happy with it but not sure how to improve it either.

[Nozoki17]

We're getting into the totally useless, but I tried to rework the logo to bring it to hd standard (1440x1080) and also doing a total makeover inspired by the logo from Sui, the manga, and the french translation

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 You sure about the "H" instead of "Hou"? It seems a bit confusing to me... Otherwise it's great!

Also guys can we replace the main menu buttons somehow? I never really liked them. Maybe we could make new buttons and use them for both main menu and extra menu to be consistent?

[Nozoki17]

I'll try to make a version with "Hou" in it, but thanks! I also tried to redo my "interchapter" idea too, and the cool thing with these is that it's really easy to swap the text for future arcs and maybe for the console ports that could be labeled as "Extra" or something (I'm not sure about the term chapter)

As for the buttons for the Extra menu, I looked everywhere, they are nowhere to be found for now.. but the main menu should be easy as long as we keep the same dimensions for each button

[enumag]

but the main menu should be easy as long as we keep the same dimensions for each button

That might be a problem with Meakashi. The buttons there are awfully tiny.

[Nozoki17]

Could you post a screen? I have yet to buy Meakashi so I don't know how they look.. I may be able to fix it though

[enumag]

I'm not home right now. I'll post it in a few hours.

[DoctorDiablo]

They're just floating text in Meakashi instead of proper buttons, but they get highlighted in red when you mouseover.

[enumag]

@DoctorDiablo Oh it's just a text? Any idea how we can change it to normal buttons? I'd assume the buttons logic is still in the engine, just not used.

[P-Chang]

It's not. but I can't realize which location you dislike in QA. lower resolution?

But redbar scale should be fix, I think.

[DoctorDiablo]

It's also moderately annoying that they translated omake to extra in the question arcs but left it untranslated in the answer arcs. Can we pick one and make it consistent?

[Nozoki17]

Well it'll be difficult to modify then, maybe by increasing the resolution I might be able to modify them without looking like complete trash, but even then, it will be pretty difficult.

On a side note, I'm quite disapointed of that "new" menu (I never saw it before) I would have prefered if they at least kept consistent with the four previous arcs, or change the menu for all of them.

@DoctorDiablo With the right font I can modify it in 2 minutes, but I feel you, I'd prefer if they kept Extra instead of omake, especially since it's romaji for extra in the first place.

[enumag]

@P-Chang Well the buttons in Meakashi look awful and are difficult to point at because if their low height. They should not be so wide but should be higher - like in the question arcs...

@Nozoki17 Totally agree that they should have kept the question arcs menu. I wish we could change it in Meakashi somehow.

[Nozoki17]

Also, not really an UI but I just remembered I made steam banners for all four question arcs, both for Alchemist and Mangagamer sprites, and in japanese and english too, might be cool to include them somewhere for those who wants them.

Here's an example with Onikakushi, I might rework them a bit before releasing them though.

Did I mentionned I like toying a lot with Photoshop and Higurashi? xD

[Nozoki17]

One thing I might try with Meakashi's menu, is shorten the red overlay, because quite frankly, it looks ridiculous to have them be that long

[P-Chang]

But wait, I think they should be short. but button have full of width.

[Nozoki17]

I tried a logo with a full Hou, here's a comparsion between just an H and Hou, the quality difference is because I forgot to use the scaled up version, but it'll be fixed very easily. EDIT: fixed the quality problem

[jwgrlrrajn]

Regarding the backlog background, perhaps a really dark red might work? Like #4B0000?

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 Those banners look awesome! Not sure where exactly we could use them though. 😄

Hou looks good. Personally I'd try preserving the font-size of "Higurashi When they Cry" from the "H" version and making "Hou" a bit smaller. But it's not important - if you like it as is, we can keep it.

[Nozoki17]

@enumag The problem with that is that even if I extend the bar underneath the logo and recenter the whole thing, it will look really big but it might be fixed if I down size a bit the whole thing.. I'll try a bit later, I spent the afternoon working on those, I'm getting a bit tired xD

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 I just feel like the Hou is too big and Higurashi too small. But it's minor thing.

[Nozoki17]

I reduced the Hou and gave back some width to Higurashi

[enumag]

@Nozoki17 LGTM 🙂 👍 :shipit:

[Nozoki17]

Alright, then I'll increase the resolution and modify a bit the effect around it to make it look the best.

Here's also an example of it being used as a chapter break (I'll reduce it a bit I think, looks wayyyy too big)