Main Menu Background

[Monsteri]

I really agree with Wookash. Menu we have now, is default but you can change it from config. @Vehicledestroyer: Nice work but it feels too filled. Try different colours.

[Illuminatus]

New idea. Make menus theme-able.

Ehm...I don't want to interrupt your creative stadium - new ideas are good and useful suggestions are always welcomed.
But...really?! Skinnable menus? Do you know any game where you can choose different themes for the menus?
I mean it's no winamp-mediaplayer or internet-browser...it's just a game's menu to quickly choose your options and then get into the game as fast as possible. I don't care how the menu looks since it consumes less than 1% of my Soldat-time.
I don't think we really have the ressources to even think about this idea.

[Furai]

New idea. Make menus theme-able.

Ehm...I don't want to interrupt your creative stadium - new ideas are good and useful suggestions are always welcomed.
But...really?! Skinnable menus? Do you know any game where you can choose different themes for the menus?
I mean it's no winamp-mediaplayer or internet-browser...it's just a game's menu to quickly choose your options and then get into the game as fast as possible. I don't care how the menu looks since it consumes less than 1% of my Soldat-time.
I don't think we really have the ressources to even think about this idea.

My idea was to have few different sets of menus and be able to choose it from options. Or as I said, merge it with interfaces so modders could do whole mode which not only affects the looks in-game but also menu.
And you might be right that it'd be another useless feature.

[vehicledestroyer]

@Monsteri Thanks, but what do you mean by "filled". I don't think I will try different colours because it will take away from what it's based on: Battlefield Bad Company 2 's menu design. 1 2

@Illuminatus The point is the menus are ugly, we want it changed. winamp-mediaplayer or  your internet-browser are perfect examples of customizable LOOKS/skins. I do agree that completely modifiable menus (like changing the size AND position of things) like the in game interface is much. but then again I did have problems making my menu fit right on top of the original. I had to move the "Bots" list and "Bot Team" boxes. I want to hear what another dev has to say, about both ideas: Skin-able menus? or Mod-able menus?? OR just redesign the default. Maybe a combination of these ideas would work best...

In the end I must agree with Mod-able menus... and a redesigned default.

[chutem]

A competition would work. If the community can come up with a design a significant majority likes, it could get added to a future soldat release with little workload placed on the devs. Lets just hope if a competition is officially started, it goes the way of the previous banner competition and not the trailer competition.

[L[0ne]R]

Simply remaking menu to use images instead of hard-coded colors should suffice. I don't think there's a need to have a whole "choose a theme" system - copy/pasting graphics would be more than enough.

New idea. Make menus theme-able.

Ehm...I don't want to interrupt your creative stadium - new ideas are good and useful suggestions are always welcomed.
But...really?! Skinnable menus? Do you know any game where you can choose different themes for the menus?
I mean it's no winamp-mediaplayer or internet-browser...it's just a game's menu to quickly choose your options and then get into the game as fast as possible. I don't care how the menu looks since it consumes less than 1% of my Soldat-time.
I don't think we really have the ressources to even think about this idea.

"Skinnable Menus" would be more of a side-effect of using images instead of hard-coded colors. Like the in-game interface and player/weapon graphics - they weren't MADE to be moddable - they just happened to be easy enough to edit, so everyone started modding them.

I agree that going through menu consumes very little time compared to actual gameplay, but if you're an active player and do it several times a day - same old menu will eventually become annoying. It is for me at least.
Besides, that buggy menu needs to be remade anyway.

Maybe you are right, he's experienced in interfaces terms but little contest wouldn't do harm.

I agree let's do a contest. Since there is no official contest YET. I'm posting my submission here. Hope you like it.

It's based off of "Battlefield Bad Company 2" 's Gray black and orange menus. I use two screen shots of the menus, Photoshop CS4, Ms paint and the little skill I have using these programs. Time taken, about 3.5 hours...

http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab284/CRASHCOMMANDOdotnet/soldatGUItext.png

Battlefield BC2? Aww, and there I was thinking this color theme wasn't used anywhere else.

Anyway, your version is really nice, though I don't like the fact that Soldat's "official" color scheme is completely replaced. Also, the black background for "Game Style, Goal, etc" - they're not clickable, they're just headers. But a new player won't know that since they look the same as actual clickable buttons.
I wouldn't vote it as replacement for default (because of a different color scheme), but overall it's a really nice skin and I would definitely use it.

[killzonea59]

New idea. Make menus theme-able.

Ehm...I don't want to interrupt your creative stadium - new ideas are good and useful suggestions are always welcomed.
But...really?! Skinnable menus? Do you know any game where you can choose different themes for the menus?
I mean it's no winamp-mediaplayer or internet-browser...it's just a game's menu to quickly choose your options and then get into the game as fast as possible. I don't care how the menu looks since it consumes less than 1% of my Soldat-time.
I don't think we really have the ressources to even think about this idea.

Well, the fact needs to be seen, you see all these other mods that have creativity added to them like themes and "skins" if you will, to show what is to be modded.

What's the big problem to have a more creative picture in the background to show what soldat is all about?
Instead of just being dull and boring?

[MattH]

Pleh?



From: December 08, 2010, 08:08:24 pmEhhh.... forgot to add the bot team control panel

Fixed!

[Espadon]

Sorry to sound like a downer, you guys might be proud of your work but you were probably proud of your kindergarten crayon scribbles, too.
Nice effort, but plastic surgery should be left to the surgeons.

Leave the default as it is. At most, add option to load an image file in the back for those who really can't live without their COD wallpaper.

...it's just a game's menu to quickly choose your options and then get into the game as fast as possible.

Basically the gist of it. Vanilla Soldat should always maintain its no-frills spirit. I'm all for community additions, but that's exactly that: community additions.

[MattH]

Sorry to sound like a downer, you guys might be proud of your work but you were probably proud of your kindergarten crayon scribbles, too.
Nice effort, but plastic surgery should be left to the surgeons.

Leave the default as it is. At most, add option to load an image file in the back for those who really can't live without their COD wallpaper.

...it's just a game's menu to quickly choose your options and then get into the game as fast as possible.

Basically the gist of it. Vanilla Soldat should always maintain its no-frills spirit. I'm all for community additions, but that's exactly that: community additions.

Meh... you're right, but its still fun anyway...

[L[0ne]R]

There's a very fine line between "simplicity" (good thing) and "primitivism" (bad thing).
In Soldat's case it's more towards the latter. Some things just look primitive, ugly, boring. To me the menu is one of such things. It doesn't really have any style. It's just a bunch of things mashed together on a screen.

Color scheme is pretty unique, as well as font choice. But it could still use better arrangement of elements (why have 7 checkboxes for gamemodes if you can have one textbox, or even a dropdown menu?) and a graphic or two in the corner (Soldat logo in the background?). It shouldn't ruin the simplistic feel of the menu, and would make it look a bit more "professional".