Author Topic: Fonts settings  (Read 2891 times)

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Offline duz

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Fonts settings
« on: October 16, 2014, 03:05:38 pm »
I was trying to sketch new menus for Soldat and I noticed that Soldat uses Lucida Console with a custom setting.

I tried to reproduce using Photoshop and here's the result:

http://i.imgur.com/N2CkemB.png


Lucida Console
Vertically scale: 80%
Horizontally scale: 110%

The questions are:
- Why we're using a custom font settings instead of using default font settings?
- 12 years later and there's no better fonts than Lucida Console that matches perfectly with BankGothic Lt BT?

Personal question: Devs, there's anyway to add any anti-aliasing method to the Soldat fonts?
« Last Edit: October 16, 2014, 03:23:53 pm by duz »
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Offline L[0ne]R

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2014, 09:46:09 pm »
- Why we're using a custom font settings instead of using default font settings?
Maybe it doesn't look as good with default settings, or isn't as space efficient? Have you tried using default settings to see how it looks?

- 12 years later and there's no better fonts than Lucida Console that matches perfectly with BankGothic Lt BT?
There might be, but Lucida Console looks fine to me, and it's been around for so long that even if there are much better fonts - we're all too used to this one. Do you know of any other alternatives and can you show them in your mockups?


Offline duz

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2014, 02:25:28 am »
- Why we're using a custom font settings instead of using default font settings?
Maybe it doesn't look as good with default settings, or isn't as space efficient? Have you tried using default settings to see how it looks?
There's a way to disable those custom settings?

- 12 years later and there's no better fonts than Lucida Console that matches perfectly with BankGothic Lt BT?
There might be, but Lucida Console looks fine to me, and it's been around for so long that even if there are much better fonts - we're all too used to this one. Do you know of any other alternatives and can you show them in your mockups?
Looks "fine" to me too, because I'm used to. But not that fine...
The reason that no other font was suggested before? Well, we can't test other fonts if there's a verical and horizontal scale settings changed in Soldat. I can't find a font and think at the same time how those fonts will look with these custom settings... I know that I tried find a better font to replace Lucida Console before, in 2006 or 2009, I don't know. Now I know why I was messed up. I can't choose a good font if the font will get changes with the scale changed.


Here's my suggestion to the dev team:
Put in the font.ini the Vertical and Horizontal scale settings.
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Offline L[0ne]R

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2014, 10:58:59 am »
There's a way to disable those custom settings?
No, I meant in Photoshop.

I agree it would be nice to have all those font settings in font.ini though, including menu fonts and such.

Offline Blacksheepboy

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2014, 02:12:17 am »
Dawwwww Lucida Console is good. Do you want Soldat to look like Photoshop?!

Offline duz

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2014, 06:42:33 am »
http://i.imgur.com/jUuLyzu.png


http://i.imgur.com/nAqpSEH.png


There's no better fonts? I'm not sure about that.
Ps: I'm using usual fonts(Verdana and Arial) just to show that even with those fonts we can get good results.

Dawwwww Lucida Console is good. Do you want Soldat to look like Photoshop?!
I dont get it.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2014, 06:44:14 am by duz »
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Offline SyavX

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2014, 07:21:55 am »
Verdana and Arial are not monospaced.


Here's my suggestion to the dev team:
Put in the font.ini the Vertical and Horizontal scale settings.

There is a FontHeightScale setting in font.ini. FontWidthScale could be added too.

I've added texts output.
However it doesn't look exacly like in Soldat. Because of:
1. Soldat uses FontHeightScale parameter (\Txt\font.ini) while drawing text. And, as I found out, 150 is equal to the font`s original height.
2. Soldat scales font width too, with unknown ratio.

Offline Adam

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2014, 08:06:39 am »

Arguing with your girlfriend and you don't get a response for a few minutes

Offline duz

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2014, 10:23:38 am »
Verdana and Arial are not monospaced.
Just two fast examples to show that we could find better fonts to sound, using their default settings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monospaced_font
hmm, I didn't know (the existence) this was an important thing, but if you're saying... I could(try) find better fonts than Lucida if the devs add the FontWidthScale command.
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Offline L[0ne]R

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Re: Fonts settings
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2014, 10:45:07 am »
Well, I can see why Lucida Console would be used and why it's using non-default settings. Making it smaller makes it take up less space vertically (which is needed for very small resolutions), while 110% horizontal scale compensates for that to preserve readability. Overall I think this font is nice because it's simple and easily readable, unlike Arial and Verdana which were meant more for larger font sizes and the use of AA.

You don't need to wait for devs to add more font settings, because for one - the settings currently used may still be better than default even for other fonts, and secondly - it'll help you test how well the new font handles non-default sizes, which is also important.