Ultimate space simulation software

 
exgamesadrenaline
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

10 Dec 2016 18:16

Hey, 

At 5pm I've decided to download the SpaceEngine and check it quickly - 5 mins max, before going to bed.
(Black stars, galaxies, procedural planets...)
At 6am SE crashed, so now I've finally decided to fall asleep.

Space Engine - Best pill against the restless sleep : )
Thank you for that experience!

---

Now I've decided to give something to the project. 
After 5 hours of tuning, and tweaking I've focused my efforts 
on a few logo concepts, UI, and fonts of the menu.

Here is my contribution to the community: 
Attachments
space-engine-variations1.jpg
space-engine-variations2.jpg
space-engine-variations3.jpg
space-engine-variations4.jpg
space-engine-variations5.jpg
space-engine-variations6.jpg
space-engine-variations7.jpg
 
exgamesadrenaline
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

10 Dec 2016 18:23

If you think that some of these can be implemented somehow later, 
please ping me for PSDs, fonts, etc. I'll send them to the Dropbox / Gdrive or smt else.

Thank you!

ps Классный симулятор, нужно популяризировать его среди студентов, возможно "засветится" в документалках от NatGeo, BBC, Discovery...
 
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NathanKerbonaut
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

11 Dec 2016 07:31

Those look amazing! This would be awesome to see in SE :D
I like cute pokemon and space games.
My mods: http://forum.spaceengine.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173
Profile pic source: https://goo.gl/JdZX5v
 
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DoctorOfSpace
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

11 Dec 2016 11:09

Getting the look in game should be possible. 
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900X @5Ghz - RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 - GPU: MSI RTX 40​90 GAMING ​TRIO 24G
Quando omni flunkus, moritati
 
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Salvo
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11 Dec 2016 12:13

I really like the logo of the one in the center, with "ENGINE" typed with a lighter font, while I really like the background of the next one.
The "SpaceEngine" logo is pretty standard though, I'm not sure if the developer wants to change it whatsoever.  :)
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

CPU: Intel Core i7 4770 GPU: Sapphire Radeon RX 570 RAM: 8 GBs
 
dinofly
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11 Dec 2016 16:29

Lovely, the only thing that i dislike of SE is the actual logo/GUI, this upgrade would be very appreciated
My favourite one is the blue in the middle
 
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Ostarisk
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11 Dec 2016 19:25

Looks amazing. I like the simplicity in your design, seems very attractive.
My Mods(Old Forum)
My Mods(New Forum)
"I think of space not as the final frontier but as the next frontier. Not as something to be conquered but as to be explored." - Neil Degrasse Tyson
 
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SpaceEngineer
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12 Dec 2016 04:42

The GUI texture system will be changed in 0.981. I didn't make a tutorial yet, because it is too early for it. In short:
  • Added a big font textures. There are 2 fonts now: old 256*256 pix (16*16 pix characters), and 512*512 pix (32*32 pix characters).
    win1251-font-big.png
    win1251-font-big.png (75.32 KiB) Viewed 11703 times
  • The font config file don't uses character coordinates/width table anymore, it is being constructed by SE automatically. It uses two configuration tags for two font textures (Font 0 and Font 1):
    Font 0
    {
     Texture     "win1251-font.*" // path to the font
     Ascent      0 // glyph vertical offset
     Approche    1 // glyph interval
     SpaceWidth  8 // whitespace width
    }
  • The main menu texture was removed. Now text on buttons are typed with a new big font. The buttons images are added to the interface texture.
  • The logo and crescent are moved into a separate textures, so can be easily modded.
  • The skin config file has new parameters, which allows to mod all the mentioned above:
    SkinTexture "interface_mod.*" // interface texture
    BackTexture "menu2.*" // main menu background texture and cubemap (extended to menu2_pos_x.*, menu2_pos_y.*, and so on)
    LogoTexture "logo.*" // "SpaceEngine" logo texture
    HaloTexture "halo.*" // halo (planet crescent) texture
    Force3Dbackground    true // always use 3d background (cubemap), even in non-stereo/VR modes
    DualFont             false // don't use old small font, use only new big font with downscaling
    
So you now can easily make a main menu mod, by simply adding a new skin config file and required textures. The new skin can be selected in the player settings menu. The modded font will affect all skins thought, but I can change that too.

My current build uses static background texture for some skins. There must be provided a skybox texture, captured in the same location as the background texture, with 2048*2048 resolution. Then user switches to 3D stereo mode, VR mode or fisheye/cylindrical/cubemap projection, the background texture in all skins changed to that skybox texture (because flat background cannot be rendered in those modes, especially in VR). Some skins uses forced skybox even in 2D mode, with camera slowly wiggles across the skybox (sort of a dynamic effect).

I am not satisfied with this system, so it may be changed before release. The major drawbacks:
  • Skybox texture is encoded into 8-bit image format, which in SE causes huge banding artefact on a part with a smooth gradients on the image (dawn, atmosphere top, milky way). Almost no scenes in SE has no smooth gradients.
  • Skybox textures are large, very large. One single 2048*2048 uncompressed skybox took 128 Mb of video memory. Compressing it into DDS reduces it to 32 Mb, but artefacts became even more worse.
  • Skybox must be at least 2048*2048 to make stars more or less "point" on 1080p screen. On a 4k screen, stars may start look blurry.
So I will probably change the static skybox texture to a full dynamic scene rendered by the engine. But this solution has also drawbacks, major of them is loading time. Each time you exit to the main menu, you will see nothing for at least few seconds (or maybe a blurred skybox?).
 
exgamesadrenaline
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

12 Dec 2016 07:59

Great, thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate that!
Ok, now I'm fully motivated to make an updated UI for the main menu. Thank you guys!

ps И на родненьком: Владимир, спасибо огромное за SE! 
Обычно очень занят (проф дизайнер в прошлом 12 лет Гугл и т.п. клиенты, сейчас свои проекты и команды. Иногда помогаю с интерфейсами инди разработчкиам как хобби - из актуального The Long Dark), но видно, что правки тепло приняты сообществом. Думаю имеет смысл "причесать" меню и возможно позже и интерфейс в игре (есть идеи как улучшить некоторые вещи). 

Если не против, постараюсь найти время и разобраться с вышесказанным.
"Подшаманить" интерфейс под современные стандарты. 
Возможно это все позже из мода перекочует в основную ветку разработки.
 
exgamesadrenaline
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

12 Dec 2016 08:35

So I will probably change the static skybox texture to a full dynamic scene rendered by the engine. But this solution has also drawbacks, major of them is loading time. Each time you exit to the main menu, you will see nothing for at least few seconds (or maybe a blurred skybox?).
Knowing now all these restrictions, I guess we can show the static blurred image first. 
Maybe even flat color or an image with minimal textures (that we know will be compact in VRAM and pleasant for users), 
maybe not a skybox (even for VR headsets) and fade it to the real environment when the engine is ready to show the real interactive beauty, let's say after 1-8 seconds.

Vladimir, you can PM me your skype, 
and we can hop on a quick skype call regarding UI / interface, etc.
 
exgamesadrenaline
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

15 Dec 2016 12:51

Vladimir, I've received your PM messages. Can't reply on this forum.

So I've sent you a few skype messages. 
Please check them. Thank you!
 
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Xoran
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Logo, UI, Fonts Suggestions

04 Feb 2017 09:34

The middle one and everything after it (the nebulae one, and the gas giant cyclone one) are amazing.  
Space is too big to understand, so do not try to understand.
 
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Andromeda
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04 Feb 2017 19:26

The GUI texture system will be changed in 0.981.
Just another reason to by hyped about this version..
 
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SCtester
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05 Apr 2017 20:16

Thanks exgamesadrenaline, for the awesome mockups, and Thanks SpaceEngineer for working on updates to the GUI! I've wanted that for quite some time now. 

A while ago, on the old forum I posted my own re-skinned version of the menu interface that actually works. It's not quite as sleek as yours, but it's certainly an improvement on the default look in my opinion, at least until 0.9.81 comes out. :)

Here are some screenshots:
menu.png
loading.png
And I attached the download files. (To install, unzip the contents of loading_screen.zip into SpaceEngine/data/texture/common, replacing the files. And paste the file in menu.zip into SpaceEngine/data/locale, again replacing the current file.)
Attachments
loading_screen.zip
(350.2 KiB) Downloaded 573 times
menu.zip
(111.65 KiB) Downloaded 561 times
 
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SCtester
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06 Apr 2017 13:58

As a follow-up to my previous post, I also redesigned the main GUI of the game. (Just a mockup, however, it doesn't actually work)

In my design, I simplified the layout a lot, and made it look a lot more modern. The current SE design has all the tools and all the information right there, so it's hard to understand for people who are new to the game, and it's not very aesthetically pleasing. In my design, all the less-used tools and information are hidden in menus, allowing it to be much cleaner and simpler. 

Here is screenshot, and a YouTube video a made to showcase my design: 
SE UI Redesign.png
[youtube]tlinVp7FQwo[/youtube]
After I made the video, I realized a few things that should be changed about it:
  • The button in the lower left should go to the planet, not center it on the screen
  • The side bar on the right is missing a few important buttons that should be there, like time control and exposure control
(By the way, I posted this a while ago on the old forum website as well, so some may have already seen this - Sorry for the noob question, but does anybody know if all the content of the old forum was moved to this one? I can't seem to find my old post anywhere on the new site.)

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