Realism HUD Design

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2005-12-01 22:45

I think that knowing how much health you have left is important, though it shouldnt necessarily be put into a bar or into text. I think a more realistic way is to have sounds that go from not hearing any breathing (healthy) hearing wheezing (injured, call a medic) to yelling 'medic' (guess) or not breathing or saying anything since you're beyond the healing capabilities of a medic and you're waiting to respawn.

dawdler · Post by **dawdler** » 2005-12-01 23:11

'[R-PUB wrote:BrokenArrow']I think that knowing how much health you have left is important, though it shouldnt necessarily be put into a bar or into text. I think a more realistic way is to have sounds that go from not hearing any breathing (healthy) hearing wheezing (injured, call a medic) to yelling 'medic' (guess) or not breathing or saying anything since you're beyond the healing capabilities of a medic and you're waiting to respawn.

You have the bleeding implemented, it already does that. If you keep running while wounded... Well, you know you are going to die sooner or later. Part of realism is guesswork, even when its annoying guesswork

But granted, the effect could be a little more flexible.

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2005-12-01 23:14

Knowing how badly you are hurt is very important to teamwork, if youre hurt but not badly or bleeding, you can wait for the medic to make his rounds on his own. As opposed to knowing youre hurt badly (maybe just above starting to bleed) where you will want to be calling for a medic to help you.

hoak · Post by **hoak** » 2005-12-02 03:21

This much has already been said in the thread, and is a feature already in BF2/PRM you don't need redundant bar graphs, flashing HUD lights, or death count downs.

I think the current sounds are a bit over-blown, not everyone whines, pants, screams or cries; plenty of gun-shot wounds don't even really hurt in a way that would may someone inclined to vocalise noisey...

I think a two state heart-beat sound foley would be fine for damage:

In the first sound state you actually hear your heart beating letting you know you've been hit -- often getting hit is just like that, you don't even know you've been hit for up to 15 minutes in the super-charged environment of battle... The sound lets you know that you're not critically hit and hemmoraging, but that a second non-critical hit may likely do exactly that or kill you...

The second sound damage state; 'critically wounded and bleeding out' would have more dramatic heart-beat sound with that middle ear blood rushing sound, this is a very realistic foley effect that many find very convincing that creates a lot of tension for the player.

Calling for a Medic should remain as it is and at the realistic discretion of the player, the means is already in the game.

One bit of telemetry that is valid is some means to tell a Medic how injured you are and how long he's going to have to work on you... These should probably only appear for critically injured (hemmoraging and bleeding out) players, perhaps as a subtle dot that alpha fades as the player is attended to.

Δ

Kos'aaK · Post by **Kos'aaK** » 2005-12-02 10:28

hoak wrote : Simple, momentary status text messages might well be a nice middle ground that would be both easy to script and offer more immediate information then no HUD at all; for example you could have a status key that when pressed and held would tell you your health (in general terms) and and weapon status like this:

Health: You're severly fucked up Dude, if you so much as fart yer gonna die!
Load Out: 2.5 Magazines 5.56 Ammo, 3 HE/Frag Grenades...

I'm still for the 2 icons. I'm sure it would be fun with the ASCII file and cool messages but I'd like to check the status quickly by pressing "M" for instance. It could also take a while like was mentioned with checking how many bullets are in the magazine. You could for instance press "M" - Map would appear along with the Health icon, the Bullet icon would appear moments later. I think simply it would take time to read through the messages and they would be annoying after time.

hoak wrote : Perhaps damage skins on the player models (if that's possible) so that a Medic can see that players on their team are a bloody mess and must be healed or they don't have long to do much would add something actually useful and realistic.

Just if you're interested and have some time, take a look in here for some nice suggestions.

Regarding other things I agree with hoak, rg and dawdler. Please PR try removing the HUD in the next release.

dawdler · Post by **dawdler** » 2005-12-02 11:19

JuRrO wrote:[/COLOR]
I'm still for the 2 icons. I'm sure it would be fun with the ASCII file and cool messages but I'd like to check the status quickly by pressing "M" for instance. It could also take a while like was mentioned with checking how many bullets are in the magazine. You could for instance press "M" - Map would appear along with the Health icon, the Bullet icon would appear moments later. I think simply it would take time to read through the messages and they would be annoying after time.

How about when you open the map and is wounded, blood start dripping on it. The darker the blood, the worse you are. If there are entrails plopping down on the map... No problems, just find a field medic and he'll push em back in!

But maybe that would be too much for some people

hoak · Post by **hoak** » 2005-12-02 12:14

JuRrO, I'm really not fussy as long as the main perspective of the game is made essentially HUDless; there are a million-and-one ways to skin the cat from there, all work well, will add more realism, make the game a lot more immersive, and improve game-play.

I stated my perferences based on games I've played or helped develop where the method I mentioned worked well and was well received by the Fans, but all the suggestions for momentary key toggle based status or integrating status information into the tactical map where a new tab could even be added to the weapon/squad part of the interface to make it really look like part of the game...

I get a general sense we all want and would enjoy essentially the same thing in concept, the rest is just details that if pursued by the PRM Dev Team may really come down to what's practical and doable in a reasonable amount of time; I just hope they pursue it!

Kos'aaK · Post by **Kos'aaK** » 2005-12-02 12:52

hoak wrote:
I get a general sense we all want and would enjoy essentially the same thing in concept, the rest is just details that if pursued by the PRM Dev Team may really come down to what's practical and doable in a reasonable amount of time; I just hope they pursue it!

Agree. Any of you Devs could put in their thoughts or comments about this matter to this thread? Can you comment on what's being planned for the HUD?

@dawdler

check the "blood splash" thread just for fun

Suicide Commando · Post by **Suicide Commando** » 2005-12-02 12:56

A "Realism HUD Design" = no hud at all.

hoak · Post by **hoak** » 2005-12-02 13:27

Suicide Commando wrote:A "Realism HUD Design" = no hud at all.

Yup!

If you've read the thread or at lest the title post you'd see that has been the point of the discussion here from go...

Only we've based our discussion on technical merrits and outcome in game design; point being that some while all "HUD Elements" need to be removed some of the information they convey needs to be supported in the game's interface elsewhere...

Δ

Post by **RipFire** » 2005-12-02 15:18

I'd say ya, if it's about realism then who needs a hud? Otherwise, you could go the near future route ala the next Ghost Recon title, and mess with the idea of some sort of heart monitor? Among other things, assuming we know just how high tech equipment is going to get in years to come.

hoak · Post by **hoak** » 2005-12-02 19:06

'[R-CON wrote:RipFire']I'd say ya, if it's about realism then who needs a hud? Otherwise, you could go the near future route ala the next Ghost Recon title, and mess with the idea of some sort of heart monitor? Among other things, assuming we know just how high tech equipment is going to get in years to come.

God please NO! GRAW is more like Future Fantasy Warrior then FFW; GRIN's fictional HUD and game interface are off the charts with fantasy goo-gaws that are technically ridiculous (real-time P2P video confrencing with your squad) and others that while possible will never make it into the U.S. inventory.

Even if Microvision's or similar HMD prototype gear made past all the procurment snags of finance, feasibility studies, testing, and politics it's nothing like the GRAW foo-foo fantasy Spaceman's nightmare. If you want to see what the Nomad system looks like here's my post about it to the GRAW fourms... You can see it looks like America's Army meets the BF2 Tactical Map in wireframe vector art. And considering the HMD is not intended to be 'always on' or even always down, functionally and aesthetically it's closer to suggestions in this thread then the magical monstrosity GRAW will float.

Note: this doesn't mean I think GRAW will necesserily be a crummy game; just not particularly realistic in this or many other regards from a "franchise" of games that once clamed to be the most realistic games you could run on a PC...

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Rg · Post by Rg » 2005-12-02 19:49

Why don't we go even farther in the future and sit at base camp while we control robots to fight for us?

Cerberus · Post by **Cerberus** » 2005-12-02 21:29

All I want on the HUD is:

How badly I'm injured. Maybe a tiny body in the corner of the screen and parts would turn red if they were hit by shrapnel or bullets

How many magazines or drums my gun has left. No ammo count, just mag/drum count.

Suicide Commando · Post by **Suicide Commando** » 2005-12-02 21:31

Cerberus wrote:How badly I'm injured. Maybe a tiny body in the corner of the screen and parts would turn red if they were hit by shrapnel or bullets

That could be done through sound or visuals without need for a hud though. mayeb at this early stage a hud as you suggest is fine but in the long run I think something more realistic is in order.

Post by **RipFire** » 2005-12-03 04:04

Haha, well I didn't exactly mean go the way of GR, I mean take the general idea for example of not just making a mod about realism, but what a realistic future may hold for military units. Otherwise, sometimes keeping it simple is the way to go.

Lord knows, Ubisoft has taken the Clancy franchise the wrong way for years now.

Beckwith · Post by **Beckwith** » 2005-12-03 06:05

'[R-CON wrote:RipFire']
Lord knows, Ubisoft has taken the Clancy franchise the wrong way for years now.

dont even get me start about that

only decent clancy game in the last 3 or 4 years has been the splinter cell series some hate them i personally love them other than that the last good one was GR the first one

Suicide Commando · Post by **Suicide Commando** » 2005-12-03 11:18

Rainbow 6 the first one was the only good one imo, Ghost Recon as also ok. Splinter Cell is ok but not my thing.

hoak · Post by **hoak** » 2005-12-03 12:33

Ok! Enough digression... I'd be very interested in PRM Developer remarks about the thread discussion before it got side-tracked on the Clancy games (though threads discussing the disappointing direction popular TR games have taken, and 'best of' TR grams would be interesting and constructive; elsewhere)...

So far more here seem in favor of removing all immediate HUD overlays, especially the 'Spin Map' and using more realistic toggleable resources...

How about it?

Δ

Suicide Commando · Post by **Suicide Commando** » 2005-12-03 12:53

I think you'll find its completely natural for discussions to go in different directions, its normal.

Anyway, yes hud needs to go as far as possible and the corner map needs to go all together. If you can't see where your team mates are on the map (as in real life) then you'll have to work closer with them and as a team