User Interface Design and Implementation
UI Design was a solo unit I completed for my during my 2nd year at Staffordshire University.
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The goal of this unit was to design and implement UI for an RPG framework that was provided to us.
Everyone had the same set of UI elements that we had to create such as an Inventory and Vitals Bar. We also had to choose a UI Focus and I picked a crafting system.
We were given complete creative freedom in terms of visuals and all we had to do was make sure that our UI matched that aesthetic theme. I chose to do a Hexagonal Themed UI as I had not seen it implemented fully in any game.
Designs for my Vitals and Ability Bar
Designs for my Inventory
Experimentation with other colour combinations
Designs for my Ability Tooltips
A lot of my time in this unit was spend designing layouts that felt aesthetically and aligning everything perfectly as if things weren't then it would make the UI look off and not quite right.
My UI Focus was a crafting system. I had a lot of different ideas in which way to take the visuals for this element. I had to ensure that everything snap together well and whilst designing I also had to consider placement of the element on screen as well as how the player would interact with it.
I took the best design out of the 6 and elaborated on it further and ended up creating this:
I am very happy with the outcome of this process and once implemented this was the clear choice.
After adding in the final touches such as animations and sound effects as well as a few items to show off the crafting system to its fullest I ended up with something unique and aesthetically pleasing to use.
This unit was a big eye opener to me as I see myself as someone who does struggle with creating and deciding visuals. However, I was able to create something that was both visually pleasing and technically impressive.