New interface thoughts and comments.

[Fungi]

Hey, so, on the table selection screen... what's the "start" button on the bottom right for? It's redundant and unnecessary right now.

 

[brakel]

Hey, so, on the table selection screen... what's the "start" button on the bottom right for? It's redundant and unnecessary right now.

Is it as redundant and unnecessary as saying that something is redundant AND unnecessary? As opposed to those things that are redundant AND necessary?

 

[Fungi]

Is it as redundant and unnecessary as saying that something is redundant AND unnecessary? As opposed to those things that are redundant AND necessary?

D'oH!

 

[rob3d]

I like the way the new UI works, but the clip art looking icons remind me way to much of a 90's geocities website. Once they upgrade the graphics I'm sure it will be fine, but yeesh is it ugly right now.

 

[brakel]

D'oH!

Sorry, couldn't help myself!

 

[Fungi]

I like the way the new UI works, but the clip art looking icons remind me way to much of a 90's geocities website. Once they upgrade the graphics I'm sure it will be fine, but yeesh is it ugly right now.

Geocities! THAT'S what I was thinking!

 

[Fungi]

Sorry, couldn't help myself!

Please excuse my brain fart. Some software company rudely interrupted my sleep by surprising me with a new Star Trek toy yesterday.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I like the way the new UI works, but the clip art looking icons remind me way to much of a 90's geocities website. Once they upgrade the graphics I'm sure it will be fine, but yeesh is it ugly right now.

Wow...I need more sleep. I thought everyone was complaining about the table backglasses being used for icons and was thinking "It's the original table art; what's wrong with these people?" But that's obviously not the problem; it's the New Tables/Options/Tournament icons everyone's wroth about.

To be honest, I'm not terribly bothered by them, but yeah, they could use a facelift.

In the plus side, I do like the table selection backgrounds being toned down and made dark single colors...much easier on the eyes now. And hurray for not having TOTAN's music everywhere anymore...it was getting annoying!

 

[lettuce]

Not a massive fan of the new interface, its not very modern looking is it. I would much prefer just a grid of backglasses to select from. and maybe bring back the virtual arcade to walk around??

 

[netizen]

I have been following this conversation, somewhat, and I am sort of baffled about the part about TOTAN's music everywhere :-/

Was this a platform specific audio issue? On Android the music changed with each table, so you only heard TOTAN's music when you were looking at TOTAN in the, old, menu. How did that work on other OS's?

 

[Sumez]

On X360, the table's music only plays when you've downloaded the table. And unlike Android, you can't download trials of every single table, so unless you bought them, you get TOTAN's backdrop and music.

 

[Dinosaur Toy]

I'll admit I'm a bit mystified by Farsight's inability make UI or even UI graphical elements. Their UI interface (and the visuals) for their old disc-based pinball hall of fame collections was superior to Pinball Arcade. For instance, why couldn't they just port over the assets from the PS3/360 builds of the old virtual arcade? Those textures and the building geometry were fine. They wouldn't look bad today. It makes me wonder if the staff members who created the environments and/or the old UIs have left the company. Right now it seems that they don't have a single person there who has any experience with making UIs. Yet they have fine texture artists, as seen by the tables themselves. Nobody can take a day to replace the terrible, mid-90s PC game UI graphics?

 

[Tuomas Hämäläinen]

Menu looks ugly. When is TPA going to hire professional graphic artists?

This.

I'm sure Farsight are trolling poor Mac users with the new UI!

The first screen for entering the table menus/options is an outrageous crime against graphic design - someone must have done the graphics in Microsoft Paint or several minutes in Photoshop.

It doesn't matter how long you spend in Photoshop if you don't actually have an eye for what looks good and what doesn't. A good graphic designer could do amazing things in just a few minutes.

 

[rob3d]

To be honest, I'm not terribly bothered by them, but yeah, they could use a facelift.

I like the way it works, just visually it's pretty terrible. Basically linear gradiants with bevel and emboss filters on top. Kinda thing we used to see all the time when photoshop was first released. When I saw it in the beta I assumed it was temp graphics, but the release having them freaked me out a bit.

I'm guessing it was put out that way to have a release in time for christmas, which is fine I just hope These weren't considered to be final.

 

[MF_]

Thoughts? Ugly, dated, difficult to navigate. Needs a rethink. Just keep it simple, a grid of backglass would be fine.

 

[francis247uk]

Still has the annoying sound effect when you press anything and the Arabian Nights music when you download a table, I think the table selection screen is a slight improvement, but everything else needs work.

Also I still prefer the mockups created on this thread (post #20 and 24) for iOS: http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/1287-Table-Selection-Menu?highlight=interface

 

[Lord Boron]

Aside from the lack of portrate, I don't have any problem with it. I think it's definitely an improvement over the previous menu. I like that by moving through the backglass images, it gives you a view of the full machine.

 

[Animator_pin_fan]

This.



It doesn't matter how long you spend in Photoshop if you don't actually have an eye for what looks good and what doesn't. A good graphic designer could do amazing things in just a few minutes.

Actually, I can say this from personal experience- I've seen even great graphic designers do really crappy work, if they're working under a situation where there isn't a clear focused art direction. With that said, I think TPA really needs is a team Art director/manager. Looking at the credits, it seems they have a lead artist, but this doesn't mean that the lead can call the shots. Because more often than not, even with great artists, when you've got a project like this- decisions are sometimes made by the non-artists, and unless you've got someone with good artistic/layout sensibilities directly responsible for steer the team of artists in the right direction, you end up with a mishmash of ideas that don't always work together.

 

[Tuomas Hämäläinen]

Actually, I can say this from personal experience- I've seen even great graphic designers do really crappy work, if they're working under a situation where there isn't a clear focused art direction. With that said, I think TPA really needs is a team Art director/manager. Looking at the credits, it seems they have a lead artist, but this doesn't mean that the lead can call the shots. Because more often than not, even with great artists, when you've got a project like this- decisions are sometimes made by the non-artists, and unless you've got someone with good artistic/layout sensibilities directly responsible for steer the team of artists in the right direction, you end up with a mishmash of ideas that don't always work together.

Good points there.

Here's something I've learned while studying industrial design:
1. It is my duty as a designer to inform my client if their proposal will result in something that is considered bad design and provide them with better alternatives. That usually works, because few clients really know what they want until you show it to them.
2. If they really insist that I do what they initially proposed, I try to "soften the fall" and at least execute the design with best quality, polish and taste possible within the boundaries - I still want to make something I dare to stand behind.

That is like a "Design Prime Directive" I follow when I work with different clients doing design for them, and I bet most designers have similar principles they follow.

I don't see this having happened in the case of TPA menu system. Not only are some design elements really tacky and outdated in their essence (gradients, bevel/emboss, clip art) but they lack polish and quality in execution as well (with that said, the whole product lacks polish in many ways, but let's not go into that here).

It may very well be that it doesn't work like this when it comes to game studios. I admit I know next to nothing about them.

 

[Lord Boron]

Honestly, I'm never in that first menu, so I could care what it looks like. Have we run out of real things to complain about that we're going to start to complain that a button has gradients?