[Discussion] GUI redesigns

I vote on second screen too, but for bag and Items PC I like the idea of scrolling the items like the pokémon in HgSs Pokédex or even the boxes

But for the pokédex put the BW with the different color and boxes style, but displaying the icons and battlers the same way that BW does. Maybe also an option to compare the size, weight and a option to see the backsprites and different pokémon forms (including male/female) seen before.

I wish that the clock on pokégear be in the pokégear selection screen, not a separate screen.

Maybe is right to jump forward and design the battle screen like BW with backsprites full body and bases for supporting this.

FL . said:

I vote on second screen too, but for bag and Items PC I like the idea of scrolling the items like the pokémon in HgSs Pokédex or even the boxes

But for the pokédex put the BW with the different color and boxes style, but displaying the icons and battlers the same way that BW does. Maybe also an option to compare the size, weight and a option to see the backsprites and different pokémon forms (including male/female) seen before.

I wish that the clock on pokégear be in the pokégear selection screen, not a separate screen.

Maybe is right to jump forward and design the battle screen like BW with backsprites full body and bases for supporting this.

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Feel free to make your own concept art (however sketchy) and post it here. This thread isn't just for me to show off my designs, you know.

The summary screen is very nice, it reminds me of my own except smaller. Mine could use some cleaning up and this definitely gives me a few ideas. HGSS graphics style is very appealing to me, it's clean, and it seems up to date and colorful. I am interested to see what else you come up with. :)

I was re-thinking editing the triple triads system adding a bunch of stuff so I'll be working on new art for it too....

Ho-oh 112 said:

I was re-thinking editing the triple triads system adding a bunch of stuff so I'll be working on new art for it too....

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Please do have a go. I know the Triple Triad system is lacking a "library" screen for you to view your cards (the one just before a battle is fairly shoddy), and all its graphics are drawn lines rather than actual pictures so it looks quite basic.

IceGod64 said:

I vote second. I like the idea of having the pocket name right above the pocket icons, since typically, cycling through the different pockets, I would be looking at the list to see what Pocket I'm on, and with that big, clean label immediately above it, it makes it very easy to tell where I am or what's going on. Not to mention that's how the official games do it.

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I would agree here. The pocket name and the pocket icon would be right next to each other, and it's practically the same layout as DP (which the summary screen also mimics).


Remember, everyone, that anything in the first post can be redesigned. There are also optional things, such as a graphical "select Starter" screen (preferably a generic one rather than a briefcase/present background). You don't need to know how to make it work, you just need to make something that looks decent. You can even do something that someone else has already made art for.

I really don't know what to do about the Pokédex. Opinions and art would be very welcome. Which game's Pokédex should it look like, or (horror!) should it be a custom design?

I think the best one should be the hgss pokedex !! Or bw one with platinum index look!

Maruno said:

Please do have a go. I know the Triple Triad system is lacking a "library" screen for you to view your cards (the one just before a battle is fairly shoddy), and all its graphics are drawn lines rather than actual pictures so it looks quite basic.

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I just gotta figure out WHERE the script creates the "images"*Coughs* lines *Coughs* but I did find where to increase the board size (needs more triad cards though) so I'll be adding a customizable board size when I'm done....


EDIT: found em:
bitmap.fill_rect(0,i*4,84,2,Color.new(128,255,128))
bitmap.fill_rect(0,i*4+2,84,2,Color.new(64,128,64))

now how can I change Those 2 lines into an image......

Maruno said:

I really don't know what to do about the Pokédex. Opinions and art would be very welcome. Which game's Pokédex should it look like, or (horror!) should it be a custom design?

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I thing the Black/White Version Pokédex would be the easiest to adapt to one screen. I'll assemble some pics and do some concept are tomorrow.

Maruno said:

Feel free to make your own concept art (however sketchy) and post it here. This thread isn't just for me to show off my designs, you know.

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I made two designs that use the icon interface for bag, sorry about my lack of graphics skills.
Maybe when you're hit the up/left/right/down you can select to change the pockets.

Hey Maruno, you remember a long, long time ago when actually suggested using Black/White's Pokédex GUI since it would be easy to adapt to one screen? Well, I actually did it now. A couple of weeks late, I know. Anyway, here's what we got going on now:



Both of these too realatively little modification to get working on a single screen. I'll get to work on the last few bits once I get your opinion.

Also, I am highly in favor of a way to view different forms in the Pokedex. My first reason is that you recently enhanced the way alternate forms work for Pokemon as it is, and second off is the pure number of different forms that the base games have in the first place. In my opinion, it's less unnecessary than even the feature to play a Pokémon's cry.

IceGod64 said:

Hey Maruno, you remember a long, long time ago when actually suggested using Black/White's Pokédex GUI since it would be easy to adapt to one screen? Well, I actually did it now. A couple of weeks late, I know. Anyway, here's what we got going on now:

Both of these too realatively little modification to get working on a single screen. I'll get to work on the last few bits once I get your opinion.

Click to expand...

That looks nice. I only have a couple of issues with it, the first being that there are only almost 6 species visible at once - that's probably too few for people's tastes, even if there are icons next to the names. There's no room for a scroll bar, but that's not really important. The second issue is that it's BW graphics, which don't match with the various other concept art in here (nor with what I've already done, which is primarily HGSS style).

I've had a go at a Pokédex list design myself, which is attached. I've not started on the other screens that are part of the Pokédex, though.

IceGod64 said:

Also, I am highly in favor of a way to view different forms in the Pokedex. My first reason is that you recently enhanced the way alternate forms work for Pokemon as it is, and second off is the pure number of different forms that the base games have in the first place. In my opinion, it's less unnecessary than even the feature to play a Pokémon's cry.

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I'd like that too, but it's a huge task. The game needs to keep track of all the forms seen, both gender and form (and potentially both, although no official Pokémon has both gender and form differences), and then shiny versions of all of them. It'd need some fancy codework to allow for different combinations and numbers of forms, and get them recorded properly. Then there's the names of the forms to record. Then there's remembering which form was last seen, and potentially changing other information depending on it (e.g. Wormadam's type changes depending on the form, which should be reflected in the entry screen).

Then there's the pain of inventing a whole new screen to go into the Pokédex to choose and show the various forms. And then properly incorporate the nest screen into the entry screen for consistency.

It's all doable, but it's at the limit of my skills, and it's a big job. For now I just want Essentials to use the whole of the larger screen; I'll worry about adding new features afterwards.

Oh, and the only "enhancing" I did for multiple forms is allowing form-specific level-up movesets and improving the colour of Spinda's spots. Not sure if that's what you were thinking of.

Maruno said:

I've had a go at a Pokédex list design myself, which is attached. I've not started on the other screens that are part of the Pokédex, though.

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Since you're going for HG/SS style, I like the look of that Pokédex. I'm all for going with that design.

Maruno said:

I've mocked up the rest of the screens now, for your amusement. I couldn't fit all the move information into half a screen, so I surrendered and had the extra panel. The purple and green colours were invented by me, and I hope they're alright.



There's still the need to create the icons from scratch to "match" the HGSS Pokégear background. The apps themselves, I'm not sure what to do with them yet.



If the existing projects haven't messed with the GUI, then a new one won't matter to them at all - they'll just have the new one. If they have been messing with it, then they (should) know what they've done and how much work it was, and can then replicate it if necessary. Alternatively, it's really easy to not upgrade.


EDIT: I've also attached a mock-up Bag screen. I'm not so sure about it, though.

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I like the mock ups and I'd think it would be nice to be able to chose different colors while playing the game, yeah this will take extra work but it shouldn't be too difficult if you like the idea, I also was thinking maybe i'll try my hand at some RGSS I think i'll download the latest kit and if i can i'll perhaps assist in anyway but dont count on it

About Pokédex Screen I prefer the IceGod64 ones, but with HgSs colors.

I also like to, even late, upgrade the pokédex screen to show more things that info, cry and area like forms. I think that Maruno have done more hard things before. You only need to pick arrays similar to seen/owned, but for male/female and other forms (maybe two-dimensional) and other with the form names that also it's used to check when you can activate this feature. After you need to detect if female/male sprites exist and when both conditions are true.

My designs are completely ignored! I make one for Items PC, you can scroll this 10x5 up and down.

I looked at maruno's Pokemon screens, and thought they look decent.
I liked the idea of the bag and the icon colours at the top.
But the layout I would make more similar to the Pokemon's page.
So using both of maruno's provided pictures I cobbled this together.

I have had a quick plonk together, the colour doesnt neccesarily have to be pink, I was using that to represent that where in the Items pocket as that was the colour of the icon.

Instead you could just have a red version/ blue version and the icons be red and blue respectively.
My screenshot doesn't have text on, sorry. But you can roughly guess what goes where, the big grey space is for a picture of the bag.
Hope this includes the picture.
View attachment 63557

FL . said:

About Pokédex Screen I prefer the IceGod64 ones, but with HgSs colors.

I also like to, even late, upgrade the pokédex screen to show more things that info, cry and area like forms. I think that Maruno have done more hard things before. You only need to pick arrays similar to seen/owned, but for male/female and other forms (maybe two-dimensional) and other with the form names that also it's used to check when you can activate this feature. After you need to detect if female/male sprites exist and when both conditions are true.

My designs are completely ignored! I make one for Items PC, you can scroll this 10x5 up and down.

Click to expand...

To be honest, I don't like your designs. You put more items on the screen at once, but you sacrifice legibility (e.g. seeing quantities/item names immediately) and other Bag features (like the picture of the Bag). For your Bag design, it's harder to see how one would change the pocket, since left/right now navigate around the current pocket as well as up/down.

The aspect of having arrays to record the forms, while difficult, is perfectly doable for me. My main issue is needing to insert a whole new screen into the Pokédex for it, in a place where there's no existing feature like that (the nest screen doesn't count). I'm not too comfortable with inventing whole new screens like that, because I've never done it before. Obviously I'll have a go, but I'm not promising anything.

PenguinBoy10 said:

I looked at maruno's Pokemon screens, and thought they look decent.
I liked the idea of the bag and the icon colours at the top.
But the layout I would make more similar to the Pokemon's page.
So using both of maruno's provided pictures I cobbled this together.

I have had a quick plonk together, the colour doesnt neccesarily have to be pink, I was using that to represent that where in the Items pocket as that was the colour of the icon.

Instead you could just have a red version/ blue version and the icons be red and blue respectively.
My screenshot doesn't have text on, sorry. But you can roughly guess what goes where, the big grey space is for a picture of the bag.
Hope this includes the picture.
View attachment 63557

Click to expand...

When I make concept art I worry about having two screens looking too similar to each other. I figure they're supposed to be different because, well, they're different screens.

Your design, however, seems to manage to stay unique, albeit a little on the Dark Side. My main thought when it comes to the Bag is the number of items visible at once; the Items pocket can have up to 216 different items in it (although that'll be horribly unlikely), so the more you can see at once, the better. I included a scroll bar because I thought it would help convey the size of a pocket.

It's almost a shame I've already remade the Bag to look like my design. I can still redo it if popular opinion wants it to - there just aren't many voices in this thread, so I can't tell what the best designs would be.



So far no one's mentioned the battle screen. Any opinions about any part of it?

Maruno said:

It's almost a shame I've already remade the Bag to look like my design. I can still redo it if popular opinion wants it to - there just aren't many voices in this thread, so I can't tell what the best designs would be.

So far no one's mentioned the battle screen. Any opinions about any part of it?

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I like your bag screen a bit more Maruno. His isn't too bad really, but I prefer what you can up with.

As for the battle scene, it hasn't gotten mentioned so I didn't say anything. Also, it seems the battle scene will be a little harder to centralize to one screen seeing how the DS games do it. I'll take a whack at it tomorrow.

Yes, do your second bag design!

Maruno said:

So far no one's mentioned the battle screen. Any opinions about any part of it?

Click to expand...

FL . said:

Maybe is right to jump forward and design the battle screen like BW with backsprites full body and bases for supporting this.

Click to expand...

Ignored again =/

FL . said:

Ignored again =/

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We aren't going with a Gen V battle scene. I've discussed this with Maruno already. Gen V's battle scene is, too "Dynamic" and would be annoying to code. It is also 3d, which would be annoying to simulate. Without the animations, GenV's battle screen is also very ugly. Not to mention I practically just spent a couple of weeks or so compiling the entire roster of Gen IV Pokémon sprites for essentials.

With that said, it would be best to keep our designs HG/SS styled so as the fit withe rest of the kit.

IceGod64 said:

We aren't going with a Gen V battle scene. I've discussed this with Maruno already. Gen V's battle scene is, too "Dynamic" and would be annoying to code. It is also 3d, which would be annoying to simulate. Without the animations, GenV's battle screen is also very ugly. Not to mention I practically just spent a couple of weeks or so compiling the entire roster of Gen IV Pokémon sprites for essentials.

With that said, it would be best to keep our designs HG/SS styled so as the fit withe rest of the kit.

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That's not an excuse, it could have been done in less than two hours. It's a matter of downloading a HG-SS Pokemon Sprites Pack on DeviantArt and then Batch Compressing the whole pack. Very fast and easy.

I agree with F.L.. It may be a pain to script indeed, but you'll get very much back in return. It just makes the battle screen way less boring.