Down with the HUD!

[trombonaught]

This is a spinoff idea from two threads which have popped up regarding elements of the HUD (Help Guides for Simple Info-Trombonaught, and Unified world item picking- Faalagorn).

The big idea in both of these: What if the HUD elements could be made even less visible by weaving them more seamlessly into the gameplay?

 

Small ideas:

Eliminate:

Move Furniture

This essentially duplicates the context-menu and inventory-menu ability to move around items, but is specific to world objects and includes the ability to rotate items. The proposal is to weave together furniture management and item management into a single system contained to context and inventory menus, and eliminate the furniture icon. See Faalagorn's thread for update on discussion.

Crafting

The spirit of these menus can be reimagined into a more useable and informative literature (inventory) item referred to generally as a Help Guide. See that thread for update on discussion of what that could look like. The proposal is to eliminate the crafting icon entirely.

 

Modify:

Health

Proposal to repurpose and move this icon. This could be moved to the moodles side of the screen and display as the top moodle, which could also indicate overall health status. This would replace the "minor/moderate/severe" damage moodle and also include a "no damage" state (with a better name). Clicking the moodle would open health menus.

 

Inventory

Another "repurpose and move" idea. I believe we need on-screen "clickable" access to our inventory menus. However, I propose we add another function to the Inventory icon: The capacity moodle. Like what I suggested for the Health icon, Inventory can function to indicate your current load (fairly heavy, heavy, etc) with the addition of a "light load" neutral-state indicator. 

 

tldr; The new HUD would look like this: Two "equip" slots on the left, two permanent "menu/status" interactive moodles on the right. What do you think?

Edited March 23, 2017 by trombonaught

[JonJon]

The title got a music to my mind

 

Spoiler

 

 

Sorry to get offtopic

[trombonaught]

2 minutes ago, JonJon said:

The title got a music to my mind

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Sorry to get offtopic

This is exactly what I thought when I wrote it     Dawn of the Dead 2004 credit reel anyone?

[Faalagorn]

It could actually work. That would certainly save some space for all these floating windows

[trombonaught]

With all the overhaul happening right now I thought I'd necro this thread. I think there's a lot of interface work that could really help to polish the game along with the present cosmetic+++++ work on anims.

[OxManZomboid]

I agree strongly with the sentiment about the hud. its good in places. like really suits the game. but in other  areass

 

please do something about the menus that are attached for no good reason for instace.. skill health protection.... love you TIS but thats'anogood! mario

Edited November 13, 2020 by OxManZomboid

[TrailerParkThor]

I agree with the idea, however I feel like most of this is unnecessary as pressing the No HUD key removes all the bull while still allowing you to interact with some of the HUD. My only complaint is that Moodles don't show up, and certain windows don't work intuitively in that mode. However, I think it would work to combine some of your ideas and allow Moodles to faintly show up even with No HUD on (maybe an accessibility setting). I like the Health moodle idea. I think we should put Temperature Panel in the Health submenus along with fitness to make things even more streamlined. The load capacity moodle is a good idea as well. I think the furniture movement button is necessary until they update that system a little more. Maybe a hotkey for picking up and placing furniture, or maybe just interact to pick up and drag/select from inventory to replace. Maybe if they ever make shopping carts functional and/or add wheelbarrows, wagons, or dollies; they could overhaul movement and make the menus more simplified.