Countdown Clock

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X

I absolutely and unabashedly love this... but the way that the "Original, Remake, Music" buttons are misaligned is messing me up so, so hard. Is there a reason that they're not lined up with the left-border of the timer window, and that there're also not parallel, but slant up into the box region? I feel like I'm looking at the Google Askew Search every time I'm on the main forum page now, like it's right at the border of being physically dizzying to look at.




X :neo:
 

Radigar

Pro Adventurer
I absolutely and unabashedly love this... but the way that the "Original, Remake, Music" buttons are misaligned is messing me up so, so hard. Is there a reason that they're not lined up with the left-border of the timer window, and that there're also not parallel, but slant up into the box region? I feel like I'm looking at the Google Askew Search every time I'm on the main forum page now, like it's right at the border of being physically dizzying to look at.




X:neo:

That's because I tried to simulate the menu effect that game seems to have, It seems I didn't catch it. :rage:
 

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Lex

Administrator
I think they emulate the remake command menu perfectly? Meaning they're not supposed to line up with the left border of the timer window.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
FF7Menu.png

Please excuse the sketchy as hell Mac Paint overlay.

I wanted to show that the menu angle is all about easily cheating the 3D popup effect more easily. However, if you're going to place a menu above it, you'd also want to match that other within the same perspective. The reason that it's angled at all in Remake is to simulate a curved UI layer that you're looking through, which is why it's curving that particular direction on the left side of the screen, and why it's even MORE disconcerting being placed on the right side of the Forum UI.

As such, the angle is unnecessary, because we can't have the other elements of the UI adjusted to match it. You can simulate the same effects with the REALLY fantastic UI visuals just by doing either a slight indent left for the hovered/selected elements. Additionally, you can probably increase the size of the hovered/focused elements (expanding right and down a little bit, since you don't want to expand past the bounds of the container into the countdown timer above it).

EDIT: The padding offset from the counter is fine. Hopefully this illustrates more what I mean about ensuring that all of the elements of your UI are utilizing the same perspective with relating to one another.

FF7Alignment.png




X:neo:
 
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Radigar

Pro Adventurer
When I created these elements I thought about timer window was in background plane and menu in other different with not the same perspective.

If you prefer the version without perspective, it is not difficult to modify like this:

d4m8P8B.png


Maybe we need a poll? :mon:
 

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
I do think it looks a bit weird for the buttons to not be in line with the edge of the clock. The selected button looks fine indented.
 

Lex

Administrator
When I created these elements I thought about timer window was in background plane and menu in other different with not the same perspective.

If you prefer the version without perspective, it is not difficult to modify like this:

d4m8P8B.png


Maybe we need a poll? :mon:

I don't think you should change it Radigar but that's my personal opinion :monster:
 

rimavelle

Pro Adventurer
AKA
rima
When... when did it happen? Omg, I've kept entering forum from Alerts, I completely missed it, haha. It's... 1st Class Quality ^ ^
(Somehow I expected the Original to play Original music too, but I guess that would be too much trouble).
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
So in Remake, these buttons slant on the left side of the UI, so that it's giving the illusion that it's leaning in to the screen.

With these ones being on the right, I'm not sure if they're supposed to be floating over the top, and leaning in to the screen, or leaning out from the screen, so it's doing that sort of flip-flopping thing that the spinning dancer illusion does. Additionally, because of the transparency layer, the top doesn't have a region that defines it as separate from the timer being in the background, so it also hovers between that range, so that I can't tell if they're actually intentionally unique elements, or if they're just accidentally overlapping and askew.

Screen Shot 2019-06-25 at 2.33.13 PM.png
It's also that it's boxed in by the Forum Sections, the Countdown Timer, the Online Menu, and the edge of the browser that there are a LOT of right angles all over the place that sort of make it stand out fairly significantly, and the transparency layer actually makes it difficult to tell if it's the top of the buttons or the bottom of the timer:

FF7_Right_Angles.png
Compared to the one in the game, they still very much feel like they're right angles in perspective, whereas these ones read as flat parallelograms because they're not really moving into a vanishing point or something specific. On of the other things that assists with giving the game UI the sense that it's floating (like how you mentioned you wanted these buttons to be portrayed with respect to the countdown timer, there's a little panel that the whole thing sits on. It's that little VERY faint panel that gives those elements a container that helps to constrain the context that they're being displayed as compared to surrounding elements.
FF7Box.png
FF7Box2.png


Sorry if I'm far too tl;dr on all of this. Talking to software UI designers and developers is a big chunk of my job (I'm in easily 4-5 hours worth of formal UI Design review and discussion meetings every week), where I'm VERY used to helping nitpick over every little element of those kinds of designs.

:awesomonster:




X :neo:
 

Lex

Administrator
When... when did it happen? Omg, I've kept entering forum from Alerts, I completely missed it, haha. It's... 1st Class Quality ^ ^
(Somehow I expected the Original to play Original music too, but I guess that would be too much trouble).

@Radigar actually talked about setting this up but he worked so hard on tweaking the countdown (it was a mad day of file transfers) that I told him no at the time :monster:

I actually lost count of the number of times he had to update the files. Dude is a trooper!
 

fancy

pants
AKA
Fancy
It looks fantastic to me and I think we've all been very fortunate to have @Radigar so hard at work setting this up for us at all when he didn't have to!!!! <3 It's super unique and such a cool feature to have on the site. I get chills every time that I log in and see the numbers going down. Super grateful for you dude!

:touchingu:

And I haven't forgotten you either Lex :awesome:. Thank you both so much for this! :joy:
 

Geostigma

Pro Adventurer
AKA
gabe
I think it looks great and serves it's purpose well. I honestly don't mind it the way it is now and see what yall were going for.

Good job Radigar and Lex for making it, and in secret no less as a nice surprise for the community.

edit
tbh. I intended for my post to stop there, but like. These guys went out of there way to make a nice thing for us and initially did it in secret until this thread got made. They didn't have to.


This forum could go on for the rest of the 250 days or so till the remake goes live with out it and be perfectly fine. It's a nice little gift to us and tbh you guys nit picking over it its like that kid at christmas who bitches about getting socks or like 1 toy etc.


Honestly. SMH.
 
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