Marc Steene · @SlendysShadow
7th Jul 2014 from TwitLonger
Update blog #2 is out with GUI details and more!
It's been a busy week, and I've made some great progress. In my last post I mentioned a list I compiled of key areas I want to improve on over The Curse of Blackwater (TCOB). The GUI/Menu system is one of those, and I've been working on it over the last few days to make it as good as possible.
TCOB featured a very basic ingame GUI, which used the default (nasty) Unity skin. It was also very restrictive, not allowing you to change any settings in game or any controls aside from the graphic quality, and didn't scale correctly to different resolutions. I'm glad to say, none of these problems will be present in the next game!
I've devised a solution to allow GUI elements to scale up pixel-perfectly no matter the resolution, meaning the game should be crisp and display correctly across all resolutions. It works by setting a standard resolution (1920x1080), and then dividing these values by the screen width and height to calculate the correct scale and position of the element.
And no more ugly default Unity skin - I spent a whole day composing menu elements, and they're now in game and looking beautiful.
On top of this (yes, there's more!), all controls will be configurable, and there are extensive settings such as toggle motion blur, mouse sensitivity, adjusting gamma, windowed mode toggle, toggle vsync, toggle crouch, and toggle invert mouse for those weird people who like their mouse to go the wrong way. Support for controllers is planned, along with Oculus Rift support. Basically all the stuff you'd expect to be in a game!
Next up, I'll be optimising the core of the game and getting the player functionality in. Expect more details in the next blog post. Till then, if any you any suggestions or questions, feel free to message me. - Marc