Freedoom Status Bar

[cr0wb4r]

First thread and post and I intend to show some work I've decided to do to contribute towards Freedoom since they were asking for an artist to improve the Status Bar background. I'm a game developer in training and I've had some experience with 2D pixel art which is why I decided to lend a hand to Freedoom.





The HUD I've made is built from the ground up following DOOM's style. It's 640x64. I made use of colours on the DOOM colour palette for the colours. Emulating the font style of Freedoom's current Statusbar background. Any input on what could be improved would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[duh]

play with different shades of yellow and red on the fonts (darker ones). blue is fighting with brown very hard. you could try a few claw marks on the status bar (well that was the first thing that came to mind when i first saw it, hehe).

[raymoohawk]

isnt the font seperate from the hud?

[chungy]

Those parts are not, unfortunately.

This one has a bad color selection. I can only barely read the blue text on top of the yellow-ish brown. I think it's also far too flat and plain looking, even moreso than the current Freedoom status bar.

We should have a more interesting status bar entirely. Try ditching the idea of putting ammo, health, arms, etc in their own boxes and do something more creative with it.

[raymoohawk]

eeyup! maybe look at things like heretic for inspiration, althoug maybe less gothic and more gigeresque

[fraggle]

Thanks for looking into this. We definitely need to improve the status bar.

One thing that definitely needs to be changed is the text. I don't know why you've preserved the current text in your mock up - it's really ugly. Ideally we should be aiming for something that matches the font used for the menu and heads-up text, maybe not exactly but at least in general style.

I have some reservations about blue text on a yellow background. Those are colors that don't fit well together. Overall the design is quite simplistic and reminiscent if the current design. I think we should aim for something more stylized. Plenty of Doom mods have great status bars that show the kind of things that can be done with a bit of imagination. Check out the ones in Plutonia 2, or in BTSX, as just a couple of examples.

[Catoptromancy]

I really like a style like this. Its not a perfect rectangle and has character.
http://www.wad-archive.com/screenshots/c4dd146f4c5fe80c13b4cd1f77c3c35b/MAP12.png

This one is interesting.
http://www.wad-archive.com/screenshots/de7e807124b9eb4ae058e4ade34c37a4/MAP23.png

I think the most important part of the Statbar is that the font overlay perfectly matches.
http://realm667.com/images/articles/various_f2c/p2/f115/27.jpg

[cr0wb4r]

Thanks for the input. I'm currently making sure the hud fits in Freedoom and making scale modifications. I'll definitely look into re-configuring the style so it looks a lot more awesome. I've had some ideas of adding blood stains and a friend of mine suggested that too. I'll see what happens.

[HorrorMovieRei]

Might I suggest giving the hud a more sci-fy edge? I think it would fit well with freedoom's style(aliens, robotic dinossaurs and whatnot).

[cr0wb4r]

I've taken into account the criticisms of the previous HUD and I've improved the design. The font has been changed to emulate Freedoom's menu font (Except the ammo counters as I thought the original designs were OK), the material is now Steel instead of the previous Stone, the font is now red instead of blue and the key card boxes are now one big box.

I have also corrected issues with overlapping and scaling so the HUD works in Freedoom, FreeDM and even the original Doom.

[Catoptromancy]

Here is a test wad for latest update.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/freedoom/cr0wb4r/test.wad

[cr0wb4r]

Since the HUD needs some polishing, any further feedback will be useful in polishing it up.

[Catoptromancy]

Something is not right with the font color. It sort of matches, so maybe just the shade? Brighter with a bit of outline maybe.

Notice in my first two examples the color is somewhat solid, but transitions.
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1358382

[Xindage]

<Cr0wb4r> K. The HUD should be finished now.
<Cr0wb4r> Just double checking, then will send the PNG's so they can be converted to GFX and tested.
<Cr0wb4r> http://www.filedropper.com/freedoomhudfinal_1
<Cr0wb4r> PNG's will need to be converted to DOOM GFX.
<Cr0wb4r> Anyone tried converting the HUD?







protox: this "A" on the hub always make me remenber in rott, due theyr shapes, look on rott logo and look on "A".
https://archive.org/serve/msdos_Extreme_Rise_of_the_Triad_1995/msdos_Extreme_Rise_of_the_Triad_1995.gif

[cr0wb4r]

Hope you guys make good use of the HUD background. Remember to add me to the long credits list (and JMickey for assisting). ;)

Never actually played ROTT. I really should get it at some point. lol

[Catoptromancy]

Could you post your name and email for crediting?

[Blastfrog]

No offense, but the new one isn't much better than the current one IMO. In fact, I prefer the old one over this aside from its crappy white text.

[Xindage]

Sodaholic said:

No offense, but the new one isn't much better than the current one IMO. In fact, I prefer the old one over this aside from its crappy white text.

i dont like of the new also because of the font used and tht "shawn" stiled metal dont give me a cool seeing, well i'll still helping us, but i like of the old one.

[fraggle]

I think it's an improvement over the current Freedoom status bar, but I also think there's still quite a bit of room for improvement. I'd still like to see something more stylized, like the examples that have been given earlier in the thread. But just having text that's consistent with the font used for the menu is a big improvement.

One criticism: it's quite "boxy" in its look. Can we ditch the boxes around the weapon numbers in the "Arms" box? I think that would be a cleaner look. Is there any way we can make the edges of the other boxes look more rounded, perhaps?

One other thing: we have an open bug to add a different status bar for FreeDM. Maybe it would be possible to do an alternate version that can be used for Deathmatch? Just a thought.

[Catoptromancy]

fraggle said:

an alternate version that can be used for Deathmatch? Just a thought.

Yes! I was about to post that.

Freedoom always seemed a bit gritty to me, but this new statbar is very polished. I think it would be great in FreeDM.

[Da Werecat]

I briefly considered donating mine, since it just rots on my hard drive:



But there are certain problems I'm aware of:

1. It won't work with the current font. Like, at all.
2. I don't generate things like scratch marks myself, and I don't remember where I got the relevant materials.
3. I don't remember where I got the font for the "baked" info.
4. It may or may not clash with other Freedoom resources other than fonts.

In other words, it still requires work.

[fraggle]

I'm no artist but I decided to try my hand at the edits anyway. Here's my modded version:



Changes:

• Converted to Doom palette - the original was in true color format. Actually this could still use some further improvement - there are "speckly" parts in the background now.
  
• Removed boxes from around "Arms" numbers", and also from around the keys
  
• Changed separation between the separate boxes to be black instead of grey, so there's more contrast.
  
• Removed line from top of face section, for consistency.
  

I tried rounding the corners but it didn't work out so well. I still think it would look better with rounded corners but it needs some careful work. to do in a way that looks nice and properly rounded.

Screenshots:




Things I'm not happy about :

• Text for the labels for the ammo counters on the far right. The shadow makes it really hard to read.
  
• Unlit Arms numbers are grey on a grey background. Could do with more contrast there.
  

[raymoohawk]

thats a very cool hud dawerecat, maybe we could just replace the parts that you dont remember if they were done from scratch and use the font of cr0wb4ar

[cr0wb4r]

Since my college education begins again this week, I won't have the time to dedicate towards any further improvements + I'm still a pixel art beginner. Anyone can edit or borrow elements from my HUD towards making something far better.

I might return when I get the time again which won't be for at least 2 - 3 months.

[SyntherAugustus]

Da Werecat said:

I briefly considered donating mine, since it just rots on my hard drive:



But there are certain problems I'm aware of:

1. It won't work with the current font. Like, at all.
2. I don't generate things like scratch marks myself, and I don't remember where I got the relevant materials.
3. I don't remember where I got the font for the "baked" info.
4. It may or may not clash with other Freedoom resources other than fonts.

In other words, it still requires work.

You wouldn't happen to have either

-A widescreen version of that statusbar
-The numbers that would go with it

Would you? It looks awesome.

[fraggle]

Da Werecat's status bar looks awesome, only problem is that it's a very specific look that the Freedoom status bar number graphics probably don't fit with. It looks like some kind of electronics panel and screams out for some kind of electronic/digital-looking font. We really want consistency with Mechadon's Denex font that we're using everywhere else. But I think it's also exactly the kind of status bar that we've been looking for. Is there any way we can rework this to fit in with Freedoom?

[Da Werecat]

Uhh, thanks.

No, I didn't make a widescreen version. Expanding it wouldn't be a problem, since I have the source.

I have the numbers, and yes, the big font is stylized for a dot-matrix display, although it's pretty basic and I wanted to rework it.

fraggle said:

Is there any way we can rework this to fit in with Freedoom?

I'll think about what can be done. Right now I have a feeling that it will require a lot of changes.

[cr0wb4r]

Da Werecat's HUD does work quite well.



Edit: Seemed to work with Key card images too in GZDOOM and everything else. All it needs is a style tidy up.

[SyntherAugustus]

I prefer yellow or white numbers, but right now it does look pretty nice.

[Blastfrog]

Da Werecat said:

Expanding it wouldn't be a problem, since I have the source.

I'd like to take a shot at it. Mind if I have the PSD/PDN/whatever you used?

The lettering could be taken straight from the current message font (with recolorations), it's the right size and would of course be consistent. As for the scratch pattern, I could certainly do my own.

Is there anything else you're aware of that would be preferable to replace for concerns of credit/copyright?

EDIT: Here's a mockup of how I'd handle the lettering: