Hello everyone!
Today, we’re launching the first issue of the new Developer Diary series.
In the near future, you’ll get to meet the developer team that makes Armored Warfare.
And in the first video, we’ll take a look at the User Interface development.
On the outside, the User Interface consists of buttons, texts and numbers.
But an interface is not just its visual part, it’s a link between many ingame elements.
The User Interface development consists of three interconnected parts Design, layout
and programming.
That is why it requires different professions to develop.
Let’s start with me.
I am Petr Kamyshnikov, the leader of the UI team.
We are improving the look of the User Interface as well as its functions according to the
ideas of the game designers.
All this is done by the entire team.
I will now introduce you to several colleagues of mine.
Rustem is the lead designer.
He decides the UI concept itself and develops the design of several specific interfaces.
Hi, my name is Rustem and I am one of the guys building the tools that the players use
to interact with the game.
Each feature implemented by our game designer colleagues needs to be implemented on the
interface level while finding the optimal balance between such things as usability,
technological possibilities and the cost of implementation.
If these conditions are met, and the interface looks aesthetically appealing at the same
time, it can be said that the task was successfully completed.
Apart from that, we also need to take the needs of various audience groups into account.
For newbies, it is better to show more information on one screen so that they can faster evaluate
the options offered by the game.
They are more sensitive to the informational hierarchy of the UI elements and to visual
appeal.
It’s important to push the veterans from routine activities whenever possible.
In any case, the base triad of any interface consists of “where can I find it”, “what
can I do here” and “what happened as a result of my actions” and has to meet the
requirements of all audience groups.
We can use the overhauled battle results window as an example of our work on interface changes.
Let’s compare – this is how it looked until the overhaul and this is how it looks
now.
The older interface had fewer elements, but their positioning did not take the hierarchical
character of the perception of a large amount of information into account.
The new results window is easier to read, especially to the newbies, and that’s the
most important thing.
And so, when the design’s ready, it’s time for the programmers to get to work.
Neil is one such programmer and he’ll tell us what happens after he receives the design.
Hello everyone!
My name’s Neil and I’ll tell you about my job in the UI team.
When the design is ready, we combine it with the existing interface elements.
We set the interaction with player actions, internal game events and so on.
In the case of the “Dealer” button, it opens the dealer list where you can see the
development tree.
In order to do all that, I take the layout made in Photoshop and I re-create it in FLASH.
I enter the class and object names so that they can be referred to by scripts.
The result is only unique objects that can be created dynamically.
And we check the result immediately in the game.
You’ve now seen some details that usually remain hidden from players.
But that’s not all yet.
The entire game logic used by a low-level layer, is written in the C++ language.
Meet Alexander – one of our C++ programmers.
Hello everyone, I’m Alexander and I’ll tell you about my job.
To create the interface, we use three programming languages: ActionScript, Naxe and C++.
I mostly program in C++.
My task is to make sure the interface system works internally and interacts with the other
CryEngine elements.
Players don’t see my work as – if we use the car slang – I am making sure that the
things under the hood are stable.
If you encountered a crash in the game and sent a report, it goes to the QA department
which sorts all the reports out and sends them to different teams.
Crashes connected to the interface go to me, I analyze the issue and fix it in C++.
Since we took over the development, we have improved the tools and technologies in order
for the logic programming to become simpler, easier and more reliable.
The interface was, as a result, completely overhauled.
That’s all for today.
The next video will come soon!
Subscribe our channel and we’ll see you on the battlefield!