User Interface stuff fascinates me, because it has to dance such a fine line between looking pretty and being useful. Fall too far on either side and you’re in danger of ruining a game; get it just right and, like Deus Ex and Mass Effect, you can become as memorable as any piece of character or environment design.
The stuff you’re seeing today is the work of Gavin Bird, a 2D artist and graphic designer at Cloud Imperium (Star Citizen) who has previously helped out on Crysis 3 and been at Sony contributing to games like Killzone. You can see more of Gavin’s work at his ArtStation page.
To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner.
Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you’re in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you’d like to share, drop us a line!
Comments
2 responses to “The Art Of Building Menus, Icons & Maps”
My favorite UI is Dead Space, its perfect. I love games that blend UI and game world. I am surprised as technology has moved on its not something we see way more of. More wounds, sloppier posture as the protagonist losses health, most games have this built it… Why do things like the HP bar still need to be there. I personally would prefer HP to work more as a approximation depending on my characters wounds (more cuts and bruises possibly), slouching, slight limb might mean he only can only take a few bullets rather then seeing 1/10 of a hp bar.
Another one is ammo, futuristic weapons are easy as ammo is displayed on the gun itself 99% of the time, but I think a cool way to do it for todays guns is you might hold the reload button and your character might quickly check and say, “half a clip, 3 spare” loud or quite depending on the situation or even do it so it sounds like he is thinking it.
We will always need UI for menu’s for things like changing gear, building a character, progress etc great work like this artist are amazing but I ask myself, do we really need a UI at all for normal gameplay any more?
this is why I like games that have visible loadouts so much – you never need to look at a HUD to see what guns you have in Gears of War or Just Cause, but it’s a fine line because your camera determines what you can show – third person you can see weapons but not ammo counts without a hud, first person you can check ammo but don’t have an indicator of your slung/holstered equipment etc. unless it’s all visible down your front.