Death and notice icons

[ensiform]

Would anyone be willing to make a pack of icons for kill feed/action feed?

 

You'd want one for each type of weapon at least, and base death/kill types and probably at least some kind of default for the "unknown".

 

Other things possible: flag taken, flag capture, flag return.... Any others?  Some stuff is only printed to all clients and isn't an event of sorts so can't really handle those.

[Circa]

Something like on COD, like this?

 

[ensiform]

And every other game pretty much, yeah.

 

Thinking it could be a useful thing for like JA++ or such.  But the HUD is already so cluttered and disorganized as it is =/

 

And Raven decided to make the HUD code less functional than Q3:TA sadly.

[Circa]

Kills are already displayed at the top left anyway, but with cheesy terms. Icons would look much better.

 

I'd be down for making some icons. Should be really easy.

[ensiform]

Well they would not be displayed in the console notify box if this was implemented.  You'd still see those cheesy messages in the console, though.

[ensiform]

So I'm thinking we'd want:

 

• Stun Baton
• Melee
• Pistol (there is no distinguishing death MOD for jka vs jk2 pistol)
• Blaster
• Disruptor
• Bowcaster
• Repeater
• Repeater Alt
• DEMP2
• Flechette
• Flechette Alt
• Rocket
• Homing Rocket
• Thermal
• Trip Mine
• Detpack
• Generic Vehicle
• Concussion Rifle
• Concussion Rifle Alt Fire
• Force power kill (There is no way to distinguish this)
• Portable Sentry kill
• Drowned in water
• Dissolved in slime
• Burned to death in lava
• Crushed by object
• Telefragged
• Fell to death
• Suicide / unknown / trigger_hurt / generic?
• target_laser / turret
• Clean version of basic team color icons for flag and not sure what would be good for grab/drop/capture/return distinguishing icon wise could also be text next to icon as well

[Ruxith]

This is a great idea, if you're saying that it would possible to implement? I'm surprised no one has attempted it before.

I always loved team fortress's approach to it:

 

 

Giving it a little bit more than just a side-on silhouette of the weapon used, and some subtle colour to the effect.

 

Let's see what Circa comes up with after he's got some ideas together for the icons i'm guessing these should be made primarily as a vector in Adobe Illustrator to a  standard oblong resolution (or just A4 landscape for example) so they can be scaled and exported afterwards to the desired size and they can then all be created to the same scale.

[Circa]

This is a great idea, if you're saying that it would possible to implement? I'm surprised no one has attempted it before.

I always loved team fortress's approach to it:

 

&&0

Giving it a little bit more than just a side-on silhouette of the weapon used, and some subtle colour to the effect.

 

Let's see what Circa comes up with after he's got some ideas together for the icons i'm guessing these should be made primarily as a vector in Adobe Illustrator to a  standard oblong resolution (or just A4 landscape for example) so they can be scaled and exported afterwards to the desired size and they can then all be created to the same scale.

Thought about doing color, and still can I suppose.  Though I'm a fan of simplicity.

 

I did it all in PS, but I created vector shapes for them all, so they can still be used as you say. Might upload all the weapon icons as PS shapes for others to use.

 

This also made me realize again how awful JKA models are. So low poly.

 

Only one I haven't made is the portable sentry. I can't play it's animations in Modview, unless I'm missing something. So it would only be the folded up view, rather than when it's folded out ready to shoot. Any tips on that? I could just manually create it, but outlining a screenshot in Modview is much easier. I could try doing it in-game, I suppose.

 

I also didn't do any icons for alt attacks yet. Not sure it's worth it, or how I would do it. I could come up with something but I think that the primary icon would be fine for alt attack kills. Maybe I'm alone in thinking that.

 

Here's what i have so far. Some of them are kind of...bad. But give me some feedback?

 

 

 

 

@@Ruxith if you want to take a stab at these, go for it. You'd be better than I would. I'm sure @@Grab or @@Sentra would be tons better as well.

[Ruxith]

Yeah i'd be happy to do some vectors, I see you took the logical approach with modview and creating silhouettes from the models. I was thinking more of creating everything from scratch your idea was definitely the smart one xD they look good so far.

 

Simplicity is definitely the key factor here, due to the scale that these will likely be shown (as they are on all fps games) you want to recognize the object for what event occurred instantly.

I'll try to have a bash at a few later tonight or tomorrow evening and do a few mockup screenshots so we can all get a better idea of how this would look once someone begins implementing the idea.

 

@@Circa I think with your weapon icons we need to add a little definition so it's not simply a silhouette. It will just make the icons look a little nicer, refer to the team fortress ones, they are going to heavily be my inspiration, everything about that game's art style appeals to me.

[Grab]

@@Circa, I like your icons. I think you should draw new explosives. For thermal detonator you can use any photo from Google Graphics. Also use darker color for some parts of weapons/icons.

 

 

I draw more rewards some time ago and did it there:

 

 

Same for frame and circe on trip mine. Same on det packs.

 

 

 

Only one I haven't made is the portable sentry. I can't play it's animations in Modview, unless I'm missing something. So it would only be the folded up view, rather than when it's folded out ready to shoot. Any tips on that? I could just manually create it, but outlining a screenshot in Modview is much easier. I could try doing it in-game, I suppose.

Well, I can't play it's animation too. I use Milkshape.

 

@Circa I think with your weapon icons we need to add a little definition so it's not simply a silhouette. It will just make the icons look a little nicer, refer to the team fortress ones, they are going to heavily be my inspiration, everything about that game's art style appeals to me.

Before that someone should code kill icons first IMO. We can see how it looks in game, then we can make icons more sexy. Few months ago I thought and kill icons too. I used gimp to design that - was ugly.

[Circa]

My inspiration was Call of Duty, they keep every icon in their kill feed extremely simple. And I think that's what @@ensiform was going for, but I could be wrong.

 

Go for it @@Ruxith, I want to see what you come up with! I'll stick with simple and you focus on what you want maybe we'll come up with something great between the two of us.

[ensiform]

The point behind using the different for some of the alt fires is that they are rapidly different kill types.  Such as the Repeater and Conc and flechette.  Or maybe the addition to the weapon icon could look different like how TF2 has the extra imagery after the weapon icon on some.

[eezstreet]

Am I the only one who noticed a lack of lightsaber icons?

[Circa]

The point behind using the different for some of the alt fires is that they are rapidly different kill types. Such as the Repeater and Conc and flechette. Or maybe the addition to the weapon icon could look different like how TF2 has the extra imagery after the weapon icon on some.

True. Just wasn't sure what I'd put on mine. Because of the simplicity, at least.

 

And yeah, totally forgot about saber. Was just looking at his list.

[ensiform]

Don't bother with multiple saber icons though.  Its not separated as to what kind of saber or if you were kicked unfortunately, or even if it was a thrown saber.

[Circa]

Was just going to use Kyle's saber for the icon.

 

@@ensiform

 

Are you wanting these icons before you start working on a kill feed mod or something? I can finish them up and send them to you, at least for testing. Then if Ruxith or someone else makes better looking ones, you could use those.

[Raz0r]

Will be adding this to JA++ (issue #339)

[Circa]

Alright, update. Added saber and portable sentry. Updated falling, object, and force icons.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts?

 

As far as CTF and other game mode icons, can someone make a list of what you'll need? @@Raz0r @@ensiform

[Circa]

Another update. How are these alt attack icons? I only made ones that I thought were worth differentiating: flechette, repeater, concussion, and rocket launcher. Am I missing one?

 

 

 

[ensiform]

The icons with the person in it look eerily like they come from Portal for some reason.

 

The alt fires are looking good.  Concussion is a little bit strange though.  I'd say use the sniper logo for the conc alt as the conc alt is an instant hit/hitscan laser like thing.

 

Also forgot about the turbo laser... misc_turretG2 idk if those are the hoth turrets or the hanging turrets though.  And I think the turret you're using is the player usable one.  Sadly the turret and emplaced etc are all kinda mixed and mashed as far as what uses what.  I think emplaced even uses the vehicle MOD :/

[Raz0r]

As mentioned on Steam:

Repeater and DEMP2 are too similar at smaller sizes. Not sure what to do about that.

Trip mine is just a blob, it took me a while to figure it out. Definitely needs more details/lines like the closed hand icon. Detpacks are also a bit hard to distinguish.

Rocket might be better off using a rocket instead of the rocket-launcher

I'm assuming the icon to the right of the flowing water is lava? That wasn't intuitive. Is the one beside that acid?

I can't work out which one is telefragged, fell to death or crushed

The open hand is...? I'm assuming the closed hand is killed by (dark) force i.e. "annihilated by" - but that won't look right for lightning, only grip

I like the idea of that explosion-y graphic to distinguish alt-fire. EDIT: Ensi is right, concussion alt-fire should be the crosshairs.

I would also recommend adding one for disruptor alt-fire/sniping.

[Ruxith]

^ Yeah that's what my intention was to do, add more definition to the silhouettes Circa made so that it's easier to differentiate the weapons at a small scale. I hate saying it still but like the TF2 style xD

I've just been a little slower making any progress at the moment sorry, I get busy with things very quickly in my short amount of  free time lately. I'll try and make a start at some point today as i'm not at work on Mondays.

[Circa]

As mentioned on Steam:

Repeater and DEMP2 are too similar at smaller sizes. Not sure what to do about that.

Trip mine is just a blob, it took me a while to figure it out. Definitely needs more details/lines like the closed hand icon. Detpacks are also a bit hard to distinguish.

Rocket might be better off using a rocket instead of the rocket-launcher

I'm assuming the icon to the right of the flowing water is lava? That wasn't intuitive. Is the one beside that acid?

I can't work out which one is telefragged, fell to death or crushed

The open hand is...? I'm assuming the closed hand is killed by (dark) force i.e. "annihilated by" - but that won't look right for lightning, only grip

I like the idea of that explosion-y graphic to distinguish alt-fire. EDIT: Ensi is right, concussion alt-fire should be the crosshairs.

I would also recommend adding one for disruptor alt-fire/sniping.

 

I'm glad you posted all that on here. I saw I had 10 notifications from my phone, was too curious to not look. Then realized i'd lose it all once I closed it.

 

I'll explain all these points, but don't take it as defending myself, I'll make the changes.

 

- repeater and DEMP2 look completely different to me, one has a funnel at the end

- agreed, trip mine and detpack need more detail, though I'm still not sure how to do it that would make a difference at small sizes

- I actually made a rocket icon initially, but then thought that maybe the gun would be better; i'll swap them

- I honestly couldn't think of any other way to show lava...not intuitively anyway; same with acid, though ensi called it "slime" so I used a blob, which is kinda placeholder

- I figured those were pretty self explanatory, honestly. The only one I don't like is telefragged, because I can't think of a good way to show that. The one with the object falling, is object falling, and the one of someone falling....is falling to death. 

- Open hand is force. ensiform said there's no way to differentiate between all force powers, so I made one. I was kinda proud of it too Closed hand is melee...

- agreed, conc_alt should probably be crosshair

- thought about the alt fire for disruptor, just not sure how i'd illustrate being disintegrated. Could just give it a crosshair but it wouldn't really make much sense

 

So yeah, I agree some points. Others not as much. I think there's a limit to how detailed you should be with icons like this. Obviously I want to make it clear what each thing is, but some of them will just need to be interpreted and learned by users. I was playing COD:BOIII last night and payed close to attention to their icons. They're pretty simple, and you learn what certain things mean over time. Kinda my approach. But I understand those that want lots of detail.

[ensiform]

The disruptor doesn't have separate MOD_ types though afaik?

 

I think the weapon looks best for rocket.

[Ruxith]

Maybe this leaves it open for a release with 2 options for the icons to choose from (once we finalize on the icon designs), one that's simplified with silhouettes mostly of the object/effect, and another with some slight detail to characterise the silhouette, as we all have our own preferences on what we like more