Ideas for the GUI

Basically, we need a GUI, and relatively soon (this week).

Without going into the whole "form" of it (it'll be the buttons of whatever is easiest in whatever we happen to be programming), here's an idea for a GUI




Don't look at the "look" of the buttons, just the positioning. I'll get around to making them nice pretty "formatted" buttons when i get the chance to, but as far as the layout of it (i.e. are the buttons where we want the buttons, the picture where we want it, text on the page, etc) let me know what you think.

Maybe a reposition to front button. Almost like a reset.

Maybe a lock dart gun and camera movement button too. There are probably many other optional things we could add in too though.

I think it has everything that we really need to implement though, which is the harder part. I like it for that reason. The layout on the page can really be worked out later. I think this is where you were going with this post to begin with though?

cdabbott316 wrote:Maybe a lock dart gun and camera movement button too. There are probably many other optional things we could add in too though.

I think it has everything that we really need to implement though, which is the harder part. I like it for that reason. The layout on the page can really be worked out later. I think this is where you were going with this post to begin with though?

right, just trying to get an idea of all the buttons we will need, and where we'll put them.

I'm trying to find a relatively painless gui creating option, but that doesn't seem to be as easy as one would hope.

dsmarsh wrote:Maybe a reposition to front button. Almost like a reset.

Ah yes, i forgot about that...we do need a "reset"

Note that depending on what functionality we're able to implement with the nerf gun, we might also have up-left, up-right, down-left, and down-right.

So it might end up being like:
UL U UR
L F R
DL D DR
where F= fire, R = right, etc.

Edit: Stupid formatting. Imagine those above symbols in a formation like a numpad.

I'm not sure how possible this is to do with the language you will be using (java / javascript ?) but what I was invisiong is not have buttons on the GUI to control the movement but rather using the keyboard. So we can use the default W, A, S, D for movement and we can have the movement of the mouse control the camera and nerf gun simultaneously, so they are locked by default but you can then like push the right mouse button to unlock the gun from the camera and the movement of the mouse will only control the nerf gun at that point. And obviously firing would be left click.

Interfacing to the keyboard is really easy to do in flash, but it would probably be slow.

So the actual GUI would be nothing more than the image from the camera, maybe an instructions text on how to control and some stylized background.

-Brian Peasley

Peasley wrote:I'm not sure how possible this is to do with the language you will be using (java / javascript ?) but what I was invisiong is not have buttons on the GUI to control the movement but rather using the keyboard. So we can use the default W, A, S, D for movement and we can have the movement of the mouse control the camera and nerf gun simultaneously, so they are locked by default but you can then like push the right mouse button to unlock the gun from the camera and the movement of the mouse will only control the nerf gun at that point. And obviously firing would be left click.

Interfacing to the keyboard is really easy to do in flash, but it would probably be slow.

So the actual GUI would be nothing more than the image from the camera, maybe an instructions text on how to control and some stylized background.

-Brian Peasley

that's an idea too.

realizing that we're going to need 3 sets of controls though, it'll probably be easiest to do "W A S D", "UP DN LF RT", and num-pad.

It might still have these images here, but instead of being buttons, they'd "light up" when that direction is pressed.

Moving both the gun and the camera at the same time will require those two groups to have to communicate and get their two things moving the same way each time an up is pressed or mouse is moved.

If one moved slower than the other i could see several things going wrong.

-David

I gave some more thought to the idea of Peasley's "video only" GUI.

I'm a little concerned about user feedback there. I don't see the on-board camera being able to provide enough information to the user, especially if we are expecting a low resolution or low frame rate.

Yet here was another thought. I hate the idea of having to use three sets of directional control on a keyboard. But are there options for other input methods?

And another idea I thought of, what about having an "options" button? In there, maybe a table or something for key bindings? With something like that, it might even be feasible to use a USB video game controller of some sort. That might make the controls manageable by the user.


Also, are the gun and the camera supposed to move together? or is that another "option", or not supposed to happen at all? That might be something worth getting cleared up through Brooks.

As far as I know, the gun/camera locked movement is optional. I don't remember it being mentioned in the syllabus. It's gonna be a pain trying to synch those together.