TW3 UI Aesthetics
Sscreengrabs:
( @Marcin Momot and @Aegis_Kleais , I am very much looing forward reading your takes. )
The UI looks ghastly. It seems a baroque iteration on Tw2's. Lots of redundant gradients, fillets, shadows and ornaments. It's distracting when several areas in the same screen compete for the player's attention.
1. Colour scheme. Why brown, of all colours? It's horrible. Why so much colour blocking? CDProjekt has reportedly said they were aiming for an immersive UI, but say you're on an icy region, would that brown be a fitting focal point for the UI colour scheme? Why not go with a neutral colour instead?
2. Background image. What's it there for? Neither sufficiently patterned to function as a backdrop texture nor in focus enough to be discernible, it just hinders legibility. Terrible choice. Why not make the UI, at least in some areas, semi transparent and have the game itself as background?
3. So much precious real estate is going to waste with titles, boxes and ornaments. Why the need to clutter? Design should start at type and work from there. In that regard, I'm afraid there's an inherent and quite noticeable aesthetic contradiction between picking a sans serif font but then cramming up the screen with all sorts of overly sweet candy. It just does not add up.
The UI is a metaphor. It's outside the gameworld. Thus it's not required to adopt its aesthetics. A modern looking, much simpler, much flatter UI would be more fitting and appealing. As of now, it looks ugly as Shrek. It nowhere near adheres to TW3's otherwise high aesthetic standards.
Sscreengrabs:
( @Marcin Momot and @Aegis_Kleais , I am very much looing forward reading your takes. )
The UI looks ghastly. It seems a baroque iteration on Tw2's. Lots of redundant gradients, fillets, shadows and ornaments. It's distracting when several areas in the same screen compete for the player's attention.
1. Colour scheme. Why brown, of all colours? It's horrible. Why so much colour blocking? CDProjekt has reportedly said they were aiming for an immersive UI, but say you're on an icy region, would that brown be a fitting focal point for the UI colour scheme? Why not go with a neutral colour instead?
2. Background image. What's it there for? Neither sufficiently patterned to function as a backdrop texture nor in focus enough to be discernible, it just hinders legibility. Terrible choice. Why not make the UI, at least in some areas, semi transparent and have the game itself as background?
3. So much precious real estate is going to waste with titles, boxes and ornaments. Why the need to clutter? Design should start at type and work from there. In that regard, I'm afraid there's an inherent and quite noticeable aesthetic contradiction between picking a sans serif font but then cramming up the screen with all sorts of overly sweet candy. It just does not add up.
The UI is a metaphor. It's outside the gameworld. Thus it's not required to adopt its aesthetics. A modern looking, much simpler, much flatter UI would be more fitting and appealing. As of now, it looks ugly as Shrek. It nowhere near adheres to TW3's otherwise high aesthetic standards.
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