Highlight Area for Fixtures

[zeussy]

As Daffy has said, we have been super busy and Daffy has been sick (he now has drugs, that seem to be working YAY).

Anyway, one of the things that happened in the last few weeks is we took Automation to a show'n'tell like event held by IGDA Melbourne.

Our beta testers are great and all, but for usability sake it does not beat actually seeing people playing the game. One of the most apparent things that came up was people not realising that they had to click on the car where they wanted to place a headlight after selecting it.

So, here is a screen shot showing my solution:

Car Model-2.jpg (102.02 KiB) Viewed 8994 times

The screen box appears after selecting a fixture, and also changes its top and bottom levels based on how tall the fixture is.

[T-5 Killer]

Cool.

[butterfly]

Maybe you need more testers, hint hint

hehehe

Get well Daffy

[JakeWedding]

Maybe we could just have Tips popup on First play and be disabled in a Menu of some sought?
As it looks like this would (try?) to Limit the area where you can put the fixture (I dont know if its already limited, im not in beta)

[JeffreyCor]

Love it that's really shows where they can be placed. That would help a lot in car designing. You're right on site is really great for usability and this is a perfect example. I'm sure many of us noticed the same thing, but none of us articulated it.

[Daffyflyer]

Maybe we could just have Tips popup on First play and be disabled in a Menu of some sought?
As it looks like this would (try?) to Limit the area where you can put the fixture (I dont know if its already limited, im not in beta)

Nup, it's already limited to that area, but you just have to GUESS where you can place it right now

[machalel]

great idea... I think this combined with a pop-up "hint" the first time you use the screen would work really well.


Just a quick bit of constructive criticism, I think that it might work better if instead of a large block of different colour, if you just made it a different coloured dotted outline? It would be less "jarring" but keep the same concept. Just my opinion.

[JakeWedding]

Machalel is Right their, having a large Block of Neon Colour (Or what have you) would be very Strange, or 'Jarring' as he put it
A Dotted line would allow the player to know where he can put the light without being too in your face with a Green Block of Doom

[Kubboz]

Why is it limited to that area? It limits my creativity.

[JakeWedding]

I Think their should be a Recommended Area, but still be able to Place Crap anywhere to be honest, If it effects any Sales data and all that, then just have it so when it passes the Recommended area, it goes off a Random Rating or something

[zeussy]

I Think their should be a Recommended Area, but still be able to Place Crap anywhere to be honest, If it effects any Sales data and all that, then just have it so when it passes the Recommended area, it goes off a Random Rating or something

It is more of a technical limitation. One thing I was not clear upon, is the light can escape this box, but the centre of the light cannot.

It is also on the conservative side. The green area is showing where it is almost guaranteed to able to be placed.

[Daffyflyer]

Why is it limited to that area? It limits my creativity.

As Zeussy said, there isn't any change in the area you can place it, its only highlighted now, we currently let you place it pretty much anywhere that it will successfully stamp - stamping a hole in the car and getting the surface of the light to deform around it is a fairly complex process and only works in some places

[machalel]

Ah ok, that's good. I'm trying to think of a way that this could be conveyed through your coloured means...

[robt100]

As has been said, maybe a less intrusive highlight would be better, with the solid neon you cannot see the outline of the contours of the car for accurate placing. More transparency in the highlight would be good.

[machalel]

maybe even a two-coloured approach? green outline for "optimal" placing, then red outline for the extreme edges of where it is allowed?