Spring RTS Engine

yes im trying to make em seamless and trying to make them look better than TA ones and trying to make functions clear (this last one is actually much harder job i tought)

They look great, Masse, and clear enough to me.

heres all i done this far... i hope that the load and unload are not too "complicated" looking

how about making the capture cursor change the 'enemy' box from red to blue? That would make it more apparent.

not all stuff u capture are enemys

i added the capture cursor to spring... and i noticed it a bit dark so im gonna make it somewhat brighter and try again

woaw, Masse, you really impresse me. Those cursor are really good.

Just the load one. Don't you think that the square should always go up and loop it? (
In fact, exactly like the unload one where the square always go down.

I agree. But try to make the unload/load bit take a little longer, to really show what you mean.

(capture)
(load)
(unload)

very nice. I like them

A few things:


1) I don't think that any part of the cursor should be thin or small (such as on the load/unload cursors). It might look nice posted here or in Photoshop, but in game, it's going to be obscured by the various backgrounds and such and look odd.

2) Color changing (such a the capture cursor) is bad, physical motion of different cursor elements is good. Color changes are going to be less noticable and more of a gimmick than elements' motion.

Everything on a cursor needs to say to the user that "THIS IS WHAT I DO". if there's any ambiguity, you're going to screw yourself up in the heat of battle because you pressed the wrong hotkey by accident and now your fifty adv air units are trying to reclaim your Krogoth instead of reclaim it

It's one of the things I didn't like about some of the TA cursors that they looked so similar to each other, ESPECIALLY the cursors with similar functions (reclaim/repair, load/unload, etc).

Masse, I like the fact that yours look polished, but I think what Paul is advocating with his concepts would be a lot more functional, and just as pretty if done properly. :)

Not crticizing you, just saying I think there's some points that could be improved on

i have tried the capture ingame... and i could easily test the others too and in a second or 2 i can make the same cursors bigger... i have actually few new ideas... and the cursors just need to be bigger to do those

I'm looking at boson and they have some GPLed cursors.
http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/Cursor ... ursors.zip

Some Example's

Theres just one thing... I love teh cursors Masse, and bigger will look luverly im sure, but can we maybe have that little triangle in teh courner so you can tell were your clicking. You know... the little bitt hat shows were your mouse definaly is pointing. Becasue the yare animated and dont feature an exact pointer bit in them lots of people would end up clcik wrong units when zoomed out ect... which would be a shame. Obviosly some dont ned it cause they have a "point" in them, but others do. Taht or make two sets to keep people happy (after all tahts a very easy change and im sure that the spring guys can code in coursor options...)

aGorm

i know that it needs some point to show where its aimed... when ill stop modelling and i get bored again ill take a new look on the cursor thing with all the new ideas

i hope ill get bored soon

How bout model cusors, and then do short animations of them in action to use for in game. Like a rotating arrow or a lift magnet picking stuff up and dropping it.

Instead of having a triangle in the corner could you have the active point be in the center?

It seems like that is how it is now, the icon surrounds the actual point, I could be very wrong, but If that is how it is now I want to keep it.

Naw, they should be in a corner, because since the middle is covered by the animation, it still wont be visible where exactly the cursor is hovering over. Although even putting the dot in a corner would look bad...



Maybe (although this ouwld requrie a redesign) have all the cursors have an empty/transparent square in the middle, then the animation on the outside, so it is visible still what exactly is being hovered over? :)

Ok, tell you what ill edit his courses to show what i mean (dont worry Masse ill give you full credit and this not me hijacking your work...) and then people can decide what they think.

Also... just had a cool idea (well IMO) that i might mod ur unload and loading ones with... But again ill take no cred cause its basicly your work.

aGorm

please use those cursors... im not that kind of person who gets angry if someone uses something i made... im flattered