jHeretic User Interface Pack (jHUI)

[Slide]

This pack is a 'roll up' of some of the most popular graphical updates available for jHeretic. Here is a summary of what the pack contains;

Credits:

Golden Skull
By: -RightField-
Menu Logo, Expansion Pack Logo
By: Lord-Noctrun
Titlepic, Expansion Titlepic
By: Nephil
Font Pack
By: MoBro88 & Sambo9000
Chain, Statbar, lifebar, Paused, l/r horns, key graphics, Life Gem, Credit screen, Expansion menu logo, New Barback, New HUD Arrows, Face Avatars, Ammo Icons, Artifact Icons
By: Slide

This is version 2 of the jHUI and a fresh start for the pack with older copyright material removed to make way for (hopefully) higher quality original work.

-jHUI Download Here- (ftp://jfiles@server1.thefourwinds.net/jdoom/slide/jhui/jhui-install.exe)

Screenshots: 1 (http://slide.newdoom.com/gallery/jhui/jhui-menu.jpg) | 2 (http://slide.newdoom.com/gallery/jhui/jhui-credits.jpg) | 3 (http://slide.newdoom.com/gallery/jhui/jhui-hud.jpg) | 4 (http://slide.newdoom.com/gallery/jhui/jhui-inventory.jpg)

[MTKnight]

I had a look at the screenshots, and I must say it's pretty damned neat. Some of it looks too cartooney, maybe, but that may not be the case in the game itself. I'll hav to dig up all the resources again--my Doomsday installation somehow went missing.

[Slide]

It is less cartoony than the original - but to maintain the originals style some of it is a little that way (the Status bar background being a good example).

[Sin4U]

It looks good, but I dont like some of those inventory items, I know you are going for a more stylistic feeling, but quite frankly, it just looks like you only have paint, and arnt even good with that.
You might want to try either some simple lighting effects, drop shadows, or graduated transparancy, keeping the stylism, but making it look a bit harder to make.

[Slide]

Given how many new patches were added to this release it was kinda inevitable that some of them aren't up to best quality (the coin with the face springs to mind) - but I like to think they are all improvements over the original graphics.

BTW All of the items have alpha channel drop shadows already and some of them have all the features you mentioned - are you looking at the new pack? The old pack did lack these features as they used resampled filtered images instead of redone ones.

I welcome criticism but I don't think it's fair to say they were done in paint. I think you must know that they are better than that; if you can give tips/ideas on specific patches then fair enough but statements like that aren't really very helpful.

Remember anyone is welcome to create there own patches for the pack; I try and use the best (closest to the original) around so you're welcome to have a go yourself if you like.

[Phoebus]

Man, those look good!
Nice and clean and crisp. Although, maybe to a fault.
it just looks like you only have paint, and arnt even good with that. This was unnecessary and wrong.
I guess what the guy was trying to say, but rather insultingly, was that maybe he thought there should be more detail, or the UI items should be more 3-D in appearance?
Other than that, he may not know what a UI actually is ;)
Anyway, judging from the four screenshots you linked to above, I really like your take on the "look and feel" of Heretic, although I think perhaps it should be less bright, and maybe more medieval in theme and less clean, if anything.
Keep up the great work!

[Slide]

Ok I can understand that - actually I've been thinking of redoing the HUD (gold) fonts - to make them look less modern perhaps that would be a good place to start.

It's always a balance between keeping the original Look and Feel and moving forwards - looking back I think I could add some more details and a more 3D feel to some of the artifacts - My personal favourite is the Urn artifact, though I quite like some of the Ammo icons which I did last.

Are there specific graphics which people like or dislike? (i.e that capture the feel, look out place or have a style that works well).

Edit:
Does anyone know the name or have a link to the Heretic/Hexen font?

[Blue]

i dont know bout the fonts wouldnt it be specially made for the game? i like the pack bu tthe maps are the same is that normal?

[Driller Killer]

Even though there is a strong cartoonish feel, I like the pack enough that I've started copying some of the elements to use as hi-res sprites where models haven't been created yet. For example the Shadowmask is an improvement over the old sprites (IMO, at least).

What'd be interesting would be to see hi-res sprites for all the tons of glowing fireball things, or you know custom texture particles or something (eg, for all the sparkly things dropping out behind the shazammed Dragon Claw, or Teleporter glitter).

Strongest complaint I would have about this pack would be the white outline on the fonts. Not exactly a big concern.

[Vermil]

A while ago Slyrr, (who has made a large proportion of Jheretic models) showed some of his latest Jheretic models, among them were a couple of 3d fireballs.

Though prehaps in the future Hexagon's Retexturing utility might be extended to Heretic (and HeXen) :)

EDIT: Slide: Though unfortunetly I can't upload it, I'd be happy to email the heretic/hexen font to you if required.

[Slide]

Thanks for your email Vermil - I've been thinking about the fonts a bit more after my reply and I've decided I would really like to remake them; they aren't quite at the same quality of Chiv's equivilent fonts yet and someboby pointed out a few errors with them. So I may redo them and get rid of these issues for good. I know the truetype font was going around a while back - does anyone have a clue where it could be or it's name?

Blue - The maps haven't been done - they would require a lot of time to do them justice - I think -rightfield- said he might do them - but if anyone wants a go I, and a lot of other people would be grateful.

Driller Killer - those white outlines on the fonts were a problem with an older release of the pack - do you know which version you have? If you do have the old one - I think you'll like the new pack a lot more.

The general feel I'm getting back on the pack is you would prefer a more realistic feel to the pack - what I'd really like to know is which patches you like (hopefully there are a few) so I know what style people would like - I've deliberately shyed away from going photorealistic as I thought it would look out of place - but is this how you would like the pack?

[Fabio]

I can't download it.... wrong link?:(

[Slide]

Keep trying the Fourwinds just changed servers and the new DNS settings have filtered through everywhere yet, if you can't get it now try again soon - all the files are there (just checked myself).

[Driller Killer]

Slide - I have the version linked at the top of this thread.
The fonts I'm talking about are the medieval green fonts which have a light grey edge that stands out as white against the generally dark backgrounds. I dunno, they might look better given a slight dark shadow, make them more seamlessly blend into the overall image (I'm specifically talking about when they are displayed at the beginning of a level here).

As for cartoonish vs. realism I'm going to infuriate you by dodging the issue and saying that what I want more than anything is consistency between item icons and items in game. That probably means sprites that are captured renders of the models used in the game. Which is crazy when the models for the pick-ups have not all been done.

This of course would raise issues about what happens when models are upgraded - maybe if the jHRP is made into .pk3 modules like the jDRP the HUD icon spirtes should be included along with the in game models (make the modellers responsible for the UI element associated with the model they made). But it's probably counter-intuitive to place UI elements outside of the jHUI.

[Slide]

Yeah - like I say I've decided that the fonts need redoing.

As to your other idea, it's an interesting idea - I'll think about it and post again later.

[draconx]

I think eventually the doomsday engine should have an option to render the models for the inventory items rather than use sprites.

[Vi3tSkl11]

Nice, but the item sprites really need more depth. To be completely honest, even if the items look cartoonish... They actually look flat... I suppose what I'm saying is, they just need more depth. Perhaps making the items appear to be viewed from a slight (oh-so-very-slight) angle might help, though I'm not sure if you know what I mean(or can pull it off). Oh, well. Better than the defaults, at least...

[Cain]

i like your idea draconx

- am always to ask for why not have put the option of have the interface and the hud in 3d...

[Slide]

It's an RFE on sourceforge but according to Skyjake not that easy to implement (Doomsday 2.0 feature maybe)

[Vermil]

Since the Hud is a patch, wouldn't that mean 3d models would work for things like episode maps as well *alien* ?

[DaniJ]

I'm not entirely sure vermil, but I think so.

Having 3D models for the statusbar/menu etc is relatively useless unless there is some way to animate them (worldtime animation maybe?).

Skyjake did say ages ago that he wanted to make it so that the menus could be built at runtime via console...

[Sambo9000]

My fontpack looks sorta different in those screens... It has a weird white outline aroudn ti too... Maybe that's the old version MoBro put up before I could get around to darkening itmyself... Can I send you a copy of the new version Slide? Also I dunno but I think that my credits screen patch looks more like the original, and fits the game more.

I like the hud and inventory icons, Slide. I don't see why everyone else doesn't.

Having 3D models for the statusbar/menu etc is relatively useless unless there is some way to animate themYeah. Spinning effects and stuff are nice though. But if you wanna use a non-animating 3D model for a patch you might as well just open your model in MD2 viewer, take a high-resolution screenshot of it and just use that.

[Caden]

the font pack im useing doesnt have white outlines

[doomer]

Slide
great difference to the intro to the game - you guys do some really good stuff - is there a ui pack like this for hexen?

[Besli]

the font pack im useing doesnt have white outlines
Can you upload it somewhere, so we can download it?

[DasFox]

The title.png for me has a pretty good sized bronze color streak running up and down on the left hand side. I opened it up and looked at it, and I could find nothing wrong other then the pics size, which is 1055X786 which seems odd, I thought they're suppose to be 1024x768, because the credits.png is this size, what's going on here, anyone else getting this ?

[Unikat2k4]

some times ago....somebody started working on the heretic intermission screens. the previews looked very good....

does anybody know what happenend to them?

[SMB]

Is this pack still alive? I just re-did some of the inv. items for kicks...
I reckon they turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself *thumbs*
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~buchan.home/
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~buchan.home/artipwbk.png

[EDIT:] The game seems to stretch the icons in the inventory, even when they
are the same aspect as the original patch?

[Jimbo.Jack]

nice to see a nother kiwi
post them up here
http://forums.jfiles.org/album.php

[CyberRaptor]

For some reason, the use of this pack results in a massive drop in frame rate, which was seamless before. It does look nice though so if anyone could tell me why it would cause such a drop in frame rate, I would appreciate the help.

[sevencreature]

Any links to jHUI? Could anyone upload it somewhere?

[DuD_Thimmey]

yeah. very good job. *thumbs*

[RobotDevil]

Is this pack still alive? I just re-did some of the inv. items for kicks...
I reckon they turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself *thumbs*
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~buchan.home/
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~buchan.home/artipwbk.png

[EDIT:] The game seems to stretch the icons in the inventory, even when they
are the same aspect as the original patch?

I'd say you reckon right, I think they look awesome, keep it up man! By the way, where are you all getting the HUD weapon models at? I can't seem to find them (all searches for HUD stuff brings me here).

[Grimmjow1982]

Thanks for the upload

[Tea Monster]

Cool. Cheers, its good to see work still being done on Heretic.

[Tea Monster]

You can just animate your model to alpha'd PNG's and have the animations that way.
I'm going to be redoing a few of the textures and models. Has anyone else posted any new stuff that isn't in the pack at the moment - just so no work gets duplicated?

[DaniJ]

In order for model particles to work the model definitions MUST come before the generators that use them in the load order. There is not much we can do about that due to the way the definition system works.

You can have alternate models for a single generator but you are limited to two types per generator. This is done by using the alternate start, stage offset and set the frequency at which it should be used ("Alt Start" and "Alt Rnd"). I agree that this is limiting and its something I have come up against in the past but haven't gotten around to changing in code yet.

[DaniJ]

I put it before the generator defs in the same DED file. Maybe I didn't have that modelpath set, but I figured that the (particle) Textures folder would be specified. Maybe not! I should try it when I get home in a few days... I just threw it in there for simplicity, rather than having made a separate pk3 for it at that timeThat would explain it. model particles are treated exactly the same as any other model when it comes to loading resources. That means that they should *not* be in the /textures subdirectory and wherever you do put them, you must make the path known to Doomsday, either by way of a modelpath definition or an in-place relative path in the model definition itself.

[DaniJ]

What can "Parm" in the DEDs be used for? Can it even be used as a constant? (ie. "Shiny Reaction = Parm;")Doomsday's DED reader does not currently support constants (I wish it did). In this instance "Parm" is there just to indicate the syntax i.e. Property = Parm;
Also, is "Selector" meant to assign different "sets" or versions of things which can be alternated via the console or something? I wasn't clear on these in the DED Reference."Selector" is used to allow any given sprite to be used with multiple things. For example, the DOOM Pinky Demon (selector=0) and the Spectre (selector=1). In addition, "Selector" is also used with the player thing where it is equal to the index of the currently held weapon. This property is therefore passed on to the model definition which allows you to do the same thing.
One more thing, if I may: how are the pain skins calculated exactly? Is the selskin mask for specifying alternate pain skins for models with animated skins AND pain skin sets? It might be better to know EXACTLY what's going on, rather than trying to reconstruct it from other DEDs.This should be covered fully already in the docs. There isn't much I can add to be honest.
I was confused, for instance, on force axis until it just clicked in my head a few days after I'd looked at it. Some of the descriptions are vague, and if I could, I could rewrite the DED reference with examples for each part, at least for the models and generators... Maybe it's just how I learned things, but those are the only ones that had confused me.Feel free and I will update the documentation. I agree that perhaps it isn't that easy to understand (it has been written by programmers after all).

[DaniJ]

There is no "magic" name you give to skins in definitions. Skins need to be applied in the model and subsequently, each is given an index within the MD2/DMD.

Best advice I can give is to look at existing models to see how they work.

[Tea Monster]

With the moss, I learned that you can apply a skin in the ded file. This is great for testing as you can export directly from Blender and whack it straight into Heretic to see how it works.

For a finished model, you will want to use MD2Tool for LOD generation and etc.

[Vermil]

Offically, no Jpack is managed by anyone. Anyone can contribute at any time.

Though ocasionally someone step's up to organize everything.

The last person who did that with the JHeretic add-on's combined them all into a single entity; JHRP v2. The current version of this can be found on the Doomsday add-on's page even though it does have a couple of glitches.

[DaniJ]

Dani, if you read this, does it have to be that size, and will stretching the canvas in certain ways change how it looks, or is it locked?You can change the image dimensions however you wish but it will be scaled by Doomsday so that it appears to be the same size as the original (i.e., so it uses the same screen real estate).

[DaniJ]

Also, would you advise to try to keep HUI images as powers of two? That should speed things up slightly, even if ever-so-slightly, right? I made these ones 300x300 because of the old ones, but I felt dirty about it...It doesn't make much difference and to be honest, it would be best to use dimensions similar to the original but a multiple there of if you are going for hires. Doomsday will automatically handle copying/scaling the image to a power of two texture if/when required.

[DaniJ]

1600x1200 is the highest supported 3:4 resolution currently? That's the highest one that I see in Snowberry. The only limit is the native resolution of your display device. That list just contains the most common ones.

I think you might not have got what I meant:

If the original graphic is say 38 x 32 then a good size for a hires version is say 152 x 128 (i.e., a 400% increase in size). When drawing, Doomsday will ensure that the hires version is scaled to match the dimensions of the original, regardless of what resolution you are running. So, a 32 x 32 original graphic, drawn in a window with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 will cover 160 x 192 pixels. This means that the hires version will be scaled up in width but scaled down in height however there is a much closer correlation between the image dimensions and the drawn area.

[DaniJ]

With state-triggered generators, a max age should always be specified and larger than zero. A particle generator has a life time which tics away every second and once the counter reaches zero; no further particles will be spawned and once all the particles spawned by the generator are gone, the generator is "reclaimed" so it can be used again.

Nice video btw. Your new gargoyle and the various effects look really good.

Yes my hand is working ok again now. I've got like 95% of my mobility back but its still a bit weak (no bench pressing atm).

[DaniJ]

I mean to ask like, will giving it an age of -1 (infinite) cause it to have problems being reclaimed, or would that make any bit of difference?
In that configuration the reclaim will happen only when all particles spawned by it have died so you have to be careful to ensure that the particles don't hang around for longer than absoluetly necessary. In general I would suggest you avoid infinite lifetime generators.
Do you work out? If so, is it for body shape? If so, do you do flys? I've heard that they're better than bench presses for making your chest pop, because they're like a squeezing exercise. But they work it in two different ways and as I understand it, both are good. (although I myself am a weakling :( )
I only work out casually, not really for any other reason than because I tend to spend so much time in front of a computer that I need to counteract it :)

[Tea Monster]

Can you start the process now, so that when you get there you have the right documents?
Then again, you could explain to your lady that she is working for the greater good of the JHRP! ;-)