[jkas789]

This is perhaps the most important post I have ever made. And I am prepared to defend my choice to the death! Obviously the best type of HUD is Fullscreen! I'm not a child that needs to see the weapon in my hands to know that it is working. The only thing I need to know is what is in front of me that needs to be killed. Besides, Fullscreen HUD offers a myriad of tactical information needed to survive the brutal combat of the likes of say, Blood and Shadow Warrior.

I mean just look at them!

Chad Fullscreen:



Virgin Minimal:



i think the choice is obvious gentleman.

So what is ya'll opinion on it? Are you team Fullscreen HUD or are you team "mini"mal HUD


Made a Google form to recollect answers because why not: https://docs.google....qbKFbAfK2M/edit

[OpenMaw]

I enjoy the style points of a hud like th eone found in Duke Nukem 3D or the classics of Wolf3D/Doom/Quake where you get your avatar on screen with a visual rep of his condition.

However, I also really enjoy the minimalist and functional variations of HUD found in games like Quake 3. BARE minimum. What you need to know and nothing else.

[Jimmy]

I prefer the HUD originally designed for the game 99% of the time. Minimal HUDs often look bad to me (usually because they are designed purely through code with no new art) and are missing important info.

[Ninety-Six]

I like the visual aspects to fullscreen huds and the full information provided but I'm not as keen on the vertical cutoff.

My ideal HUD is actually something like the Alternate HUD from the zdoom family of ports. It actually provides more information than the fullscreen hud (armor class and active/inactive berserk). Unfortunately it gets rid of the face in the process, which means you not only lose a directional indicator but also probably one of the defining aspects of Doom's visual design (and all of classic id's FPSes).

Another favored HUD is eDuke's custom minimal hud (that adds more information than the default minimal hud), but with the row of weapons on the bottom plus their ammo counts that tend to be seen in any mod TrooperDan has a hand in. Then you get the best of both worlds, tactically speaking.

HUD preference kinda seems to be on a spectrum of utility vs. art, and I do tend to lean towards utility. That said, I wish there was a way to marry the original artistic intention without sacrificing tactical advantages (and especially in these older games that use Y-shearing, that extra visual vertical distance can count for a lot). There's also something to be said about being unable to see the full art of the weapon sprites and sky textures as well.

[jkas789]

Jimmy, on 13 November 2020 - 06:07 PM, said:

Minimal HUDs often look bad to me (usually because they are designed purely through code with no new art) and are missing important info.

A great example of this IMO is Shadow Warriors minimal in VoidSW, which is missing the Armor counter. That literally sometimes kills me.

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Another favored HUD is eDuke's custom minimal hud (that adds more information than the default minimal hud), but with the row of weapons on the bottom plus their ammo counts that tend to be seen in any mod TrooperDan has a hand in. Then you get the best of both worlds, tactically speaking.

Hmph, yes. I will have to concede that eduke's minimal HUD is all right I suppose.

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However, I also really enjoy the minimalist and functional variations of HUD found in games like Quake 3. BARE minimum. What you need to know and nothing else.

In Quake 3 I may be able to accept this one exception. In MP visibility is essential to victory.

[DisgustedGrunt]

minimal.

[jkas789]

Lazy Dog, on 13 November 2020 - 06:51 PM, said:

minimal.

MARANAX MALAX!

[Rellik]

Another consideration is if you are playing on a 4:3 screen or a widescreen. Full hud makes sense for 4:3 screens, but on a widescreen too much vertical real estate is lost with a full hud.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Rellik, on 13 November 2020 - 08:21 PM, said:

Another consideration is if you are playing on a 4:3 screen or a widescreen. Full hud makes sense for 4:3 screens, but on a widescreen too much vertical real estate is lost with a full hud.

Yeah, good point. I hate playing with a full HUD for this reason. Modern source ports have spoiled me.

[Dzierzan]

Only minimal! I loved that one since I first started playing Blood. I am also not suprised Ion Fury decided to have only minimal one as well (yes, I did read they experimented with full one but couldn't find anything good). Full ones are kinda OK, but they're taking too much space. I just love seeing my guns!

[The Battlelord]

Rellik, on 13 November 2020 - 08:21 PM, said:

Another consideration is if you are playing on a 4:3 screen or a widescreen. Full hud makes sense for 4:3 screens, but on a widescreen too much vertical real estate is lost with a full hud.

I totally agree.



I like both of them, i also think that the full HUD is even better if someone is new to the game, so that more infos can be checked better.

Minimal HUD is clean and i don't think there are problems if a player is used to the game and has that "feeling" to know on fly what he own and can do with that equipment/items/weapons/ammo.


In the end everything is reduced to tastes as usual, and is just easy to switch between Full and Minimal.

[jkas789]

Rellik, on 13 November 2020 - 08:21 PM, said:

Another consideration is if you are playing on a 4:3 screen or a widescreen. Full hud makes sense for 4:3 screens, but on a widescreen too much vertical real estate is lost with a full hud.

I play on a widescreen and I honestly have never thought that too much vertical real estate is lost. I do see the use off minimal hud for screenshots because you want the thing you want to show to be on the picture as much as possible (a level design glitch, a weird voxel, etc) which is why I use the minimal HUD for screenshots.

[ReaperAA]

My opinion is similar to Ninety-Six, utility matters much more to me than art when it comes to HUD design.

In these 2 pictures of Blood that jkas789 posted, I will go with Fullscreen HUD only because of being able to see ammo of all the weapons. If that info was available on the minimal HUD, I would go with that.

In Doom, my favorite HUD is the ZDoom's alternate HUD because that not only takes less space, but also even gives more info than the vanilla Doom HUD.

[Aleks]

I use full HUD in Duke (besides when taking screenshots), also always got the "level stats" shown. I got too used to it over the years to change to anything else, plus I like to see the keycards and ammo count for each weapon at all times. However, I can see the advantages of minimal HUD - like mentioned, more vertical space on screen.

[oasiz]

Biggest problem with "big hud" design is really that that they are optimized so that a certain amount of lines don't get rendered. It's just like a border, very big slabs of non-3D space.
They served a very practical purpose ages ago but not so much anymore, especially with widescreen it gets really hard to justify bigger loss of vertical space like that.
What's required is something like this or hud elements that are more "floating" or otherwise designed around it better, real answer is "both".

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[jkas789]

oasiz, on 15 November 2020 - 08:13 AM, said:

Biggest problem with "big hud" design is really that that they are optimized so that a certain amount of lines don't get rendered. It's just like a border, very big slabs of non-3D space.
They served a very practical purpose ages ago but not so much anymore, especially with widescreen it gets really hard to justify bigger loss of vertical space like that.
What's required is something like this or hud elements that are more "floating" or otherwise designed around it better, real answer is "both".

Huh I suppose that is and edit of yours? Never seen that HUD before I think.