More versatile GUI element(s) -- guiHTML layer?

I think the simplest option might be to simply provide a GUI HTML layer using IE on Windows, and Safari on the Mac, (and Opera on the Wii). Unless there's some magic somewhere I can't see, building sophisticated 2d UIs in Unity is pretty nightmarish.

 

Are you talking about inside Unity to help with the cumbersome GUIText layout? or on top of the game in the WebPlayer?

I think this is an awesome idea to allow us to format GUI layouts easily. But I am sure OTEE are working one something amazing to relieve us all of the current frustrations.

 

Yes I'm suggesting they basically stick a web browser in a GUItexture layer (well -- an html renderer with JavaScript support).

The nice thing about this is that you get a huge amount of functionality for free. It's pretty much how both EverQuest and World of Warcraft do their UIs, except they've both implemented a complex hotchpotch of custom xml + html + random script language stuff.

"But I am sure OTEE are working one something amazing to relieve us all of the current frustrations."

The major weakness I see in Unity right now is a lack of attention to 2d stuff. It will do anything you can think of in 3d, but try and implement any kind of 2D UI beyond showing your current ammo and you are in deep water.

 

I certainly wouldn't argue against this, but one thing to consider about features is their effect on run-time code size. If you throw everything that anyone could want in there, it's going to start bloating, though it of course makes development nicer. As it is, you've already got the code in your game for physics, for example, whether you're actually using physics or not. But UI stuff can be implemented relatively easily with custom scripting (unlike physics). So I wonder if this is an area where an enterprising third party could spend some time putting together a nice general 2D UI utility package that people could buy if they needed advanced UI functionality. Just an idle thought...probably there are issues with that I haven't thought of.

--Eric

 

Webkit is already installed on every Mac. IE is on every PC. It's just calls to system libraries.

"But UI stuff can be implemented relatively easily with custom scripting (unlike physics)."

Er, no it can't. Some UI stuff can be implemented relatively painfully with custom scripting.

"So I wonder if this is an area where an enterprising third party could spend some time putting together a nice general 2D UI utility package that people could buy if they needed advanced UI functionality."

Indeed, I've had the same thought.

But you're talking about an income stream comprising $x multiplied by a fraction of Unity users.

 

Search around the forum and you'll find that SeriousGames.dk who has a source license for Unity tried this for their game, and it turned out to be a serious dead end. They ended up scrapping it for some other better GUI system.

-Jon

 

By "this" I assume you mean using webkit / ie?

If so, we still need better UI stuff. I just thought this might be a relatively easy solution.

 

I think the issue (especially with IE), is rendering to a texture or otherwise getting the information into an OpenGL environment.

I posted this in another thread awhile ago--it's a "cleanroom" implementation of Flash that can render to texture or rasterize as polygons: http://www.scaleform.com/products_gfx.php . A lot of game companies are using it for UI work today.

 

I think the lack of a proper (let alone "Unity level") GUI system is a real pain in the ass for me right now. Networking is nice and all, but if there are no improvements planned in this area for Unity 2.0 or sooner, it'll be a big disappointment for me, and I'm sure for others as well.

 

By "relatively easily" I don't mean it would be trivial, just that you don't need a source code license to Unity itself or anything.

Well...if only a fraction of Unity users need that sort of thing, then it suggests that OTEE shouldn't make it a priority. I'd rather have fully dynamic shadows.

--Eric

 

"Well...if only a fraction of Unity users need that sort of thing"

No, only a fraction will buy a third-party gizmo.

Dynamic shadows would be great -- but isn't that essentially just a "pro" feature?

Another option would be to leverage QuickTime's support for Flash (at least up to version 5).

 

Depends on what this would add to the runtime. Not all PCs have QuickTime installed.

What specific features do people need? For me, I find it cumbersome moving GUITextures using the Scene View. Perhaps if you could:
a. Toggle the Scene View to GUI layout mode where your GUI objects would appear as they would in Game view
b. Constrain the GUI Objects to the bounds of the window (or at least have a toggle)
c. Be able to "nudge" the objects with the keyboard, if you alread can't. Memory is failing me at the moment.
d. Have a set of predefined widgets, although some, such as buttons, are not that difficult to do now.

 

Having a way of placing GUI elements in Orthographic view, so there is no distortion from camera perspective, or even have an Orthographic camera for that purpose that works like an overlay.

Sometimes you want GUI elements in your 3d space, but sometimes you don't. An Orthographic camera would seriously reduce the amount of fiddling and guess work for this type of setup.

 

That, at least, is already possible if you use two cameras. Then just put the 3D GUI objects on their own layer which is only seen by the orthographic camera. Of course, I'm probably misunderstanding what you're doing.

--Eric

 

Eric,

Sure, but you cant see that all happening in the editor.

Whats great about Unity (but is often a curse) is there are always ways of getting what you need done.. not always straight forward, but always do-able. The curse part is... some of it is tedious to the point of inhibiting work flow.

OTEE are aware of this... how can they not be, they are active on this forum. So, I am sure they have a plan, and it may not be for the next release, or it may be a bit by bit solution, but bottom line is... we can still do what we need in Unity as it is.. so its about improvements not failings.

Seon.

 

"Not all PCs have QuickTime installed."

Not all PCs have pretty much any darn thing installed

 

Look, I don't know about y'all, but it seems like we "should" be able to appropriate more from the stuff already implemented in the mono framework.

It's not that hard to get mono + gtk set up on your mac/pc. It doesn't really matter if we have to fall back gtk wise with Unity relative to the Gnome project.

The Nokia N800 runs a stripped down version of Gnome and has a fine HTML rendering system. We should be able to appropriate that to give Unity a lightweight, very advanced system for rendering things in 2d, including HTML.

There are projects I know of that already run GTK on win/lin/mac and there's no good reason to keep it out of unity.

The runtime size issue is not that bad; I for one would gladly pay dozens of megabytes for good 2d graphics.

 

It doesn't render HTML at all? maybe that's why my attempt to format a MySQL return in a table to display scores is broken?

 

The N800 is designed as a web browsing device ... and it has Opera embedded in it. Meanwhile, Nokia is using Webkit for future development...