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I've gotten used to the new icons as well (never played WOXL), but you're
right that the leech beem and quake look alike, sometimes I absord a quake
because of that...
However the missile, shield, bomb look fine in HD (I prefer them over WOXL).
Having extra colors instead of just green / red / blue, would be good indeed.
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post consolidated to beginning of thread
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To make sense HD's 2097 HUD needs 10 segments in the energy area, 1 segment for each 10%, since there is no number this would help more than just putting back 11 segments. ;)
And then speed/thrust to be consistent too.
I agree with the font being too small for the lap times and x of x.
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Wipeout 3;
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/2883/iconsw.jpg
(icons without HD/wo3 counterparts on the right, original icons stretched a bit because the emulator I was using didn't render the proper aspect ratio)
You can see the differences... honestly, I don't mind the newer WOHD icons TOO much, but the original icons maintain a sense of continuity with the whole HUD at least. The abbreviations in WO3 helped make the icons a little more recognizable when racing.
MI - Mines
RT - Rocket
PB - Plasma Bolt
MM - Multi Missile
QD - Quake Disruptor
ED - Energy Drain
AP - Auto Pilot
GS - Gravity Shield
FW - Force Wall
CL - Cloak
RF - Reflector
HD could have slightly altered abbreviations; HM - missile, SH - shield, CN - cannon, TU - turbo, BM - bomb... hahaha bm
Even the HD icon color scheme isn't bad for the WO3 hud... the original HUD had color-categorized power-ups, maroon for offensive and yellow for defensive.
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the general differences between the HUDs' onscreen layout are what really interrupt things.
HD
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9503/wo3hdingame.jpg
original
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/9263/wo3ingame.jpg
- While he font is considerably more accurate to the original compared to the XL HUD... All text, icons, counters, and graphs in the HD version are too small (my HUD settings are at 100%). The info at the bottom of the screen in the original HUD was basically a full bar, in the HD version it has been split up and shrunken to the point where you can't see it without deliberately taking some of your attention away from the race.
- Position "X of Y" in the HD version is in the wrong corner
- in the original hud, there is no "Lap X of Y" counter
--- the lower left counter would keep track of your total race time, its tab was blue
--- for each lap, there were five positions along the bottom of the screen (two slots for Vector, 3 for venom, 4 for rapier, 5 for phantom).
----the tab for the current lap counter would be blue, the tab for previous laps was grey.
----you didn't need a lap counter because each slot stood for whatever lap you were on. The only need for a lap counter would be if you chose more than 5 laps, at which point, the HUD could accommodate a lap counter in the upper right portion of the screen, since WOHD doesn't use checkpoints. But like the XL HUD, lap and position counters should be next to each other so both can be viewed in one glance.
- in the original HUD, the blue slider on your speed graph stood for how hard you were pushing on the accelerator and it had a darker blue/grey slider which represented your speed. In the HD version, these are switched.
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/5632/wo3autopilot.jpg
- in the original game, when auto pilot was engaged, the AP icon would appear on the left side of the screen
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The Wip3out heads up display in WipEout HD annoys me a bit, I recognise it as the Wip3out HUD but you can always see the small errors that only people who like attention to detail will notice.
I've read through AG-Wolf's post and attempted to make a HD correct version of the Wip3out HUD. Stupidly, I took the photo of the HUD whilst in speed lap mode so I'll have to redo it in single race. Here is what I've come up with anyway: Wip3out HUD HD.
Far from perfect but you should get the gist. It has some of the missing assets showing, which is why rockets and auto pilot are both there ;).
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Close so far :3 but the speed/shield graphs in the lower right and the timer in the lower left are still too far apart D:
I was actually gonna do what you did and try to make a high-res mockup of both XL and WO3 but I just wanted to get the initial notes down first.
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I've tried again still a bit off, but much closer this time. The bottom of the HUD is closer, but the 16:9 aspect ratio of WipEout HD makes it a bit disproportionated. I've done a race HUD, complete with mock-up to see what it might look like.
New HUDs [Large image warning]: Racing HUD, HUD in race mock-up
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thaaaats a bit nicer :D Damn, I have a lot to do this weekend but now I wanna sit at the computer and toy around with this stuff too hahaha
Also, remember, WO3 had a widescreen mode. THat shot of porto kora I posted is the proper aspect ratio
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What I like about the WO3-HUD in WOHD is the use of the pit-arrow. It works pretty well as a contender indicator.
(If I'm wrong about the arrow, then I probably played the game far too long ago and I mixed things up)
EDIT:
Even though I'm not sure if I like the WO3-HD-HUD, I can understand the changes the team made to the original HUD. As most people play WOHD on a HDTV, there is no need to make letters big anymore, as there are a lot more DPI on HDTVs compared to SDTV, which makes even small letters readable. Because of that, you can easily make the HUD smaller in size without losing legibility and thus see more of the game as it's not covered by the HUD anymore.
I can also understand, that there's a "lap X of X" in the corner, as it adds to the design of the (original) HUD, because that way every corner is filled with something and the HUD doesn't look inconsistent without the checkpoint counter.
But I can imagine that even though HDTVs with high DPI counts cannot make up for what counts for game play: The ability to get the HUD's information as fast as you can (with one look most preferable) so you can focus on the actual race again. And because of that, big letters are probably still the best choice, especially with a fast moving sourrounding like in WO. I can't really review that as I played WOHD only for one or two times.
Concerning the weapon icons: I find the WOHD icons placed into the WO3 HUD design highly irritating and bad-looking.
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And a fantastic option (and probably VERY very easy to implement) would be:
ability to hide/disable/kill the hud (pirhapac's idea btw).