Bluddy's UI Mod

[Bluddy]

So I decided to try my hand at a UI mod. Why, you might ask, when you have choices like MellowUI? Well, there are certain things I wanted to improve:

- It's really important to be able to monitor your Mana, HP and Stamina levels, especially if you're using my Balance Mod. However, all 3 displays are in the corner of the screen, making them hard to notice without shifting your gaze to that corner.
- You also need to be aware of skill cooldowns, but those are nearly impossible to notice since they're at the bottom, and your attention is on other areas of the screen.
- I don't like how the extra 10 skills pop out, eating up more screen real-estate.
- On the other hand, there's no need to have your bags constantly displayed on the bottom bar. They're part of your equipment.
- Certain imperfections, like the way the target's label is stretched out, annoyed me.

At the same time, I didn't care about some other things that the other UI mods had.

So here's my attempt at a UI mod -- get uimod.zip. If you have the expansion, use uimodexp.zip
as well. Just stick the first file in your Dins Curse/Assets directory, and your second file (for the expansion) in Dins Curse/Expansions/Demon War/Assets. It's almost certainly incompatible with any other UI mod, and it requires version 1.024 or later of Din's Curse.

This mod:
- Moves the HP, mana and stamina bars, and status effect icons to the bottom where you can see them easily.
- Moves the bags slots to the equipment screen (and adds a bag icon for when you don't use all the slots.)
- Enlarges the player status effect icons so they're more noticeable.
- Moves all of the buttons above the skill slots.
- Fills the whole bottom of the screen with 18 skill slots.
- Removes the extra skill slot bar since it's unnecessary.
- Touches up various textures, like the wooden texture used for most menus.
- Moves all character info into one window, so you can see everything about the character without going back and forth between the character windows.
- Changes the color of all in-game buttons from blue and purple to shades of brown and red. (This part is a work in progress. If you have better ideas for a color scheme, let me know).

BTW I had a version where the targeting info was at the bottom, making the bottom of the screen the go-to location for any critical info. Unfortunately, the bug that makes the targeting info flash on and off repeatedly which is present in 1.024 makes this configuration unbearable.

[Castruccio]

Nice job Bluddy, can't wait to try it out. Now if we could only get that mysterious casting bar back...

[Bluddy]

A new version is out. I skipped to version 4 since I had some internal tests to do in the other versions.

In this version (see picture in the first post) I've managed to move all the buttons above the skills, and the skills now occupy the entire bottom of the display. With 18 skills available, I didn't think there was a need for the ugly extra skill bar and removed it.

Also, I've made the player status effect icons a little bigger. I find that this makes it easier to notice when you have an active status effect.

[Castruccio]

Wow this is way better than the previous version.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Castruccio

Wow this is way better than the previous version.

Yeah this is much closer to what I originally had in mind. I just needed to figure out how where to put the buttons.

[Bluddy]

A new version up with a few cosmetic changes that caused me to put in almost every UI file.

I added icons for the bag slots so it's now clear what should go there. I also fixed up the wood frame graphic that was bothering me for many reasons. Finally, I completely changed the color scheme of the buttons in the game. DoP and Kivi had good buttons, but for some reason DC has the most atrocious colors (blue and purple). Changing all of the colors meant that I also had to split the mod up into 2 parts, one for the original game and one for the expansion. I'd like to think that I picked a better palette, or at least one that is more consistent with the colors of the game.

Oh, and I couldn't change the color of the button in the town gate. That one seems inaccessible. Sorry.

[Bluddy]

I updated the mod to a new version. The reason for this is technical: I had included so many UI files to do the button color changes, that the mod became incompatible with just about any new patch or other mod. In this version, I changed the way I did the buttons so they're painted on top of the old buttons with the mergeWith command. It's still a whole bunch of files, but it's a lot cleaner and more compatible.

[Amberjoy]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

I updated the mod to a new version. The reason for this is technical: I had included so many UI files to do the button color changes, that the mod became incompatible with just about any new patch or other mod. In this version, I changed the way I did the buttons so they're painted on top of the old buttons with the mergeWith command. It's still a whole bunch of files, but it's a lot cleaner and more compatible.

If the thumbnail snap is any indication of the color changes, I don't like it. On my screen it looks like..umm..poop. If you must use brownish tones, please change it to something else or a different shade. Just downloaded the two mods and will see if it's as bad as the thumbnail. Rest looks interesting. I, too, was bothered by the stat bar being in the upper left corner and I kept forgetting about it until it was too late sometimes.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Amberjoy

If the thumbnail snap is any indication of the color changes, I don't like it. On my screen it looks like..umm..poop. If you must use brownish tones, please change it to something else or a different shade. Just downloaded the two mods and will see if it's as bad as the thumbnail. Rest looks interesting. I, too, was bothered by the stat bar being in the upper left corner and I kept forgetting about it until it was too late sometimes.

I think it actually looks worst in the title screen: the title screen has so many buttons, it basically relies on them for the color scheme, and this is the place where the blue buttons actually work IMO. However, the blue and purple really doesn't match the color scheme or the ambience of the game in general. The theme of the interface tends to be wood and metal, so I was looking for colors along those lines.

If you have any suggestions with regard to colors (especially after you see the color in the game itself) feel free to let me know.

[Bluddy]

Version 0.07 includes all of the stats in one character sheet. Check out the screenshot.