Whim: HUD Concepts

I figure it's about time I started having something to show for myself, so I've skipped over the character stuff while I press on with whim's design.

starting with the look, it's funny how much plans change once everything gets laid out on paper.. 

armor bar (bottom left, white) is getting kicked off the main-stage completely and getting into the debuff popups once it starts breaking. I want armor to work differently than a standard bolt-on to your HP bar, I wanted something that works slower .. like valve-style! where it takes a fraction of your hits and wears down slowly. something slow doesnt need to be a main HUD bar. a waste of perfectly good space!

also cut, the balance gauge. I wanted a side-system where using your strong attacks, certain skills or getting hit would effect your balance, making you vulnerable to getting stunned or knocked down. visually distracting and too similar to how the energy bar already worked, it didnt last too long. I still like the idea though, so I'll probably just hijack soul's poise system and run a force/steady calculation any time you take damage. that'll work fine :)

anyways, onto the actual stuff here.. everything near the bottom of the pic came first

• number one was the bottom right hud. bland and simplistic bleh. even if I'd crammed all the bars I wanted into it, it's always gonna look like a game of simon -_-
• bottom left was next and it came out -way- too sci-fi-ey. maybe it might have looked good in something else, but it's not the vibe I was going for at all.. the green buttons below were temps for the skill hud (which I havent made yet, and I'm still deciding on whether it gets stuffed into the same hud chunk or not)
• sword hud came shortly after. it could have been interesting, but the grimdark vibe took over a bit too much..
• top two are close to what I'm shooting for, though I'm not entirely happy with either. big square on the lower one was for showing next autonimous skill, giving you a chance to change it. question was what to use it for outside of combat though.. not sure, but I suppose I could cram the day-clock into the single hud, if I wanted.

and... thats all I'm really ready to show off at this stage. I wanted to have more, but I've been plagued by a few tech issues lately (hopefully I've replaced everything I needed to. fingers crossed!) plus, I'm trying to me mindful of working with the ever-shifting design space .. I dont want to talk too much about something before I can get it mapped out properly. but anyway, I ought to have all the main UI stuff done by next update time. and I'll then ramble about the wound system and the autonomous player AI.  ~ so seeya then