Character portraits on soldier stat screens, or gender field

[Hythlodaeus]

When it comes to certain default soldier names, sometimes it's hard to distinguish men from women, which can lead those who like to rename their soldiers to sometimes giving names which are exclusive to the opposite gender. To avoid this, and to make it easier to identify soldiers in general, I would like to propose a simple two-fold solution: either add a gender field, or a character portrait in the soldier stat screen. Here's a quick MSpainted mock up:



And here's the original, in comparison

[luke83]

I like the idea of the portraits , but i think we need a 100 new portraits  so we re not looking at the same 6 every time , any good pixel artist around?
Its there any photo to PIXEL converters around , maybe we could use our real heads.

For now how about a Male or Female Symbol ?

[Hythlodaeus]

I like the idea of the portraits , but i think we need a 100 new portraits  so we re not looking at the same 6 every time , any good pixel artist around?

Well we could post a request for one. The project could use a few graphic upgrades at this point, and given its development stage, it shouldn't be that hard to lure a decent pixel artist. A few good places to post a request would be TIGsource forums, PixelJam forums or the Pixelation community.

For now how about a Male or Female Symbol ?

Does the current font set even have those? If not we'll have to make one.

[luke83]

 I don't know about the font, i just though add the picture of a male or female symbol on the same location as you added the unit image.

[Hythlodaeus]

So something like this? I kinda suck at pixel art, btw. Also, added a little space between the picture frame and the name field, because I think it looks more like a profile card that way.

[54x]

Why do partial portrait when you can load the whole thing? We have full character graphics from the battlescape equip screen that we can use.

If we remove the seperate large text and add the numbers to the right of the graph, like so, and squish it down so it only shows values up to 110, we can get something like my attachment, which should have sufficient room to display a full portrait to the right. If that leaves additional space we can eventually put a customise button there to allow you to change hair styles, colour, or armour settings.

I went ahead and removed "OK" in favour of an X button. We're not accepting any changes, so OK is inappropriate in modern interface parlance. I moved the soldier browsing buttons to the top of the frame and added an edit button to make it more obvious that you can rename soldiers.

[pmprog]

It's only really the head that differs, so using all that space just to draw the same body.

so OK is inappropriate in modern interface parlance

What? Nearly all my dialogues and options windows have "OK" and "Cancel" on them.

[moriarty]

I'd rather have just the head there, too. The primary purpose of this screen is giving information, and the full soldier view is more of a distraction, I think.

usually, this screen is accessed from the soldier equip screen anyway, so the full view is just one click away. at least in the battlescape.

as I mentioned somewhere else, in my "vision of a perfect x-com", the stat screen would always be paired with the equip screen, even in the basescape. no matter where you access one or the other, clicking the rank icon (top left) would switch between "stat" and "equip".

[54x]

It's only really the head that differs, so using all that space just to draw the same body.
What? Nearly all my dialogues and options windows have "OK" and "Cancel" on them.

Yes, a dialogue is asking for acknowledgement of an issue or change of settings, so OK is an appropriate response there. The soldiers screen isn't really doing any of that so it shouldn't have an "OK" button- it is presenting you information to review, much like a web browser does. You wouldn't press "OK" to close your web browser.

The head will be the main thing that differs, I agree, however if we have customised armour at any point, I'd personally like to be able to view the whole paperdoll. (Plus there's something creepy about disembodied heads) There's actually significant blackspace in my proposed image now I've got my hands on actual paperdolls, so room for a customise bitton, or an equip button, or even some additional information, and for enlargening the axis a bit further.

[moriarty]

that mock-up looks rather nice. I think you have a point there. you have convinced me, what about the others?

[pmprog]

Yeah, I quite like that mock up too. Get it modded so I can show it off in the LP

[Hythlodaeus]

That's a very interesting mockup 54x, but personally, I still think the soldier's face should be displayed in the character profile, because it allows for quicker identification, and helps the player to familiarize with the character, even when he/she is behind a heavy suit of armor. Perhaps we can make it so that the profile shows a helmet-less version of the armored suits, kinda like they did in TFTD. It's a character chart after all. Why wouldn't it include the soldier's face by default?

[moriarty]

those helmet-less versions for the equip screen have been done before, and yes, I also think those are way cooler than the original

about the "full soldier" vs. "only face" in the equip screen, I'm still not sure. but that mock-up looks so cool, I would really like to see that in the game

[Hythlodaeus]

those helmet-less versions for the equip screen have been done before, and yes, I also think those are way cooler than the original

about the "full soldier" vs. "only face" in the equip screen, I'm still not sure. but that mock-up looks so cool, I would really like to see that in the game

For me, it boils down too how much condensed information the character profile conveys at once. If all of this is directly accessible to the player in a single screen, not it will only save a lot of time, but it also leaves enough room for advanced soldier customization mods. I think 54x came up with a great concept here, the only downside being that the screen may feel a little too crowded/busy, which might lead to some confusion, especially with the new players. I too get the impression that we're messing with the smoothness and the simplicity of the original design here, which was quite frankly brilliant, in my opinion. But still, this is one of those cases where I believe the quicker access to essential information justifies mutilating the original menu designs.

[moriarty]

ah, so your only problem was not being able to see the face. now I understand.

there is one more thing that might become a problem: with the full soldier displayed, the rest is squashed together, which works in english, but the descriptions might be longer in other languages. that would be one real reason for limiting the image to the soldier's head in this view