Okay so I've been touring the new UI and it seems to me it is a zero sum gain as some of the things that were easy to spot like self attributes, rule attribute selection are now harder to access. Keep the expression editor and the behaviors the way they are and the side window should function like a inspector window as Apple UI designs them so you have a tab for the actor attributes and then one for the scene. It crazy that you have to drag in every part of a rule when it was easier the old way...just fix what was broken not changing what worked....think work flow, work flow...you guys talk to game team 1 right? Apple is the gold standard of UI design that should be the goal.
definitely this is not a good interface, the old is a thousand times better, the typical program looks bad, you get off to windows and do not know what to do with, please do not put this interface on mac, (I understand it is an open beta and is not definitive). If you have two screens is incredibly hard work in this new interface.
It looks like there are a lot of improvements overall, the live preview of the actor position is awesome! And backstage and working with multiple tabs could really improve work flow as well. However as @FryingBaconStudios said there are some things that seem to be a step back. And it seems like the new creator, by having the screen split between the scene editor and backstage (while it may be very convenient in some circumstances, and be good on a dual monitor set up), will seem very cramped and difficult to navigate, especially on smaller screens and macbooks.
All in all though there's great potential here to significantly improve the current Mac UI, something I've been dying to see for a while now. I'm very excited to see how gamesalad shapes up in the next few months or so, an improved UI in addition to native code will make it a very powerful tool.
Sometimes the best thing is to show what you mean so I took a quick tour through three UIs I think have it down pat. Apple's Motion, Tumult Hype and Pro Presenter. My hope is by showing what I want to see in a UI will help to refine and convey what we as developers need in a work space.
i like the new work float, game salad can never seem to optimize the screen real-estate up until now. at least there are some improvements.. but for example, those black bars.. they are waste of space... it gets hard to edit an iPad project on any laptop given such small space that you have to work with.why don't you try some of the floating effect that's been fairly common in say "the dock" or take a look at how adobe lightroom does their panels and work float? as a photo editing software the "image/project" is the most important thing. and everything centers around it.
i guess what i mean is why do you have to click hide and unhide the backstage when they should be given the option to automatically fly out when mouse over, overlapping the project. and when you mouse out you see the project as a whole.
Gamesalad for windows looks great! I love the new UI, especially the fact that the actor editor, or backstage, is able to be undocked along with other windows. There is only one thing I would change, the rule editor. The way you edit rules is a lot more confusing and time consuming than in the Mac version because of how you need to drag an object from the conditions library instead of selecting a condition from a simple drop down menu. That said, I still like the idea that we can type in behaviors instead of draging and dropping them into backstage. Also, I think that the place where people spend the most time in the software, which is most likely backstage, should stay mostly the same to eliminate any confusion or aggravation. Other than that, I'm glad the Gamesalad Kitchen has added Windows to its recipe.
I'm really excited for the new update to the UI, and that GameSalad is coming to Windows! Love the design's thoughtfulness in increasing speed in workflow! My first thought with it being on Windows is the possibility of being able to develop for Windows Phone. Microsoft's marketplace is not the strongest, and getting some great GameSalad games on there will only help. I know that Microsoft is looking for developers for their Windows Phone. I don't know if a partnership is in the works, but I sure hope so!
Another thing I thought about is how easily we will be able to import Mac projects to the Windows GS, and vice versa. If the Windows version cannot publish to iPhone and other Apple products, but can port to Windows Phone, being able to import projects quickly and easily will be a lifesaver.
For the behavior browser, I think that having an 'ALL' option to be able to see all of them at once (like it is in the Mac GameSalad UI) will help the UI as well. Overall, love what you're doing, and I hope we see some of your improvements sometime very soon!
The mac version is more organised for the actors, game attributes, devices, scene attributes, layers, behaviors, images and sounds. The only thing I really like is that you can see the X and Y of an actor. I've made a mockup of what I think it should look like :
@crazycam99 you're right,but i find the idea of backstage great,so you can change the attributes of your actor without double-click... maybe that would be an idea for the mac version,too...
@crazycam99 I like that first pic and if the. Eliminated the wasted space at the bottom where the description is they could shift over the behaviors and put the scene and actor attribute to the left of the behaviors and the eliminate some of the dead space around the stage and add the backstage area where you see the behavior logic and then you never back out of anything and you're always on the scene.
@crazycam99 I like those mock ups, but I think they should keep backstage, it has good potential it just needs to be tweaked a bit.
@FryingBaconStudios That actually sounds good. I think one of the biggest problems with the UI now is just that there's a lot of wasted screen real estate. Being able to see as much as possible on the screen at once (such as the scene editor, actors, attributes, rules and logic etc) is obviously preferred but the tricky thing is balancing and placing all that in a way that doesn't leave the screen cramped. Things could get tricky on a 15in macbook, let alone a 13in macbook air for example. On a large desktop monitor though, I think the new UI will work nicely enough for something that isn't finalised yet.
Oh my goodness, I am freaking out right now. I took a break from GS, but this has made me want to come back and snag a pro sub!
Anyone have any idea how long it *might* take to get accepted to the beta after signing up? I'm literally bouncing in my chair right now wanting to test it!
I prefere the ui of the mac version and the one of my mockup because my computer screen is small (macbook air 11') and I 'm thinking that there won't be the place for the new ui. But backstage isn't a bat idear. I think GS should do a mixture of my 1st mockup and backstage.
Really liking the constant display of the co-ordinates. Having to open the actor to check the placement is a real pain. Backstage is a great idea but I would prefer the look-and-feel to be little more like the existing mac sidebar. I think having two un-dockable menus, one like backstage and the other for the scene would be my preference. Snap-to-grid wasn't mentioned but that would be one thing that would speed up my workflow the most.
I think it is the stage that needs to be detachable so it can be viewed on a second screen independently. Great for full screen/tablet views. If this option is used then the backstage can move up to fill the right-hand panel. This will give three panels across the layout but allows them to have the full vertical height of the display.
As stated in the video it would be great to have the attributes window as a tab within the Library section. Then the left-hand panel could be used to house all the behaviours.
The Backstage portion needs to be in view as default and hidden as needed. It is a crucial element and must be in view when a new user meets the software.
Wow, great feedback you guys. Some of the gripes I totally understand. Game Team One has worked extremely close with the product development team to ensure the workflow of the new UI improves the elements that were not tight in the Mac editor without introducing new issues. The UI you are testing out right now is a few months old. The design had to reach a cut off point in order to pass along to QA and get it into your hands now.
We have still been working on improvements all along and the good news is most of the feedback in this thread has already been addressed and will be reflected in a coming update to the Windows beta. If you check out the official screen shots of the tool you will see some inconsistencies in layout because they are taken of the newer UI. This gives you a better idea of how we are breaking the attribute inspector pane out of the backstage, and completely doing away with the browser bar at the bottom of backstage. Instead we are reintroducing the expression editor and attribute browser popups like the Mac creator, only BETTER. Eventually, every tab in the interface will be able to be undocked for a truly customizable layout.
In the meantime, I hope you all like some of the other goodies like the auto-complete fields in backstage and the early version of the tabbed interface. It will take a few iterations but in time this UI will be the definitive one for Creator. Think of it like the leap from NES to Super Nintendo
@gameteamone that is great news...We all really do want GS to be awesome! And a great workflow and the new engine will really boost our productivity. Version 9.9.2 is not a terrible interface just that it didn't have return memory on the tabs and having to share the stage window with the behaviors. So it sounds like the team gets it and I'm glad your a voice for us who have to work in it daily.
I actual love the Mac creator as it is. I'm sure a lot of you do as well. There is no need to move things around (too much). Just add things like grids, snap to's, visible x y co- ords, multiple selects, muliti copy/paste, parenting, canvas zooming. If you change it too much you'll run the risk of making a 'new' program. 2 programs I use daily and love the interface are apple keynote and adobe after effects. Both very different, but each work very well. Plus with each new revision, the UI doesn't change, but the features stack up. I think GS Mac creator has a good layout. Just add more use ability features.
@doguz I don't agree..although many of the features as is are very good, the interface elements need to have their own defined space that presents itself without having to dig. Look at Apple's motion, a program I work in a lot. Tons of attributes and info, key frames, time duration, layers,filters, effects et.. All visable on one screen and not crowded even on a laptop. If they can duplicate that kind of interface, as GS in not even close to being that complex, the UI would rock. Change is good as long as it's done right and doesn't try to change what works but builds around what works..
I don't know where @JohnPapiomitis gets his information from, but it doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars to get your game on XBL Arcade. There's a program for indie devs that's gets you on the Windows Mobile and XBL Arcade for $99/year. It wouldn't surprise me if that's where GS is going with this.
I would question GS if they developed the GS Windows creator in XNA, that would just be odd.
Isn't XNA used for everything windows based? As far as I know xbox, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows phone, Windows 8 tablet and so on.. All use XNA so it can't be any indicator
Isn't XNA used for everything windows based? As far as I know xbox, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows phone, Windows 8 tablet and so on.. All use XNA so it can't be any indicator
Yes, XNA is used to build games for Windows based platforms. It's not a requirement though, it's just one of the many options you have. You could just build a game in .NET if you wanted to. For example you could use Unity and C# to build games on Windows, no XNA involvement there.
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Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
All in all though there's great potential here to significantly improve the current Mac UI, something I've been dying to see for a while now. I'm very excited to see how gamesalad shapes up in the next few months or so, an improved UI in addition to native code will make it a very powerful tool.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
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editor, or backstage, is able to be undocked along with other windows. There is only one
thing I would change, the rule editor. The way you edit rules is a lot more confusing and
time consuming than in the Mac version because of how you need to drag an object from
the conditions library instead of selecting a condition from a simple drop down menu. That said, I still like the idea that we can type in behaviors instead of draging and dropping them into backstage. Also,
I think that the place where people spend the most time in the software, which is most
likely backstage, should stay mostly the same to eliminate any confusion or aggravation.
Other than that, I'm glad the Gamesalad Kitchen has added Windows to its recipe.
It makes me Yaaaaaarrrr! :ar!
Welcome windows users!
Another thing I thought about is how easily we will be able to import Mac projects to the Windows GS, and vice versa. If the Windows version cannot publish to iPhone and other Apple products, but can port to Windows Phone, being able to import projects quickly and easily will be a lifesaver.
For the behavior browser, I think that having an 'ALL' option to be able to see all of them at once (like it is in the Mac GameSalad UI) will help the UI as well. Overall, love what you're doing, and I hope we see some of your improvements sometime very soon!
you're right,but i find the idea of backstage great,so you can change the attributes of your actor without double-click...
maybe that would be an idea for the mac version,too...
WTDeveloper
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
@FryingBaconStudios That actually sounds good. I think one of the biggest problems with the UI now is just that there's a lot of wasted screen real estate. Being able to see as much as possible on the screen at once (such as the scene editor, actors, attributes, rules and logic etc) is obviously preferred but the tricky thing is balancing and placing all that in a way that doesn't leave the screen cramped. Things could get tricky on a 15in macbook, let alone a 13in macbook air for example. On a large desktop monitor though, I think the new UI will work nicely enough for something that isn't finalised yet.
Anyone have any idea how long it *might* take to get accepted to the beta after signing up? I'm literally bouncing in my chair right now wanting to test it!
As stated in the video it would be great to have the attributes window as a tab within the Library section. Then the left-hand panel could be used to house all the behaviours.
The Backstage portion needs to be in view as default and hidden as needed. It is a crucial element and must be in view when a new user meets the software.
We have still been working on improvements all along and the good news is most of the feedback in this thread has already been addressed and will be reflected in a coming update to the Windows beta. If you check out the official screen shots of the tool you will see some inconsistencies in layout because they are taken of the newer UI. This gives you a better idea of how we are breaking the attribute inspector pane out of the backstage, and completely doing away with the browser bar at the bottom of backstage. Instead we are reintroducing the expression editor and attribute browser popups like the Mac creator, only BETTER. Eventually, every tab in the interface will be able to be undocked for a truly customizable layout.
In the meantime, I hope you all like some of the other goodies like the auto-complete fields in backstage and the early version of the tabbed interface. It will take a few iterations but in time this UI will be the definitive one for Creator. Think of it like the leap from NES to Super Nintendo
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
I would question GS if they developed the GS Windows creator in XNA, that would just be odd.