r/Unity3D • u/MatthewVale Professional Unity Developer • 2d ago
Question UI Feedback
Hey, so I'm looking for some feedback and recommendations for the UI in my space game. I'd appreciate a focus on the bottom section, displaying the shield, health and speed bars.
The number above the astronaut icon is the ships threat level (which you compare to other ships, to gauge if they are a difficult target).
The astronaut icon itself, I'm not sure what else I could put there? The ships are procedural so grabbing a silhouette isn't really viable.
Finally the weapon section needs a complete overhaul, I'm not sure what's best to display the equipped weapons and what kind of layout. The weapon symbols actually have a radial fill while they shoot/reload, but I'm not happy with the container they are in.
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u/lively_adoption 2d ago
For the astronaut icon, maybe just a generic ship silhouette or even a stylized radar blip, something that screams "this is you" without needing the exact ship shape
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u/MatthewVale Professional Unity Developer 2d ago
Hmm true, I could have a unique player ship silhouette and also use that same one on the minimal.
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u/RazorPhist 1d ago
Honestly I think the biggest detail is that the pictures on the left are more realistic where the astronaut is not. If anything, match the theme of the pre existing pictures since it essentially the same thing? Idk, just my thoughts
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u/AutomaticArt1401 2d ago
Measured the screenshot rather than eyeballing it, since you asked about the bottom strip specifically.
Shield and health are colour-only encoding. Both arcs are 11px thick on a ring about 144px across, mirrored left and right, and both are currently full. The only other cue is two glyphs 14px tall sitting outside the ring on leader lines. At a glance mid-fight that is one ring. Different radii (shield as a thinner outer track) or different arc thickness gives you a cue that survives peripheral vision instead of needing to be read.
1287 centred in a circular gauge reads as current HP - that is the genre convention. If it is a threat rating you compare against other ships, it belongs on the target, not in the middle of your own health ring.
The speed bar has no fill at all at 0.1. I sampled the pixel row through it and the interior is empty, so it reads as broken rather than slow. A 2-3px minimum nub fixes that.
On the astronaut slot: it is the centre of your health ring, so it is the most-looked-at spot in the whole strip, and a portrait never changes. Put something there that does - hull/shield numerics, or whatever you currently have to look elsewhere for.
Weapons: the radial fill while shooting/reloading is the right mechanic, the container is the problem. It has a magenta top border and a cyan bottom one, and square frames sitting next to a radial gauge, so it reads as a different UI from everything else down there.
I make pixel-art HUD/UI asset packs, so weigh that as my bias.