By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 03:41 pm:

I finally decided to finish off at least one interface screen, this is how I should have shown it
in the first place!!!



For a full-size image click here

I have to say I really like it! I think it manages to strike a good balance between what
makes LW nice to use now and how it can be improved.

At it's core LightWave has a really easy to use workflow, selecting, moving, zooming,
creating keys etc. it's easy to throw stuff around to 'rough out' scenes. I wanted to keep this feel.

I also wanted to retain the way you can edit your own menus, I think this has been done very well.

What I did want to do is clean up was the palettes and windows, this is where I believe LW needs
some attention. My solution (which is just one solution) was to have a logical tab hierarchy
located at the bottom.

The interface look itself isn't meant to be Windows or OSX, just a clean, understated
extremely responsive, snappy interface. With a little hint of design!

So from top to bottom . . . (this is a bit long so I'll try and break it up!)

Top Menu

Along the top we have the same method of selecting your toolset as LW does now, I removed
the tabs because I think they are kind of divorced from where the toolset appears, normal tabs
have their contents enclosed within it's borders, I also think it lightens and cleans up the interface.

You would still be able to arrange them around like you can now with the existing tabs.



Sidebar Toolset

The toolset menu works in an almost identical way to the existing one with extra features such as
tearoff menus, double-click collapsing/expanding of tool groups, drag 'n' drop re-ordering.



View Bar

Again very little changes, an icon to indicate the view mode you're in rather than just a popup arrow,
also moved the grid size here (it was too out of the way before) and made it into a popup for easy
changing (for those who don't know the keyboard shortcut!)



Item Identification Tooltips

Anything on screen can be identified by tooltip hovering prior to selection.



Viewport Dragging

The whole interface would be 'rubber banded' allowing you to 'stretch space' where you need it.
I imagine this feature to have an option to delay updating of the viewports as the visual feedback
would be slow with complex scenes (as it is with LW at the moment).



Item Selection

This toolbar works exactly as the current one in LW. This is one aspect of the user interface I believe is
key to LW, changing how this works would totally change the feel of LW, it is always visible.

Items can also be renamed in the 'Select' box. Searching for items could also be possible by typing a '?' followed
by any characters you are searching for.



Proper Undo / Redo!

Multiple Undo / Redo should be in the next release, a nice addition would be a tooltip that tells you what will be
un-done / re-done if you hover the mouse over the button. If this was a popup menu instead it could show a list of
the history too.



Tab Hierarchy

Probably the biggest change. All the palettes are now docked in the bottom, of course they can be pulled out to
emulate how they work in LW at the moment, or for use on multiple monitors.

This keeps the main viewport free from floating palettes, they can be accessing pretty quickly, I imagine these would
also be user-definable as the sidebar toolset can be. This would probably mean a very simple interface editor would
need to be implemented, or if the gadget layout code was intelligent enough they could lay themselves out!

Double-clicking the active tab (the large ones) would also expand the whole tab hierarchy say halfway up the screen to
allow editing in say the graph editor easier (more space) double-clicking again would return the hierarchy back to it's original position.



Commonly used items in certain tabs would always be visible despite which 'sub-tab' you're in, in this example when in the 'Properties'
tab no matter which 'sub-tab' you're in (Geometry, Deform, Render etc) the coordinates will always be visible as it's a commonly used
item.



The coordinates box itself shows an example of how simple changes could make LW even easier and quicker to use, here the scene
units can be quickly changed to save having to bring up the display preferences, a toggle for World / Local coordinates is also shown.

I hope this gives a much better idea of how I would like to see LW's interface develop, keeping the good parts and moving on, cleaning up
the not so good parts. Also adding a LOT of functionality too without compromising existing workflow.

Be good to read your comments!

Cheers
Matt

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 03:47 pm:

Oops nearly forgot, I must thank Aristomenis for nabbing his 'Freak' scene from the Content directory, I hope he doesn't mind!!!

By Digital Freak (Trilogy) (203.31.48.72) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 05:35 pm:

Looks really good Matt.

You have put in a lot of thought into the design.

It's hard to tell, if it would actually work though, i'd happily give it a try if i could.
I like many of your features.

It's hard to know exactly what would work,
unless it's in reach of my wacom.

But the bottom toolbar, is a step forward methinks. It would cause me to click a lot less.
(which is always good) less flipping between tabs, and panels.

The fact that you can't customize the bottom toolbar and timeline, has annoyed me.

As future versions will be integrated, it's
likely that you will need to find twice as much room for all of the model tools too!

Still, nice work, nice thinking.....
And i'm glad to see people, looking for better ways to improve LW. Keep it up..
It's nice to see ways of LW evolving...

The only problem i'm having is that i can't load your interface into my LW.cfg to test...

By Panikos (Panikos) (213.149.179.151) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 05:58 pm:

Look very cool.

Keep in mind, that applications that are related to video/film need an appropriate "Monitor-working" area.

The bottom part cant occupy all this space.
A way to fold/unfold this, is preferable.

Keep pushing =O)

By Larry Leung (M_Shady) (141.155.24.172) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 07:01 pm:

I think you done another fantastic job here Matt. This interface look so sweet, i wish that is LW. I like the idea of panels being just tabs at the bottom portion of the UI. Btw, what happen to the timeline?

By Larry Leung (M_Shady) (141.155.24.172) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 07:01 pm:

I think you done another fantastic job here Matt. This interface look so sweet, i wish that is LW. I like the idea of panels being just tabs at the bottom portion of the UI. Btw, what happen to the timeline?

By Roger A. Cotton (Digilusionist) (204.210.49.126) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 09:56 pm:

Very elegant interface, Matt.

By Elmar Moelzer (Elmar_Moelzer) (62.47.36.118) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 10:30 pm:

Hello Matt
You designs are getting better! I am amazed by the patience and passion you put into this.
Still I am not too happy with it.
First I am not sure about the logic behind the bottom- parts.
And please just make it a little darker and give more contrast to the text. I am also not sure I like so much space covered by the interface.

By Lutz Albrecht (Mylenium) (194.175.216.253) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 12:30 am:

Hi Matt,

Well done so far. Even though it looks "over-tabbed" but as you stated everything can be made into floating menus as well so I will be more happy with that on a 2 screen setup.

To Elmar: As for the logic behind the tabs... Well so far Matt only copied what is already there and we will have to see if there are any changes in the future - I for instance would love to see all maps and edges become a surface attribute rather than an object property. Otherwise it's ok - making it darker wouldn't improve workflow (only because discreet has it, not everyone needs to copy it) and the text has enough contrast (I would perhaps omit the drop shadows).

Mylenium

[Pour Mylène, ange sur terre]

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 04:04 am:

I'm glad (most) of you like it, I put quite a lot of thought into how to improve what was there and move it along some.

Newtek are also going ahead with it (just kidding ;) !)

The most difficult part was the tabbed area, keeping it large enough to hold all the options and not making it sooo big that it takes up all the screen, this is why it has all the tabs and sub-tabs, so that more functions can be packed into a small space, I realise this might look over-tabbed, I'll have to look at making that easier on the eye.

Bear in mind though the 'screen-shot' is 1024x768 in size, most monitor resolutions would be much bigger than this (mine is at 1280x1024) so the main viewport would be much bigger than shown.

I was going for worst case to see how much I could push in there! In theory it could go down further, but does anyone works in less space?

As Larry quite rightly pointed out the timeline has been moved, it is under the 'Animation' tab along with playback and keyframe buttons.

The keyframe and playback stuff I would say is secondary because it's not used every other second and I would imagine nearly everyone would use 'Return' and 'Delete' keys for creating / deleting keyframes rather than use the buttons themselves.

The timeline is a sticking point, I was going to leave that on the top too like the selection tools because it is used quite often, but for space reasons I put it under the 'Animation' tab, I might try a version with it on top.

There could be a separate timeline toolbar that could be brought on top if users needed it often but didn't mind losing screen space.

Panikos, if you read the 'Tab Hierarchy' part again it says that double-clicking the active tab would slide it up over the interface and back again on another double-click.

Elmar, I'm going to do a dark version just for you ;)

Lutz is also correct, I have tried to use as much of what makes LW great right now, the bottom tabs are taken from other parts of the interface, apart from a few additions, note the 'Layers' tab ;)

A really good example of this is the 'Globals' tab. I've always thought the 'Global Illumination' panel is in the wrong place in the current version of LW, at the moment you have to select a light, bring up it's properties and then click the Global Illumination button.

To new users this will be confusing as Global Illumination is more part of the 'Scene' than one lights properties.

So I've pulled that panel out and placed it in the 'Global' tab.

The whole tab area could do with more logical "if the user click that button they will be doing this so they will need to see that property and not need that one etc." to make it really clean and easy to navigate.

Thinking about it a 'Motion' tab is needed.

The general idea is to 'drill down' to the option you want in about two clicks, I would hope that it would make finding options more logical for newer users.

I'm quite enjoying this process so I think I'm going to carry doing more screens, one I'm looking at doing is the 'Scene Manager' which would be a cross between the current 'Scene Editor', 'Motion Mixer' and 'Spreadsheet'.

I'd love to be able to 'program' this so I could try out the workflow aspects.

Maybe I'll try and do it in Director, hmmmm.

Stay tuned!

Cheers
Matt

By Lernie D Ang (Faulknermano) (210.14.22.226) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 06:38 am:

"he timeline is a sticking point, I was going to leave that on the top too like the selection tools because it is used quite often, but for space reasons I put it under the 'Animation' tab, I might try a version with it on top. "

i vote for a floating timeline! or a dockable one where you can place it under a viewport menu, at the top or bottom of the UI.

By Elmar Moelzer (Elmar_Moelzer) (62.47.36.118) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 07:08 am:

Hey Lutz
Ahem, you might not have noticed yet, that I am not a big fan of MAX or any discreet- product. In fact MAX copied the look of LW5.6 and earlier with the darker interface. No I generally prefer a darker interface and even LWs today- interface appears a lot darker than this proposal. Thats all. And I meant the logic behind the general layout of the bottom- interface. Too many folders and I am not sure what belongs where. It also seems that some parts of the bottom- interface are in the top as well- > waste of screenspace.
CU
Elmar

By Christian Avalos (Cavalos) (64.213.56.192) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 09:40 am:

I love it, it has the aspect of a reallly powerfull app. Of course is the same old LW but it looks awesome

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 12:56 pm:

Elmar you do have a good point regarding the duplication of the top and bottom menus, I haven't been through all the other screens so exactly what goes where still needs work.

I'm going to do a quick workflow breakdown / grouping excercise to make the whole menu system a bit more logical.

Have some ideas on how to make the tabs less, well tabby!!!

By Jacques Defontaine (Rng) (80.200.26.15) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 01:06 pm:

Really cool interface... I like it

Keep on.

By Roger A. Cotton (Digilusionist) (204.210.49.126) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 02:59 pm:

Matt, I really like what you've done so far. What about a semi-transparent timeline that overlays the bottom edge of the view? Since the timeline is a pretty simple interface element, it wouldn't take up too much room, and can always be accessible. The start frame input field and the end frame input field, however, would present placement problems, I guess.

By Lamont Gilkey (Lamont) (204.210.26.244) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 04:30 pm:

Heya Matt,

It looks really nice, and seems work-able because of the minimal floating panels (or none?). Being that I don't have a dual monitor set-up, having access to all the tools is a "new project" by itself.

My only concern is the amount of screen space taken by the bottom bar. Maybe this can hide? And pop up with a key-stroke? If so, I'd be a happy user.

By jin choung (Jin) (63.28.231.156) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 01:04 am:

BEAUTIFUL!!!

oh, and i love the whole data read out thing at the bottom. and the scroll bars and the collapsible menus!

geeeeeee... it's sooo beautiful! aesthetically it's just so perfect.

geez, if i had more flash experience, i'd love to get together with ya and actually PROTOTYPE the workflow with you!

it really is wonderful.

hey, but what about the HUD stuff?! oooh, perhaps an option to save screen realestate by getting rid of the bottom data read outs and 'pull it off' into a screen HUD?

actually, i'd even go more HUD than how 3d apps have been using the concept -

again, think F-16!!! so how to float data in your FOV to preserve realestate and present the data intelligibly and economically.

great work!

jin

By jin choung (Jin) (63.28.231.156) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 01:06 am:

oh,

and the 'subdivision order' thing is LAAAAaaaaame in lw now.

there should be a STACK with all relevant geometry displacement/subdiv stuff and let you order them in whatever order you want.

jin

By Panikos (Panikos) (213.149.179.151) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 04:01 pm:

When designing a UI for an app, you consider some features are seldomly used, and some features that cannot co-exist.

Hope this works as criterion too.
Keep thinking =O)

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 06:34 pm:

You're quite right to point that out Panikos, I've not done a full 'operational study' of every mode you can be in and which tools / info you would need - it's a pretty big task as I'll have to consider EVERY possible task the user could be doing, as you can imagine there are LOTS of permutations.

That's why I'm suggesting all the menus / tabs can be customised and then ordered how you want them.

The screen shots I'm showing just show one possible setup to illustrate basic layout and design.

I'm still working on it!

Cheers
Matt

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 07:27 pm:

Another update . . .



Fullsize Version

Changes:

Added timeline toolbar, I concur this should always be visible!

Changed a few menu names(this will change again no doubt!)

Removed the tabbed look on the sub-sections of the tab hierarchy make the whole deal less complex looking (I think it helps).

Added slider gadgets to the XYZ, HPB display to make it into a useful little move / rotate tool.

Changed a few visual details to make it less fussy.

And just for Lutz a dark version!!! (old design though)



Fullsize Version

More to come . . .

Matt

By Chris Moschella (Chris_M) (68.100.236.174) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 08:50 pm:

hey matt, does that undo button work ;-) hehehe

great great design

By Borhan Berthet (Labuzz) (81.48.37.147) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 11:06 pm:

Your interface looks cool. There's no command line for select nodes (for example when i enter light* Lw selects all the nodes beginning with the word light)or run scripts?
Another thing, what about an area for define a selection filter and selection priority.
One last thing, what about some shortcuts above each viewport for remenber diferent cam point of view.

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 03:53 am:

Borhan : "what about an area for define a selection filter"

That's weird! I had an nice idea for a 'quick select' panel which has a selection filter on it last night as I posting this up! Was gonna draw it up tonight!

Chris : I wish!!!

By Borhan Berthet (Labuzz) (80.14.50.151) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 06:19 am:

One more thing for the perspective viewport, I would love to have a little toggle for switch between different "Tumble" algo (modeler style or layout style) ( you have this in houdini)

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 06:32 am:

Borhan can you elaborate further, or mail me a screenshot of what you mean?

By Borhan Berthet (Labuzz) (80.14.50.151) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 10:31 am:

For the "Tumble around"? When you press the Alt + LMB while you are working in perspective view, you don't have the same behavior depending if you are in modeler or in Layout. in Layout you don't have a real Pan (one of the reason is certainly the "In place mode" that you have in layout), it's would be cool to have a toggle for switch between the two modes( in Layout but also in Modeler ).

The "in place mode" terminology come from Character studio, basically the character don't move while he's walking but world move instead.

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 11:14 am:

Isn't that similar to 'Centre Current Item' in Layout at the moment, where all viewport controls work around the selected items origin?

By Lamont Gilkey (Lamont) (67.117.206.125) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 11:18 am:

The one in Max physicaly centers the object in the world. Lightwave centers the viewport to the object.

By Borhan Berthet (Labuzz) (80.14.50.151) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 12:04 pm:

Yes 'Centre Current Item'= In place mode

But here i am talking about a switch for navigation in perpective viewport ( pan,rotate around object-->tumble).

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 07:11 pm:

If anyone is interested I've created a site for this 'project'.

LightWave vX Project

There is a simulation of an idea for a 'Selection Filter'. I was going to call this feature 'quick select' but it would only be quick on huge scenes, have a look see what you think.

Cheers
Matt

By tguze (Tguze) (219.22.56.88) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 11:52 pm:

Excellent.

By Dick (Dickma) (203.218.8.83) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 10:31 am:

Can I have this colour scheme?

/image{colour scheme}

Yours are too white and too bright (which hurt my eyes) Your site's text also need to highlighted by mouse to make them readable.

By Dick (Dickma) (203.218.8.83) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 10:33 am:

By Chris Moschella (Chris_M) (12.101.14.2) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 11:31 am:

Dick,you a denver bronco's fan? =]

By rock (Rock0) (64.231.144.47) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 03:35 pm:

Matt,

Your design concept seems modern, gorgeous, and practical.

Since it is also customized, it can be made to look almost like the current interface (with slightly improved layout) to satisfy those users who still cling on the current, ancient interface. Screen space (e.g. tear-off menus, or buttons to slide tabs or properties screen) to the side, etc.), fonts, colours, skins should not even be in the discussions today, since these should be considered standard in any modern interface design.

Matt, tremendous work.

Rock.

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 04:17 pm:

Thanks for all your comments, some good points here.

Next thing up is the 'Scene Manager'! Bit more thought needed for this one, already have some ideas . . .

By Dick (Dickma) (219.76.64.2) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 03:59 am:

Hi Chris_M

I've just found what is "denver bronco"(have a view of website)

Well I think Newtek has some design concepts that why they catorized the buttons in different Colors.

I think Matt should do a little research.

By Dick (Dickma) (219.76.64.2) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 04:04 am:

This is my color scheme in lwhub config:

BackgroundColor 64 64 64
DragButtonColor 248 164 0
StateButtonColor 0 0 255
ActionButtonColor 0 128 192
DialogButtonColor 248 164 0
InfoAreaColor 64 64 64
InfoAreaTextColor 255 255 0

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 05:16 am:

I'm aware the buttons are colour coded and you can change them in the hub, I've already changed my interface colours (and made all the buttons the same colour - soooo much easier on the eye!)

To be honest what I'm suggesting is a little more than changing just the colours!!!

By Roger A. Cotton (Digilusionist) (204.210.49.126) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 11:51 am:

Dick, the color-coding in the current interface seems to indicate which tools are integrated into the code, and which functions are plug-ins. In a unified code app, the interface wouldn't need differentiation in buttons like at present.

And really, those colors you suggested...

Matt, the more I look at your designs, the more I want LW to look just like them.

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 12:58 pm:

Thanks Roger, so do I

for an easy on the eye colour scheme (which actually goes against the colour scheme I've been drawing!) try these . . .

ToolButtonColor 100 110 125
StateButtonColor 100 110 125
ActionButtonColor 100 110 125
DialogButtonColor 100 110 125
DragButtonColor 100 110 125
BackgroundColor 90 90 105

Yes the buttons are all the same colour! I find that coding the buttons in different colours makes it harder to read a long list, especially if the menu means you have different buttons types and colours mixed up, I'd rather just have better organised menus and leave the button colours all the same!

but that's just me!

By Carl Merritt (Cman) (68.55.86.201) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 08:55 pm:

Love it! Love it! Love it!

By Matt Gorner (Matt) (217.37.13.153) on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 09:19 pm:

thx!

By Dick (Dickma) (218.102.226.137) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 04:58 am:

Mmm...Using my Lightwave interface color settings is just like taking beautiful jewels from the jewel box.

But some guys just like diamonds..... :-(

By Ralf (Ra) (62.238.224.194) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 05:26 pm:

That a good design, its clean.

But when you give the Layout (some) Mac os x reflect style its cleaner,

I like the green color (in the time line)
maby you can color more items in that color


on the webpage:

http://www.creactive-design.co.uk/lightwave_vx/selection_filter.html

I see that box

LOAD Menu

I think the font color is to light
When there is Light background and Light Font
color its, read like ••••;)

sorry about the comment

Sorry bad English