(SA Concepts) "Character Hub". Replace inventory with a character hub. (LOTS of pictures.)

[colekern 1364]

MAJOR EDIT:

Big props to Joeyslucky22 for inspiration. Yes, I did use character artwork similar to his too, however I don't believe that the character artwork was made by Joeyslucky so I think I'm good.

Original post:

Hey guys. I had been working on an inventory concept for the SA for several months and it’s finally ready to be shown off. I know Rocket beat me to the punch, but I thought that there were a lot of really cool ideas in my concept, so I posted it so that the devs can take any ideas they like from it. It's a lengthy explanation, so bear with me:

The Character Hub:

The main idea behind the system is that your inventory would be replaced with a "Character Hub" that gives basic info on your character and also acts as your inventory. Here's what you get when you open it:

You'll notice that there are a few tabs up top. You would be able to rearrange these to your liking. But enough about the hub, let's get into it's features. First, the inventory.

The Inventory:

The inventory is one of my favorite parts in the entire concept, next to the status screen. Here's what I would see if I open my inventory:

The first thing you'll notice is that there's no slots whatsoever. You would be free to place the objects inside wherever you want and be able to rotate them and rearrange them however you want. You'll also notice that there are multiple tabs for each item. Right now, I'm looking at the items stored inside my shirt, my pants, and my jacket. However, if i open up my backpack...

Here's what I get. One of the special things about this inventory design is that every pocket can be represented fully (as you saw with the individual pockets of my shirt and pants and jacket). My alice pack has four pouches, hence there are four pouches to store items in. Let's open up my vest:

Again, all pouches are represented here. The inventory also allows multiple variants of familiar clothing items to exist. For example, a vest with fewer, but much larger pouches would allow me to carry bigger items, such as the M249 ammo you saw in the pic.

Picking up items off the ground:

If there are items on the ground, a small box would appear in your inventory. Ok, a large box:

Again it would be drag and drop. If there are too many items on the ground to be shown in the box, they would be scaled down, and go back to normal size when you pick them up.If you look in a vehicle, a tab would appear next to the “on the ground” text:

The Hotbar and "at the ready" inventories:

Next, the hotbar, or "quick access bar". The hotbar would allow you to quickly switch between, and use items and weapons. You could add anything to the hotbar; it would be an easy way to use a bandage, or pull out a melee weapon, or throw a grenade. However, there are some restrictions.

This where the ,”at the ready inventories” come in. Actaully, rocket nailed the basic idea at PAX. Basically, it takes a lot of time to pull an item out of your backpack if you have it on the hotbar, but you could pull something from your pocket quite quickly. You would need to have useful items stored intelligently.

Alright, let's jump to the equip system:

The Equip System:

The equip system is something I thought was pretty cool:

First, you'll notice the mini inventory system where I can drag and drop items to equip them. But let's talk about how you'll equip them.

Equipping clothes:

To equip clothes, you drag and drop them into the slots that correspond with what body par they go on. There are five slot categories; the feet, the legs, the chest, the back, and the head.

You'll also notice that in each category, there are multiple items equipped. For example, I have a shirt and a jacket equipped to my chest. That's one of the cool things about it: everything is layered.

I can equip multiple clothing items, anywhere from jackets and shirts, to sheaths and slings and stack them on top of each other. I could stack up to five items on one slot category.

Now, for weapons...

Equipping Weapons:

Equipping weapons is a little more involved. If you’ll look up to the equip screen again, you’ll notice a large space holding an M4A3. Now, what would happen if I tried to equip another weapon?

Well, nothing, right now at least. I need a sling for my rifle in order to switch from it. Why? Well, in real life, you can’t just make your rifle magically float on your back when you pull out a pistol. You need something to hold it, such as a sling. I’m going to equip some holsters now:

I also went ahead and equipped my weapons. Take a look at the holsters I equipped. A sling for my rifle, and a holster for my pistol. Also, you an see that I have a sheath for my machete under my backpack.

I would switch between them using my hotbar. Also, for small items, at the ready inventories would serve as holsters if you wish (for pistols and flashlights and such) if you equip the item to your hotbar.

What about equipping items on the ground?

Simple fix, really. Just add an option to pick up items off the ground:

The Status Screen:

This is my favorite part. The status screen gives you info on your character physical condition in a detailed and intuitive way.

The reason I think DayZ needs it is that Rocket is wanting to remove the HUD and replace it with visual and audio cues. However, that info isn’t enough to tell you which bones are broken and they would most likely only appear occasionally, meaning you could be badly hurt and not even know it.

That’s where the status screen comes in:

It’s fairly easy to read, but I do need to clear some things up. First, look to the left. See that box? That gives you detailed info on a certain body parts condition. I would right click on a body part to find out more about.

Next you see the blood, food, and water meters. Then you see the 3d representation of your character (although, for the concept, it’s just going to show my character in 2D). Certain parts of his body are highlighted in colors of orange, yellow, and red. Yellow means that I just have a scratch that may need to be cleaned or bandaged, orange means I have a cut that may bleed and should be bandaged and cleaned ASAP, while Red means that I’ve done serious damage and it will affect my movement or overall health. A deep, intense red, such as the one on my leg where I broke it, has a very high chance of infection, and needs medical assistance from someone else to prevent permanent problems.

Next, you’ll see another bar. This is your health. Everything contributes to it, and it drops as you take injuries.So that’s the basics of the status screen.

The Crafting Screen:

The crafting screen is kind of…. Meh. I really didn’t do a lot of work on it, and added it just because it’s a confirmed feature. Here it is:

So, the first thing you can see is your mini-inventory where you grab your items. You drag and drop them onto the crafting area. Then, if you found a successful recipe, something like this would pop up:

I taped my mags together. It’s that simple.

The ID screen:

The ID screen is still something I’m kind of iffy on. The basic idea behind is that everyone has an ID that contains info on their character, such as blood type and name. But the ID could just as easily be a spawn item instead. I barely did ANY work at all on the ID screen, as I wasn’t even sure I wanted it. Here it is:

Yeah… like I said, extremely rough.

Controller support:

Before you call me out on supporting controllers and talk about how superior a mouse and keyboard is, hear me out:

1. I don’t like controllers. I don’t use them and avoid them like the plague most of the time.

2. Lots of people do use controllers, therefore we need to support them.

So there.

Anyways, the first step in making the UI controller-friendly is to give it button mapping like so:

It would still be drag and drop, but you would use the thumbstick and the RB and LB keys to rotate the object. You would use the other button mappings to navigate quickly.

The second step is to replace the hotbar with a radial menu for quick access:

Pretty simple.

Tell me what you think!!!

I put a lot of hard work into this, and any feedback is appreciated. If you read the whole thing, good for you! Thank you for taking the time to do so. This is Cole, signing off or something like that.

Edit: Somehow, the entire post got messed up when I copied it from word. That's what I get for using word. It should be fixed now.

Edited April 5, 2013 by colekern

[burritoman259 593]

You never cease to amaze me with the concept work you do, I especially like the part about the ID and blood type so you'd have to find specific blood bags.

Hopefully some of the work you do here is taken into consideration with SA's inventory system.

Edit: Hey I just noticed this, were the shotgun shells in the picture from C:SS or some source engine game?

Edited April 5, 2013 by burritoman259

[colekern 1364]

You never cease to amaze me with the concept work you do, I especially like the part about the ID and blood type so you'd have to find specific blood bags.

Hopefully some of the work you do here is taken into consideration with SA's inventory system.

Edit: Hey I just noticed this, were the shotgun shells in the picture from C:SS or some source engine game?

Ehh... half life 2.

[colekern 1364]

You never cease to amaze me with the concept work you do, I especially like the part about the ID and blood type so you'd have to find specific blood bags.

Hopefully some of the work you do here is taken into consideration with SA's inventory system.

Edit: Hey I just noticed this, were the shotgun shells in the picture from C:SS or some source engine game?

Also, reload the page and take another look at my post. I fixed some errors caused by word.

[burritoman259 593]

Yeah I now see the medical and crafting thing pop up now, even more impressive.

[DemonGroover 8836]

Very nice work. I actually like the idea of items having space rather than a set number of slots so if you rearrange you might be able to squeeze in another item. You could rotate the icons so that they fit correctly and whatnot.

I like the crafting as well. It is simple. At the moment i think Rocket has you dragging items on top of other items to create another one, though who knows how this will change. Yours is a bit more intuitive in that you grab the items you want and craft from there. I don't think it needs to be any more complicated than that.

Good stuff.

[leviski 2152]

I kind of skimmed through most of the inventory stuff but loved the medical interface with the leg being red and that sort of stuff, also liked the blood type idea.

[toxicsludge 406]

You always impress me with your posts dude, keep em up.

[SuperFjord 1]

Great work, there's got to be alot of effort behind all this. Looks awesome.

With that said, you might want to change some of the text into icons instead because of localization and ease of use. For example inventory could be a backpack icon, crafting could be a duct tape roll, etc.

[colekern 1364]

Very nice work. I actually like the idea of items having space rather than a set number of slots so if you rearrange you might be able to squeeze in another item. You could rotate the icons so that they fit correctly and whatnot.

I like the crafting as well. It is simple. At the moment i think Rocket has you dragging items on top of other items to create another one, though who knows how this will change. Yours is a bit more intuitive in that you grab the items you want and craft from there. I don't think it needs to be any more complicated than that.

Good stuff.

I really loved the slotless idea.