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Crafting DestructionThe Evolution of the Dead Space User Interfac
Dino IgnacioLead UI Designer, EA Visceral GamesTwitter: @dinoignacioEmail: [email protected]
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Crafting Success: A Deeper Look atCastlevilles Crafting System
Room 303 South Hall
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Crafting Destruction
The Evolution of the Dead Space User InterGeneral
Core Ideas
The Aesthetics
Specific The RIG
The Frontend
The Evolution
The BENCH
Q and A
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AT ITS CORE
Before I talk about the UI of DeadSpace, I will discuss its relation to thegame as a whole
Dead Space was conceived to be animmersive, story driven, science fictionexperience.
We wanted to create a game thatsuspended disbelief and maintainedhorror all throughout the game play
This larger mission helped craft thedecisions that informed the UI
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THE BACKSTORY
Dead Space was set in a dystopic and depletedfuture
Most of the first game transpires in derelict miningvessel called the Ishimura
Everyone is dead and the vessel is plagued byspace zombies
You play the role of an engineer sent on a repairmission
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THE APPROACH
Knowing our core and backstory; wedecided the UI needed to fully supportand integrate with the rest of thegame
We designed the Ishimura as acharacter that had to be believable inthe world we created
We looked at the UI as an extensionof the Ishimura
The Sci-Fi setting afforded us thelicense to use a very diegeticapproach to UI
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DIEGETIC
The element exists both for thecharacters in the fiction and for theaudience(or in our case the player)
Dietetic sound for example is when acharacter in a movie plays the radio inhis car and he hears the tune but it
continues on to the next scene as asoundtrack for the audience
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DIEGETIC BY DESIGN
Sci-Fi made it possible for us to dothis.
We were able to wrap typical gameconventions like loading screens andsave points into believable worldelements.
Examples: Door hologram exists as a real world
element for Isaac and doubles as a UIelement for the player
Loading Screens are integrated into tramand space taxi rides
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DIEGETIC IN IMPLEMENTATIOTo make UI that actually existed inthe game world we had to come upwith an innovative way of doing it.
Traditionally UI was built with 2Dtools like Flash
We needed our UI to live in the 3Dspace so we decided to use the game
engines particle system
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THE RULESOne of the cornerstones of gooddesign is to have a rule set
Isaac is always on the left side of thescreen, even when interacting withUI. (We are always in 3rd person)
Non-diegetic UI appears behind Isaac
All interactive UI must live around
1.5 meters above the ground planeWe set up a strict color language
Blue/White means interactive
Red means locked / not interactive at themoment
Orange/Amber means ambient
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THE LOOKAs much as it wasfuturistic, it was a depletedand broken future
This was not Star Trek;we are set in a derelictmining ship
The UI needed to feel
unpredictable and broken
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THE LOOKWe took inspiration fromflickering fluorescent lightsand dentist lamps
Static and scan lines alsoadded a distinct feel
We used skeuomorphs totrigger nostalgic emotions
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SKEUOMORPHSA derivative object that retainsornamental design cues to astructure that was necessary in theoriginal
May be deliberately employed tomake the new look comfortably oldand familiar
Examples: the handle on a bottleof maple syrup, the wood panelingon cars, hubcaps with spokes, thepaper texture on the iPhonesnotepad.
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THE RIGThis is the most
recognizable piece of UI inour game
It evolved out of thenecessity to keep theplayer immersed
We needed a way to
message your health level,your inventory, your ammocount and your maplocation without clutteringthe game space
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THE RIGThe RIG was an attempt
to package all theseessential gaming interfacesinto a collapsible construct
As many games left allthis information in a HUDformat that broke the 4th
wall, we attempted todisguise all these systemsinto diegesis
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THE HEALTH BARApart from the visor this maybe the most iconic part of the gam
Many iterations were made in its development
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THE HEALTH BARWe tried many designs
Some more elaborate thanothers
In the end simplicity was theway to go
The most understated lookended up being clearest and the
most iconic
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THE HEALTH BARIt evolved very little over the
three gamesall the tweaks to this systemhas been superficial
The first games health bar lookedlike a tube of light
The second one was turned into ahologram
And the one in DS3 has a littlemore vintage circuitry detail
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THE INVENTORYWe made many attempts
at this core systemWe had more elaborateattempts but in the endusability won
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THE INVENTORYWe have updated the
system quite a bit overthe course of thefranchise
The changingenvironment and gamerequirements directly
affected its evolution
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THE WEAPON SELECTORThe idea was to find a
quick way to switchweapons without needingto go to your inventory
The idea has stayedpretty simple and evolvedvery little
In DS3 we had to lessenthe number of weaponsyou can carry toaccommodate the moreelaborate and robustweapons you can make
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THE MAPThis is one of my favorite
systems from the firstDead Space
It was a very beautifulreinterpretation of theHUD map
Unfortunately it was
completely unusable
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THE LOCATORIn the last month of
production of the firstgame, we realized theMap was unsalvageableand we had to come upwith another way ofhelping the playertraverse the game
The Locator was born outof desperation we justneeded a way to point theplayer in the rightdirection
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THE LOCATORIt turned out to be one of
the most loved features ofthe game
We have expanded onthis system over thecourse of the franchise
With Isaac getting more
mobile we had toredesign the system towork better in Zero-G
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THE FRONTENDThe game was designed to be
one solid seamless experienceWe have deviated a little bit inthe sequels with trombonecameras and whip shots butbasically Dead Space plays withno cuts from the beginning to
endThe Frontend was designed tobe the start of your experience
We used it as an portal to leadyou into the game
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THE DEAD SPACE 1 FRONTENWe had a very elaborate plan for the first games frontend
It involved seeing holographic menus in organic matter with imagespeople turning into necromorphs with bones and muscles twisting an
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THE DEAD SPACE 1 FRONTENIt proved to be to expensive as we didnt have the
animation and the modeling budget to create highresolution muscles and bones that late in production
So we decided to improvise
I asked my producer to give me $500
I bought a butchered lamb for us to video anddissect
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THE DEAD SPACE 2 FRONTENThe game centered
around information aboutthe Marker that was lockedin Isaacs brain
We built the UI in supportof this and helped tell thestory
We added a metagamewhere the further youprogress in the gamethese fragments of rockcoalesced into a Markerinside Isaacs brain
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THE DEAD SPACE 3 FRONTENThis has been visually the most ambitious one weve done
We left the confines of the abstract and place our UI in an environm
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THE DEAD SPACE 3 FRONTENThe frontend occurs in a
lab where slabs of ancreature are frozen inblocks of ice
And much like thesecond game we revealmore or the creature asyou progress through the
game
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10 SECOND KITTY BREAK
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10 SECOND KITTY BREAKLook at this cat
10 SECOND KITTY BREAK
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10 SECOND KITTY BREAKJust look at it
10 SECOND KITTY BREAK
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10 SECOND KITTY BREAKLook.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOO
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOOStory has always been the core of the game
We wanted the UI to truly be integrated tothe story
This being the case, we always made sure ithad a personality and an arc
We gave it life by making sure it reflectedthe environment it resided in
We also gave it progression and a sense ofgrowth
THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOO
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOOThe UI of first DeadSpace was (as mentionedearlier) a mirror of thestate of the Ishimura
It was broken anderratic
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOO
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOOIn Dead Space 2 the UImirrored the vastness ofthe Titan Sprawl
The UI was a little moreadvanced and sleeker toreflect the moreadvanced environment
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE LOO
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Dead Space 3 is set on a planet with artifacts from 200 years into the
We designed the UI to be retro futuristic
Where we had floating light based holograms in the first 2 games Dfeatured glass based holograms that lived within confined frames
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THE BENCH
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We always wanted to show Isaac as anintelligent and resourceful individual that
had to overcome his challenges with hiswit
All his original weapons were modifiedconstruction tools
The original BENCH allowed the player toadd circuits along upgrade trees to tweak
and modify his weaponsAs much we loved this feature wealways knew we wanted to do more with it
In Dead Space 3 we decided to doubledown and redesign the feature
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DESIGNING BENCH 2.0
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The challenge was to make a robustweapon crafting system that was
deep enough for the core player butwas simple enough for the averagegamer
We had seen some very intuitivecrafting systems on PC games butwe knew the metaphor would nottranslate very well to the console
We needed to create a system thatplayed well with a controller
BENCH 2.0 CONCEPTS
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The original concept used a moreanalog metaphor
All the weapon parts were littleboxes that slid across a conveyorbehind glass
The hope was to make the craftingprocess feel more real and less UI
We got really far with this version.
It was pretty but admittedly notvery user friendly
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BENCH 2.0 PROBLEMSThe multiple screens
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The multiple screensmade sense in older Dead
Space UI as it helpedground our UI in the world
This did not work on thenew BENCH with the sheeramount of information wehad to put on screen
BENCH 2.0 PROBLEMS
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In the past Isaac never left our screen at any timeHe was always in view. We never did a full UI screen
The new BENCH as we had a lot more detail to show
The Dev team kept using the debug way of building a gun rather thBENCH (this was a clear sign we were doing it wrong)
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BENCH 2.1 2.3 2.5 3The final iteration is a lot more
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streamlined and easy to use
It implements a very intuitive use ofthe analog stick
It allows you to build a gun in 3clicks
The system is still very Dead Spacedespite the deviations from the norm
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BENCH LESSONS LEARNEDWe had to accept that having an easy to
i t iti i t f i lti t l
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use intuitive interface is ultimately moreimportant than keeping our aestheticconventions
FINAL THOUGHTSDead space has been an amazing project to be part of
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The world allowed for some amazing innovations
I personally feel that our contributions will resonate into the next gI feel very fortunate to have been part of it
The sheer talent on this franchise is staggering
Thank you for coming along for the ride
THANK YOUSChuck Beaver Jeremie Benhamo
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Jason LeongJohn GeraciLeo Lee
Richard Carrillo
Tracy EspeletaAndy Wright
Christy Yen
Matt GalliaMichael Ye
Bill Fowle
Ford H
Megan Berr
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
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Din
Twitter: @d
Email: dignacio