HUD and Visual Improvements

[GhostOne]

Players love to be able to customize their game interface, according to their taste or needs.

Just like new and future softwares that use "vectorial" interfaces, it will become increasingly difficult and outdated to not offer customization at least to users. Here is my ideas.

HUD Options:

-HUD: On / Off
-Font: LCD / Modern / Old School / Industrial
-Chronometer Scale: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Digital Speedometer Scale: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Analog Speedometer Scale: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Traveled Distance: On / Off (Useless)
-Selected Opponents Scale: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Selected Opponents Locality: Top Left / Top Right (I really prefer top left as before)
-Selected Opponents Amount: 1st / 3 best / 5 best / All
-Intermediate Time Scale: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Intermediate Time Locality: Normal / High / Very High / Extremely High
-Intermediate Time Duration: Normal / Long / Very Long / Infinite

Visual Options:

-Exhaust flames: On / Off
-Opponents Transparency: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Personnal Best Ghost Transparency: 100% / 80% / 60% / 40% / 20% / Off
-Ghosts Progressive Transparency: Off / 1 / 2 / 3 (I don't like the progressivity)
-Ghosts Proximity Disappearance: Off / 1 / 2 / 3
-Forced Internal Camera: On / Off (I would always like to play in camera 1, high and distant)


The gameplay and the optimization has never been so good.
So here is my observations of the visual aspect of the ingame current version of TrackMania²:


-The chronometer is off-center due to the useless "race time" writing (must be deleted) and encroaches on the car due to its size and high locality. (MP3 was perfect)

-The intermediate time is not symmetrical, one writing is higher than the other, not on the same horizontal line. (MP3 style was perfect: one above the other)

-The colored intermediate differential time according to our performance is a good idea, but it should be its writing that be colorful on a invisible rectangle, not a white writing on a big colored rectangle. It disturbs the visibility. (MP3 was perfect with colors but without rectangle)

-The intermediate time has a long vertical white line completely useless and annoying. (To delete)

-Always no final differential time display at the last checkpoint / finish line / run end.
It is still impossible to know how much time we have beaten our PB, or is separating from our PB (unless we take out our calculator), nor still less from our best opponent / target. Really indispensable, it's the only goal of a run.

-The HUD fonts can be better. The LCD display style as before was more neat, and effective, more racing style and competitive spirit.

-Everything takes too much space on the screen. Especially at the 4K era, and more and more gigantic screen sizes.
A compromise might be possible to get closer to the minimalist and professional LCD aspect as before.

-The countdown has a mobil game / flash game / cartoon aspect. Not sérious appearance. Very different from the rest of the game, its flat design and its sobriety. To review, or simplify to harmonize with HUD.

-Opponents selections are not saved as before, and asks for more than 25 clicks each time. (Down, Down, Down, Down, A, Right, Right, Right, A, Down, A, Down, A, Down, A, [...], X).
Also, if we beat our PB once in a session, we must reselect all ghosts, but if we beat it a second time in the same session, the ghosts remain selected, and for the whole next times. Incoherent.

-The last run ghost has no reason to exist, even if it is deactivable, or someone would have to give just one reason.

-It is still not possible to display the opponents names as before, very impractical to recognize his own PB ghost, and it's impossible to know who is who among the others.

-Exhaust flames during boost are not realistic and don't match with custom 3D models, which create visual aberrations. (exhaust locality and its depth too)

-Night maps are too many in all the 4 solo campaigns.
It's unpleasant to play, and longer to learn for nothing. It pushes artificially their mastery time.
It would be nice to avoid doing too much in the future in all environments, or even none.

-The E05 Lagoon map is for the first time in the TM history a map completely unrealistic and disconnected from reality.
It's a place you want to leave. It's the opposite to what people are looking for in a racing car game.
It's the opposite to the many sublime, sunny, and shimmering maps in Lagoon or all TM, where we stop playing, or stroll, to contemplate landscape or analyse construction.


Other ideas or opinions are welcome.

I know that everything is long and difficult to develop, but you are geniuses Nadeo.
You are writing history. Good luck to you.

[GhostOne]

There is a big problem in Stadium with the camera 1 on quarter-pipes.

Camera 2 is ok:



Camera 1 has a problem:



Instead of the camera following the tilt/angle of the car, it remains blocked horizontally, completly breaking the feeling.
But much worst, the camera is totally deported/disconnected from the line/axis of the car, going outside. So troublesome in a racing activity.

This camera supposed to be high, comes in addition to stick against the ground! A lot more than camera 2...
We end up with an unusable camera for players, which is not pleasant for spectators too.

We have trouble realizing the position of our car is in the space, and especially the direction where it goes.
It becomes complicated to optimize our trajectory line, and impossible to target precisely.
We must rely on luck to execute a perfect trajectory, and our regularity threshold can not be competitive at a medium or good level.

This causes an imbalance between the 2 cameras, which is so unfair...

Even though I don't appreciate the internal camera 3, I think it would be better to force it in this case (as often in TMU), even if it's not a real solution to the problem. It would only be to hide it, and not to take care of it. That has big flaws because forced cameras are not ever pleasant for no one.
It would be nice to patch the game and its solo campaign, with at least this solution, if it's not to revise the camera, what would be so cool.

Please, save the camera 1 in the future (sad TM Turbo...RIP), it is so fun, impressive, give a great impression of speed and monstrous vertigo in air. It allows to progress faster.
It's the best for spectators, and to apreciate distances, trajectories, or see and understanding everything that is happening. =)

Thank you Nadeo, long life to you.

[Miss]

I think that's kind of the point of cam1 though.. I think changing that will make more people angry than leaving it

[maxi031]

Cam 1 on magnet blocks look godly, all mighty have blessed us all.

[GhostOne]

I think that's kind of the point of cam1 though.. I think changing that will make more people angry than leaving it

Valid argument, but we can not keep a so huge defect, game after game, penalizing this camera by preventing it from being competitive or chasing time, eternally retaining a great injustice compared the other two cameras.
If I am a minority, I bow, but I wonder where are these people, and where were they when TMT deleted this camera.

Cam 1 on magnet blocks look godly, all mighty have blessed us all.

There is no magnetic block in this (vanilla) game, and no magnetic gameplay mechanics.
You are surely among the people who say there is antigravity in Lagoon.
Please, be careful.

[Miss]

Then I'm probably one of the few people who enjoy cam1 on Stadium a lot more than cam2

[GhostOne]

Good news!^^
Me too, I'm unable to play at a good level with the other two cameras, on the 4 environments.

That's why I would like the cam1 to be improved in the quater-pipes case, to make it more efficient and accurate.
It could finally allow us to compete with others in terms of timing and regularity, because the slightest shift of one degree is very punitive on these modules (air time increases dramatically for exemple), and completely eliminatory at high playing level.

In this case, it would only be necessary for it to:

1. slightly follows the lateral tilt/angle of the car.
or
2. remain horizontal, surely lower, but be placed more inside the track for not to stick to the surface, and continue to observe the top of the car.

Nothing destabilizing I think with a fluid fun effect, on the contrary, the camera would always remain focused on the car and its direction/drop point, as the rest of the time.

But maybe it's too complicate to implement, I don't know.
Here is my idea, I let others express themselves now.