This topic will be where I post about progress towards Release 1 of the Tiered XL Engine release.

Currently I've been writing the UI Scripts for DaggerXL, all games will be using the new UI System. This system features several benefits over the old systems used by DaggerXL and DarkXL including:

* All UI is scripted.
* Proper virtual coordinates.
* No more "click-through" between windows.
* No more mouse cursor offset.
* Aspect ratio aware rendering - as shown below - which means that menus are cropped to the original aspect ratio rather then being stretched.
* UI can be tweaked without recompiling the code.

After some consideration and discussion I've decided to implement part of the UI editor before finishing the DaggerXL UI. Time wise, it's not much more then just scripting it all (probably less even). Basically, like the level editor, it'll be built into the engine executable and allow realtime editing while in-game. It'll output script files which can be further modifed by hand if need-be. The first revision will be bare bones but should still help tremendously when laying out the UI.

Awesome. Somehow I can see myself deciding I hate parts of Daggerfall's UI and trying to fix them while playing.

[I posted this on the blog]

This will be a short post on the progress towards the first build of the tiered release that I previously discussed.

Some of the games, especially Daggerfall, have large amounts of UI. Not just the core game UI but additional UI that is needed for XL Engine specific features such as setting the resolution, graphics settings, mods and so forth. Rather then try to make custom screens to match each game like DarkXL, I decided to have a unified XL Engine UI for all the UI that isn't part of the original games.

Anyway I had started converting all the Daggerfall UI into the new UI Script system but realized that I wanted to make a UI editor and that making the UI editor wouldn't take much more time then writing the scripts manually. In addition, the editor will make setting up the UI now and in the future much easier. The UI editor will generate UI script files which can then be further modified by hand if need be.

I didn't have time to finish the UI editor yet but I thought it would be interesting to show a screenshot of me testing out the UI system. I have other controls already, such as check boxes, edit boxes, radio button and so forth but this is a screenshot of me starting to lay out the UI editor "for real." Now that the art and UI system is in place, building the rest of the UI editor won't take too much longer.

(click to view full size)

Now I can brag I have a use for all the VB hacking I did in days of olde. :p

How does it handle the fact that the game engine wants to work with high resolutions but 90s games use low resolutions? Do you specify the resolution of the UI? Or perhaps each dialog individually?

Nice..

Glad to see you're making some progress, and I think the UI editor is a good idea, especially if it can save you from having to type lots of repeated blocks of code over and over again.

The old 'work smarter, not harder' comes to mind here..