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navDesign 4 - Creating The NUI
(Final Analysis) |
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Section 3 dealt with the creation of both 2D & 3D styles of interface design. Points were made concerning which of the two types may be more suitable to a given project, and methods were explored to try and explain ways of getting the most practical perspective of each style of design.
To further compound this information, a brief study of the Web Safe colour palette was covered, as well as some general info on colour and image formats.
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Section 3 - "2D & 3D" : (contents covered)
- Colour Palette Options
- Complex vs Simple Designs
- A Frankensteins Interface
Some important things to note from Section 3 would be:
- the Web Safe palette was covered, showing how it was conceived by combining ONLY the 216 common colours from the PC & Mac platforms. This palette has it's own set of advantages, one of which being the fact that the colours it contains are know as 'dither-proof' or 'non dithering' colours. The reason again, is because both platforms can render these colours in their pure solid form, without having to 'dither' any colours.
(DITHER: the addition of random pixels from neighbouring colours to create the 'illusion' of a 3rd, intermediate colour, that attempts to fool the eye into seeing a blend between the two.)
And when dithering has to be used on an image to create a smoother blended appearance, larger file sizes are inevitable. So use it judiciously whenever possible.
- we looked at making the decision as to whether or not a 2D or a 3D style of interface is applicable to a site's particular content, or subject matter. And we went over just a few ways of developing a routine for promoting consistent, creative and inspirational ideas toward the concepts and deisgn of our interface.
Whichever style of interface you choose however, the fact still remains that smaller file sizes, whenever possible, are definitely the way to go. So try to give distinct thought as to how many colours your interface will incorporate, and be aware of additional colours being added while you're creating it. Additional colours will be added for instance if you decide to use any gradients in your design. And also whenever you scale, blur, or otherwise 'Transform' certain parts of the interface, Photoshop will soften the edges of an object to create a smoother, cleaner appearance. And that adds extra 'unintentional' colours to your image's palette. Plugins are another culprit of this. So just keep those things in mind. Because when you're all done and ready to try compressing the images, the more colours your images contain, the more you'll have to take out to achieve the smaller file sizes. And that will lead to very unexpected, and usually unpleasant results. Or, if you can't compress them enough and still have them look good, you'll be stuck with a fairly 'bulky' interface in terms of file size and download time for your visitors.
- and lastly, but not least, we went through another exercise to create a small interface. The steps outlined and techniques covered in the exercise encompassed a large amount of information. And should be more than enough to get anyone started on the way to creating more complex designs.
Areas of image design and creation covered in the exercise were:
: Creating Body Sections
: Inset Lines & Grooves
: Creating a Glass Viewer/TV Screen (with frame)
: Buttons & Lights
: Mapping Textures
: Setting Text - Making it Readable
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Creating the NUI: Concept of Design / Nutz & Bolts / 2D & 3D / navDesign Summary
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