Splashscreens

[Goombert]

I'm inclined to agree and this is why Rusky mentioned how the original LGM logo is a Nintendo 64 homage.

Perhaps we could add something like the following, tic tac toe, binary tic tac toe, joystick, or a controller silhouette:






Or, as always, just the flat LGM cube:

[Garo]

I made up some dirty prototypes of the idea I had in mind. Still lacks the LGM logo stuck in there, but I thought I'd show what I made up so far.





The last one uses a shadow placed in the centre. All images 512x256.

[Goombert]

The only thing I can think of with Garo's is Space Invaders:

[TheExDeus]

I do like this one:


But I don't think it needs to be "gameish" because of two reasons:
1) ENIGMA isn't for games only.
2) Other game engines aren't using a screen like that either. I think it's because of the same thing - they cannot figure out something that looks good, is related to games, and isn't a pacman. Just look at unity (https://www.google.lv/search?q=unity+splash&biw=1920&bih=947&source=lnms&tbm=isch) or Unreal4 (https://www.google.lv/search?q=unity+splash&biw=1920&bih=947&source=lnms&tbm=isch#tbm=isch&q=unreal+4+splash). I remember years ago Unreal engine loading screen was a scene from Unreal 1 or something, but that is because it was very tied to that game. Now most engines don't want to add a specific gaming reference, because it is not limited to a specific game. If we add a packman, then most people would think we can only do 2D packman stye games.

[time-killer-games]

@ This PC

the only thing i can tnik offf guyos iasoias tetrissssss ;



I particularly like the one ExDeus chose to be frank.

"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good..." Hebrews 13:9

... for us not to be so distracted by the splash screen and get on to bigger and better more important things,

ya feel me wite gurl gansta?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n735jZDWi84

[Goombert]

Yeah Josh and Rusky like that variation too. But then Rusky said it's too angular, so I made more attempts. And Josh says that one is too big, but recognizes it looks like trash if it's too small.

Honestly, my favorite was:




It's clean and it's simple. DaSpirit liked this one too, it's just about perfect. It has everything it needs, it's sleek and modern looking, and just that little touch of the silhouette helps you realize it's a game engine. So this one might just be the one I choose, I am still open minded though.

Also I redid that other one again with additional shadowing:


This version makes me like it more and it comes closer to a tie.


From rcobra's I also got this other idea of doing it like a crossword puzzle but can't think of how to make it look nice:


If somebody wants to attempt that. And while I am at it, I realized what Dreamland's material design was missing, tilt shift depth of field. It's used in all of the Google+ stock photos.

[TheExDeus]

Still liking this one:

I don't really care about the gamepad icon. I personally haven't made a game in ENIGMA in the past 3 years. But I have made tens of software applications.

Or even the original:

This one has a gaming feel to it because the buttons make the arrow keys.

And "too angular" doesn't seem like a negative thing. Good or bad design isn't based on angles.

[rcobra]

hi,You might like it

[Goombert]

I don't really care about the gamepad icon. I personally haven't made a game in ENIGMA in the past 3 years. But I have made tens of software applications.

Right I keep forgetting you saying that. But you are also making the wrong argument, because LateralGM will never be anything more than a GameMaker IDE, while ENIGMA may not be strictly game design, LGM basically is because it's strictly limited to being a GM IDE. This is for good reasons too, by focusing on a specific goal it can get more done. That does not mean I would not encourage derivatives of LGM that were not strictly GM, though I might just because it's built on Swing, in fact, I might just discourage all derivatives of LGM's Swing codebase.

So basically that argument doesn't apply as much to LGM's splash screen. On the other hand I still think we could add something that makes it both businessy and fun; I can't think of anything. Your idea about the keys would work if it was actually layed out like directional keys or a directional pad, but it's not, the bottom is off center.

And yes rcobra, I do like that one too, that's a possibility. I'll see what the others say.

Edit:
Rusky says he'd like to see more rectangular and less rounded corners, I do not agree with him on this. Maybe if it was 3D. He does however suggest a good idea, a remix on the GameCube logo. I don't think we should keep deepthroating Nintendo however.

[TheExDeus]

Wait, Rusky said it's "too angular" and then he later suggested "more rectangular and less rounded"? Those two are contradictory. There isn't a single rounded corner in that image.
I like rcobra's too. But I guess adding the red color wouldn't hurt. So maybe take the robert's one, reduce size of the red LGM logo so it fits the rcobra's one and call it a day.

[time-killer-games]

"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good..." Hebrews 13:9

I find we are being too distracted by things of very little importance. Each one of the logos in this topic are very good.

What about fixing the editor, and not the splash screen, which already looked fine before these designs came along?

It is not how it looks that turns people off, it is how it does not work, the real issue, which is being ignored to date.

Can not force contributions out of my pity, this is your project. So work on it, or don't.

[Rusky]

No, Robert's just not great at conveying what I said. I don't like the way the background shapes are diagonal ("too angular"), so I suggested they just be regular axis-aligned rectangles ("more rectangular"). Robert then showed me an example with axis-aligned rectangles, which happened to have rounded corners, so I suggested they have smaller corner radii ("less rounded").

[Goombert]

Sorry meant angular as in, criss-crossing, that's what is meant there. Hence how my responses to that are the perfectly horizontal ones. There are rounded corners there on that one too.

Anyway, the red isn't important at all, nobodies complaining about the red. Everyone's going to have different opinions, so I'll likely just pick one or the most liked one, I'm just wanting to see what else anybody has.

@TKG, chill, I have about 50 fixes here waiting to push to master. This is going well, we're getting some nice results. There is nothing revolutionary but I can already start making a list.

* Search field now respects anti-aliasing settings.
* Search field now has proper clipping and will not draw over other controls when the text overflows.
* External editors now properly close their file handles after reading the file back in. So you can save multiple times with an image editor without having to restart the image editor, for example.
* GMX instance and tile names are now loaded and can be changed in the room editor.
* New color picking control that can copy and paste hexadecimal color values.
* Fixed room editor default size, will no longer erroneously complain of unsaved changes.
* Fixed exception caused with sprites and images smaller than 5 pixels which was caused by the transparency pattern painting.
* Formatting of the code and removed whitespace. Spaces have now been converted to tabs so that code that is side by side will be more consistent. Missing new lines on files were fixed/added. This was not done everywhere, just where any regular expressions I checked found issues. These also apply to JoshEdit, but the changes are not finished being merged.
* Fixed the preferences frame layout, it no longer looks like a kindergartner designed it (this is a jab at myself who was the one that failed to do nice layouts). A few browse buttons have also been added.
* Added command links to the help menu for Website, Community, and Submit Issue which can all be configured from preferences.
* Added drag and drop import to resource menus. This means places where it asks for a sprite or the parent on the object frame, you can click and drag the resource directly from the project tree and drop it on the resource menu as opposed to navigating the context/popup menu.
* Room editor now has the transparency background pattern which is also configured via preferences.
* Adds support for Web look and feel.
* Quantum look and feel has been removed, it can be recreated in a custom Java look and feel or simply as a plugin to LateralGM.
* Removal of uneeded files from the built jar. These include things like the logo svg and splash svg's, old and new ones, that were not needed. They aren't needed because we only need the current one we are using as a PNG for the final jar. Removal of these files has so far led to a 0.1MB reduction in the file size of the jar. It currently is sitting at 1,938kb.
* Addition of right orientation mode that can be disabled from preferences. This may make it easier for some individuals to work with the program, especially with the room editor where the toolbar buttons will be directly above the canvas instead of obstructed by the tab panel.
* Several fixes in the sound frame models that were causing issues with saving projects (surprisingly noone ever reported it).
* Cut, copy, paste, undo, and redo are now consistent across all editors and menus. Some of them used to be different for certain editors, they are now consistently the same for every editor and every context menu in the entire program appearing in the order Cut, copy, paste, separator, undo, redo. This was simply a lapse in thought over the course of development, fixing it promotes consistency and user friendliness.
* Some look and feels, such as the default Swing look and feel, may begin overlapping the taskbar again. The previous fix I applied does not work with multiple monitors. So multi monitor support is now fixed but I do not have a fix for the look and feels that want to overlap the taskbar. This only occurs with non native window decorations anyway, and only for specific look and feels. Most of the good ones, including Web look and feel and Synthetica, do not have this issue. So it's really just a bug in the Swing/Metal look and feel.
* Baseline alignment is now used correctly in a lot of layouts, I didn't know what it was before so I opted for center aligned. This was not correct and where I did this there were minor visual issues I noticed with the layouts.

There's many more as well that I can't think of right now and a few more coming before I make the release. As I said, nothing here is revolutionary, this next release is about cleaning up the existing code base and making the program more stable.

Edit: Josh likes the latest one with just blue and white, "looks good"

[time-killer-games]

chill

bear in mind you took as an attack something in your best interest, but I know why you are overwelmed therefore not receptive, I very much relate.

[Goombert]

No we're fine, and I'm not overwhelmed actually. I am taking it one piece at a time. I am making quick progress here but also correct progress because I am not rushing to do anything. The new LGM will be released when it is released. I just wanted to reassure you that everything is fine and that this topic is not delaying anything.

The old JoshEdit commits by me were cleaned up and now follow the style guide of the project.
https://github.com/JoshDreamland/JoshEdit/pull/49
https://github.com/JoshDreamland/JoshEdit/pull/48

And one bug has been fixed:
https://github.com/JoshDreamland/JoshEdit/pull/46