Getting into VST UI design...

[zerocrossing]

Hey kids...

Well after a year of fun game company crunch mode (4 games in a year!) I find myself without a job. I was doing high UI/Short dev time games and the studio isn't interested in making these any longer. That's OK. Perhaps the life of 12-16 hour days isn't for me anyway.

Anyway, I've always wanted to start doing UI design and now that I've got some time... Ideas of where to get started? I can't imagine that most of my knowledge won't transfer in some way, but to be honest I'm not quite sure where to begin. I do have Reaktor 5 and I though that might be a place to start. If you're a freeware coder who'd like some help, I'd love to offer my services.

Mark

[Leslie Sanford]

Anyway, I've always wanted to start doing UI design and now that I've got some time... Ideas of where to get started? I can't imagine that most of my knowledge won't transfer in some way, but to be honest I'm not quite sure where to begin. I do have Reaktor 5 and I though that might be a place to start. If you're a freeware coder who'd like some help, I'd love to offer my services.

Post mock ups of generic plugin UI's, a delay effect or chorus. If you need tools to work with, check out the Skinman and Knobman threads.

[dover666]

yes, grab the latest copies of knobman and skinman, and if you've got solid graphic design experience, you could help out a bunch of folks i'm sure... i've been experimenting with my own textures, and semi-complex animations with knobman, and i tend to make knobs now more than i get any real se work done... but hey.. i to am in the midst of a change in focus perhaps... welcome.

[zerocrossing]

Huh, these seem OK, but as far as I can tell I could automate that in Photoshop or even use an actual 3d app like Lightwave or an animation app like After Effects to get a flip book of knobs or other UI elements, no? I think I know how to make the elements, I just don't know what's involved in getting them into the VST.

Mark

yes, grab the latest copies of knobman and skinman, and if you've got solid graphic design experience, you could help out a bunch of folks i'm sure... i've been experimenting with my own textures, and semi-complex animations with knobman, and i tend to make knobs now more than i get any real se work done... but hey.. i to am in the midst of a change in focus perhaps... welcome.

[Crandall1]

Yeah, you don't want to bother with Knobman and Skinman if you have the tools and expertise to make UIs without them. While nice and all, those are essentially for people that don't have those tools or don't know how to run 'em at the level required. Making knobs in Photoshop in any event results in knobs that aren't that hot. You'll want to use a proper 3D program instead if you have access to it, even for 2D knobs.

Personally, I use 3DS Max to make knobs and/or complete UIs, and composite everything in Photoshop. To make the knob filmstrips, I use Nial Moody's PNGSTITCH program if I've done single knob models in Max. Otherwise, I have a set of Photoshop actions I've made that will drill down through a stack rendered from 3DS Max and create a knob filmstrip from a selection. Much of our UI elements are procedural, though, so there's a lot of coding involved as well.

As for making a living making UIs for plugins alone, I don't really think that's possible. I obviously make a fine living with Audio Damage, and so does my partner. I do the UIs, but I also do all the customer service, all the marketing, and a lot of the plugin design and I run the beta programs. I don't know of anyone in the industry that just does UIs and that's their only gig. Frankly, if you can get a job in the games industry, you're better off sticking with that, and doing UIs as a hobby.

[Leslie Sanford]

I think I know how to make the elements, I just don't know what's involved in getting them into the VST.

That's up to the developer. The graphics artists delivers the elements, and the developer incorperates them into the VST. The elements are usually PNG files, backgrounds, slider thumbs, buttons, knobs, etc. The knob file is a special case in that it is a series of knob images, usually an odd number, "stitched" together.

From there, the developer uses whatever tools he/she has at their disposal to load and display them in the plugin.

[zerocrossing]

Thanks for the tips. All good. I'm pretty good with a 3d app (Lightwave and Strata) but I'm actually almost as good with such things in Photoshop. Lot's of tricks can be done with gradients and layer effects. I got pretty good at doing photorealistic speakers in the Battle Of The Bands project. By the way, I drew much inspiration from Dr. Device and Replicant. Excellent UI design and damn sweet sounding plug ins as well!

I also don't think I could make a living doing UI design for VSTs (though it would be nice) but I have 10 experience doing print, web and video animation as well. I thought of VSTs mainly because I have a bit of free time on my hands and it's something I always wanted to do. First and foremost I need to get a webpage back up and put my portfolio on it.

Thanks again,

Mark

Yeah, you don't want to bother with Knobman and Skinman if you have the tools and expertise to make UIs without them. While nice and all, those are essentially for people that don't have those tools or don't know how to run 'em at the level required. Making knobs in Photoshop in any event results in knobs that aren't that hot. You'll want to use a proper 3D program instead if you have access to it, even for 2D knobs.

Personally, I use 3DS Max to make knobs and/or complete UIs, and composite everything in Photoshop. To make the knob filmstrips, I use Nial Moody's PNGSTITCH program if I've done single knob models in Max. Otherwise, I have a set of Photoshop actions I've made that will drill down through a stack rendered from 3DS Max and create a knob filmstrip from a selection. Much of our UI elements are procedural, though, so there's a lot of coding involved as well.

As for making a living making UIs for plugins alone, I don't really think that's possible. I obviously make a fine living with Audio Damage, and so does my partner. I do the UIs, but I also do all the customer service, all the marketing, and a lot of the plugin design and I run the beta programs. I don't know of anyone in the industry that just does UIs and that's their only gig. Frankly, if you can get a job in the games industry, you're better off sticking with that, and doing UIs as a hobby.

[Crandall1]

Thanks for the tips. All good. I'm pretty good with a 3d app (Lightwave and Strata) but I'm actually almost as good with such things in Photoshop. Lot's of tricks can be done with gradients and layer effects. I got pretty good at doing photorealistic speakers in the Battle Of The Bands project. By the way, I drew much inspiration from Dr. Device and Replicant. Excellent UI design and damn sweet sounding plug ins as well!

Thank you.

For the record, the faceplates of both of those plugs are done entirely in Photoshop. The knobs in both plugs, and the buttons and slider caps in Dr. Device, were done in 3DS Max. It definitely takes some practice to blend the two programs in a pleasing manner. I prefer to do the entire interface in 3DS Max if I can, as it generally has a better look to it, in my opinion. Liquid, Fluid, and Vapor are all done entirely in 3DS Max; I made a texture layer in Photoshop for the "silkscreen" text, but the faceplate you see in the plugin came straight out of Max.

For the last few plugs, I've been using a blend of P-shop, 3DS Max, and procedural drawing. We started this with Replicant, where everything on the circular screen is done procedurally. The two inner rings that contain the arc sliders for SELECTED BEATS and RANDOM BEATS, and the text that goes with them, are done with Photoshop, but all the other stuff in the center is procedural.

With Ricochet and Kombinat I took this a little further. The entire UI of both plugs was done in 3DS Max, but the stuff on the "screen" part of the plugs is mostly procedural. The exceptions are the engine selectors in Kombinat and the grid lines in Ricochet.

We're going to start work on our own GUI kit here in the near future based on raw OpenGL; hopefully, I'll be able to get it so the vast majority of the UI is done procedurally, with maybe only a bitmap background image if I want some faceplate-type thing, but otherwise all OpenGL. This opens up a lot of possibilities that are simply unable to fake with VSTGUI. (To put this in perspective, the iPhone UI is all various Apple kits lying on top of OpenGL ES. That's the sort of thing I'm aiming for.)

It's an interesting subject, and I could go on for hours, but suffice to say that you either need a good working knowledge of how how VSTGUI works in order to know what you can do, or someone that can code it for you on the fly. Also, a lot of companies don't use VSTGUI for their UIs, so you have to learn whatever they're using. Speaking strictly for AD, we use it for both our VSTs and AUs, but we've extended it heavily to account for all our procedural controls and some stuff it doesn't have (the patchbay grid in Ronin, N x N button grids, X/Y pads, multiple-tag controls like the nubby field in Ricochet, etc.)

[ughnonumus]

I do the UIs, but I also do all the customer service, all the marketing, and a lot of the plugin design and I run the beta programs. I don't know of anyone in the industry that just does UIs and that's their only gig.

It's interesting that you mentioned that. It came to my attention that most companies, today, were looking for technical resources that had an understanding of the business process(es), as well. Perhaps, this is more prevalent in smaller companies; Subchapter S, etc...? Personally, I didn't meet many people in my travels that necessarily carried (i.e. schooling; certs) both skill sets.

BTW, you've done a great job with the new advertisements. The full page colour shots in CM look fab! Well done.