Zebra3 Info

[spunkmuffin]

Increment lines are a visual distraction. They are like little milk splashes around every knob.

[Urs]

The tick marks (as we call them) visually extend the area of the knob. This way we can use smaller knobs without losing visual clues. The now smaller knobs let us put more knobs into the same space. That means, closer knobs with tick marks look less cramped than closer knobs without them. Alternatively smaller knobs make a UI look less cluttered (and less intimidating).

Anyhow, the discussion is moot until we have the final visuals.

[spunkmuffin]

Anyhow, the discussion is moot until we have the final visuals.

And once you have the final visuals there will be no point in discussion. Fait accompli.

[analogo13]

The new Zebra2 skin looks really, really good. It feels up to date and easy to "read". Much more hardware-ish, not so flat as before, and I personally think thats important.

And Urs, try not be offended by the dumb words of spunkmuffin. There always going to be someone with to much spare time but with nothing positive to add that want to put his frustration on others. And these guys are the ones that don´t even make music.

Keep up the good work Urs!

Well written!

At last a clear, modern, beautiful and noble GUI, which will certainly be much more fun to work with. I'd like to be beta tester, just like EvilDragon, because I can´t wait for it..

Urs, you're on the right way!

[exmatproton]

Increment lines are a visual distraction. They are like little milk splashes around every knob.

Luckily, nobody is stopping you from making your own skin...

[AnalogGuy1]

Just the objective findings of one random user: I find the new smaller knobs difficult to read because their marker dot is quite small, on the order of size of the larger specks of dust on my 13" laptop screen. Unlike spunkmuffin who seems to have a purely visceral reaction to the design aesthetics, for me the issue is that I have physical difficulty seeing the small white marker dot. It has nothing to do with the presence or absence of tick lines; the volume knob on the channel mixer has tick lines but because it has a solid arc, its current level is easy to see. I don't care if the knobs are colored, ticked, vectored, drawn with flat or 3D hints, or whatever; I just want to be able to easily see its setting.

I may be in the minority here because I travel a lot, and I bring the same laptop I use for live performance with me. Perhaps most users stay in the studio and so have the benefit of using large monitors. Once I set up a patch it is immaterial, but it will be significantly more difficult for me to create patches, or adjust ones during rehearsals when their are other musicians clamoring about and a guitar player who is noodling around at level 11 while I'm futzing with the knobs.

[EvilDragon]

Don't despair because:

a high contrast and extra "un-bland" version is being worked on in parallel.

[Apostate]

They get to glow when you change the knob value. At least that's what the intention is and why u-he's building some new UI elements.

Sounds like that pretty much puts things in perspective.

I personally don't worry at all over how Z3 will turn out...it's u-he fer Christ's sake. They put out great s#@$.

[EvilDragon]

The tick marks (as we call them) visually extend the area of the knob. This way we can use smaller knobs without losing visual clues. The now smaller knobs let us put more knobs into the same space. That means, closer knobs with tick marks look less cramped than closer knobs without them. Alternatively smaller knobs make a UI look less cluttered (and less intimidating).

Perhaps instead of tick marks there could be a continuous arc as an option/skin variant? Sort of like LED-rings around endless encoders on some hardware synths (but with much more LEDs around than ticks that there are in the skin currently, providing more accurate feedback to knob's value)?

That might keep some whingers happy.

[Urs]

We had a short meeting today and indeed knobs are considered Work In Progress (I wasn't sure since I'd been away for a few weeks).

The idea is to indeed keep some sort of vector ring around the skeuomorphic knob, which fullfills the same function as the rings that are *inside* the knobs in current Zebra skins. The idea is to marry the concepts of tick rings, uni/bipolar colour coding, visually leaner knobs and the advantage of a more tidy visuals.

There area various drafts done in After Effects, which unfortunately are tedious and static. Hence we're working on more elaborate graphics methods within our UI framework to achieve the same thing with adjustable parameters.

There's some gorgeous stuff, you'll see!

[Apostate]

We had a short meeting today and indeed knobs are considered Work In Progress (I wasn't sure since I'd been away for a few weeks).

The idea is to indeed keep some sort of vector ring around the skeuomorphic knob, which fullfills the same function as the rings that are *inside* the knobs in current Zebra skins. The idea is to marry the concepts of tick rings, uni/bipolar colour coding, visually leaner knobs and the advantage of a more tidy visuals.

There area various drafts done in After Effects, which unfortunately are tedious and static. Hence we're working on more elaborate graphics methods within our UI framework to achieve the same thing with adjustable parameters.

There's some gorgeous stuff, you'll see!

I'm psyched!

[spunkmuffin]

Doesn't look like Urs has much input into the new UI at all!

[andresnol]

There's some gorgeous stuff, you'll see!

[planz]

And once you have the final visuals there will be no point in discussion. Fait accompli.

The skin so far looks excellent and I trust u-he to do it right, but feel free to create your own one

[News From The Sky]

The knobs on ACE are, IMO, far and away the best knobs on any U-He synth (or any soft synth). They have nice clear indicator lines, they're tactile-looking without being unnecessarily skeuomorphic, and they have vector rings around them so it's obvious what their current setting is, obvious whether they're unipolar or bipolar, and obvious whether they're at default values or not. If the new Zebra knobs look at all like them I'll be very happy.

I think the new design looks very promising (if spunkmuffin hates it you're doing something right) - I also really like what drzhnn has done with Zebra Redux (for the flatter look). And the wood side panels clearly should be... zebrawood