UI BROWSER WOW MODNext up we have arguably the most important mod - our action bars (done via Bartender4). Squishing everything in the bottom may feel a little cramped, but it also means that there will basically never be a point where the UI down there interferes with looking at or interacting with something in the world. Sunn creates a perfectly straight line that creates a very clear distinction between the two, and so it's very easy to quickly scan from one section of the screen to the next, and there's basically 0 confusion where the game world ends and the UI begins. On the bottom, we have the UI, encompassing all of the information one needs to perform their role as a character who exists in WoW. On the top, we have the game world and whatever the player (aka me) has positioned the camera to look at. I like to think of it as separating the screen into 2 distinct areas. Hence, we create a spacious bar at the bottom where it will basically never be covering anything we care about, and position most of our UI on top of it. UI BROWSER WOW FULLIt also happens that, because the player has full control of the camera at all times, you will basically never see anything in the world that appears beneath/below the character on the screen, and so the very bottom is almost entirely dead space. So, the lower 1/3 of the screen is kind of important, and thus this is where I position most of my UI. Because of this, the focal point of the screen tends to be close to where my character's feet tend to be (as can be seen marked on the image above). This is actually kind of important, because the feet is the only part of your character that mechanically matters, since it's where you contact the ground, and the only hit detection the game has with your character at all (and we all know that standing in the fire is bad). I much prefer my character's feet to be positioned in the lower 1/3 of the screen, rather than in the very middle. It makes the game world look a bit small to my taste, and it tends to push your character pretty far up the screen. Personally I do not choose this option however. This has a lot of benefits, because stretching the viewport horizontally also allows you to actually see more stuff. It also has the option to change the game's actual render viewport so that rather than drawing the bars on top of the screen, it renders the entire game world in between the bars, guaranteeing that Sunn will never draw ontop of the actual game world. This real nifty addon can do a few things, but By default it just adds a bit of a bar (with some pretty art) to the top and bottom of the screen. The first thing I do in setting up my addons, is to grab Sunn Viewport Art. This is what I personally look for in my own UI. This is not inherently the same thing as creating a UI designed for this consumption of others. As a note, just keep in mind that a UI in this game is a very personal thing, that's meant to serve only one's self, and achieve whatever goals the user specifically wants to accomplish. Unfortunately, setting up for yet another new expansion means re-doing my UI for the umpteenth time, but I thought I would use this as an exercise, to walk you through setting up my time-tested UI what I do, and more importantly, why. I honestly attribute this practice to my first experience with UI/UX design. Over the years, I've spent a lot of time playing with different addons and layouts, trying to figure out exactly when and where I like my information to be displayed. Specifically, WoW has a very open-ended UI system written entirely in lua, making it very easy to mod. The modding scene has been so prevalent for so long that, customizing one's UI is almost a rite of passage at this point- it's just something that most people do when they become reasonable serious about the game. basic, but the most important feature it has always had, is mod-ability. WoW's default UI has always been kind of. What I want to talk about today, is User Interface. And while it's been several years now since I actively played, Blizzard still manages to pull me back for every new expansion, and the upcoming Battle for Azeroth is no exception. World of Warcraft and I go way back- all the way to 2006 in fact.
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