The Halo 4 HUD - Creative Discussion

Games Other Halo
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I will start by saying this; this thread is NOT for flaming (as is any), and is meant for creative discussion. NO "this HAS to happen or blah-blah-blah"s should be said, and demands for the most-likely-already-completed HUD will be deemed as spam and will be reported as such. As a side-note, spoilers are present, and may not always be in spoiler tags. You have been forewarned.

On the said topic, this thread IS for analysis of what we’ve seen of the Halo 4 HUD. Comparisons to the Halo: Reach HUD are gladly accepted, and there’s also links below to popular references, with many more to come as they are cited in the thread.

Please note that what is discussed in this thread will not be deemed “Confirmed” until 343i themselves says that it is “Confirmed”. Any images will still be seen as the incomplete game until 343i says that such screenshots are from the final version. Basically, don’t get mad when someone says “not confirmed.” :wink:

This will serve as a MasterPost. Links may be posted to images and/or videos regarding the Halo 4 HUD, and even Halo 4 gameplay as and when it arrives. Links will also be posted to such sites as NeoGAF. If Frankie decides to feed our starving bellies, that is.

IMAGE LINKS:

Halo 4 VS Halo: Reach HUD Comparison
Article On The Halo 4 VS Reach HUD by G4TV
Secondary Look on Halo 4’s HUD by IGN
Halo 4 HUD Change GIF

VIDEO LINKS:

Making Halo 4 - First Look Trailer by Halo Waypoint

Feel free to discuss the HUD to your hearts content. Make any reference you want to past games, and in general, have fun with this creative discussion.

Just as some conversation starters…

The score on the image provided seems…uh…off, if you ask me. Could there be a new version of scoring? Or have these teams been going at it for some time now? It claims that this is “BR Slayer”, and while this is a not-confirmed gametype, is it likely that we’ll be seeing this or something similar in MM?

From what we can also tell, Halo: Reach’s health system appears to have been scratched. Could this perhaps mean that Halo 3’s system is back? Or is health possibly incorporated into the shield bar? Or is this an entirely new system?

Finally, something I don’t know if many people noticed is the ammo for the BR, and the grenades. At first look, you can see the BR’s ammo clearly, with a typical 108 extra-ammo rounds, and, from what I can tell, a total of 66 usable shots per round, with 3-shot bursts. However, where are the grenades? I looked carefully, and saw THREE boxes in the top-right corner, all with "0"s in them. Grenade boxes, or something else?

Oh, and how about that Radar? from what we can see, the Enemy/Friendly Icons are more visible, but being able to see weapons/ammo crates has been rumored. Anyone care to provide input?

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Needs a little tightening up but that’s pretty much a given at this point in development. One thing I always liked…having different colors. But that’s really too much to ask for I think, aint a big deal anyway.

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> Needs a little tightening up but that’s pretty much a given at this point in development. One thing I always liked…having different colors. But that’s really too much to ask for I think, aint a big deal anyway.

Tightening up, as in the HUD? I agree. In my opinion, the balance of it is also askew. There’s too many things on the right side, and not enough on the left. This could be done for the grenade boxes not having been added, but who knows?

Do you mean separate colors for the different HUD parts? Like for Grenades, Radar, Shield/Health Bar? Or as in the change in HUD color between Halo 3, ODST, and Reach?

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I really hope the HUD colour adapts to the background colour. I’ve always found it frustrating to have a light blue HUD and target reticle against a light blue sky.

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I completely agree. If you look at the differences between the two screenshots of the HUD I posted (2nd was just added), it appears that it will have relative transparency, providing more look on the background, rather than a massive bubble in your bottom-left corner that blocks unfriendly heads from being seen. :wink:

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I also really hope that the information that pops up “Player X sniped Player Y and got a headshot and is on a killing frenzy and likes coffee” aren’t so long and don’t encroach so far into the main gaming space on the HUD. I think its mad how that text can appear so far across into the screen space that it actually gets in the way, potentially covering things you need to see.

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Color as in the entire HUD, but preset things like a certain type of red or yellow or what-have-you. Maybe depending on team, that’d be cool. But it’s wishful thinking on a subject that’s not really that important. Just want it to feel like a helmet this time, like ODST, rather than in reach.

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I just hope 343i rectify the problems with the previous Halo HUDs. I really hope they allow the HUD colour to darken dynamically if on a light coloured background so we can still see the reticle and info. Its particularly bad with the Scorpion especially on old maps like Avalanche in Halo 3.

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> I also really hope that the information that pops up “Player X sniped Player Y and got a headshot and is on a killing frenzy and likes coffee” aren’t so long and don’t encroach so far into the main gaming space on the HUD. I think its mad how that text can appear so far across into the screen space that it actually gets in the way, potentially covering things you need to see.

From what I can tell based on the 4th Link, it seems it will be using Reach’s system of information-flooding, but compiled and put into all-caps. Personally, I’m not too happy with the all-caps. It also seems that “Xenoblade013 likes coffee and long walks on the beach” (No, really!) info would begin to encroach on the visibility space, given the shown size of the text. However, It looks like they’ve finally spaced the indications out. No more of this:

Xenoblade013 has a koala bear in his hat
Xenoblade013 is eating a banana
MuffinMan is on Drury Lane
bs angel betrayed you

Seems to be more like this now:

Xenoblade013 is on a Running Riot!

MuffinMan was killed by Kids

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> Color as in the entire HUD, but preset things like a certain type of red or yellow or what-have-you. Maybe depending on team, that’d be cool. But it’s wishful thinking on a subject that’s not really that important. Just want it to feel like a helmet this time, like ODST, rather than in reach.

Completely understood. :slight_smile:
I admit that would be amazing, but it could cause complications to players, based on how a lot of them like a “routine look”. And I’m guessing this would be something a bit more to your liking? Well…at least the helmety-look it has…

> I just hope 343i rectify the problems with the previous Halo HUDs. I really hope they allow the HUD colour to darken dynamically if on a light coloured background so we can still see the reticle and info. Its particularly bad with the Scorpion especially on old maps like Avalanche in Halo 3.

Again, from what I can tell from the pictures, it appears that the HUD is mostly transparent, allowing for maximum visibility. I don’t know about the reticule (kind of worries me that it’s hard to see…), but the info is a bit TOO transparent. We like laughing at betraying our friends sometimes in CG, and we love it when it says “Xenoblade 013 is on a Rampage!” for all to see. Regarding the Scorpion’s reticule, I agree. But there’s only so much you can do with colors. Eventually you’re going to find two of the same. Proof? Look up in Forge World in Halo: Reach, or Valhalla in Halo 3.

Moral of this? Targeting opponents in the sky sucks.

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A bit more uncluttered but that’s the gist of it. Looks like an f-16…

http://www.thejawa.com/reviews/videogames/republic_commando/screenshots/SWRepublicCommando%202008-02-23%2012-45-57-51.jpg That’s more along the lines of it, I mean, obviously halo…-ized. but the point is to make it look like a helmet.

I miss that game…

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> A bit more uncluttered but that’s the gist of it. Looks like an f-16…
>
> http://www.thejawa.com/reviews/videogames/republic_commando/screenshots/SWRepublicCommando%202008-02-23%2012-45-57-51.jpg That’s more along the lines of it, I mean, obviously halo…-ized. but the point is to make it look like a helmet.
>
> I miss that game…

You just pictured one of my favorite games! A cool thing to notice is how alike the Trooper on the left and a customized Reach character look (EOD helmet, EVA Right Shoulder pad, Default knees, and the Military Assault chestplate)

And hey, isn’t the F-16 one of the things he’s supposed to be made out of? ;D

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Anyone notice how friendlies are green on the radar now? I thought that looked nice.

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That’s such a small change…it’s crazy how much better looking it is.

Which reminds me…I hope they don’t change things like that. Like when the DMR first came along with the beta, the ammo count was green, and it worked so much better. Then they changed it to blue and I was sad. Little things like that can change so much…

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The Halo 4 HUD actually looks pretty good.

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I would like to have option to change your HUD’s colour. Like from regular blue to yellow. And by yellow I mean similar as in ODST and in Reach Alpha Version. I would also like to have colours like: silver, green, black(not totally :p), red.
Okay I know that using colours like red & green would be hard but perhaps they could be modified that HUD’s hue wouldn’t be too similar to enemies names colours etc. But I like personally the look of Halo 4’s HUD so far.

Also I would like to see if not in Halo 4, but forthcoming sequels that you could change your HUD’s style while keeping the basic elements of it similar. BTW, if you want to look more pic’s of Halo 4’s HUD, you should look onto Halo 4 new’s & links Master thread.

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I liked the radar from reach it just looked nicer and was more effective. Overall, however, the Hud looks pretty good. I like to see some more team interaction in the hud such as individual team member scores and what not. Possible a better kill feed that would interact with the player more and would celebrate good kills.

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Obviously there are some notable differences but it dosnt seem to me that 343i did anything radically different with the HUD, it looks like it belongs to halo game in my opinion. I really liked the pics of reach and Halo 4 side by side, its crazy how the graphics improved from reach. Also I always viewed what the community believes as the 3 grenade slots not as “0’s” but as 3 empty boxes. I thought the image of the grenade would either replace the box or go inside of it.

Im not sure I feel about the color change for friendlies from yellow to green. It looks nice but its different. (Not different enough to actually affect anything obviously.)

I don’t know what BR slayer is exactly, but I already love it. Just the name sounds good lol

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I really like it.

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> I liked the radar from reach it just looked nicer and was more effective. Overall, however, the Hud looks pretty good. I like to see some more team interaction in the hud such as individual team member scores and what not. Possible a better kill feed that would interact with the player more and would celebrate good kills.

I don’t know about those “individual Team Member scores.” Personally, I have gotten so used to, with any game, just pressing the Back button to look at Indv. Scores. It’s a common multiplayer element, and getting rid of it would be equivalent to blowing up your N64 with with a nitro-glycerin-soaked sponge. Well…unless it was broken…nah, either way it’d be wrong.
As I previously stated before, though, I’m all for changes with the Kill Feed. It needs some updating, given the text size, and how far it encroaches onto usable vision space. Then again, as of late 343i’s been a full 3 steps ahead of us. Which could be a good thing. Or an awful thing, if they made a wrong turn in a warthog. (bs angel, I’m talking to you. I remember the Community Game Night of February).

Osqutin: As far as customizable HUD’s, that becomes more than difficult. I have little game-creation knowledge, but enough coding knowledge that they’d have to program at least a thousand different things in order to get that to happen. Minimum space it would take up on the disk for just that would be a full gigabyte. Maybe more.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be amazing to see this, but technology decided to take a leaf out of the Halo: Reach server’s book, if you know what I mean.

Austin7934: Regarding changes, the differences are not radical per-say, but it’s all about the point of view. Balance of the HUD seems to be askew, in my opinion. But that could just be that they haven’t added the grenade boxes yet to the left-top side. Not only that, but for hardcore Halo fans, the HUD balance now would suggest that the Master Chief has better vision and more notice-recognition in his right eye, which couldn’t be true based upon his supposed “flawless vision” (For reference, it’s mentioned in Halsey’s Journal as part of the Project Orion (Spartan Program) files, regarding the mental functions of Spartans).
Specifically regarding the possible grenade boxes, I would love to see a new grenade type introduced. Plasma and Frag’s can get old after a while, and I’m sure the Forerunner’s were smarter than to have just invented light-based laser weapon technologies. I mean, come on; even peacekeeping old aliens love to play with explosives once in a while.
I’m in agreement on how hard the adjustment is going to be to the new Friendly color, but it makes sense. They couldn’t change it so it was your team color for Red vs Blue instances, given the blueness of the HUD, and yellow might be being used for Ammo Crates/Weapons (Makes sense, based on other games).
Lastly, BR Slayer is present in Halo 3. Whether this gametype is programmed for the final Halo 4 Multiplayer or not, it is very popular still, to this day. It may also very well be one of the “Classic experiences” Frankie and the rest of the staff have referenced about multiplayer.

On a final note, it would be great to see this talk going. If you have an idea, I can normally respond within a couple hours, latest. Keep it hot! Oh, and has anyone else noticed the MK VI Helmet outline on the side of the Shield Bar? Take a look at the GIF (4th image down)