305HUDs in Virtual Environments
15.4.3 seTTing The mood WiTh a hud
“Carry the concept through the design” are words to live by. A little window dressing can help the content
maker set up the mental space in a user’s mind for immersion and the creation of Flow. For instance, sup-
pose you have designed a region that is a replica of the senate in ancient Rome. In fact, you have even set it
up so that togas are required to be worn by the visitors to further enhance the immersion. Think how much
a teleport HUD that looks like an old map or inlaid mosaic would add to this experience. Carry your design
forward onto the screen and completely embrace the aesthetic of your particular design so that the user is
never reminded of the other world by your graphics.
One of Second Life’s premiere builders, Flea Bussy, creates beautiful HUDs for the creatures she designs.
In Figure15.8, you will see the Halloween Rat and the HUD (enlarged for image clarity) that goes with it.
All the pictograms are clear identiers of what the rat will do, making this avatar accessible to anyone, no
matter what language the person reads and speaks.
15.4.4 using huds To play a game
The potential of HUDs gives virtual world content designers the opportunity to be diabolical. Imagine a
game where you have to build a tool, attaching it piece by piece to your HUD to stay alive, or you are creating
FIGURE 15.7 Screen shot from Second Life, showing the view out of the windshield and the HUD for a virtual Army
CH-47 Chinook helicopter. The helicopter and interface were designed and built by Belenos Stardust, CEO Stardust
Enterprises Incorporated.
306 Virtual World Design
an onscreen playing board while you are solving the challenges of a 3D prize hunt game. The possibilities are
endless, and given the ever-thinning barrier between 3D worlds and the 2D space of the World Wide Web,
there can and should be more interplay possible between the 3D spaces and 2D websites with a HUD that
can access them both. Linden Labs, the company that runs Second Life, created self-attaching HUDs for its
Linden Realms project, adding the benet of a seamless entry into game play environments and automatic
setup of game tools for Linden Realms. In Figure15.9, you will see how they attached a scoring HUD to your
avatar as you enter the game through a special portal.
15.5 SOME THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU USE HUDS
The following recaps the most important points regarding HUD design:
1. Bear in mind the most useful screen position of your HUD and design for that. However, be aware
that the user will change the position to t personal needs or system, so your format should be adapt-
able and t comfortably into any screen position.
2. Do not forget about lag and scripting considerations in your HUD. Always give the option of an
“off” or “sleep” button if you can.
3. Plan on how you can rotate, scale, or otherwise transform the HUD on the screen so that it can be
minimized to save screen space when the user needs to get it out of the way.
FIGURE 15.8 Screen shot from Second Life showing a Halloween Rat avatar designed by Flea Bussy and its related
HUD. This HUD is an exceptionally ne design with great access for all users no matter their native language.
307HUDs in Virtual Environments
FIGURE 15.9 Linden Realms Portal and automatically attaching game HUD, created by Linden Labs, Second Life.
As you enter through the portal (shown in the top picture), the crystal scoring HUD was attached to the top of your
screen for use during game play (shown in the bottom image).
308 Virtual World Design
15.6 TOOLS TO MAKE HUDS
Let’s get set up to make our rst HUD. The buttons and framework for this will be created with the native
prims in your virtual world through the Firestorm Viewer, so there is no need for any fancy 3D modeling
packages yet. The textures for these buttons will be made in Photoshop or your preferred paint program, so
go ahead and launch that.
15.7 PROJECT: CREATING A “FAVORITE LINKS” HUD
Start your HUD building with a simple one that allows you to access your favorite websites while you are
logged in to your virtual world. You never know when you might want to post a snapshot or a cool quote,
so this HUD can come in handy if you love social media or need to read your e-mail. It is assumed for the
purposes of this exercise that you have a modicum of skills with graphics manipulation as well as 3D model-
ing and scripting. If you do not know how to manipulate images or edit them, it is recommended that you
check out some Photoshop tutorials (http://www.photoshopessentials.com/) or some for GIMP (GNU Image
Manipulation Program) (http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/). If you do not know how to create and edit prims or
how to edit and load simple scripts, please go through Chapters 6 and 14 before you do this project.
15.7.1 CreaTe and upload your BuTTon TexTures
For the purposes of this project, you should make three icons or select three logos from the three favorite
places you like to visit on the web. Make each one of them into a 128 × 128 pixel PNG le. There is no need
for anything larger because the buttons on this HUD will be petite.
Upload your textures as shown in Figure 15.10 through the Avatar/Upload/Image menu and nd a
quiet place or sandbox to build your HUD. From your inventory, retrieve the Test_HUD cube you made in
Section15.1.1 from your HUD_builder folder. If you do not have this, please go back to Section 15.1.1 and
follow the steps to make one. As you probably recall, face 4 is the side that will attach to your screen when
you “wear” this HUD. This is going to become the screen-facing side of your HUD button and where you
will put the button textures you just made.
Next, change the color of the box to “blank” and select a color for the cube that complements the color of
your icon texture, and apply that to all sides but face 4. Then select face 4 and apply your icon texture to it,
as shown in Figure 15.10.
15.7.2 maKing The sTaCK of BuTTons and BaCK plaTe
Copy the cube two times in a stacked arrangement as shown in Figure 15.11, change their base color to
complement your other two graphics and apply your button textures to them. Add one more prim to create a
“backplate,” or large semi-transparent frame for these three stacked buttons. Now, select the 3 buttons and
then the back plate, and Link them in the Build/Edit menu. The key prim, or last one on the link chain should
be the back plate, and it will indicate that by its yellow highlight when selected in the Edit mode.
15.7.3 inserTing The sCripTs inTo your BuTTons
Download the LSL script called “URL Giver for HUD” as shown in Table 15.1, to your computer’s desktop.
This chapter’s content is available at http://www.anncudworthprojects.com/, under the Virtual World Design
Book Downloads section. Click on the script to open it in WordPad or some other text editor, and copy/paste
309HUDs in Virtual Environments
FIGURE 15.10 Screen grab from OpenSim showing the uploading and application of a button texture to the face of
a prim.
FIGURE 15.11 Screen grab from OpenSim showing process of making the structure of the HUD.
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