Seen any neat 3D interfaces lately?

[Eric Chadwick]

I've been tasked with generating a fancy real-time 3D interface for a game, and I'm looking for inspiration. If you've seen any cool 3D interfaces lately, whether for games or not, I'd love to see them.

I haven't really started looking online yet.

I picked up a great book about CG interface design in general, called "Digital Information Graphics (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823013537/qid=1105399215/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-7173481-7523861)." It's not about game UIs, more about examples of spatial UIs, but it has some interesting points in it.

I'll be diving into this soon, thought I'd get some ideas from fellow polycounters...

[FatAssasin]

Are you talking about in-game HUDs, or the beginning UI where you see the New Game, Options, etc. options?

The intro UI of Chronicles of Riddick is the only thing that stands out in my mind right now. You might be able to find a demo somewhere for either the Xbox or PC version.

[pior]

What about Metroid Prime? It's mostly a 2D interface wrapped around a curved helmet but it has nice 3D visualisation effects...

http://gamer.no/bilder/gamecube/metroid_prime/20.jpg

Hmmm there is also this funky screen in minority report...

http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/reviewsgfx/mr02.jpg

Hope this helps!

[Eric Chadwick]

Hey, thank you both for these. I'll be doing both the menu UI and the HUD.

Minority Report sprang right to mind, but I recall it being kind of a non-existent UI, like he just rotated his fingers in space and the videos/memories responded. I should take another look though, gonna root around for that Cinefex in the basement.

I'm going to start looking around on the web tomorrow. Thanks for the input.

[MacD]

Check out Mechwarrior 3 (dunno about MW4) or any flightsim for cockpit kinda things, but I don't think that's what you're looking for, or is it?
Maybe try these movies: Titan AE, that Final Fantasy movie, Johny Mnemonic, that kind of thing?

[AfroLeft]

Ken oath, the FF movie UIs turned me on big time... (in a non sexual, human - machine interfacing kinda way)

[monster]

Go to this site and install the anark plugin. Then you can check out the demo's which are 3d interfaces. I recommend looking at the Motorcycle and geforce4 menus/demos.

http://www.anark.com/gallery/gallery_visualization.asp

[Eric Chadwick]

Thanks for the ideas. I've been pulled off this onto something else, for the time being.

I like the Anark things, especially the rotate gizmo in the motorcycle one. Thanks for that.

I'll take a refresher on the FF movie UIs too.