Star Citizen - UI Revisited (part 2)
As we delve deeper into the UI of Star Citizen, our focus turns to exploring the intricacies of mobiGlas, the HUDs, and the astute UI design philosophy championed by the Cloud Imperium Games team.
mobiGlas
mobiGlas is a wrist-mounted holographic UI in Star Citizen that serves as the primary interface for players, allowing them to manage inventory, track missions, communicate, and access ship controls and navigation.
The interface comes in the form of a projected semi-transparent hologram similar to the wrist-mounted UI from The Division (see article). This approach presents menu options to the player regardless of their whereabouts and frees the content from the limitations of a small screen of a device.
With its ability to be viewed from a multitude of angles, including those of other players, this feature seems to introduce a unique aspect of social involvement and collaboration. For example, sharing a location with another player would be significantly more captivating and immersive through this means than it would be via a handheld device.
HUD
Observing a space helmet with a heads up display can evoke a sense of innate fascination. In Star Citizen, the animated HUD can be viewed from both internal and external perspectives, bringing to mind the HUDs from Halo Nightfall that we discussed in a previous article.
Modular UI
The UI team at Cloud Imperium Games talk through in detail the approach and intricacies of the UI design in the video below.
They emphasised the importance of creating a UI that was intuitive, efficient, and easy to use, while also being visually appealing and immersive. To achieve this, they adopted a modular approach, designing individual UI components that could be easily rearranged and combined to create a personalised interface that suited each player's needs. This was demonstrated in the cockpit designs we featured in part 1 of our revisiting of Star Citizen.
Moreover, they highlight some interesting challenges around creating interfaces that can be seen simultaneously by all players in this massively multiplayer online (MMO).
The meticulous attention devoted to the UI design in Star Citizen is undeniable, and the fruits of the team's labor have yielded an astonishingly immersive world to engage with. Big congratulations to the talented individuals at Cloud Imperial Games who brought this vision to life.