Flavien already hinted at that:
( I want to experiment with a helmet cylindrical deformation at the corners too )
A helmet cylindrical deformation isn’t an outline of a helmet. The present HUD will lose a lot of space so probably a mock up of one will narrow suggestions markedly.
Ah, sorry. Figured you were taking a dig at star-citizen and its tendency to block out all peripheral vision with certain suits. On mobile and can’t see images right now.
Actually I like some of their helmet visuals but agree, sometimes they are too obtrusive.
I disagree. It should do whatever it was designed for, and stay focused on that. Steve Jobs made the importance of that ethic clear. Microsoft (and now Tim Cook) follows your line of thinking and just puts in whatever they can into the product without worrying too much about how it all fits together. Come to think of it, that’s the problem with the 1960 cockpit and the 2040 HUD - they give everyone what they want, but the pieces don’t fit together.
As I said, if the external view can have the HUD, then nobody is going to use the cockpit view unless they’re forced to, obviating the value of creating the cockpit in the first place.
Now, with @Zen’s suggestion of a helmet outline, we’re not only going to have a HUD outside the ship, but a helmet as well.
I really think this is going in the wrong direction
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Not big on external view for combat because it really breaks immersion. Battlefront has the ability to switch between exterior and cockpit view but everyone, or nearly everyone, uses exterior view because it’s easier. But it’s easier because they designed it that way.
I am of the same opinion, too much choice can be a bad thing which is why I don’t believe in the option of exterior combat abilities. That said, having a helmet outline adds to immersion which is why we even bother to use the cockpit in the first place. Whether it will restrict visuals to the point of being a nuisance really depends on design.
I think the currently planned mix of cockpit and helmet technology is a good solution for the game both in gameplay aspects and realism.
Its basically what the F-35 does:
I’m also for limiting the “helmet view” (hud infos) to the cockpit view, meaning no advanced infos displayed in third person view. Third person view should only serve for looking around and helping landing.
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I had heard many things about the infamous F-35 helmet, but wow this thing looks silly. No wonder pilots complain they can’t properly turn their head around in the canopy…
Slight deformation to make it look more like a HMD is not a bad idea, but @JB47394 is right, it shouldn’t be at the cost of HUD space. For example, decorative lines are to avoid at all costs.
Again, Shattered Horizon is a good starting point, even if it necessarily had a way simpler helmet: some deformation helped immersion (that you were in a EVA suit) without harming visibility or deforming elements too much.
Though the rule of “more important is closer to centre” becomes even more important.
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Was thinking the same thing, was wondering when someone would pick it up. The HUD is just a flat layer on the screen instead of it being somehow integrated either into the cockpit window or the helmet. My assumption is that what is being shown is an early Photoshop version and so doesn’t have this feature. As it is now, it looks akin to good old space games that didn’t have cockpits in them, just a flat HUD.
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I don’t think the hud will be integrated into the 3d world at all. It will be a layer ontop of everything else, like it is currently in the prototype. Integrating it is probaly out of the scope with a sad 300k in funds. Hopefully we can hype more people to pledge once more advanced gameplay can be shown.
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It’s pretty trivial to add integrated UI in Unity. 
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Then again, you’re speaking about a game engine that’s been developped for years while INovae is making their own game engine.
I understand your point, but really you could have rephrased that, INE has been in development for over a decade.
I think the invested man-hours in the Inovae Engine and the invested hours in Unity really do not compare. I think its pretty amazing what the Inovae Engine is already able to do. I also do not think that making it easy for developers that use the Unity SDK to add integrated UI in Unity was that trivial for the engine developers. 
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It’s trivial for millions of indie developers that are using Unity though, so it’s becoming a norm for gamers to expect those kind of features.
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This tread makes me wish we still had the old forums to link to stuff. HUD and Radar, endless discussions…
As far as Radar is concerned, i am still 100% certain that any radar concept based on Kartesian coordinates, no matter what projection is used, is highly inferior to a radar concept based on Polar coordinates, projected onto the fixed visual plane you have anyways: Your screen center / forward view. At least for anything you want to do in a fighter like spacecraft. Might have to draw a mockup again once we get closer to actually testing radar concepts.
As to the HUD in general: Minimalist line style is great but can be hard to read. Contrast enhancing additons, like black outlines, will be needed. Monochromatic is ok, but colour choice by players should be a standard feature.
Condensing information is extremely needed, a great example is that small picture/icon for the energy distribution: Clear, intuitive, easy to read.
Placement, relative size and GROUPING of HUD elements needs careful evaluation for each information displayed: E.g. if you are close enough to a planet to need Altitude information, you do NOT want it to be hidden in the top left corner like that. And making it that tiny compared to huge cardinal directions / compass that you most probably do not even need is also no good. It probably needs to be grouped with your speed information.
Another aspect is how easy it is to extract information from graphics. If e.g. you have a simple linear shield and simple linear health model, it makes sense to have 2 percentage bars, straight or curved, near the screen center. But the more you work with shield regions / local armour / ship subsystem damage, the more it makes sense to have a dedicated simplified ship model near the screen edge that gives a direct visual indication of where shield/hull/system damage is located.
Features that can take up much screen space, like chat or squad info, should have quick expansion / minimization options. But also, they should be “out of the way” as much as possible - e.g. the squad info as shown could easily be a single row at the bottom of the screen instead of the column it is now, taking up the same area but less “valueable” area.
Then there are minor nitpicks, e.g. chat is often found in the top left corner, because of the western convention to read from the top left first. Conventions can be helpful, as long as not followed blindly, because they allow players to quickly learn a new HUD.
Some aspects of Infinity will clearly require deviations from conventions - everything scale related for example. With dozens of planets, potentially dozens of capital ships and hundreds of fighters, every system that lacks robust grouping / prioritizing of contacts to display will fail. I think there will HAVE to be an extra HUD element / window / status monitor to show detailed information on a locked - on target - especially if that target is actually a group of contacts created by the necessary information compression system. Simply not showing things beyond a cutoff range will not always cut it i think.
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That’s strange. I’ve never played a game with a text chat box anywhere but the lower left corner. Unreal Tournament, World of Warcraft, ARMA 3 and many others place it lower left. I think it goes there because text chat is considered much lower priority information than many other tidbits of game information.
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Same here… Don’t remember the last time I saw a multiplayer game that had chat at the top of the screen.
*Oh wait; didn’t Elite Dangerous do it that way because they crowded the bottom of the screen full of hud info and had no room for it down there and weren’t focusing all that much on multiplayer at the design stage?
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I’ll take ED defense for once and let you notice that text tchat is far from being crowded like in some other games. People use in-game vocal tchat when in squads, or Discord or any other tool.
Most of the time, it’s supposed to be important-ish NPC dialogues. For instance, you won’t react the same way if the NPC warping behind you (no luck, happens) will ask you to obey scanning process (cops) or threaten you to drop cargo (pirates). If memory serves, it also displays general environment like leaving warp / interdiction / etc., but there are enough visual / audio cues to ignore those parts.
Would just like to add that ED is the only game that I actually like my voice in, they are using voice filters of some sort, beautiful stuff. You actually sound like a spacecraft pilot.
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