How to display a character as "selected"?

[tomshreds]

Hi,

This isn't a question of how to develop it, but how visually should I do so?

My game plays a little tiny bit like a RTS where you can select people and make them move.

For the moment I use a light green circle circling the character. But I find it a bit sketchy, any other ideas?

Maybe highlight with a color the whole character sprite?

Any ideas are welcome!

Thanks

[kikito]

For the moment I use a light green circle circling the character. But I find it a bit sketchy, any other ideas?

That doesn't sound that bad. After all, it's what Starcraft does:

starcraft2.jpg (231.36 KiB) Viewed 1334 times

The thing is that their circles are around the feet of the units. The perspective makes the circles look like small ellipses, which is pleasant, and also gives some perspective. They also adjust the size and style of the circle depending on the size of the unit.

The other options you were suggesting (different bright colors, etc) seem a bit too "attention grabbing". In a strategy game, players usually have to pay attention to lots of things; but player attention is a limited resource. "What units are selected" is something that the player rarely needs to pay attention to (after all, the player is making the selections himself) so it must be rather subtle. Leave the strongest interface elements to really important things, for example have units being attacked colored red (or even pulsate with red color).

[tomshreds]

For the moment I use a light green circle circling the character. But I find it a bit sketchy, any other ideas?

That doesn't sound that bad. After all, it's what Starcraft does:

starcraft2.jpg

The thing is that their circles are around the feet of the units. The perspective makes the circles look like small ellipses, which is pleasant, and also gives some perspective. They also adjust the size and style of the circle depending on the size of the unit.

The other options you were suggesting (different bright colors, etc) seem a bit too "attention grabbing". In a strategy game, players usually have to pay attention to lots of things; but player attention is a limited resource. "What units are selected" is something that the player rarely needs to pay attention to (after all, the player is making the selections himself) so it must be rather subtle. Leave the strongest interface elements to really important things, for example have units being attacked colored red (or even pulsate with red color).

You've got a really good point about that. But in my case it's not a full fledged RTS, it has RTS controls but it's simply a simulation game with not too much to do yet so that may be why I was worried about the look of it but I'm sure once there will more stuff on the screen those green circles won't bother me that much hehe.

Thanks for replying!