Draenei UI

Warcraft 3 has dozens of wonderful User Interfaces, but not a single on for my favorite race: the Draenei. So I decided to take my mediocre art skills to create the User Interface.

I hope you all enjoy and spread the love of the Draenei to anyone that needs it.

I do hope to update this User Interface in the future.


202905-albums6611-picture87895.png



Moderator Edit: All textures add and merged into single bundle.



Play as my other factions:
DraeneiDalaran Lost Ones High ElvesScarlet CrusadersDark Iron ClanFel Horde

Check out this project






Keywords:
Draenei, User Interface, Sexy
Contents

Draenei UI Inventory Cover (Texture)

Draenei UI Menu Background (Texture)

Draenei UI Menu Border (Texture)

Draenei UI Menu Buttons Highlight (Texture)

Draenei UI Small UI buttons (Texture)

Draenei UI Tile01 (Texture)

Draenei UI Tile02 (Texture)

Draenei UI Tile03 (Texture)

Draenei UI Tile04 (Texture)

Draenei UI TimeIndicatorFrame (Texture)

Reviews
14:33, 1st Oct 2014 Kwaliti: While some parts could've been masked to hide the fact that you were reusing certain elements, it's pretty much in working and acceptable condition.

Moderator

M

Moderator

14:33, 1st Oct 2014
Kwaliti:

While some parts could've been masked to hide the fact that you were reusing certain elements, it's pretty much in working and acceptable condition.
 
Level 16
Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
1,379
also, not many peeps notice, but war3 UIs also have some slight perspective that draws the players eyes to the middle of the screen

Which is the biggest problem when making a U.I, and the reason there's just about a few good ones out there. Nice notice Misha :)

Also, I'm just curious if the 'diamond pillars' are freehand, not that it matters in a U.I, just curious. Those seem nicely done.
Edit: I'd suggest removing the small diamonds from the top menu, they feel rather off. I'd also suggest an overall darker color.
 
Level 24
Joined
Feb 19, 2011
Messages
675
Unrefined and unadapted.. could you ask a bigger artist to touch it up into a war3-like feel? oO

also, not many peeps notice, but war3 UIs also have some slight perspective that draws the players eyes to the middle of the screen

Well, I did mention my mediocre skill. If any would be wiling to help me out, sure.

Nice catch, I hadn't noticed.

Also, I'm just curious if the 'diamond pillars' are freehand, not that it matters in a U.I, just curious. Those seem nicely done.
Edit: I'd suggest removing the small diamonds from the top menu, they feel rather off. I'd also suggest an overall darker color.

Those are not freehand, but they do look nice. I thought as much about the small diamonds. Darker colors for the bright purple Draenei. I could give it a shot.

I give kudos to anyone willing to attempt the difficult task of making a good custom UI; it's not easy.

Looks like a great start; good luck on improving it!

Thank you. This version alone took me a while.
 
Level 3
Joined
May 5, 2013
Messages
20
Hands down 5/5! This is absolutely PERFECT for the project I'm working on!

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This site and its sister site (WC3Campaigns) really are super-exclusively-strict on what you resource moderators "approve"... I honestly don't understand WHY a fully-functional working model needs to be changed to meet your EXTREMELY high-quality standards in order to be "approved" (and it seems to me that a lot of your "requested" changes amount to nothing more than personal taste, since a lot of the time something like 9/10 posters give the model you're asking to change upwards of 4-5 star ratings). It's not like making these things is IN ANY WAY EASY, and very few people have the skills, the time, and the patience required to make these resources. Why are you guys such harsh, unrelenting judges of other people's artwork?

"...Unrefined and unadapted...war3-like feel..." You said nothing with these words that would tell the artist exactly WHAT you think he/she needs to change to meet your standards...

"...war3 UIs also have some slight perspective that draws the players eyes to the middle of the screen" While I have noticed that, I still couldn't even BEGIN to tell you what causes that effect. Unless you can name some key aspects that cause this visual effect, it's functionally impossible for any artist to fix this without INSANE amounts of trial-and-error testing.

---
Just some thoughts, but I do sort of get why a lot really good modders seem to have pulled out and deleted their works from the sites over the years, which is really sad...

(Also, show me ONE OTHER Draenei UI, because there aren't any...)
 
Level 16
Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
1,379
Hands down 5/5! This is absolutely PERFECT for the project I'm working on!

-----------------------

This site and its sister site (WC3Campaigns) really are super-exclusively-strict on what you resource moderators "approve"... I honestly don't understand WHY a fully-functional working model needs to be changed to meet your EXTREMELY high-quality standards in order to be "approved" (and it seems to me that a lot of your "requested" changes amount to nothing more than personal taste, since a lot of the time something like 9/10 posters give the model you're asking to change upwards of 4-5 star ratings). It's not like making these things is IN ANY WAY EASY, and very few people have the skills, the time, and the patience required to make these resources. Why are you guys such harsh, unrelenting judges of other people's artwork?

"...Unrefined and unadapted...war3-like feel..." You said nothing with these words that would tell the artist exactly WHAT you think he/she needs to change to meet your standards...

"...war3 UIs also have some slight perspective that draws the players eyes to the middle of the screen" While I have noticed that, I still couldn't even BEGIN to tell you what causes that effect. Unless you can name some key aspects that cause this visual effect, it's functionally impossible for any artist to fix this without INSANE amounts of trial-and-error testing.

---
Just some thoughts, but I do sort of get why a lot really good modders seem to have pulled out and deleted their works from the sites over the years, which is really sad...

(Also, show me ONE OTHER Draenei UI, because there aren't any...)

I understand how you feel about it, having a resource rejected due to it being insufficient can be a harsh feeling. But to this day, I've not seen a moderator who has abused their power OR given poor judgement.
And to be honest, 2D art resources aren't hard, time consuming -- yes, but not hard.
The creator seemed very approving of the above suggestions, maybe because he knows he can do better to make this even better?.
 
Level 10
Joined
Aug 30, 2007
Messages
270
well, as I didn't ever try to make a UI myself, don't take it too serious.

what bothers me most is the very plane border of the UI, the classic wc3 UIs are not that straight. Orcs and Undead have spikes, NE have leaves and Human have this wall structure. You could bring some variation in it, it still can and has to be tiled to some point, obviously, so the UI fits together. You also could drop the 'whole in purple' idea. Just look at Shattrat city in wow (you could go with brown rock and purple crystals as eye-catchy highlights). Get some inspiration from the draenei buildings in WoW, especially now that WoD is coming and it brings the undestroyed/uncorrupted Shattrat and even temple of karabor (black temple). Also at the moment there is still a lot of empty, black space (top UI between the resources, and on the inventory hider).

Nevertheless I really like what you did so far, and hope you will still work on it as it has the potential to become an even more awesome UI, and something many of us were and will be in need for^^.
 
unrefined means that your UI is not having a unifying theme.. i'm just seeing a bunch of purple-ish 'surface', connected to a bunch of Pink crystals.. what if, instead, it were to have a similar design like the walls of Exodar, even with some magical pink 'circuitry' that i've noticed here and there in that place, then the big pink crystals could be used well with the rest..

Unadapted means that it really does not have that cartoonish war3-like feel to it, highlights are not exaggerated, shadows neither, and i'm not sure how much an UI and a.. say, building, differ in shadows and highlights, but to me they look kinda the same, and you could try to make it similar..

and lastly, the effect that draws the eye to the center of the screen is simply perspective, with a 'vanishing point' being straight in the center, or in the case of an UI, whichever point would point to the center when you assemble all 4 images in the UI, but that is a thing of art and drawing

I hope that i have been constructive now, and i'm not discouraging you, but really, if you create something like an UI, you should have a few things in mind that will make it extremely useful even if it isn't perfect..
 
Level 3
Joined
May 5, 2013
Messages
20
I really like it. It's not completely perfect, but i think it deserves a good rating.

I honestly don't get their gripping - it fits the Draenei theme EXTREMELY well. Maybe they're complaining because it has too much going on everywhere? I guess it's a lot less subtle of a UI than all the vanilla ones, but honestly: the Draenei are both extravagant and "alien" architects. They don't create their structures, weapons, etc. that looks anything like "normal" human architecture.

If you take a good look at every building from the vanilla races, you can link pretty much every single one to real life examples of architectural styles. You can't do that with the Draenei. I wonder if this is just stupid human nature - people shunning things they don't understand...
 
Level 10
Joined
Oct 16, 2012
Messages
555
I wonder if this is just stupid human nature - people shunning things they don't understand...

Did i say that it's ugly or something? Did i offended you in any way?

Then why the hell youre assaulting me? I said my personal opinion, it's very interesting UI, but there can be some little changes. Otherwise i gave it 5/5 for your information. Now chill down.
 
Level 3
Joined
May 5, 2013
Messages
20
Did i say that it's ugly or something? Did i offended you in any way?

Then why the hell youre assaulting me? I said my personal opinion, it's very interesting UI, but there can be some little changes. Otherwise i gave it 5/5 for your information. Now chill down.

Sorry, that was a miscommunication error on my end! I can see how this may have been interpreted negatively, but I was trying to agree with you that it deserves a good rating, nothing more, and then rambled on trying to rationalize why people may not like it, which was a comment directed at no one in particular...

I also didn't look carefully enough at who I was quoting off of - I saw the "War of the Clans" signature and thought you were the author... n.nU

Again I'm very sorry, I was in no way trying to insult you or anything! :3
 
Level 3
Joined
May 5, 2013
Messages
20
On a different note, the only two things about the UI that are bothering me a bit are the single diamond that's hanging over the unit portrait window, and the background image on the unit inventory ( it stands out far too much).

Anyways, it's still FAR better than having to use the boring Human UI! :]
 
Level 29
Joined
Mar 9, 2012
Messages
1,557
I look at the UI and see too many black spaces, they are everywhere, fe. look at between the elements at top row, there is nothing connecting them to each other forming a whole design.
Secondly you seem to have decided on use of a single thematic element and color for the whole ui(gems and pink), i can recommend to use more than just one, look at default UI's and other artist's works. Also approved on what this guy said:
(you could go with brown rock and purple crystals as eye-catchy highlights)

10/5 because of pink, would "rant" again :p
 
Level 7
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
233
i love draenei = i love this!!!! 5/5

10/5 if you change the icon of argus (too mainstream and IMO its not fit with de UI)
you can change it with somthing like
202905-albums6647-picture79005.png
<-- that
 
It's nice work, but it can use some polish. I'll commend you for consistency and effort though, having made a couple of UIs, I know the amount of work that goes into them, so good job on that.

Here are a few things I think would make your UI better:

1. remove the gems on the top bar. They may look good when you were designing it, but all it does in-game is be distracting from more important elements (like the resources). If you absolutely want to keep them, I suggest shrinking their size and placing them between button at the bottom of the bar to create some sort of pattern that's subtle and won't be in-your-face whenever you look at the top bar. Also the bar should be one continuous element, not separated into segments with gems b/w them. It's distracting :p

2. I like the idea of using the draenei logo for the time indicator, but colour-wise, it's not consistent. I suggest using dark-purple, preferably with a metallic texture (altho the texture might not be necessary bc of the size of the image). Alternatively, you could make it blue with a rough-carved crystal texture. If you need inspiration on a time-indicator that doesn't fit the ordinary mould, check out Queenlands UI.

3. the dialogue frame doesn't connect to the gems. Extend them so that there isn't a gap.

4. While there's nothing wrong with your inventory cover, just having a logo there is a bit... meh :p Check out the Blizz UIs (and even some of them on Hive) and you'll get an idea. It could be anything from a different bunch of crystals or maybe a Naaru engraving on dark marble, etc.

5. I love what you did for the portrait window. That said, the minimap has this weird white outline to it? I recommend you remove it.

6. Finally, the borders. Idk if you've noticed, but UI borders tend to have perspective to them, so it would be better if you could give it some kind of depth.

Do these (or some) and I guarantee your UI will look better.

Do you have any other elements like spell effect circle and custom cursors in mind?
 
Level 4
Joined
Dec 14, 2023
Messages
39
Can someone give me a Hint what have changed with Small UI Buttons ? Everything else is clearly obvious. What kind of buttons are getting smaller with
  • UI\Widgets\Console\Human\Human-console-buttonstates2.blp
 
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