Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback BG3 UI fantasy design; "Forgotten" realm?

Yeah I mean, there's nothing more pretentious or intractable than taste on this stuff I'm sure, and so it's hard to really make a concrete suggestion. I also agree that it's not exactly bad, just that it doesn't make a strong impression on me. Like I can close my eyes, and imagine in my head what the Baldur's Gate UI looked like. I can conjure up recollections of the iconography and the arrangement, and even some charming details right there on the periphery if I really sit with it, just a lot of little images there. For sure all the Skull and the Spellbook and the Scroll case, but also the stone or the hardwood or extraplanar vibes in it's various incarnations. It went through a decorative morph for sure, but I remember it. When I think of BG3 its more like just a grid or graph paper with everything in a box at sort of the same iconographic scale. Either the big box, or the really really small box, or plain text on a line. I guess there's an appeal to that for me too on some level. But it's just hard to put the finger on what I'd want to see.

I wish it could be modular and decorative, so one might dress up the UI like one does the character and find an organization and presentation that hums for them. It's cool that some got that already just from what we have, but I wish there was more and that it was just easier to open and navigate around. Char Sheet right now seems pretty sensibly organized and the information displayed that way is alright. The minor adornments on the borders are present but very subtle. Grouping the sections with textured or toned backgrounds might be one way to go, another might be to do the same with the trellising, like in the color or materials there. Right now it's sort of transparent glass on the dark brown/black void, but I can imagine how they might slot in parchment or carved stone or the gargoyl'ing that truly speaks to me. I hope they take it on as like a full master suite. You know cemetary wrought iron or spiderwebs or planar biomechaniod. I mean why choose one look, when there's so much they could try out? And if someone just likes the clean and gridded look they can toggle that empty or clearview.

I'd love to see Journal or an MM that almost vibes like this sometimes... shapes like that. Like 70s revival BG2 nouveau but done with some of those elements. Or like for equipment previews...

BG1 late 80s revival love too maybe, like metal and the 2 tone inks. That'd be cool.

I mean they could do a lot, even just with fonts and the font/icon scaling and background cells. What's there is actually pretty nice, but also very small, they could bring those design features more to the fore. Or using some larger shapes, or some spheres or other shapes instead of just the squares 1x1. If the info in the Char Sheet is the same, they could still do little flourish things to make opening that individual menu feel more themed. Or even in the all ups display of the gaming UI. I wish we could break it apart and move it around. Just some of the ideas to kick about for it.

I find these elements pretty strong, but the decorative aspects and icons often are so small that it's harder to really appreciate them. Maybe the boards will enlarge somewhat if I isolate them, or just to appreciate them independently...










To come back to the title of the thread, some of the realms being forgotten here are all those negative spaces between the elements. There are ways to use even very rudimentary adornment like color or texture to help define what's what and what's related. For example one can imagine among the spellbars an associated color/texture field for all spells of the same level or same school which then mirrors themes in the "spellbook menu." Perhaps the circular cut outs bridging the lattices together now then turn to glowing orbs with the associated colors. Stuff of that sort. Or perhaps the entire theme changes if one is say accessing magic via pact with some demonic or divine patron or a draconic lineage or wild style as opposed to the arcane theme. Or take that idea but maybe extend it into inventory grouping or abilities. If they start small with skins and textures that are basically bar/tab undelays they could experiment with quite a few different looks before settling on anything particular as permanent. But on just the basic level of visual orginization keying in the stuff that's related and adding borders and textures to the negative space might be nice when we enter the specific menu or integrated into an overall theme around say class or background or just setting.

Then I look at the avatar field and see the negative space there, and I think, 'this could easily be a portait in scene or like with a simple gradient, a pose designed to make it more portrait like. Perhaps with illumination designs in the margins to suggest class or background and such. And all those things could still be stripped away back down to this blanked if one wanted a more simplified version, but its easier to remove something in place than it is to conjur it up. So I hope they take it further and have a whole team working on it right now. One can wish!