作者：Caryn Vainio

现在让我们谈谈身为有志于此的非专业人士，应如何掌握游戏UI设计经验。

无论你是富有经验，有意转型为游戏UI设计师的应用开发者，还是自学成才的设计师，你都需要创建一个作品集，用于展示你自己在游戏UI设计上的造诣。应用开发者及平面设计师在此方面已经有一些优势 ，因为他们的作品所运用的技术可能与UI设计有所重叠，而如果你是从零开始的自学者，你又该如何创建游戏UI作品集呢？你必须先从自己的个人项目入手，下面就谈谈这些项目都有哪些形式。

案例研究：要制作优秀的游戏UI，你得玩游戏并研究它们的UI设计。选择你自己最喜爱的游戏（或者你最讨厌的游戏，找到你不喜欢其UI设计的原因），分析其游戏设计，从而领悟一些优秀UI设计的原则。如果你开通了博客，可以考虑针对该游戏UI撰写一篇案例研究的文章，详细罗列你认为其中颇为高明或是失算的设计决策，并添加你自己的改进意见和草图。

但这里要注意：这种案例研究的主旨应该是提出你自己关于游戏界面设计问题的解决方案，而不是挤兑其他UI设计师的作品。要以尊重的姿态分析他人的UI设计，心里要清楚你自己并没有参与该项目开发过程，你并不清楚他们的UI设计师面临哪种技术或其他局限性。我至今为自己曾经做过的一两个言辞过于激进的案例研究而自责。

模仿UI设计：另一个掌握技能，培养设计美感的方法就是模仿他人UI设计。你可以为一款现成的游戏重制UI，或者为你自己假设的游戏设计UI。这些可以是标准前端UI屏幕的静态图片，例如主菜单或选项屏幕，或者

游戏内UI屏幕（例如HUD或计分榜）。如果你需要加强的就是平面设计技能，那么这就是一个现成的好方法。

交互式UI原型：这是在模仿UI设计的基础上更进一步，使之成为交互式原弄。使用Flash等应用程序创建前端模拟屏幕，呈现美术转场效果，以及典型游戏UI的流程及导航情况。如果你玩过一款游戏，并认为其设计师实际上还可以让特别复杂的UI更流畅一点，那你就可以根据自己的想法做出原型，以便他人与之互动并看出经过你优化后的操作效果。如果你需要提高自己的编码和脚本撰写技能，就可以使用Actionscript进行实践。

scaleform4(from unrealengine.com)

小型游戏项目及修正版本：要通过这种自学项目创造一个应用或小型游戏，让它们检验你的UI设计。如果你有兴趣开发iOS移动应用，可以下载XCode SDK，自学Objective C编程语言，创造一款拥有精致UI设计的应用或小游戏。但你并不需要针对iPhone创建一款完整的游戏或应用——你可以用Flash制作一个简单的版本。你还可以下载EpicGames的Unreal Development Kit，使用许多其他公司制作游戏及UI所使用的相同技术（例如Scaleform UI系统）来制作一款小游戏。这可能是最耗精力和工时的一个理念，但也是最能亮出真本领的环节——它可以证明你确实掌握了一项新技术，你可以规划并完成一个项目。

如果你并不想走制作完整项目的路线，可以尝试制作一个修正版本。许多游戏都允许用户修改游戏玩法、UI等内容，然后发布这些修改后的版本以供其他玩家下载试玩。暴雪的《魔兽世纪》以及《星际争霸2》就是两个典型例子，另外有些第一人称PC射击游戏，以及RPG也会提供这类工具。

现在有许多高校、学院涌现专业的游戏设计课程，如果你想成为游戏UI设计师，你可能就会问“我应该报名参加这些课程吗？”

关于参加这些专业游戏课程究竟有无裨益这个问题，答案五花八门，我的看法就是：见人见智。我并没有关于这些课程的直接经验，只是曾和一小部分曾修过这些课程的人员共事。这些课程之间的质量差异，与不同机构之间的教学资质差异一样不可避免。根据我同事（他们曾经上过这些课）的经验，这些课程或学历并非促使他们成为游戏开发者的重要因素——他们多半是出于自己内心对游戏的热爱，他们潜心制作好游戏与自己所接受的教育和学历无关。这些游戏开发者多数是在闲暇时间开始制作游戏，多数使用的正是本文所提到的工具，并且只是通过制作游戏而学到许多有用的技能。

至于游戏UI设计，我的建议就是获得平面设计专业的学历，或许还可以再修或选修计算机科学，因为你设计游戏UI所用到的技能也正是任何需要招聘UI设计师的行业的需求。也许某天你发现自己不想继续待在游戏领域时，转行时就可以将这些技能运用到其他领域。

现在我要谈谈自己进入游戏UI设计领域的途径，并为诸位提供一些相关参考资源。

我很早以前所学专业是天体物理学，原本打算继续攻读哲学学位，但同时也一边以自由撰稿人的身份为GameSpy等媒体写些与游戏相关的文章。在偶然的机会，GameSpy向我发出邀约，请我担任其最大的网站PlanetQuake的全职员工。在那里就职一年左右，我晋升到了动作题材制作人这一职位，掌管该平台所有动作类游戏有关的网站，因为第一人称射击游戏正是我的强项。

但这份工作的岗位需求并不与UI设计师直接挂钩，不过当时我与GameSpy网页设计师合作过程中，学到了许多关于网页设计和开发的知识。在GameSpy工作三年左右，我在动视就职，担任他们的“硬核游戏”（游戏邦注：例如，《使命召唤》、《毁灭战士》等第一人称射击游戏）网络营销经理。这项工作包含更多的创意技巧，要求制作一些营销材料，而这其中就需要用到当时我并不具备的平面设计技巧。当时我并未接受任何平面设计培训（事实上我一直都没有），我只是自己对网页设计有兴趣，并向一些同事和好友学了一些我认为很简洁、优秀、靠谱的网页UI设计，并在自己的网站上进行实践。

在动视任职期间，我继续自学优秀的平台设计方法，因为我根本就没有这方面的背景。除此之外，我还在自己的闲暇时间制作游戏关卡和模组，在此我就将一些做天体物理模型所需掌握的编程技术运用到了游戏编程上。在GameSpy和动视工作期间我曾与Raven Software这家公司紧密合作，我从那里得知他们有个UI设计师的岗位空缺，当时他们正在研发一个项目，也就是我特别熟悉的《雷神之锤4》及其开发技术。

Quake-4(from indirjet.com)

我之前已经买过《毁灭战士3》，知道他们会将其中技术运用到《雷神之锤4》。《毁灭战士3》中的UI使用的是一个我相信自己能够掌握的简单脚本系统。所以，我苦战了几个晚上加上见缝插针地抓住时机，在很短的时间之内完成了以下任务：掌握了GUI系统，使用《毁灭战士3》关卡编辑器制作了一个小小的三级关卡，设计了一些字母代表Strogg字母系统（游戏邦注：Strogg是《雷神之锤4》中的外星敌人），然后使用一种支持玩家向任意楼层来回移动的字体制作了一个电梯GUI，GUI会在这些楼层间起伏并让相关数据闪烁出现，使之呈现好似受到战后电气系统影响的效果。

这是我作品集中的核心之作，它表明我不但可以制作UI本身的平面设计，还可以将其运用到游戏中，将它与脚本系统绑定，使之具有真正的可行性。我还在自己的作品集中添加了其他零碎内容，试图展示自己在平面设计上的能力，虽然我清楚自己的水平还是相当有限。

后来我就得到了这个工作。回首过去，老实说Raven真的给我提供了一个巨大的机会，毕竟那时候我的平面设计水准确实很欠火候，但他们还是选择了我，因为我表现出了自己能够快速掌握使用其技术设计UI的能力。我在Raven是与美术、平面设计水准远在我之上的人同组，这让我有机会获得学习和成长。

Raven并非我游戏职业生涯的开端，但却是我作为游戏UI设计师的起点。在Raven就职时我参与开发了《雷神之锤4》、《德军总部》、《漫画英雄：终极联盟》，之后我又加入了Gas Powered Games团队，参与制作了《太空围攻》和《半神》。之后我在Uber Entertainment就职时，参与开发《Monday Night Combat》以及现在的《Super Monday Night Combat》。

无论如何，制作游戏都是一项艰难的工作，并没有旁人所想象得那么有趣。游戏UI设计也同此理。本文所列技能及要点只能让你掌握一定要领，而如果想成为游戏UI设计师，就意味着你必须能够应对快速的游戏开发过程，有能力迅速随机应变，能够自我激励，主动接触和掌握其他学科的技能。很少人能够说自己制作得了优秀的游戏UI，但你的同事还是会对你抱有这一期望。

以下是我所列举的一些初级游戏UI设计的参考资料，此外你还应该通过研究其他游戏及其UI设计，并与更多游戏设计师交流心得而积累更多知识。

工具：

EpicGames UDK

Scaleform

网站：

Design Shack

Smashing Magazine

书籍：

The Design of Everyday Things

Edward Tufte’s Books（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Path to Game UI Design, Part IV: Getting Experience

Yesterday we continued our series and discussed the tools that game UI designers and artists use. Today, let’s talk about how to get experience when you’re outside the industry and interested in getting in.

Getting Experience

Whether you’re the experienced app developer looking to transition into game UI or the self-taught designer, you’ll need to build a portfolio of work that shows you understand what goes into making good game UI. App developers and graphic designers have an edge in that some of their work will naturally cross over into overlapping UI territory, but how do you build a game UI portfolio if you’re starting from Square One? You’ll need to start working on personal projects, and here we’ll talk about what form some of those projects might take.

Case Studies: To make good game UI, you have to play games and really study their UI. By taking your favorite games — or your least favorite, if you think that poor UI may have contributed to your dislike — and dissecting the UI, you can show some critical thinking about what goes into making good game UI. If you keep a blog, you might consider writing a case study of a game’s UI, detailing what design decisions you felt were smart and which ones you felt weren’t so smart, and include some redesign thoughts and sketches along the way.

A cautious note about case studies, however: it’s easy to get negative and to sound less like you’re offering a view into solving interface problems you encounter and more like you’re slagging on another UI designer’s work. If you’re going to reinterpret someone’s UI work or work, do it with respect, and with the knowledge that you weren’t on the project and have no idea what technical or other limitations the UI designer was constrained by. I’m guilty of having done a case study or two in my day that focused on being too critical.

Mock UI Designs: Another way to gain skill and show a breadth of design and aesthetic understanding is to create mock UI designs. You can choose to reskin an existing game or design the UI for a game you’ve created hypothetically. These can be static images of typical front-end UI screens, such as main menus or Options screens, or in-game UI screens such as HUDs or scoreboards. This is a great way to bolster your graphic design skills if this is an area that needs development in your skill set.

Interactive UI Prototypes: You can take the idea of mock UI designs one step further and make them interactive prototypes. Using a program like Flash allows you to create mock front-end screens and show artistic transitions as well as the flow and navigation through a typical game UI. If you’ve played a game and thought that the designers could have handled a particularly complex UI a little better, this is a way to plan that out and then create it so that someone can interact with it and see your better idea in action. It also allows you to practice some basic scripting skills in Actionscript if you need to develop your coding and scripting skill set.

Small-scale game projects and mods: The logical conclusion to this chain of self-study projects is to create a full application or small game in which the UI is your showcase piece. If you’re into mobile development and use iOS you can download the XCode SDK, teach yourself the Objective C programming language, and create an app or small game that features a well-designed UI. But you don’t need to develop a full game or app for the iPhone — you can keep it simple and do it all in Flash. You can even download EpicGames’ Unreal Development Kit and have access to virtually the same tech that many game companies use to actually make their games and UI, including the Scaleform UI system, and make a small game. This idea may be the most work-intensive, but it’s also the surest way to show many things: that you can learn new tech, and that you can plan a project, begin it, and see it to completion.

If you don’t want to go the full-scale project route, you can try your hand at creating a mod (short for “modification”). Many games allow you to make modifications to gameplay, UI, and more and then release them for other players to download and try out. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Starcraft II are two such examples, and some PC first-person shooters and RPGs provide the tools to do this as well.

What About Game Design Schools Or Programs?

There’s been a huge rise in the amount of specialized game design programs at colleges, universities, and schools dedicated to the subject. If you want to become a game UI designer, your question might be, “shouldn’t I just enroll in one of these programs?”

You’ll find a wide variety of opinion about the usefulness of these specialized game courses, and mine is just that: an opinion. I don’t have any direct experience with these programs and have only worked with a small handful of people who’ve graduated from them. The quality of these programs will vary just as the quality of any degree program will vary between institutions. My experience with colleagues I’ve enjoyed working with who’ve been through these programs is that it isn’t the program or degree that turned them into game developers — they were highly motivated to begin with, and they had a love of games and making them that would have manifested regardless of where they got their education or what kind of degree they got. Most of these game developers began making games in their spare time with many of the tools discussed here and learned the most valuable skills simply by making games.

As it relates to game UI design, my advice to anyone asking the question above would be to get a degree in graphic design, and possibly a double major or minor in computer science, because the skills you learn for making good UI go above and beyond games, and they apply to any industry that employs UI designers. And you may find yourself someday wanting to move out of games, so having a broader set of skills that are applicable to other industries can only benefit you.

The Path to Game UI Design, Part V: Further Interest

Yesterday, we talked about how to get experience you’ll need to build good game UI; today I’m going to tell you about my own path into a career in game UI design and then give you a few resources to get you started.

“How Did YOU Do It?”

Right off the bat I’m just going to tell you that my own story of how I got into the game industry and became a UI designer is a poor example to follow only because the path I took is pretty winding and indirect, and huge, overflowing buckets of luck played a big part in the opportunities I was able to take advantage of. But I’ll tell you the abridged form of my story anyway since most people ask, and parts of it still help answer the question this article is addressing.

I graduated with my B.S. in astrophysics a long time ago fully intending to go on to my Ph.D., while on the side doing a ton of gaming and game-related writing for GameSpy and other outfits as a freelancer since writing was a hobby of mine. When a bunch of ill-timed hurdles fell into my path I was offered a full-time job at GameSpy to run their biggest site, PlanetQuake. After doing that for about a year I moved up to the role of Action Genre Producer, managing all of the web sites on the network that fell under the action category since first-person shooters were my expertise.

The job didn’t directly involve a lot of the qualifications of a UI designer except that I worked with the web designers at GameSpy, picking up a lot of the skills necessary for web design and development along the way. But after about three years at GameSpy I took a job with Activision as their online marketing manager for the “hardcore” titles (aka, first-person shooters like Call of Duty, DOOM, and others). The job involved a little bit more creative work, doing some marketing materials that stretched my pretty much non-existent at-the-time graphic design skills. To this point (and, really, at ANY point) I hadn’t had any education in graphic design other than my own interest in web design, learning from colleagues and friends that I felt were good teachers in clean, good, solid web UI design and practicing on my own web site and associated logos and images.

While at Activision I kept trying to teach myself the principles of good graphic design since I had no background in it. In addition to that, in my spare time I created game levels and mods, which helped to translate some of the programming skills I’d learned doing theoretical modeling in astrophysics into game programming. Then I learned that a position for a UI designer was open at Raven Software, a company I’d worked with pretty closely while at GameSpy and Activision, and they were working on a game and tech that I was pretty familiar with: Quake IV.

I had bought DOOM 3 and knew that they would be using that tech for Quake IV, and I also knew that the tools to work with the game came with it. The UI for DOOM 3 used a pretty simple scripting system that I was confident I could pick up. So, pulling some late nights and cramming at every opportunity, in a short amount of time I did the following: I learned the GUI system, I created a small three-story level with the DOOM 3 level editor, I designed a few letters for a theoretical font to represent the Strogg alphabet (the Strogg being the alien enemy in Quake IV), and then created a working elevator GUI using the font that allowed the player to move to and from any floor, and in-between floors the GUI would ripple and flicker with static as if it were being affected by a war-torn electrical system. (For flair I threw a muzak version of “The Girl From Ipanema” into the elevator, Blues Brothers-style. Hey, the Strogg like to relax a little, too, you know.)

This was the centerpiece of my portfolio, meant to show that not only could I do the graphic design of the UI itself but could also take it into the game, hook it up to the scripting system, and then make it actually work. I added other pieces to my portfolio to try and show some capabilities in graphic design even though I knew my skill set there was limited — theoretical Strogg decal work, and mostly some web design.

I got the job. Looking back, I can honestly say that Raven took a huge chance on me given that my skill set in actual graphic design was really weak, but they had picked me because I showed a strong ability to quickly pick up any technical skill needed to do UI design in their tech. And while at Raven I was grouped with people much stronger in graphic design and art than me, which let me do a lot of learning and growing, something I’ve continued to do since.

Raven wasn’t the start of my game industry career but it was the start of my career as a game UI designer. While at Raven I worked on Quake IV, Wolfenstein, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and after Raven I moved on to Gas Powered Games where I worked on Space Siege and Demigod. And after Gas Powered Games I went to Uber Entertainment where I am today, working on Monday Night Combat and now Super Monday Night Combat.

Bringing It All Together

Making games is hard work no matter how much fun it is to play them, contrary to what many people who haven’t made games may think. And game UI is no different. The skills and pointers in this article can get you to a certain point, but being a game UI designer means being able to deal with the incredibly fast pace of game development, having the ability to switch gears on the fly, and being self-motivated enough to obtain a range of skills that aren’t readily available from a single college program. But at the end of the day creating good game UI is an accomplishment few people get to say they do, and your fellow game development colleagues will be happy to have you there doing it.

Resources

This is a very small list of resources to get you started. From here, look to other games and study their UI, and talk to as many game designers as you can about how they see game UI fitting in with their game design.

Tools

EpicGames UDK

Scaleform

Web Sites

Design Shack

Smashing Magazine

Books

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald Norman

Edward Tufte’s Books

Special Thanks

Several people helped me polish up this article and I’d like to give them a shout of thanks: my husband, Matt; Stacie Scattergood; Josh Sawyer of Obsidian Entertainment, and Ashley Matheson of BioWare. （source：part 1 part 2)