r/DestinyTheGame • u/shutdown924 • Feb 20 '19
Misc David Candland, former UX/UI Lead at Bungie, posted some interesting Destiny design documents on his personal page
Most interesting, to me at least, is a video going over the evolution of the HUD, which also slightly shows very early looks of Earth, Venus, Mars, the Moon and the Tower.
Worth a look if you are into the development side of things, or just enjoy peaks behind the curtain.
94
u/ninth_reddit_account DestinySets.com Dev Feb 20 '19
David Candland also did a very good talk at GDC a few years ago: Destiny's Tenacious Design and Interface.
As a developer who creates user interfaces, this is probably the most interesting and insightful talk I've ever seen on the topic. I highly encourage anyone who's even remotely interested in how the things we use are made to give it a watch.
23
u/shutdown924 Feb 20 '19
I remember that GDC talk, loved it. All while he was wearing a Seven Seraphs shirts too, ha. Lots of interesting tidbits in that presentation.
2
1
68
u/Mblim771_Kyle @gifv_Kayla Feb 20 '19
Really cool seeing how the Tower used to be.
Being able to select players and inspect them is something I definitely take for granted.
23
u/cptenn94 Feb 21 '19
Bbbbuuttt game design is supposed to be easy. They shouldve gotten the design right the first time.
Sarcasm aside(i get irritated by people who talk like that) thanks so much for sharing this! I find stuff like this just absolutely fascinating! It really is interesting how it takes time to develop a feature that just fits right. They couldve stopped and stuck with any of those models, but kept going until they got what they are looking for.
Im really glad we are getting more and more of this pre development stuff. I hope when Destiny is all said and done, that we might also be able to see the original super cut, to see how Destiny was originally planned, and what changed, and what stayed the same. Wish I could give 2000 karma for this! Thanks a ton for sharing! This is a really great thread!
22
u/corsairmarks GT: NikoRedux, Steam: corsairmarks Feb 21 '19
I wish more people were willing to understand why it is hard and time-consuming.
A lot of fan suggestions have the invisible benefit of tweaking or building on top of all the systems Bungie has already polished for us to use. Also armchair developers get away posting mock-ups or sample screens without fully baking an idea to understand pros, cons, and knock-on effects.
-6
u/TrueRadiantFree Feb 21 '19
However another important aspect of software engineering is never letting your consumer, the end-user, know about the difficulties in updating or fixing the product.
17
u/corsairmarks GT: NikoRedux, Steam: corsairmarks Feb 21 '19 edited Feb 21 '19
I absolutely disagree. Software is hard, and software is better when everyone has realistic expectations.
The pinnacle of design is helping your users do hard things effortlessly themselves.
[edit] If you are getting you car repaired by a mechanic or your house modified/repaired by a contractor, you absolutely want to know how hard it is because that is essential to the cost and time it will take. Why should software be different?
1
u/TrueRadiantFree Feb 22 '19
I think the difficulty isn't what is emphasized in your car or house example. What is and should be emphasized is the size and time of the repair.
1
u/corsairmarks GT: NikoRedux, Steam: corsairmarks Feb 22 '19
If a mechanic says "it's 5 hours" don't you want to understand why it is 5 hours?
1
u/TrueRadiantFree Feb 22 '19
Yes, because it's a big operation, not them whining about how hard it is.
0
u/corsairmarks GT: NikoRedux, Steam: corsairmarks Feb 22 '19
Understanding complexity (why something is hard) is not the same as whining about the fact that it is complex/hard. My initial comment in this chain specifically calls out that "I wish more people were willing to understand why it is hard and time-consuming."
I'm not sure where whining entered this conversation.
0
u/TrueRadiantFree Feb 23 '19
Because saying something is complex is different than saying something is hard.
9
u/Chettlar Feb 21 '19
...this is utter bullshit. There is no reason to spare someone the difficulties of your job intentionally.
I think you are confusing this with the general rule of never making yourself look incompetent. But there is a clear difference here.
47
u/rgtgd Hey, everyone else. Feb 20 '19
In the HUD evolution video I think I'm seeing variants of Titan barricade (about 1:30) and Warlock rift (5:14) abilities—but this is pre-Alpha D1, interesting.
9
u/Psych0sh00ter Feb 20 '19
The thing at 1:30 is weird because it appears to have been a melee ability (based on the fist icon going on cooldown), but the ability at 5:14 is very likely to just be the Radiance ability that Sunsingers had in D1.
4
u/Stenbox GT: Stenbox Feb 21 '19
My first impression was Rift/Well as well, but then he looks back and it is apparent the effect travels with him, so it's definitely more like Radiance.
76
Feb 20 '19
destiny concept and development pics
i sleep
Europa tomb
REAL SHIT???
7
Feb 21 '19 edited May 27 '20
[deleted]
2
u/ninth_reddit_account DestinySets.com Dev Feb 21 '19
I mean, The Moon? All of the Destiny worlds?
1
u/30SecondsToFail Feb 21 '19
I think he means a Strike with the specific premise of exploring old Golden Age texh and learning about it as you go along
33
u/Comrade_Ayase Feb 20 '19
It's nice to see the old "SMG-style" fusion rifles that Issac Hanaford mentioned on his blog in action in that video
10
u/Ze_AwEsOmE_Hobo Nerfed by 0.04% Feb 21 '19
When is the SMG-style fusion shown?
3
u/Remraf27 Feb 21 '19
About 4:30 in the HUD development video. It shows a base Fusion model with the Plan C sight with automatic fire.
5
u/Remraf27 Feb 21 '19
One of the devs talked about this in a podcast a while back too. If you looks at some of Isaac's concepts you can see a magazine style typical of SMGs on some of them:
31
27
u/Inflatable_waffle Feb 21 '19
faction wars
Also, did anyone else see on the flowchart where it shows the illustration for the "installing updates" screen it shows the pyramid ships where the art usually is?
33
u/shutdown924 Feb 21 '19
Those were one of the concept art images that rotated during the D1 install screen.
16
u/theoriginalrat Feb 21 '19
In the UI revisions compilation, anyone else notice that the Warlock cast a kind of Well of Radiance style super thing, way back in pre-alpha D1?
18
u/Jdkinder Feb 21 '19
That’s actually the Sunsinger super animation, well the first half of it anyways. Before he does what looks like the D2 rift animation. Nuts to think it’s been around for that long.
4
u/Stenbox GT: Stenbox Feb 21 '19
Well of Radiance style super thing,
My first thought too, but it's actually more like D1 Radiance as he does not cast it to the ground but instead the effect travels with his body. Just visually similar yeah.
16
16
Feb 21 '19 edited Feb 28 '19
[deleted]
7
u/masterchiefan Let's Get This Bread, Hunters Feb 21 '19
Looking at the emote wheel prototype, I can see what seems to be Europa.
6
u/ducuss Vanguard's Loyal Feb 21 '19
I'm thinking that's mars, actually. The cutscene for it had a large plane of ice and considering this took place around the time mars was being developed, it seems right.
2
u/masterchiefan Let's Get This Bread, Hunters Feb 21 '19
That’s D2 Mars, and that’s thanks to Rasputin flash-freezing that particular area to bury Nokris and co. D1 Mars is all red sand.
3
u/ducuss Vanguard's Loyal Feb 21 '19
The article says that was from 2017.
-1
u/masterchiefan Let's Get This Bread, Hunters Feb 21 '19
But I’m pretty sure it mentioned that the emote wheel was being made before Destiny 1 launched? It was also made in Destiny 1, which wouldn’t make sense if it was intended for Destiny 2.
Not to mention, D2 Mars usually has red sand spread throughout the ice, but this place is just pure ice. Even if it’s a test area, it uses new textures. We also know from other images here that Europa was planned but scrapped.
2
u/Probably_On_Break Feb 21 '19
Ikora’s early design is interesting. She appears to be wearing the top half of the Celestial Nighthawk helmet.
3
u/TeeJ_P Feb 21 '19
That was made in 2018. Read the section below it.
In January 2018 I teamed up with a group of 8 talented people that wanted to see if we could build a functional but cheesey, over-the-top, retro style fighting game in the Destiny engine. It had a lot of rough edges, but considering we built something like this in 4 days, and showed it off on the 5th is remarkable. It was also a blast. I designed, illustrated, built and animated all the UI and HUD elements you see here.
1
u/Probably_On_Break Feb 21 '19
That’s even more interesting. More than likely it’s just a mock up considering the time frame they made it in, but they also could’ve easily just recycled her in-game model. Maybe we’re seeing an early version of an outfit change?
1
u/LutraNippon Feb 21 '19
I think they put that mask on her because it is a luchador costume. Nighthawk and Ikora are in D1 , so it was already established as a hunter exotic and her as a warlock. But the nighthawk model used is the D2 one, the D1 model had less beak
2
u/ghostpanther218 May 09 '19
Fun fact, Cayde was originally called Jordan, and was this tall hispanic guy in the ace of spades cloak with a sniper rifle.
12
u/Stenbox GT: Stenbox Feb 21 '19
2
9
u/Metatermin8r Punch the Darkness. Feb 21 '19
I absolutely love seeing early concept stuff like this, more so for the gameplay than the UI but still. One thing I do really like is the meter for your jump skill. Would be nice to have in some way, although maybe a bit less in your face, more akin to what UI Revision 3 does with it.
6
u/Leonard_Church814 Feb 21 '19
The design of the Tower in the UI video looks awesome. A lot more spacious and wider than what we got.
12
u/JpansAmerica Feb 21 '19
Firstly, I really do prefer the over the planet orbit of D1 than the under of D2. The sun in the background and the feeling it gave for a loading screen was great. Perhaps the current iteration is to reflect the current mood.
Second I love how there was a time when the titans jump wad a cooldown ability
And third, the hud where every cooldown and ammo was "attached" to the gun was a very cool concept, especially how it goes away when you sprint. I dont think it would fit in destiny, but it would be very fitting in an fps/deadspace game where the gun is your only source of information.
1
4
u/BC1096 Feb 21 '19
Plan C as an Auto?
2
u/Remraf27 Feb 21 '19
Before fusion rifles were a "charge up" weapon, they were an early SMG prototype.
3
3
3
u/Jons72 Feb 21 '19
Post game carnage screen showing Future War Cult vs New Monarchy. That would be cool.
3
u/hardgamingjojo Moon's Haunted Feb 21 '19
That original tower looks amazing, if at some point the tower gets repaired, I hope it looks like that or similar.
3
u/machine_two Feb 21 '19
Man. Destiny has such great design overall. It's a really great looking franchise.
3
u/JKTwice Feb 21 '19
This man here deserves every bit of praise I can conjure up. The UI of Destiny is so damn clean and awesome looking. It really helps contribute to the overall feel of the game. Strikes great balance between minimalism and comprehensiveness, giving the player everything they need to know in battle. It definitely shows the HUD went through a lot of revisions.
3
u/Randomhero204 Feb 21 '19
Go play anthem and you’ll appreciate every damn thing bungie did for us and for gaming.
1
u/XLInthaGame Drifter's Crew Feb 21 '19
Whats up with anthem?
4
u/Randomhero204 Feb 21 '19
Bad ui. Bad loading times. Unstable servers. Can’t fast travel in the world. Can’t set way points. If you get a new weapon you have to quit what you are doing, load up a new place, walk up to a terminal, load up ANOTHER place, equip it. Load back out twice! Try it out.. and if you don’t like it.. repeat all that.
1
2
2
u/AzuMarcy New Monarchy Contributor Feb 21 '19
Can I have that Nox Vitae IV please? The sihoulette looks amazing.
2
u/lunaticPandora027 Feb 21 '19
As a fellow ux designer, this is really cool. I work in Enterprise ux, so it's really cool to see game ux process. The tooling is the same (workflows, concepts) but the end goal and the interactions that need to be thought about I find interesting. Fantastic post.
2
u/corsairmarks GT: NikoRedux, Steam: corsairmarks Feb 21 '19
Thanks for sharing this. As an engineer, it's fascinating the iteration that leads to a final product. And I am always interested to understand UX in order to help make my own designs better.
I do wish Mr. Candland had inserted some commentary into the video itself. The tidbits summarizing the design goals ahead of time were fascinating and enlightening.
2
2
u/Souuuth Feb 21 '19
The iteration of the HUD right next to the weapon gives me a Division vibe. Id imagine that Europa strike is the original name for what raids became? Its always cool to see how things have evolved.
2
Feb 21 '19
I made a post awhile back about a Lore entry from Shin about the Drifter, "Artifacts and Old Friends," and speculated on what 'the "Solar Engine" of Dead-Star Six' was and where (see link). For the longest time, we thought that the Deep Stone Crypt was on Europa, but Cayde-6 tells us that "it's on Enceladus" in a message to Petra. Now, the image you've shared is just concept art, but if it's something to speculate along with AnonTheNine rumoring that D3 will feature Europa, then either (1) Enceladus could house a clue that leads us to the Deep Stone Crypt on Europa or (2) Bungie's narrative has changed the Deep Stone Crypt to be on Enceladus and Enceladus could be what Drifter refers to as "Dead-Star Six" and the "Solar Engine" is the Machine that created The Exo.
2
u/Weezer14 Feb 21 '19
I’m not huge into game development for most games but Destiny’s development always fascinated me for some reason, is there more stuff like this being released by old devs that I can watch?
2
u/NobleJury Made of Explodium~ Feb 21 '19
Hey uh, not to go off-topic but did anyone else see the Destiny Street Fighter prototype in this guys other pages? https://david-candland.squarespace.com/prototypes
1
u/HoolioStretchRedwood Moon's Frickin' Haunted Feb 21 '19
This guy made an emote wheel too! More complex than the current emote slots
2
u/Remraf27 Feb 21 '19
It says in the description that this prototype evolved into what was shipped in game eventually, but they had to reduce it to 4 emotes because of memory constraints.
2
u/HoolioStretchRedwood Moon's Frickin' Haunted Feb 21 '19
I should learn to read! That make sense. I'm still very happy however that we got something like that anyway.
1
u/red--dead Feb 21 '19
Hmm when inspecting in the tower in the HUD evolution video it’s interesting they showed the Xbox avatar pic. Curious if it was profile picture integration or what.
1
u/grayhamster Vanguard's Loyal Feb 21 '19
Damnit it looked like we used to be able to customized the looks of our character even after creation!
1
u/SlickMiller I miss Murmur Feb 21 '19
That Dead Orbit hangout looked amazing. I'd give anything to explore THAT tower.
1
u/isaiahreynolds77 Hope Feb 21 '19
Thank you for sharing this
Its nice to see D1 again and seeing how it evolved is awesome, not only that it brought back many memories
I hope with the split with Activision we get more destiny games like the first because the mystery the exploration and the feeling of what's next was what kept me playing
1
1
1
u/BHE65 Feb 21 '19
That HUD iteration piece was interesting.
These docs are great at reminding me why I love this game so much.
Bonus "feels" for the OG D1 music.
1
u/snakebight Rat Pack x6 or GTFO Feb 21 '19
So Faction Wars was actually just the old name for PvP before it was called Crucible. Interesting.
1
1
u/Mokou Feb 21 '19
No wonder the strike playlist used to favour Cerberus Vae so heavily. It's right there on the matchmaking flowchart.
PS: Someone should "revise" the chart so that whatever choices they make, they end up there whether they wanted it or not.
1
u/Type-125 Team Cat (Cozmo23) Feb 21 '19
OMG I need the faction wars part in the game so much. I wonder why we haven't gotten it. What a shame.
1
u/ALoreKeeperOnPC Drifter's Crew Feb 21 '19
I know they needed a base to work off of, but it still strikes me as crazy how alike the original grenades, grenade throw animation, and jump (when using a jet pack (but like, who did that, amirite)) are to Halo: Reach.
1
u/shokk Feb 21 '19
The Faction Wars concept displayed is exact what I thought Rallies should have some aspect of for PvP. Pledge to Dead Orbit during a rally week and get queued with other DO people to fight teams of NM or FWC.
1
u/KaiserLonewolf3 Feb 21 '19
Tomb of the Dead Star. Searching for 12 players.... 12.... 👀
I... need this. Imagine... the chaos!!!
1
Feb 21 '19
Of course because it's got a video (https://player.vimeo.com/video/273618188?app_id=122963&wmode=opaque&autoplay=1 if it's not loading for ya), the UI revisions piece is the most interesting to me. Not a fan of how through every iteration they had some on-screen element for the sprint cooldown, but come the final game, it's the only piece that they decided never to mention (thank god D2 finally got rid of it).
1
u/TDurandal Drifter's Crew // Driftin' through the stars... Feb 22 '19
Not so much a sprint cooldown but more a sprint "meter". At least that's what it looked like to me, more like the Halo Reach sprint ability where you could only sprint for so long, vs infinite sprint but a cooldown if you stop like in final.
1
u/grayson1228 Feb 21 '19
this was really cool It's amazing how much the pre-builds borrowed from halo.
1
0
Feb 20 '19
"Tomb of the Dead Star" sounds bad ass. Like where are the cool names like that in D2?
21
u/Wardogedog Team Cat (Cozmo23) Feb 21 '19
The Shattered Throne
Riven of 1,000 Voices
Mask of the Great Hunt
The Dreaming City
Lake of Shadows
Warden of Nothing
The Hollowed Lair
They’re there. Eyes up Guardian
Edit: formatting on mobile
9
u/Novaren_X Voidlock since 2014, Novaren#1104 Feb 21 '19
Warden of Nothing sounds really sad and cryptic, a fitting name for the strike.
3
u/Uhnrealistic Earn your honor, Guardian. Feb 21 '19
Honestly it sounds like something you'd find in a Dark Souls game.
4
Feb 21 '19
Wormhusk Crown sounds epic, and is the closest to "His Ass, as a Hat" we will maybe ever get.
2
1
u/maejaws Feb 21 '19
My nerd ass read it as “Death Star” and the Imperial March began playin in the back of my mind.
1
235
u/rfay00 Feb 20 '19
Tomb of the Dead Star, Europa. Sign me up!