https://voat.co/v/gaming/3263928/19072884/

This is my first game project - I've done some ad hoc stuff for work before.

As I'm a Dev noob my problems are along the lines of user interface, and mapping an encoding into something visual.

I'll sub to /v/unity to see what you have to offer

DESIGNING UI

short advice i can give on designing UI

-write up all the tasks and readouts you need

-divide these into several smaller clusters by what game screen they're on

-sketch up some crude layouts of UI for each little cluster of UI information. IE what does you inventory look like VS your normal HUD. get out some pencils and paper and draw, if thats how you work

-when you have a concept you think can clearly show all this information correctly, there's a few ways you can now build your UI

A. build the background of these menus in your preferred image editing software. menu text may or may not be included. various advanced functions i won't explain until after this basic summary

A-1. if you included all possible options with the text/icons shown onscreen, what you'll be doing is flicking through these like a slideshow. i'll cover the scripting you need.

A-2. do you have only background images/textures, and some text objects? wire in the background like i said in A-1 if you want access to that visual function. if not, your only big concern will be coding text

B. do you give even one single fuck about visuals? is it too early to fuck around with that stuff yet? spawn in a text object (or several) from the unity system, and just plug that shit directly into your script.

C# SCRIPT SAMPLES

(the following is excerpts from functional code, and needs to be set in its proper place to work)

//first we define some objects in groups to save time and call by number.

//these are filled in on the component screen after you drag and drop the script onto the object

//text objects inside your UI

public Transform[] texOb = new Transform [4];

//actual objects IE backing images in your UI

public Transform[] imOb = new Transform [4];

//this integer records what image/menu state is being called to

public int menuOpt;

//this number is the input of an any example UI value

public int testNumb;

//let's assign a color here in RGB value. you'll see why. that 4th number is alpha visibility IE this object will only be 70% visible

new Color texcolred = new Color(1.0f,0.0f,0.0f,0.7f);

//here are some textures we'll flipping through

public Material[] menuST = new Material[18];

...

//here's how you turn off an objects visibility, either text or image. this example uses menuOpt as an object target from the cited list

(imOb [menuOpt].GetComponent<Renderer>()).enabled = false;

...

//and again, in reverse to visibility

(imOb [menuOpt].GetComponent<Renderer>()).enabled = true;

...

//here's how you assign text + a number readout in a single text line. chain together your words out of " ", ' ' and +

texOb [menuOpt].GetComponent<TextMesh>().text = ("THE NUMBER READS" + testNumb);

//and again, this time injecting new lines into the code block

texOb [menuOpt].GetComponent<TextMesh>().text = ("THE NUMBER READS" + '\n' + testNumb);

...

//color your text in that red we set earlier

texOb [menuOpt].GetComponent<TextMesh>().color = texcolred;

...

//now we take menuOpt and use it to assign a called texture to a certain object, as a test for you

(imOb [0].GetComponent<Renderer>()).material = menuST [menuOpt];