So... about my hud. This is my current hud design (graphics not final).



I made it based on YouTube's control bar...



mixed with Adobe Flash's time line...




Although functional, as i said before, a lot of people are having trouble grasping it. Programmers and animators have very little issues, but "common" people do not understand it easily, making the game pretty much impossible for them.

These are the main problems with the hud that I have seen when playtesting with strangers:

1. The concept of timeline is not intuitive:
1.1 People have problems going backwards and forwards in the animation
1.2 They can't realize that more space = more time.
1.3 They make their changes in a wrong place, when they try to add new keyframes.

2. The concept of interpolating between keyframes is definetely not understood.
2.1 People want their pose at this moment, and don't change the past!
2.2 Adding a frame to preserve the past is not understood.


So this is the idea i'm playing with right now:



The idea:
- I think users will be more familiar with a "film" concept, than a timeline.
- When you press play, the film slowly rolls to the left as the movie progresses.
- Every pose (frame) is held for X miliseconds and changes (almost) inmediately to the next.
- So no interpolation concept.
- The film starts very small (one or two poses) and the user can add poses as he needs them, so he knows how big it is.
- The frames are added only to the back, inmediately next to the last frame.
- They incrementally create the film form start to finish.
- No mistakes on where to add a frame. You are always working on the final part of the movie...

It becomes closer to a "list of instructions" that the character will try to imitate.

In theory:

Pros:
Easier to visualize.
Easier to teach.
Harder to make mistakes.
No interpolation required.

Cons:
Loses control and granularity. Since now each frame is bigger, you will not have as much control as you would with individual frames on a timeline.
More rigid, less liberties.


I realize that this approach take away A LOT of liberties from the player. I am not convinced if it's worth it. I have to implement it, and see if it works as i hope it will. I have to think if i like to play it this way.

I'll report again when i have results.