VIDEO GAME USER INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT USING SCALEFORM Gfx (CLIK™ AND SCALEFORM 3Di™) Oluwafemi J. Ayangbekun #1 , Ibrahim O. Akinde *2 , # Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town, South Africa. 1 phemmyc@yahoo.com * Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Crescent University, Abeokuta, Nigeria. 2 ibmaxx@hotmail.com Abstract — This paper explains how Scaleform Gfx technology can be used to create a beautifully rendered Front-End Menu using Flash Professional’s proprietary language, ActionScript, both in 2D and 3D for video game development. Scaleform Gfx is cutting edge technology designed by Autodesk for creating stunning user interfaces. This paper introduces Scaleform Gfx as videogame middleware, reviews some of the previous games’ user interfaces designed with Scaleform Gfx, provides an iteration of steps that can serve as a framework for creating a fully functional front- end menu and discusses the limitations of Scaleform Gfx. Also, this paper introduces Scaleform CLIK and Scaleform 3Di and explains how interoperable they are with each other when developing a user interface. I. INTRODUCTION Video game development is usually a very tasking process because of all the numerous development highlights like programming, level design, lighting, rendering, concept design and so much more. But more than half of the entire development effort usually goes to developing the user interface. The user interface may be the Front-End Menu, the Heads-Up-Display or even an Inventory Menu. What makes the user interface so important? The answer is simple. Without the user interface, there is no interaction between the user and the game. A user interface is simply the system by which people (users) interact with a machine. A video game‘s user interface is the conduit between the player and the game. It is all that stands between the user and the game. But developing the user interface is not nearly enough. Aesthetics can help to improve the overall audio and visual appeal of the interface to be used, hence simulating the effect of ―gluing the user to the screen‖. That is where Scaleform Gfx comes in. Autodesk® Scaleform Gfx® enables developers to leverage the power of the Adobe® Flash® tool set to create powerful and immersive user interfaces. Scaleform Gfx provides a streamlined solution to create hardware-accelerated 3D game menus, HUDs, animated textures, in-game videos, and mini-games and is used in over 1,000 AAA titles across all major platforms. It is integrated with some game engines like Unreal Engine 3 and 4 and can be installed as a plugin for others like Unity 4 and CryEngine 3. As opposed to the batch computing era and command-line era where the entire user interface was in black and white (MS-DOS), and as opposed to other software with user interface development capabilities as a side attraction, Scaleform Gfx can be used to create very complex, powerful, immersive and detailed interfaces that run at smooth 60fps. User interfaces usually include the hardware (physical) and software (logical) components. Whether or not the designer(s) focuses on either or both of the logical or physical components, user interfaces must provide a means of: - Input, allowing the users to manipulate the system - Output, allowing the system to indicate the effects of the users‘ manipulation Hence, the major goal of user interface design and development is to improve the interactions between the users and computers by making computers more usable and receptive to the users‘ needs. The added boon of Scaleform Gfx is that user interfaces developed with Scaleform Gfx can do all that while also rendering aesthetically pleasing and extremely powerful views. II. WHAT IS SCALEFORM GFX? Scaleform Gfx is the leading Flash-based user interface (UI) middleware for the video-game industry. Scaleform Gfx combines the performance of hardware accelerated 3D graphics technology with the proven productivity and workflow of Adobe Flash tools to help developers rapidly create highly immersive 3D UI and casual game experiences [8]. Its key features are: - It provides for anti-aliased vector graphics which allow developers to create fully-fledged menus with (IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security, Vol. 12, No. 5, May 2014 23 http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ ISSN 1947-5500