I was already clacking my fingers getting them ready to rant about this haha. Also, I'd take understanding diegetic and non-diegetic UIs in video games any day over just spelling the word correctly :D
I think it's worth noting that diagetic interfaces have the huge task of conveying important information within a games world which generally leads to less readability. It's hard to design diagetic interfaces that are not only living in the game world in a believable sense but are also clean and readable for the user.
@kevinfiddick i would count that pretty easy to read and understand. In goldeneye there's alot of things you need to be doing at times and that can get clustered real quick. Its really showing your ammo only when you shoot. Hp when you get hit, status updates as they come around. Imo purely aesthetic but it may have been a hardware or fps issue
honestly, as much as I kinda hate fallout's menus more generally, I have to hand it to them the cold war computer aesthetic really lends itself to a clean and readable diagetic UI. Like, the Sons of the Forest inventory is _cool_ but I can tell just from the clips in this video my scatterbrained ass would not be able to sort through it efficiently, especially while sleep deprived, which I often am, and it feels like something I would get tired of.
even just grounding your traditional 2D UI in the universe like the newer doom games do (making the UI an in-universe feature of your high tech suit) adds a lot to games
The Doom3 and later style in-world UI is something I still find so fascinating to this day. It's such an obvious and straight forward concept, I'm surprise more games don't emulate it in some way. I was surprised but happy to see it turn up in Cyberpunk 2077 -- I think it does well in titles like that where keeping the player as rooted in the world as possible adds to the depth.
@@preludelight to be fair cyberpunk2077 just adopted that aesthetic because it looks cool. you still have the same UI when youre in third person in a vehicle.
One example that jumps to my mind is good ol' Star Wars: Republic Commando. The ammo remaining in your gun is displayed on the gun itself, as well as the magazine having pips showing how many bullets are left in the magazine. The entire "UI" (such as directions to your squadmates, or your health) are displayed on the helmet your character is wearing, and if it's raining, it becomes harder to see as the rain pelts your visor - similar to if an enemy dies too close to you, the blood will splash on the visor and has to be wiped off. Relatively small changes like this makes the entire experience feel much more immersive, and it's something I've never forgotten to this day.
Borderlands is a funny case, where the ui is 2d elements, but the hud does cannonically exist, as the first character you meet in most of the games gives it to you as an item. It feels non diegetic, but technically isnt.
@@nimjabeb3910 i love it when games have some indication that others are in menus, such a small detail that's so neat to me. I was going to cite a really cool recent example I experienced but then I remembered I'm under an NDA lmao
@@klementineQt For an example, I'll mention Deep Rock Galatic. Whenever you look at the map, a 2d square floats up from the bottom of the screen and the 3d map is displayed inside it. From other player's perspectives however, they can see your dwarf pulling out a pad with a glowing green screen (the color of the map), and play an animation looking at it. Something similar happens when scrolling through the terminals on the Space Rig.
I love how the UI interacted with the work in The Division 1, watching the pings and lines warp themselves on and around the buildings and roads was always cool
I've never heard the term diagetic, but I do like the diagetic approach to UIs. The one I'm most familiar with is definitely the PDA in Anomaly, and it's a simple but extremely effective means of improving immersion. Thanks for the knowledge :3
The game Highfleet has an incredible diegetic UI. It's great for immersion as it fully captures the expierience that would be leading a fleet of ships in a stealth mission across an enemy planet. For example, instead of having distances already written on the map, you take out a ruler and measure between two points, or if you marked the position of an enemy ship on the map a day ago, you take out a compass to determine where it could be now. Having to do this instead of having the game hand this to you makes it feel like you have so much more agency, more impact on the game.
Skeuomorphism is a factor too. That's when an element of the interface artistically represents its purpose. Like when clicking on a realistic-looking "kill alarm" button actually does what it says.
I remember playing firewatch for the first time and just being amazed with how nice it was to have things "in your hands." I strive to someday incorporate diagetic UI into the game I have been working on.
An alternative to diegetic user interface design that I really like is skeuomorphic design, which is somewhere between a diegetic interface and a purely abstract interface. Skeuomorphism retains the appearance of physical elements even if they aren't functional. A great example of this is the Resident Evil series. The early games have very digital looking menus and the newer ones have more minimalist menus, but the era of games like REmake, 0, and 4 had menus with lots of physical embellishments.
What I enjoy the most is a hybrid of the two: When it diegetically makes sense that a UI element is 2D. For example a strategy game could be played through a radar screen or holographic screens in a sci-fi game, etc. The earliest example I can think of is "Heathrow" where you play as an air traffic controller and the entire screen is just a radar screen. This kind of UI can be made to look very stylistic, very good looking, meanwhile it still retains the technical benefits of a 2D UI. (Technically I guess any game where you view the world through a screen or goggles can be considered this. Eg. in the original Elite you weren't looking through a window, it's a screen that can show you forward, rear and side camera views.)
It's why I enjoy grid inventory systems like EFT. While it's still a UI element the objects in your inventory at least feel like they have a physical size rather than just image, I will forever love being able to fold stocks on rifles to make them smaller in your bag.
Some people hate the Tarkov Tetris Inventory simulator, but I really like it. The inventory is so responsive and it’s overall just a very good experience using it, and they’re even making it easier to use during combat. It fits the game very well in my opinion.
another reason diagetic UI could be uncommon in big studio games is a lot of them are 3rd person, and getting info from natural diagetic elements is a lot tougher when you’re not seeing from the character’s POV (source: i keep failing to implement diagetic UI in my 3rd person game)
It's harder, but not impossible. Dead Space did this way back in 2008, with health being on your back and ammo being directly in the gun. Just requires more originality.
@@SaltSpirits Honestly, do you not think he's already thought about that? And what makes you think he's trying to solve the same design issues the Dead Space team had to solve?
@@Razor255112 i watched the video first and thought this would be obvious but dead space was uniquely built to support diegetic UI i.e. the camera being super up close to the character model at all times, futuristic suit etc. not all of that can easily be applied to most third person games 🫡
Working in VR, there is certainly a gradient and sliding scale. With the non diagetic equivalent being controller input controlled overlays and menu environments, then 'laser pointer' panels designed for easy over realistic use, then hybrid physical objects with laser pointer function panels or partial controller input before finally fully physical objects with information only present on the object like the weapons of HL:Alyx.
I just finished work on my own diegetic inventory system recently, and the readability challenge is the big one. Its all really satisfying when you get it right, but It's an incredibly difficult process, which requires constant tweaking and good communication with QA
I love diagetic ui and one of my favourite instances of it is in deep rock galactic which has most UI and game elements both as UI and have them substituted in some way diagetically, one of my favourite ways to play that game is with the hud completly off. The only thing completly missing with the hud turned off is the map but you can go around it by just having a decent spacial memory. Ammo counters, finding your way back to the drop pod, recharge notifications on your perks, fullness of your mineral inventory can all be picked up from non UI elements like in game displays or sound queues. Its great
Ikr! And it seems the map could easily be made diegetic almost seamlessly as well. I've also tried hudless and its pretty awesome but I really miss the map. I hope the devs implement this someday.
VR is definitely the king of diegetic UIs, even if it's simply for the fact that a 2D HUD won't be clearly visible in VR unless you put it very close to the center due to the fovea of the human eye. It makes more sense for it to be something physical that you can check by interacting with it. Plus, it's more fun!
My favorite use of such interfaces is in VR game Into The Radius, usage of physical backpack, map, diary and many other things makes this game so much more immersive than it could be without them
That was funny. You explained the concept and my first thought was "Oh Goldeneye did that with the watch" and a few seconds later you showed it. :D I love it that I'm still seeing Goldeneye references 26 years after its release!
"You most often hear this word used when talking about diegetic user interfaces." Personally, I hear the term "diegetic music" more often, when referring to music that exists in the game world (i.e. coming from a radio) vs only playing to the player (most music). They don't appear in games often, and when they do it's almost always radio music, elevator music, or the main character playing a magic song, but I feel like there's other stylistic things that could be done with the concept. Imagine a game where you play as an AI that--alongside the game's regular gameplay--creates its own music when bored. Also, you spelled diegetic wrong :p Great video!
creating your own music would have to be a game in itself, it’s far too complex a discipline to just be a throwaway mechanic in another game, which will never end up being remotely satisfying.
Another instance of diegetic music I would consider it's when the is background music that gets muffled when you go underwater. Then it really feels like the music, even if it's coming from seemingly nowhere, is part of the world itself.
it's one of the things I absolutely loved in Metro Exodus. Everything is done seamlessly and never breaking your immersion + the screen then looks much clearer so u can better appreciate the beautiful graphics
I love diegetic UI. stuff like watches being used. Or in elite dangerous where all of the ui is actual ui of the spaceship youre flying. And when the cockpit glass is broken, the ui disappears in that spot since all the icons of other ships etc are projected on that glass
I started off with non-diagetic UI overlays for my educational children's video game. Found the UI needed explanafion and tutorialization, especially since they are younger pre-literate kids. Switched to a diagetic book interface and the need for explanations and tutorials melted away!
I love that beginning: (in a calm soothing voice) "heyyyyy everyone, garbaj here" brutally blasting a group with rounds from a shotgun, turning them into a "fine red mist"
Diagetic interfaces are one of the things that just get me going when I play a game for the first time. If I pick up an object and the ui on it is interactable, not just an overlay and casts over the gameplay, it's really cool. Being able to pick and choose how to interact with things in a 3d space rather than boiling it down to a 2D overlay. Like flight sims with mouse control over a cockpit interface, clicking on the various nobs to interact with the interface. Then taking it a step further with the elements in Sons of the Forest. Handheld heartbeat sensor in Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Crysis 2 gun customisation on the go. I like the systems, including the UI, being a part of the gameplay, not something that slows it down or arrests it. In a way keeping the momentum of the game going.
Feel like you're reading my mind Garbaj. Ive been very slowly working on a game idea of a long distance road trip in a zombie apocalypse, with the goal of having everything physically rendered in some way, from storing stuff in boxes and your backpack, having to load bullets into magazines, having to replace components on your vehicle, et cetera, having to build and equip and clean things wt a workbench rather than in inventory. A lot of it i'm unsure of how to do effectively, like the backpack.
my favourite approach to this is what they did in Astroneer Your inventory (backpack) is always visible to you and when you need something from it, you just drag and drop it onto the ground or whereever you need it. Just feels very immersive
A little bit more about ui There's actually more than diagetic and non diagetic. Purely non diagetic are UI elements don't exist in both the game's world, diegisis and space, but many "non diagetic" elements are actually meta elements, meaning they exists in the game's world, but they are represented as a non diagetic elements, usually for accessibility reasons. The speedmeter in race games for example. There's also spatial elements, which are the oposite of meta elements. Elements that exists in space, but not in the diegesis. Floating icons on top of ennemies, outlines, glow, sometimes titles etc. This for example 1:03 would rather be a spatial element than a diagetic element, since it doesn't really represent something in the diegesis of minecraft, it's purely an interface.
Metro exodus is also a great example. I suggest looking into it if you haven't already. That's a game I REALLY wish could get VR support. It's one of the most immersive flat screen games I've ever played
Something Really small that i like about doom 2016's hud is that there is a slight curve, like It is projected on doomguy's actual helmet instead of Just on the player's view point
The Division does a good job of having UI elements into the world, it's very well made and the fact that it's rendered in a 3d environment does give much better indications on where to go.
diagetic ui can also be used as a part of gameplay if you want it for the game interstellar marines (abandoned) has the hud be part of your helmet, but you can also take it off to get better hearing of footsteps
the diagetic UI in farcry 2 gave the game so much depth , giving it a feeling of you surviving in an actual hostile place when you had to bring out a literal map and compass when travelling via car to any place while simultaneously being aware of the surroundings while driving , it conveyed a feeling of actual dread and risk involved when travelling physically to a place without using any fast travel. It sucked when I played farcry 3 and found out that they completely removed that feature and put a big ugly map instead.
A good example is Resident Evil 4 V.R.'s (for the Quest 2...): GUI and Inventory System for upgrading your weapons and selling them to the Merchant. It's all 3D Objects, you have to grab them with your hands and Physic Laws are applied in there.
I learned the phrase diegetic in reference to film. Specifically soundtrack. If the scene has music and it’s coming from an in-movie source (for example, a choir is singing on screen and the camera sees them)
Sea of Thieves is a great example of diagetic UI! Compass and telescope are items you have to hold in front of you, and the only map is on a table below deck. What direction is the wind blowing? Look for cues from the environment. What state is the ship in - sails, anchor, damage, etc. - have a look around.
Metro series does that great - if you go ranger hardcore difficulty you don't have any hud at all through all game, except optional subtitles and your ruck in Exodus you still have in-game/real PC time, light indication, gasmask filter lifespan on watch and mags with see-through cuts to frustrate about having only half a mag as all ammo you have before you enter fight
far cry 2, 3d fallout games, and the metro series come to mind first when i think of diegetic ui, tho this is the first time i learned there was a word for this kind of style of ui. i always just referred to them as "real" or "physical" ui elements
Also the word dietetic is used in many other aspects across many types of media :). It's even used to describe audio where diegetic is a sound that comes from the in game/movie world and non diegetic is something like, a soundtrack or a theme.
I think non-diagetic interfaces also came from how early 3D consoles came to be. Afaik, consoles had different 2D and 3D renderers, where you could easily overlay the 2D UI over the rendered 3D image. Even with 2D consoles you sometimes had a foreground layer, which could be easily rendered on top of all the other sprites etc.
I'd like to add here another distinction in diegetic UIs. There are intrusive diegetic UIs, and non-intrusive. You can consider an Intrusive diegetic UI, as one that is BLOCKED during gameplay at certain conditions, due to its diegetic nature. For example, in Sons of the Forest, opening up your inventory during combat would prove either impossible (breaks immersion of the whole thing) or silly since the enemies could still attack you, or the devs would have to "freeze" the game, which again breaks immersion and the purpose of the diegetic UI. This is unlike Skyrim, where you can open up your inventory and eat 14 kgs of cheese without any problems. You could also block the Skyrim inventory during combat (which is a non-diegetic UI), but this is different because one "requires" blocking, the other one is a design choice by the devs. A non-intrusive diegetic UI would mean something that is on the game world, and isn't blocked, for example the ammo amount/HP shown in Dead Space (except for the very few cases where the weapon rotates and you can't see the number). A must remember for devs, that if you decide to make something diegetic, it might end up getting blocked at certain conditions that you weren't planning for.
No discussion of diegetic UIs is complete without Inscryption. Your health, the playing field, the map, your inventory, and more are all physical objects in the game world, and that adds an amazing amount of immersion.
Diegetic was actually originally a filmmaker's term for sound or music that exists within a scene that can be heard by the characters. It's been adapted to apply to the video game world.
It also worth mentioning that in some engines its really really hard to implement speaking from experience here with godot i just hate myself for forcing this on me
Thinking about the MinecraftVR scene, something really immersive would be making the objects in the chest physics objects that you can grab and move, sort through the chest moving the blocks just to find what you want. With compute being more powerful and available each year I see this completely feasible. Or just an easier way for less compute is to display the objects inside the chest as a grid of objects, like representing the UI but in the 'real' world using the texture of the chest and so on. No 2D BS, that you have to open it and to see inside to view it, pretty much behaving like the SotF backpack.
My favourite example, is map from Far Cry 2, that not like UI element but rather physical item with 3 gradations of scaling and weapon degradation level also visible as scrathes/rust in guns themself.
The metro series is a great example of this, I played through the entirety of metro exodus with the HUD turned completely off because most of the information can be found using diegetic sources
Worth mentioning that Trespasser for PC back in 1997 had one of the first diegetic UIs I can remember seeing in a video game. Your character's heart tattoo signified health, and she would often vocalize how many bullets were in the chamber of a gun.
Metro 2033 had a sick UI ingame, you had a Quest log wich you can pull out and hold in your hands with hand lights you had to charge up every now end then by running a electric motor by hand, you had a watch on your hand wich showed you time remaining with your gas mask and on and on...
the best in-game UI is for G-Zero 7 where youre character is sitting in the living room playing ps5 as a character playing PC, you have to control the users control to control the in-game in-game game-in-the-game-game to move the PC mouse to move the cursor and press the keyboard keys within the game within the game within the game to try to win a game of QWOP
