Improving the GUI icons

[J the Ninja]

A recent discussion in the dev forum had me thinking about the tab bar at the top of the GUI, and its visual aesthetics. And then I was reminded of something I've mostly learned to overlook: the icons in the GUI are pretty bad. I'm not the biggest fan of the art style, to begin with. The whole set feels vaguely childish to me (probably the bright colors and rounded corners). But that's not the main issue:

The main issue is that most of them make little or no sense.

The render tab icon is the....radiation symbol? wut? Ok, ok, Lux simulates radiation. But that symbol is generally used to warn of ionizing radiation, not to describe electromagnetic radiation in general. It refers to wavelengths WAYY above what Lux deals with. Perhaps the program icon itself might be better for the render tab?

The queue and the network tabs actually have the SAME icon. I didn't even notice that until now. That kind of defeats the purpose of having tab icons in the first place. The tabs no longer have any visual delineation, only the different labels. Perhaps the queue icon could be a stylized "list" type design? (even a couple of horizontal lines invokes the idea of a list). The network icon...I'll confess I don't have a better idea at the moment.

The log icon is ok, I guess. Although my art style gripe stands (it looks cheap and plastic-y)

The imaging tab in the lower tab bar...what IS that? A piece of film? An image?

The light groups one is a probably the second best one. It suggests compositing effects, which is what the light groups do. Although most users seem unaware of that...

The advanced tab...is the radiation symbol again.

The clipboard icon is...great. We could probably leave that one, unless we change up the whole style.

Gamma/FR and Histogram icons look way too similar. Histogram should maybe be several separate color curves? It's in that mode by default anyway.

Lens effects and noise reduction are reasonably ok. Not sure a chisel is a the greatest noise reduction icon, but not sure what would be better.



So, let's clean this up for 0.9.

I'd like to use this thread to discuss and then work on designing a better icon set for the GUI. One that is both more serious-looking than the current set, and better describes the functions they're marking. To start with, I think we should agree on what should be the general style for the icons (colored, monochrome, etc), then get to work on building new ones. I'd be glad to pitch in with designing and building the new icons, although I think I'll need a bit of help to get them into Lux, and I'd rather this not be a one man project of me running out and redesigning all the icons in my own style.


P.S. the radiation symbol is upside down.

[jeanphi]

Hi,

Go for it, and I hope interested people will join the effort to get a clean and shiny (who said glossy?) UI for v0.9.

Jeanphi

[SATtva]

Poncho, we need you!

[dougal2]

Aren't the current icons 'borrowed' from blender? Hence, they have been chosen from a pre-defined set that are not always appropriate.

Here's an icon set that I've used before in my other apps: http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com/

[J the Ninja]

Aren't the current icons 'borrowed' from blender? Hence, they have been chosen from a pre-defined set that are not always appropriate.

Here's an icon set that I've used before in my other apps: http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com/

Hm....we could probably use that set for a quite a few of them.

[J the Ninja]

Crystal: http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/?action=preview

and

Oxygen: http://www.oxygen-icons.org/


were both suggested in IRC as possible sets would could make use of.


Anyone have a preference? I'm leaning somewhat towards crystal atm, mainly since they have a simple download link for the entire set. I can't find a zip or tarball of the oxygen set anywhere?

EDIT: Although I suppose we could always mix and match

[sadaj72]

I can't find a zip or tarball of the oxygen set anywhere?

here it is: http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/oxygen-icon-theme

[Carbonflux]

I hope interested people will join the effort to get a clean and shiny (who said glossy?) UI for v0.9.

Indeed, I think the time has come to get into this

Tho now you have me thinking about dynamic shading of UI controls

I like either set of icons but I have to admit a personal bias towards the Oxygen set, I just like the look of them.

It might be worth the time to start thinking about this in more general terms, leveraging the OS or platform icons and color theme or over ridding them, without getting too elaborate of course.

I think a bit of research into Qt options might be interesting.

[J the Ninja]

Flipped through the oxygen icon set today, and put a mockup together in photoshop, as something of a first draft:

Some of the icons were modified, like the light groups icon (which was originally only 1 bulb), etc. I also have no idea what to use for the imaging tab.

As far as the icons within the imaging sidebar, you might notice I darkened the tone mapping icon to match the others, and left them alone. I was thinking of having a darker, simpler style for that, mostly to just keep the existing icons.

Also, the blue on the network and log icons is a bit jarring with the otherwise yellow and gray colors of the UI, perhaps we should consider recoloring those?

[J the Ninja]

Yellow icon version: