Back in November 2017 I sent an email to Reiza Studios, offering my services to design the UI and Branding for Automobilista 2 — a title that I don’t believe was announced at the time but was very much anticipated by the Sim Racing community.
Now, here in early February 2020 and with the original Automobilista title voted #2 best Racing Sim over at Race Department I am extremely proud to have been involved on both these aspects for the forthcoming succcessor to that title (please do check out the post about the Vyxl branding for AMS2 here).
Reiza recently shared some preview images of the AMS2 UI designed by Vyxl and assisted + guided by the awesome Reiza team, so I felt it would be good to share them here on Vyxl.co too —
It’s no big secret that AMS2 is built on the foundations of the Madness Engine (Project Cars 2) so designing a fresh UI on that platform while retaining the brand feel of AMS1 and delivering a contemporary appearance has been a challenge — but a highly enjoyable one at that.
As I am myself a long-term Sim Racer there was one particular design oversight made by many other Sims that I wished to ensure we avoid; placing any important buttons or information in the lower central section of the screen which is often blocked by Steering Wheels in the Players line-of-sight (a common setup for serious Sim Racers, to help the feeling of immersion).
This can be demonstrated by this early AMS2 UI mockup by Vyxl shown on my personal setup —
Above you can see the important START button bottom right, with a button cluster for Replays and Options on the bottom left, and all central textual content floated to the top of each panel accordingly: all so the Player can navigate the UI comfortable from this viewpoint without the need to crane their necks around their Wheel rim to read awkwardly-placed UI elements.
Loading Screen, with load bar across the screen top
The same design thinking is also applied to the Replay taskbar; an element that slides down from the screen top and auto-hides itself after a few seconds of Player inaction, allowing the Race replay to be fully visible —
** Please note that all the content in the images shown above is placeholder and no final Game content should be inferred **
Automobilista 2 is scheduled for release in March 2020 and Vyxl is very excited and proud to have been involved with this fantastic title.
Reiza Studios — Website Reiza Studios — Facebook page Reiza Studios — YouTube Channel Automobilista 2 – Steam Page
If Vyxl can elevate your Brand, Game, App, Product, Service or Event — please get in touch!
