As a UI/UX agency that focusses on B2B SaaS, I’ve always found Fantasy UIs fascinating. It’s the complete opposite of the simple & clean interfaces clients ask us to design.<p>I’ve spent some time thinking about why these Fantasy UIs are so fascinating despite the fact they seem not very user friendly.<p>My conclusion was that fantasy Interfaces are very much like the early web. Lots of moving parts (dancing banana gifs) and you had to figure out the navigation on each website you visited. Today, everything looks and feels the same and we lost the creative spirit of interface building.<p>Figuring out the interface might not be best practice. But at the same time, I remember sharing websites with friends purely based on how fun the navigation and overall controls were.<p>We lost the Art of interface building and turned it into a complete science. There are arguments for both sides.<p>My wish is that... Hopefully.. one day, someone will contact us with a project that allows us to build the first fantasy UI for a real-world SaaS product.
The fantasy UI of Neon Genesis Evangelion[1,2] left a deep impression on me when I watched the original series for the first time. And, in my opinion, it has aged very well.<p>[1]: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/PF3oA" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/PF3oA</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/uDeBs" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/uDeBs</a>
The single biggest common denominator between so many fantasy UIs, is transparent (HUD-style) interfaces. I was just watching the latest episode of <i>The Expanse</i>, last night, and saw them all using these transparent PDA/phones.<p>Ever try using a transparent UI? It's absolutely maddening.<p>Looks cool on the screen, but is pretty much unusable IRL.
Strange that nobody on this thread shared the amazing eDEX-UI project: <a href="https://github.com/GitSquared/edex-ui" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/GitSquared/edex-ui</a>. A full open-source sci-fi terminal emulator inspired by Tron Legacy.
If you haven’t seen them, look at the Microsoft Future Vision concepts for some quite interesting ideas:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-tFdreZB94" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-tFdreZB94</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0</a><p>To me, what makes these fantasy UIs compelling is that they are usually extremely context-aware and content-aware. We haven’t quite worked out how to make real world computers work that way yet.<p>We’re still very much tied to paradigms that are ultimately easier for the computer (apps, windows, menus, files) as opposed to things that are natural to humans. If I have one hope for ML, it’s that hopefully it will bring some context-awareness to computing so that the content becomes the user interface.
My fantasy UI would be a sort of large flat desktop plane, with ~infinite zoom. FVWM and other do have the one large desktop space that you scroll around, instead of discrete virtual desktops, but I want to see the ultimate version of that.<p>A vast virtual plane that you could scroll and zoom around, drag your files/content around, make groups with marked delineations like a map. Obviously there would be some kind of grouping and minimap if you zoomed out enough. Documents should be represented such that you would simply zoom into them to access their content, you wouldn't open files or start applications, everything would be represented visually and the editing tools you need would be presented as you zoom close enough. A document would be represented as pages you could flip through or spread out for a larger overview. Videos could be simply viewed or spread out into frames/segments with editing tools.<p>Content would not be a "text file" or an "image file", it would just be a delineated piece of content, which you could add whatever type of content to, by calling up the relevant tools.<p>There would be no discrete applications as such, just content and flexibility, I want it to be seamless and integrated. In some ways similar to UIs seen in Minority Report and other sci-fi movies, but without the Hollywood flash and gimmickry.<p>I'm aware that there are a <i>lot</i> of complications and practical limitations, but it's an idea I've toyed with for a while, and I'm not sure I've seen people <i>really</i> attempt something like it for practical use, only bits and pieces.
Others are pointing out that Fantasy UIs have too much complexity to serve as your average productivity tool interface, and that an artistic design hurts usability. Yet there is a subset of usable interfaces which look a lot like the examples on this website: Game UIs. I find it fascinating how artistic vision and interaction design can combine.
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/FUI/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/FUI/</a> has many more examples if you're a fan of FUIs.
I've always wondered who does those browsers / email clients / phone UIs you see in films and on TV that are kind of familiar but also not "real" software. I'm talking about everyday films - not futuristic fantasy. Often when someone writes an email in a film the UI is some kind of Frankenstein interface that isn't recognisable as say Gmail or Outlook. Am I just imagining this? Is there a company that specializes in writing fake UIs for films and TV?
I'm looking for alien/space looking UI interface. And music visualizers for my youtube video projects.<p>I've been compiling visually interesting/fantasy computer animations for youtube videos made with pygame.<p>So far I've found<p>1. Matrix Effect<p><a href="https://gist.github.com/MrKioZ/c07b9377d20bab53af6ebcdfbdeabb64" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/MrKioZ/c07b9377d20bab53af6ebcdfbdeab...</a><p>2. Star Field effect<p><a href="https://codeboje.de/starfields-and-galaxies-python/" rel="nofollow">https://codeboje.de/starfields-and-galaxies-python/</a><p>3. Earth Animation<p><a href="https://makersportal.com/blog/2018/8/16/rotating-globe-in-python-using-basemap-toolkit" rel="nofollow">https://makersportal.com/blog/2018/8/16/rotating-globe-in-py...</a>
These are not fantasy UIs, they are science fiction UIs. There is a massive lack of good swords and wizards fantasy movies and shows. The networks, just to fill out a list, are clumping fantasy in with science fiction and super hero movies. If we are going to say anything involving an unrealistic personal fantasy is fantasy, then why stop there? That’s almost all movies and film. For that matter super hero stuff ends up in science fiction too - Heinlein is not going to be rolling in his grave but it’s still not the same thing either
Her is my all-time favorite movie UI. It's more familiar and less futuristic than the others but felt like where we're headed. There's also just enough emphasis on skeuomorphism to make it feel warmer and more inviting than the flat designs prevalent in 2013.<p><a href="https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2018/04/05/screen-graphics-of-her-interview-with-geoff-mcfetridge.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2018/04/05/screen-graphics-of...</a>
Usually any UI in a movie is bad and drops me back to reality out of the magic of the movie.<p>There are meaningless percentages with silly labels, animated histograms, so much useless movement, scrolling nonsense, and sometimes even a world map, blinking stuff -- all crammed into one screen. And best of all, the useless extra data is often rendered extra useless with a font size that is too tiny to read without a magnifying glass.<p>There are movies with nice, (semi) plausible fantasy UIs too! For example, The Midnight Sky (damage assessment, map views etc.), Chappie (firmware upgrade, policebot PoV, etc.), Interstellar (flight controls, robot "debug" displays etc.).<p>Star Trek LCARS screens have been generally well thought of, but not always. There are weird numbers and "display nonsense" here and there. But, I can believe a starship could be steered with such a touch UI with clearly distinguishable big buttons and clear separation of functions.
I worked at a startup that hired a designer that worked on Tron Legacy to design the main product interface and we built it. It's a very complex UI with lots of graphs and information and it was damn sexy and the information was actually useful.
I rather like the UI for the Cave in <i>His Dark Materials</i> (possible spoilers):<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSpIaCf47lc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSpIaCf47lc</a>
Nice. Some look sort of acid/trippy but others look very slick and eh, super-usable.
I'd love to play with an actual implementation. Something Dear ImGui-sh would be great...
Anyone know what kind of technologies are used to build these fantasy UIs?<p>There are probably two categories:<p>- UIs that are live on the set, and the talent interacts with them<p>- UIs that are added in post, so essentially animated clips that align with the on screen action.<p>Adobe After Effects come to mind for the 2D UI. {{3D app of choice for the 3d visuals}} Not sure what else are used for these output. Would be crazy if some of them get built with common web technology.
I remember an app called Kaleidoscope, for Mac.<p>It created "fantasy" UIs that actually worked.<p>Some were pretty cool.<p>Most were completely unusable.<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/tucows_204231_Kaleidoscope" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/tucows_204231_Kaleidoscope</a><p><a href="https://macgui.com/downloads/?cat_id=25" rel="nofollow">https://macgui.com/downloads/?cat_id=25</a>
I dig a lot of these interfaces, but I'm a huge fan of simplistic CLI interfaces in sci-fi. Like fallout. I find it infinitely charming -- I love the idea of someone running Unix in the year 2983 or something
What tools are used to create these UIs?<p>There are a ton of videos to watch. Does anyone know offhand what tools are used? Or if there are good select videos to watch?
see also Kit FUI from waay back<p><a href="https://www.saji8k.com/kit-fui/" rel="nofollow">https://www.saji8k.com/kit-fui/</a>
Microsoft is one trillion worth, but can offer only laughable Metro UI.<p><pre><code> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AItTqnTsVjA</code></pre>
A lot of fantasy UI's were a reality back in the day with FVWM.
Check their gallery, and look up FVWM screenshots in the net.<p>Proof:<p><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/xevz/art/FVWM-2-5-14-X-org-6-8-2-24148266" rel="nofollow">https://www.deviantart.com/xevz/art/FVWM-2-5-14-X-org-6-8-2-...</a><p><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/topperharley999/art/FVWM" rel="nofollow">https://www.deviantart.com/topperharley999/art/FVWM</a>