Wow! The Avengers did not disappoint, it was the entertaining blockbuster it was anticipated to be. What’s more, it didn’t disappoint in the way of featuring a tonne of HUDs and GUIs, and elaborating on what we loved about IRON MAN 1 & 2 thanks to the team at Cantina Creative!

IRON MAN HUD
Check out the IRON MAN HUD Montage

Fantastic! There’s nearly 2 minutes in total of screen time purely in the IRON MAN HUD! The beautifully crafted, heavily detailed designs were created by the super talented Jayse Hansen.

It is sooo cool that a designer was allocated to purely focus on the HUD design. The detail that he went through is amazing, to put so much research into something is inspiring. As Jayse put it “I basically taught myself how to fly using whatever I could find: books, videos and flight simulators”

It was really interesting to hear that designing for stereo (3D) meant that everything was in focus and clearly readable. Great for effect but unfortunately that meant he had to make sure everything on the screen had a function and could not simply be decoration. You could argue that this was a good thing as it meant the designs had purpose and would be more authentic. It’d also push the design to make sure everything was properly considered.

Just check out the breakdown on Jayse Hansen’s site. The detail is truly inspiring.

My favourite things about the IRON MAN HUD:
1. How the elements animate on different layers in 3D, sexy!
2. All the circular reticles, and when they expand and come in from different depths
3. When the HUD swipes around to switch to ‘battle mode’. AWESOME!

Stark Tower UI
Check out Stark Tower UI

This is a short scene but it has some interesting sequences to note. It mainly involves hologram displays, and the cool part comes when Stark reaches in and grabs the 3D cube and looks at it in detail, a concept that was introduced in the IRON MAN films.

Another great moment is when Stark flicks the screen interface to display exploded content on holographic screens around him. A really cool take on the traditional ‘full screen’ mode but in a spatial setting.

Helipad screen UI
Check out Helipad screen UI

There’s some really nice scenes on the Helipad that feature touch screens, most of which are transparent.

The look of transparent screens are just so attractive. I love the vibrancy and detail of the content, it really helps make it look believable and functional.

Some nice moments involve Banner and Stark throwing content between two separate screens and collaborating instantaneously. I also like that the director positioned Banner and Stark on opposite sides of the screen during an important dialogue. It looks great and highlights the possible benefits of having a transparent screen, like being able to see each other through the content and the ability to interact from both sides.

Finally, I wanted to mention how much I enjoyed seeing the different personalities of Banner and Stark and how that translates in the way they interact with the interfaces. Stark is very fluid and nonchalant, and on the other hand Banner is gentle and precise. Full credit to the actors.

What a fun movie!

Watch the IRON MAN HUD montage
Check out the Stark Tower UI sequence
Check out the Helipad screen UIs
Check out Jayse Hansen’s breakdown of the work

Credits
VFX: Cantina Creative
Marvel VFX Supervisor: Janek Sirrs
Stereo Supervisor: Wes Sewell
Cantina VFX Producer: Sean Cushing
Cantina Creative Director (and HUD master!): Stephen Lawes
Cantina VFX Supervisor: Venti Hristova

Cantina Creative Design and Animation team
Jayse Hansen
Jonathan Ficcadenti
Alan Torres
Navarro Parker
Sang Shin
Asuka Ashizawa
Takashi Takeoka
Sarah Blank
Lukas Weyandt
Leon Nowlin

You guys are in for a treat! GMUNK has generously compiled a montage of all the awesome UI elements from Oblivion! We’ve also got a link to a featurette with director Joseph Kosinski, GMUNK and DLEW talking about the design in the film.

The things I love about the UI design in Oblivion…

The consistent design language
I love how GMUNK explains the use of a dot grid to hang all the design elements on. It really helped create a neat, consistent, structured system throughout the film’s UI. I also love the overall style/language of the UI, created by the type, icons, colour palette and use of thin details. It feels modern and minimalist, and really appealing to use, I would love to just play around on the light table or look through the gun scope!

The style
The look of the UI was futuristic but believable. It looks like a system that’s been refined and evolved over the years from what we’re familiar with today. So I don’t think we’re really meant to be able to comprehend all the screens but be able to recognise some elements from them. The team have created an interface that has a really good balance of something that feels familiar but also a bit alien.

The road rogue signal
(5:48 in featurette)
This stood out for me whilst watching the film. It was probably one of the braver design elements in the film and hats off to Joseph Kosinski for allowing the artists to do their thing. I really love it when I see new ways of visualizing data, and this was one of those times. It looks so graphic, it was less technical than the rest of the UI and it had a lot of character.

Oblivion was one of those films where I couldn’t wait to see more shots of the UI. It’s such a pleasure to see guys like GMUNK, DLEW, Jake Sargeant/MN8 and all the other great designers not involved in Oblivion pushing this niche field of designing HUDs and GUIs! That is why this site was made, so pumped!

Watch the Oblivion GFX montage by GMUNK
Check out this featurette on Creating the World of “Oblivion” (2013)
Check out GMUNK’s breakdown of the work, which includes a list of credits

Continuum is a Canadian sci-fi series about time travel and features everything from implanted HUDs, hologram phones, weapons and vehicles to suit interfaces. It looks like the design team had a bit of fun with the interface elements and imagining how these futuristic devices would appear and function.

The style is consistent, maybe because the technology comes from the same corporation, but I like it, after seeing it a few times it becomes natural and just part of the story. I love the occasional splash of colour during the animations and the playfulness of some of the elements. Like in the HUDs montage where she’s comparing print outs of DNA strings, how the sequences flip around to match with another sample, it’s just interesting and full of character.

I also really enjoyed seeing how the main character views the world assisted by a HUD and how it helps her in everyday situations. I guess it’s the same thought behind Google Goggles. But it’s designed in a clever way, never obtrusive, cluttered or hard to see. It’s like a glimpse into the way her mind works, and it’s very fun to watch.

Other things to look out for is the handheld hologram used in the ‘Brain control’ sequence and the gun UI. Love how the handheld hologram can be accessed with both hands and the gun UI just looks cool!

Continuum is actually quite a good show and very easy to watch, worth checking out if you’re into sci-fi.

Big thanks to Luiz Marques for sending this through to us!

PS. It would be cool to see more done with her suit in the next season

Watch the ‘Brain Control’ clip

Check out the gun UI

Check out the HUDs montage

Check out the ‘Mist’ scanning scene

Check out the suit UI

Check out this montage of miscellaneous interfaces

This Halo 4 opener is for the live action web series called Forward Unto Dawn. It features lots of crisp, detailed, cinematic shots characteristic of German Design/VFX studio Polynoid.

I really like the occasional shots of the ship’s blinking screens, they do a great job of showing that the desolate ship still has some life in it. It’s almost like the faint heart beat of the ship.

It was also interesting to see how the energy swarm was treated. It looks less technical and more organic and it’s nice how the lines continue flowing through the body of Cortana.

Make sure you visit the breakdown page on Polynoid’s site to check out the level of detail that went into the production of these shots.

Watch the Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn opener by Polynoid
Check out the making of clip
Check out Polynoid’s breakdown page

This short trailer for Gold Runner has some nicely crafted interface elements. Not surprising since it’s the project of Tronic Studios co-founder Vivian Rosenthal.

Watch the Gold Runner trailer by Vivian Rosenthal
Interview on Motionographer

PS. I just noticed the 4 hexagons on the bottom right thumbnail pic, looks like our logo :)

The C Thru Smoke Helmet is the regular fire fighters helmet re-imagined by Swedish designer Omer Haciomeroglu. I’m very excited to see a Heads-up Display applied to a practical, everyday situation.

The helmet basically solves numerous obstacles that often arises in a fire rescue such as low to almost no visibility in highly dense smoke, the need to keep contact with walls to navigate, or the need to carry and constantly check thermal imaging equipment, all in the one device.

The main features of the helmet include the imaging of the surrounding environment via an optic-thermal camera and overlaid as an augmented vision through projectors on the visor, communication between team members and selective noise cancelling.

The helmet improves the rescue effort in so many ways. Not only does the helmet free up the fire fighter’s hands and lighten the weight of heavy equipment but also speeds up the rescue process and allows them to run instead of crawl. Other benefits of using this technology include the ability to relay vital information to all team members simultaneously and also the collection of data for assessment and future improvements. What’s more, it shaves seconds off the preparation time, which is vital in responding to emergencies.

This is a really cool initiative. Head over to Omer’s Behance page to see a more in depth break down!

Read more on Omer’s Behance page.

I was hesitant about posting this one, but I’m just a sucker for retro interfaces or anything that makes me nostalgic. This clip for electronic music duo Justice, certainly does that from a visual sense. The whole clip looks like a 70s or 80s sci-fi film, full of gadgets, action and a bit of cheese. I have to say the film quality is really cool, and the colours are fantastic.

In terms of HUDs and GUIs, the highlight for me is the arcade tabletop, which looks like something I would have marveled over as a kid. It reminds me of the age of Atari and the occasional attempts at holographic games during that time.

If you want to see a more modern take on HUDs in sports, check out our previous post on METS Amazin’ – Futuristic Baseball UI.

PS. Sorry that the clip has a really long credits roll at the end :(

Watch Justice’s New Lands music video by Canada.

Unveiled at CES 2013, Displair is a gesture enabled water-based monitor. It works by having a touchscreen device connected to a projector, which puts the touchable image onto a continuous stream of vaporized water. It looks like it’s primarily marketed as an advertising display unit or presentation device.

I was hesitant at first, thinking that it could get annoying if the display moves every time you put your hand though it, and wondering how much water you’d need, but it does look fun to play with. Also the website says it moisturises air and benefits the skin, no other monitors seem to do that!

Check out this demonstration of Displair

It’s been an insanely busy beginning to 2013, so sorry for the late start! Hope everyone had a nice break!

Hopefully 2013 will bring in lot’s of juicy HUDS and GUIS inspiration and cool new tech to keep us on the edge of our seats.

Stay tuned as the posts will start coming through shortly! Good to be back :)

What a huge year it’s been, we’re looking forward to a well earned break over the holiday season and will be back with some exciting new posts for 2013! Hopefully we’ll see some updates and improvements to the site too!

Hope everyone has a fun and relaxing holiday break! Massive thanks everyone for your support throughout the year, this site wouldn’t exist without your encouragement! Special thanks also to all those who got in contact, contributed work or submitted news!

Here’s a recap of the posts we did this year….
UI Design in Sunshine
Instrument UX Reel
Glass in the future – Corning’s Future Vision part 2
Archetype – Robot HUDs and GUIs
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Screen Design
Holographic UI – Swedish House Mafia & Absolute (Greyhound)
Mission Impossible 4 – UI Design
The Matrix Reloaded – UI Design
ZeroN – Levitated Interaction Element
Shilo: Zazzle spot
First Data Bank – Data visualisation by Stardust
T(ether) – AR Interface from MIT
Vanquish – Interface Design
Showcase 3 – Fabricated Interfaces
Total Recall – UI Design
Dead Space 2 – Diegetic Interface Design
Samsung – Flexible display
Surviving The Future – Data visualisation by Tendril
SoundForms – Collaborative music interface
007 Skyfall UI – Sony Mouse & Cat spot
Showcase 4 – Sports HUDs
Battleship UI by Prologue
METS Amazin’ – Futuristic Baseball UI
Plurality – a Sci-Fi short by Dennis Liu

Merry Christmas!