Jared Delamora
UI/UX Designer | Art Producer
NBA2K18
UI/UX Designer
NBA2K18
SUMMARY
NBA2K18 is a basketball simulation video game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Games.
Date released:
- September 15th, 2017 – PS4, Xbox One, PC.
AWARDS
Nominated at The 2017 Game Awards for Best Sports Game.
Won at the 2017 NAVGTR Awards for Best Sports Game.
METACRITIC
80
MY ROLE
As a UI/UX designer, I was tasked to create new features and redesigning existing ones. I handled communication with leads, designers, producers, and engineers to finalize tasks. I also did user research, wireframing, visual design, animation, and built the UI using Autodesk Maya and exporting it to our propriety tools to make it in-game ready. Some features I worked on from start to finish include, Create MyPlayer, MyTeam cards, along with other various features and redesign menus.
For a more detailed breakdown, please visit my linked-in profile😄.
MAIN CHALLENGES
CREATE MYPLAYER
Create MyPlayer is a feature where the player can customize their character.
One of the important aspects of the feature is that it allows the player to scan their face via mobile app and imports the data into the game.
From there, the player can continue customizing their characters facial structure, eye color etc.
This feature is the first menu the player interacts with before the main menu. It also gets utilized within multiple modes like MyCareer and MyGM.
The Executive Producer wanted the feature to represent a sci-fi Sports Lab.
MYTEAM
CARDS
MyTeam Cards are a primary feature from the MyTeam Mode.
The MyTeam producers wanted to redesign the MyTeam cards to look like real cards.
One major aspect of a real card is that it had a photo of the players full-body.
The challenge was, each card carried different tiers, badges, ranks, icons, player signatures etc. making the cards dynamic. On-top of that, the producers wanted to be able to change the background of the cards. These dynamic add-ons made it challenging to design a card that looked real.
CREATE MYPLAYER
EARLY EXPLORATION
This year, I handled the MyPlayer feature and handled the UX and UI from concept to finish.
For 2k18, the request was to update the feature and have it seem like the player is constructing their character in a sci-fi, sports lab.
In previous years, the Create MyPlayer feature contained a vertical list where the player can select which options to customize. I wanted to get away from the vertical list and allow the player to their options without going into sub-menus. I also wanted the player to be able to view the characters full body as well as being able to view the characters face close-up when customizing its features.
Below is a preliminary mockup.
Main Menu
Main Menu – Submenus
UX WIREFRAMES
The Create A Player feature initiated at the start of the game. It would prompt open a window asking the player to insert their characters details. We later use present that information back to the player when they are in the “Lab” constructing their character.
One of the challenges was to create a feature that can also be utilized in multiple parts of the game. This feature also needed to be implemented within the Franchise game mode.
Below is are some menu wireframes presented in a flowchart.
FIRST PASS
PROOF OF CONCEPT
After approval of the initial UX wireframes, I moved forward by creating iterations of concepts. The idea behind the concepts was to explore a sci-fi, sports aesthetic with micro-animations. Here are some early proof of concepts along with an animatic.
FINAL RESULT
After getting feedback from the proof of concept, I went ahead worked with the engineer to begin building and implementing the art and functionality into the game.
A few challenges to note, the create a player feature was also going to be launched from the neighborhood and since the Lab had its own environment and lighting, we needed to make sure the art was optimized, that would allow our game engine to handle running the Lab on top of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, loading was going to take sometime, so we opted-in for a quick loading screen. Lastly, implementing the camera work was also another challenge. We added camera transitions to allow the player to zoom-in to the characters face and zoom-out to view the characters full body. We played around with depth of field and camera rotation sensitivity, fortunately, the engineer I was working with did an amazing job implementing all this (quick shout out to David Yu😄).
MYTEAM
CARDS
I worked closely with the producers to help refine a real card look –
I wanted to create a simple aesthetic that felt clean and energetic. Since the card carried a lot of dynamic content already, I wanted to alleviate some of the noise and allow the player to be the main focus of the card; which is what real-life cards contain. I focused on making the player stand out, without drowning the player with more content.
I went ahead created a few concepts and after a few iterations, we decided to go with a minimal look.
Thank you for viewing