The User Interface and HUD

[kaboom]

EDIT-- the UI changes done so far, from page 2:

Sleek Black: http://files.filefront.com/FL+UI+Sleek+Bla...;/fileinfo.html



Steel and Black:

http://files.filefront.com/FL+UI+Steel+Rus...;/fileinfo.html



Hello all,

I've been peeking around the forums for a little while now and have been impressed by the ship designs offered by the community. I wonder, however, if anyone here has made any attempts to redesign their user interface and HUD-- and whether Discovery plans to offer alternative designs in future releases.

The vanilla interface is aesthetically pleasing, but I can only handle so much blue. Considering that RP is so valued by the Discovery community, I'd be interested to see what people have come up with in regards to their UI. You spend more time looking at your UI and HUD than your ship, after all-- and I wouldn't imagine a Lane Hacker would want the same display as the LSF, or a Corsair the same as an Outcast, etc etc. In a way, how your UI can be an extension of your character.

I've spent a bit of time on my display and have a few shots to share of my UI/HUD. The setup I'm working on at the moment is called "Steel and Black":

Full HUD + open window:


HUD shown again to display transparency of target/shipinfo windows:


Minimized HUD (transparency removed for nnbox and minimized bars):


It's still a work in progress-- and I'm currently stumped on a few things:

Can you change the font colors/color overlay for icons? (I can work around the blue color overlay for icons, but the font is a different matter.)
Is there any way to extract the models for frames and alter them? Or, does anyone know how to create them from scratch? HardCMP and Milkshape cannot display them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, I look forward to seeing what others have come up with!:D