“Molot” VST Compressor is ready! Some words about GUI creation (или немного про создание GUI)

“Molot” compressor VST plugin page is [here]. And in this note there are some words about GUI creation.

Страница VST компрессора “Молот” [тут]. А в этой заметке немного про создание GUI.

The idea was to make GUI with old Soviet military device look. As I’m not an artist I started to search real device as basement for GUI. I spent some time to find old military looking devices in old stuff from garages of my friends and finally found very interesting looking device. It’s cathode voltommeter A4-M2 USSR, 1956. Check [this] out.

Возникла идея сделать интерфейс, выглядящей, как старый советский военный прибор. Так как я не художник, то решил поискать какую-нибудь реальную железку, чтобы использовать ее в качестве основы для GUI. Поспрашивав некоторое время у знакомых, не завалялось ли чего в их гаражах, в конце концов нашел очень интересный аппарат: катодный вольтомметр A4-M2, СССР, 1956 год. Вот [такой].

 This is it in my kitchen:

To make photos I used cheap Samsung L730 camera (~100$).

First, I started with knobs (I did a lot of photos to make animation):

The result was pretty cool:

For toggle switches I used another device (old supply unit):

For VU meter I unmounted voltmeter from supply unit used above:

And then inserted printed VU scale:

 After some processing got one like that:

And finally I made indicator lamp:

The lamp is turned on:

And I made some gradient (did that in 15 minutes):

After that I prepared background with text and lines to put these elements on their places:

Then I scaled elements down and started coding using VSTGUI. That’s the result: