Okay. This is it. I've been sitting on it most of the day after bugging a few folks for their opinions.
2of3 offered to help me with this. Vampothika & neone6 also offered help and support.
I decided to go with something new to get a fresh start and came up with this. Hopefully, it's simple enough so as not to be problematic along the way, but stylish enough that a lot of you will like it and it won't be too easy so I (and you) can learn from it as we go along.
2of3 was kind enough to send me some files to follow as sort of a workflow to keep organized. We're gonna go one piece at a time and won't be moving on to the next until the one we are on is good.
PLEASE :
So...this is pretty much it. How the rest of this thread progresses and shapes up will depend on how the back and forth transpires. If I leave something out as we go along and you want me to back up, give a yell. I'll be happy to.
If this is the only skin I ever do, we're gonna go through it from start to finish so enjoy.
What you see above is the Start window (I'll probably be going with the darker of the two). (401 px x 500 px)
These were the drafts.
UPDATE 1/17/2012 : gmc2 is going to attempt to do the Wiki for this. Woot! Based on that, I think we'll be doing more than one thread as we progress. THIS particular thread will be the basic design/draft of all the parts. Hopefully, this will make it easier for gmc2 to do his thing and make it easier for anyone to follow the progress.
I'll be asking for suggestions from time to time. Feel free to PM me anything.
Also - If you want to make anything to go with, this here is a color chart if it helps. I'll be sticking to these colors. Any variations will be due to shading/effects or 'overlay' layers.
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NOTES: Start Menu and Taskbar -
If you're looking for Part I, II, III you can find them here:
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The PSD files for the previous threads are in the Graphics Gallery.
Git Er Dun!!
This is gonna be good!
Wow! Can't wait to see how this develops!
If the start menu graphics are anything to go by, Po............You could well be building a potential all time classic. Every encouragement to you and ..........like many others here.........I'll be watching the progress with eager anticipation. Good luck
You are gonna want to rename it (g)roan by the time I'm done with you, Po!
Great start! I think it would be a good idea to draft the taskbar and window frames before we start slicing and dicing. It will give you a better idea of how things will look finished and help you decide what you buttons will look like.
Stylish. I think you made the right choice by using the dark one, best of the lot, IMO. I like it.
Really great idea !
hope this happens, looks great!
Tres cool Po !
I already see you could have an upward stretching problem depending whether you´re gonna have a "user pane/top part"or not and number of layers.
They all look good. I hope that this is only the first. Good luck with seeing it through to the end.
I'm rootin for you Po. Your a brave man.
vampy will be watching this closely.....
and when its finished (yes, im going to make sure you finish this) i would love do to a sysmetrix for it.
This is going to be a great experience. Looking forward to this journey. -- Ace --
This could turn out to be one of the most important posts ever made on these forums if you two guys go about it the right way. If you go through EVERY section of the skin showing the best way to do things it will remove a lot of the mystique and difficulties surrounding making a WB skin.
You could end up advancing WB skinning in a previously unheard of way. You could become the guys that showed the DEFINITIVE way of doing it right. To achieve this though, I hope you explain every last little detail as you go along, so that others can look at this and find the information that they need. I hope you cover everything, including things like, what is the optimum size for each piece of the skin, and why certain parts are drawn the way they are.
I have every faith in Tim's ability to show the right way to do things, and equal faith in Noah's graphic abilities to give us a great skin at the end of this. I will also be following along closely and hope to get enough information from this to finish some of MY problematic WB skins!!
The community needs this thread, I hope it works out for everyone. Go for it guys!!!
Right. If you look at the early drafts of the leather start panel it could have been worse (which I suspected as I did them) and Tim pointed that out. I'm hoping the new design will minimize that. Tim mentioned the layers and lighting and I think this will work.
For noobs (like me), tiling and stretching textures are a bitch. In my first few attempts at this I learned that the hard way (which often led to my frustration and stopping). This is also one of the reasons I wanted to have some texture. I didn't want it to be to easy and I wanted some of the folks who are just starting on Windowblinds like I am to see what can or can't be done. To be honest, I'm more concerned about the stitching, but I think Tim has an answer for that as well to try out.
nopressurenopressurenopressure
Fantastic job. When it's done maybe we can get it in a downloadable .PDF format, and I can help format it into a web version that's better than what the forums do.
And we can't forget the WC Wiki.
wiki, did someone mention wiki??? I can do that.
Since Vamps beat me to the smx I can do a rainy and/or docks. This is going to make WC history. YES!
Good luck Po, take your time with this beauty.
This is gonna be Big.
An epic in the making for sure. I agree with BoXXi 100%. This could be a real milestone.
You can do it, Po.
TASKBAR
This is what I have for the taskbar. As you can see, there are two options. I like the floating taskbars, rounded corners myself, but I'm not sure how it will look with this skin and am leaning towards the more traditional that fills the width of the screen. The taskbar drafts are 400 px x 43 px. The '43 px' is accommodate the stitching. I'm tempted to go 45 px (part of me says 50 but I can already hear the moaning). I wanted to do stitching around the buttons on the taskbar and start menu, which is why I was thinking a larger taskbar. (If I make the stitching to small it won't be as aesthetically pleasing)
Guessing you like the crossbar in the 'A'... No biggy - Leave the 'A' (for angus1949).
As for size? Remember who you're skinning for, Po'. It has to please you.
Yeah, but I'm not married to it. I like it in the shot at the beginning of the post along with the reflection effect but I'm open to ideas.
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