If I post this, maybe I'll finish it...

[dimichan]

LOL, started another one (well, started about 5, but this is the only one I feel inspired to keep going with right now). Keeping with the tragic myth theme, this one is supposed to be more of a dark watery feel, comments and rotten tomatoes welcome as always :p

[Brother V]

waw thats realy nice :)

[J. Burnaway]

"Too early to tell" - who holds the copyright on this?

Looks nice so far though! Keepa goin'.

[Jellby]

watery :)

[hhkyl]

Reminds me of an alien homeworld. what about little orbs with those stuff wrapped around for buttons. And maybe they could lit up when you click on them. just an idea.

[dimichan]

LMAO - I have clear bubbles there as we speak with some small random ones scattered in blank spots :p Now I have to think of something for the volume and balance (and shuf/rep) and other stuffs. I'm thinking of trying to do spiralling growing seaweed for the equalizer with some random small bubbles, we shall see what I can come up with, and something similar for the PL stacks. It's the vol/bal and shuf/rep that always give me the hardest time...

[hhkyl]

Same here, but the balance i think is the hardest. hmm... never mind they're all hard. You can do a little animation for the volume and leave out the button for it.

question: who do you make those little tenacles? do you use a vector tool?

[dimichan]

no, I use the 3 pixel paintbrush to paint the basic shape, and then erase to fine tune it, add a line of white with the 1 pixel brush for the highlight area, and 3 pixel smudge tool at about 40% strength. I sux0rz at vector shapes, maybe some day I'll understand how to use them... right now I end up with them looking just awful.

[not in santiago]

Ooooo . . . villainessy!

Yes, it's fluid, but in my tiny little mind, not watery. I see kind of a fairytale Gothicky architecture, the kind you always see in villain's castles.

But that's probably because the bg is a solid colour right now. Are you going to make it glow with water/light reflections? Or is that wandering into button headache territory.

Love the colours. Please finish. :)

[binary hero]

i really don't like that coluor, but it seems it's only me (maybe the gamma on this monitor is fudged, the taskbar looks decidedly yellow, so it could be this...)

other than that, i think it looks too symmetrical,and i don't like the fiddly bits you have on the titlebars.

[simon snowflake]

I agree with bh about the symetric part, other than that I like it so far.

[dam]

Another dark skin! Yayness! I agree with bh and simon. The skin looks too symmetrical and looks like you just did a bit of copy paste.

[dimichan]

finally started working on this a bit more, the cbuttons aren't finished, and I might add a bit more "stuff" in some areas, but here's how it looks so far, suggestions?

[dam]

OMG! It looks awesome. I'm really liking all the bubbles.
IMHO the eq border could be a bit brighter but I guess you want it to be darker.

Your gfx skills have certainly improved in leaps and bounds.:)

[dimichan]

Hmm, some highlights on the eq border might be what that's missing, I'll try it, because it seemed a bit more drab and I couldn't put my finger on what it was.

Thanks!! :D

[RandomCarpet]

wow i'm obsessed with the filmy watery feel of it :)

about the bubbly cbuttons - i don't think they fit very well, other than that it is awesome

[dimichan]

any suggestions for cbuttons? They're making me insane :p

[RandomCarpet]

well i see it as a compromise between aesthetics and functionality,
the hardest decision to make is whether to label them or not :p (i think no labels'd look better)
stop,next,open could remain bubbles, but maybe a bit smaller and darker (like those on the eq-bars)
prev,play,pause need to be integrated or take a form, similar to their background

[dimichan]

LOL, the art of compromise... changed a few things, added some labelling as unintrusively as possible, cbuttons are suggestive of function, pressed state is bubble overlay with the traditional symbols, next SS arrives :p

oh, and added some highlighting in the eq border and a couple other small areas

[Krynis]

lookin good

[dimichan]

working on PL stack ideas now, but here it is about hmm, 3/4 done... still have shade modes and close/shade buttons to do as well, and "stuff" in the one PL section, and in the MB

[Jellby]

This is going to be superb! It's only missing a Britney picture :D

[dam]

Does the skins even have cbuttons? Hard to tell.
I actually liked the cbutton bubbles.

[dimichan]

the "stuff" growing at the bottom of the cbutton area I *tried* to make suggestive of the function; ie, backwards pointing tendril is back, forwards pointing is play, etc... hmm, maybe I can come up with something between the two...

edit - anyone else cbutton comments?

HAHA - knew something was missing! *adds britney pic*

[RandomCarpet]

the cbuttons
they now look better to me, a lot better, especially the prev and play btns, the rest of them are nice but sort of...overdetailed or something, keep tweaking and i'm sure you'll achieve the perfect look ;)

some additional contrast(lightness) will also help i think

that is just my opinion

[dimichan]

Well, after a few comments of "what buttons" from people I was talking to lol, changed them again; fixed the top of the PL, added detail to the bottom, though the stacks aren't done just yet (they will be soon though); more critiques welcomed! :D

[binary hero]

my god woman! you made me swallow my fruit pastille whole.

really really really really good. when you said "dark and watery" up in the top post, i thought it would end up looking pretty average...but WOW.

(maybe make the pl bg colour a bit darker?)

[dimichan]

*thumps BH on the back* Sorry 'bout that :D

and thanks ^_^!!! Except for a couple things, I'm pretty pleased with this one.

PL color, oh boy, hahaha, that'll defintely be an update item, because I just finished everything but the mbinner and cursors (I think, I thought I had finished and realized I hadn't done the scrollbutton a bit ago) and the color runs into almost every piece in there (and if there's an EASY way to change it, I have yet to discover it)

As soon as I get those done I'll post for anyone who wants to bugtest this thingy :p

[marc falk]

oooOOOooo


like seriously.

OOOOO

i like this.

fsnl
sparky

[dimichan]

^_^!! Thanks guys! :D

uploaded here (http://www.tempmusic.homestead.com/files/melusina.zip) for anyone who wants to check it out real quick, I've gone through a bug huntin', but you never know... if nothing pops up, I'll publish at 1001 in a bit and queue 'er up at winamp :p

[kingstar]

thats one nice skin, really love it! ( thumbs up!) ....looks like you draw on photoshop way better than me :p

[skinme!]

/me downloaded.

What's wrong with the PL colour? I like it.

Not a fan of the cbutton pressed states tho :(

[dimichan]

that was the only labelling compromise I could come up with after something like, 26 tries (no exaggeration :p) Believe me, any other suggestions are welcome... :D

Kingstar - took a lot of trial and error, mostly error, as evidenced by my FIRST skins, which are *cough* modified skinners, don't give up, I still can't draw a good stick figure with pencil and paper to save my life...

[ripe]

This is fantastic stuff dimichan, a really thorough job, well done http://mysite.freeserve.com/tubevision/ikons/biggrin.gif

I've had a quick test - these may or may not be bugs:
ON and AUTO - the bubble disappears in the pressed state between ON and OFF. (Maybe you intended it like that. I expected it to shink or something.)
EQ sliders - the animation is quite abrupt between frames. Would be great if the vines could slowly crawl upwards.
WINSHADES - the vol and balance are hard to see on my monitor. Some of the \/ /\ X buttons on main winshade leave behind the wrong image if you click and drag, I can't remember if this is fixable or not http://mysite.freeserve.com/tubevision/ikons/frown.gif
STOP button - there's a little pixel popping underneath the button when pressed.

Congrats on a great job! http://mysite.freeserve.com/tubevision/ikons/biggrin.gif

[dimichan]

let's see... ON/AUTO, yep, goes from single to double bubble, that was intentional for something different

EQ - tried the climbing thing, but most people have their bars fairly close setting wise, and they looked just too identical ;_;

Hmm, I can't seem to replicate the image drag problem in the winshade O_o

STOP button, me needs to fix I think :p

and it's at 1001 here http://www.1001winampskins.com/skin_details.html?id=2904 ; our favorite viral influence has already struck.

EDIT: Oops, and thanks!!! :D

[ripe]

Originally posted by dimichan
Hmm, I can't seem to replicate the image drag problem in the winshade O_oIt's not a biggy. Press the menu button in winshade then let go.

[skinme!]

/me downloaded.

/me likes.

ripe: aren't WE just special with our own smilies :D

[667]

Ok, I'm pissed off at myself for not doing this earlier. This is Saotome, and I just created this new account, because everybody calls me 667, so, hey...

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love your skin, dimi. I wish someone could get me an eval of PSP, or PhotoShop. I SUCK at GIMP. I'm gonna upload my latest SS. It's an old friend, and I figured, if you guys are all giving help to dimi, I might be able to beg some help too.

[dimichan]

hmm, never used GIMP, I think evals of both PSP and PS are available at download.com, try them out and see if one of the interfaces seems easier to you; it varies from person to person, I always found PS easier, but I know plenty of people who found PSP easier. For lightning, I'd be tempted to lay in a fade about halfway down the eq background into something that can be used in the PL and MB, either relatively plain, or scenic, depending on if you want strictly an artistic look, or more of a pic/scene appeareance, to pull it together. If you're not sure what I mean, post the original background and I'll throw up a couple ideas :p

[binary hero]

i wish i had my own smileys to adorn it with. you'll have to settle with :up: and a handful of stars at winamp.com

[dimichan]

^_^ stars are awesome; I like stars! :D

[ripe]

Originally posted by skinme!
ripe: aren't WE just special with our own smilies :D Yes, special as in 'special needs' http://mysite.freeserve.com/tubevision/ikons/0o.gif lol
I made them for my shoutbox cos the default ones were rank. I figure I might as well make use of them.

-----

Dimichan, yeah I see what you mean now about the eq bars. I was looking for animation before but now I realise that the emphasis is on variety. It's a fair pay-off imo.

Oh, and there's a curious white edge on the small mode mikro..... did I find a bug yet? 0.o

[binary hero]

can we link to your smileys too? i mean, you don't care about bandwidth abuse, do you http://mysite.freeserve.com/tubevision/ikons/wink.gif?

[ripe]

sure, carry on.
My ISP claims they don't put a limit on bandwidth use. And a few bytes for smilies won't make much difference anyway...

[binary hero]

anyone rememberer forevever's smileys?

and ch33zels.

[ripe]

yeah, I do. Didn't Lynx make a shitload as well?

db's licker! - http://home.iprimus.com.au/dbleja/icon_lick.gif

They are simple to make, but it's hard to do something as killer as Lucid's bow (which I can't find right now....)

[binary hero]

i forgot db, lynx and ld.
http://www.davidmear.com/smilies/bow.gif

[dimichan]

Uhh, I can't get my mikroamp to work right, it keeps going to the mikro I USED to have in that folder... >_<

LOL, I tried to make smileys before, and failed miserably... love that bow one...

[Mr Jones]

How offended would you be if I complained about something?

[binary hero]

http://www.davidmear.com/smilies/bigbow.gif
[edit]pwnt. found it.

[dimichan]

Originally posted by Mr Jones
How offended would you be if I complained about something?

Who, me or one of the others?

[Mr Jones]

Sorry, how offended would you be if I complained about something on the skin , your skin, this skin.....:)

[Krynis]

Jones im sure Dimi would love to hear it i know i love hearing about things i could fix (more so if i can actually fix them...) and negitive opinions are a must or skinners would think themselves gods (and goddess')

[dimichan]

LOL, I'm used to criticism, bring it on! If it's constructive, all the better :p

[Mr Jones]

Well, I don't often comment on skins in here any longer, I save my comments for the review, however, I like this skin a lot, so...

Downloaded it last night of 1001, and it's pefrect for those late night music sessions, dark, but not to dark, sit's great on a high contrast laptop screen, however, and shoot me now if this has been covered already in this thread, but... the control buttons, eeek, I don't like the sudden change to show the symbol, they just jump right off the screen at ya, maybe if there had been some kind of indicator already in place to show what the button was, that then highlighted when it was pressed.

Second thing, I love what you have done with the design on the main window, however.... could you maybe do something to help blend the active vis window in a bit, it stands out like some kind of rash when you press play, the big ugly box with the vis in, could you do anything to blend a flat area into that portion of the skin so it dosn't stand out so much, probably mean a complete re-build of that main window of the skin, but if your in PS or whatever with many layers it shouldn't be too hard to work it around somehow.

Otherwise tip top sexy skin :up:

[skinme!]

Originally posted by skinme!
[BNot a fan of the cbutton pressed states tho :( [/B]
/me shoots Jonesy...

[dimichan]

LOL, I DO want to rework the pressed cbutton state, I didn't like the symbols there unpressed, but yeah, they DO kind of LEAP off the screen...

The viz area... lemme think on it, maaaaybe I can come up with something... *ponders*

PS thanks for the input, I'll take that as a great compliment since it's so rare :D

EDIT: cbutton pressed state, changed

VIZ area - one word... ARGH

PPS - any idea why Mikroamp is showing my OLD mikro I was using while I was making the skin, instead of the new one, but ONLY in small mode??? In large mode, the new one shows, in small, it's reverting for me!

[dimichan]

Think I solved both issues... yay! Only thing left is to see if I want to adjust the actual viz colors a bit now and I'll update ^_^

[dimichan]

argh, can't edit a quickreply with image file...

ok, pressed cbutton and the viz area, comments?

[Mr Jones]

Mucho better, linky?

[dimichan]

updated at 1001 ^_^


http://www.1001winampskins.com/skin_details.html?id=2904


/fixed your link MJ

[Mr Jones]

Top class :up:

[Krynis]

Love it as always good job Dimi

PS. this skin did 2 things for me 1 it gave a me a new cool skin to use and 2 it gave me a laugh
Good! whoa.......
Posted by CeO_Virus on Monday, February 24th, 2003 at 08:21 PM CET


there is however one problem i have on the EQ the bubble next to the preamp is not centered i use that when i center my eq other then that its amazing :) (i change my eq settings 10 - 15 times a day)

[dimichan]

Updated the eqmain just for you, the lower bubble now centers everything :D http://www.tempmusic.homestead.com/files/melusina.zip

[Krynis]

thanks Dimi!

[dimichan]

Just fyi, made final little tweaks (I hope) and updated at 1001, devart, and deskmod.

[StillWater]

I really didn't like this one so much when this thread was still new. But when I saw the (almost) finished result at 1001, I didn't even recognise it as this skin. It's awesome. You progress is astounding. Each skin is, without exception, considerably better than the last. Despite the many talented skinners here, such constant improvement seems to be quite rare. This skin is sublime. My only problems were the above mentioned pressed states, which are a bit better now, and the fact that, although the volume animation is nice, you can't tell what level the volume is at by looking at it. Still, an utterly sublime skin. As I say, I didn't think much of it at all from the first screenshot, but I won't doubt you again :p

[dimichan]

Thanks!!! :D The encouragement from you guys has really helped immensely, if I was relying on user feedback I'd have given up on artistic styles, the skins which have taken the most work seem to get the most varied results. This one, I kind of messed around with a little for a month before getting really into it, then worked 3 days or so straight to finish it out. Seems whenever I think at the end I might have made something relatively appealing, haha, nope :p and then something like Cemetary Gates, which, don't get me wrong, I'm not displeased with it, but I sure didn't think it would be my most popular and highest rated effort either, gets the spotlight so to speak. That could be a bit discouraging if it weren't for the positive feedback I've gotten here and at devart. I started skinning some prototypes for WA3 (5 to be exact) but to be honest, the button cutting/coord plotting got on my nerves damned fast, and while it's frustrating at times, I like the challenge of working within the confines of WA2, and I still have a lot of graphics to learn. It makes me feel good when the people here see improvement since it's from other skinning compatriots, so to speak. I have at least one more skin in mind for this series; it's funny, because I had no intention of making them different "elements", but where Perseph was earthy, and this one was watery, the next idea I have is "Icarus" which would be fire and feathers. Hopefully it won't be a letdown from this one! :p And thanks again guys!

[hhkyl]

Very right-brain stuff. :) Creative and imaginative, you implemented it well. I'm too left-brain to ever come up with what you did.

There's a few places where it looks a little off.

The title bar of the main (especially the left side) doesn't flow with the main. I can sort see a line where the titlebar meets with the main. Also the black border of the titlebar is too thick on left side and thin on the right.

There's a little light line on the cbutton of the stop that disappears. I don't know if did that on purpose, but it stood out.

On the playlist, when you click on the rem button, I could see the weed shift upward. I think it's off by a pixel on the downstate.

[dimichan]

I see them, know what the problems are, namely that I did some airbrushing on the main after I cut the titlebar and forgot to repaste it in to the BMP, and the glow spot, yep, that's cause the stop symbol is up one pixel too high, fixable, the weed, yep, have to fix that too, only thing I can't do much about is the border width :p Thanks!

[667]

Wow... I don't know where you come up with this stuff, dimi. I could never even imagine stuff like this, and even if I could, I couldn't skin it. The things I imagine are too depressing, too. But you have a great mind, and great skills. I don't. If I had half the skills you do, I would be pumping out 5-star skins once a week. This skin, however, really isn't my style. I prefer things of beauty, and although the color scheme is perfect for my state of mind (depression), the rest isn't what I look for in a skin. I really do love the skin, and it desrves 5 stars, but my favorite skin, of all the skins I have ever seen, by any skinner, would hae to be Fuuko-chan.

Oh, and dimi? Try not to keep getting better, or Nullsoft might have to put a sixth star on the ratings guide.:D

[dimichan]

Thanks!!!

Wellll... most of my skins (Fuuko was an exception) end up with at least something depressing in the theme, because I skin according to mood; while I make a lot of bases/base skeletons on a day to day basis, it's when I'm really down one will just hit me as "time to move on this one" and I get very intense and focused, and work until I drop for a day or two in one focused burst of concentration to try to translate emotion into graphics. It really helps get through the roughest spots, though there's a letdown after I finish that isn't a joy :p

My biggest frustration remains when my skills aren't quite up to getting what's in my head down graphically, which is what pushes me to keep trying different things and refining them in photoshop. That, and I'm utterly dependent on graphics as an outlet, and I have to go out of town for a couple days, I can guarantee I will be going crazy before I get home with things in my head I can do nothing with.

My goal is to get good enough to freelance professionally ^_^

Thanks for the kudos, it means something when my fellow skinners think highly of what I've made! :D

[667]

Well, today, I'm my automatic house-cleaning and web-surfing servant. A girl I like (a lot) is coming over today, and the house has to be perfect, so I have no time to skin. And another thing that means something is when you see an awesome effort by one of your fellow skinners. Again, great job dimi!

[RandomCarpet]

in spite of all the limitations and compromises brought by the winamp (2) skinning you've managed to come up with something amazing yet very stylish and boundless in respect of mental pictures and creativity, awesome stuff!

i enjoy your style...and i can't wait for your next skin :)

lol damn my poor english

[StillWater]

Your English sounds pretty good to me :)

[Jellby]

especially compared with king_modern_skin's :p

[binary hero]

Originally posted by RandomeiCarpit
in spite of all the limitations and compromises brought by the winamp (2) skinning you've managed to come up with something amazing yet very stylish and boundless in respect of mental pictures and creativity, awesome stuff!

i enjoy your style...and i can't wait for your next skin :)

lol damn my poor english
that's what you winamp3 kids have to learn. limitations are not necissarily bad - things don't have to be circular to be good.

(dimichan - if you ever want to make a wa3 skin, i'll happily code it (this also applies to the majority of the posters here :))

[StillWater]

Originally posted by binary hero
(dimichan - if you ever want to make a wa3 skin, i'll happily code it (this also applies to the majority of the posters here :)) Why are so many people eager to code skins that aren't theirs? Is coding that much fun? And how does the skinner/coder collaboration proccess work? 'Cause I'm thinking if people are offering to code, hell, maybe even I'll make a WA3 skin one day.

[flatmatt]

I will never make a WA3 skin until I can make it myself. Not that I'm greedy and don't want to share credit, but--well, yeah, that's probably most of the reason. ;)

[dimichan]

I might take you up on that if I ever get one completely finished and cut/coordinates plotted out; which is my personal gripe, the button cutting proggie doesn't work too well with PS7, and doing it manually is pretty tedious. One day I really will make myself finish it though!

[skinme!]

/me wants his own 5 titty smilies...

[RandomCarpet]

Originally posted by dimichan
I might take you up on that if I ever get one completely finished and cut/coordinates plotted out; which is my personal gripe, the button cutting proggie doesn't work too well with PS7, and doing it manually is pretty tedious. One day I really will make myself finish it though!

but you can make so that you won't need any coordinates at all :) -> in PS hide all layers except those composing the prefered button (everything but the button itself should be transparent) then save as a .png file

thus all buttons' images will have the background image size and the only needed coordinates will be x="0" y="0"

[boast mode] well, i think of myself as more than a decent coder so if anyone around here needs xml / maki help or wants someone to code his/her skin, feel free to ask me :p [/boast mode]

as ¤db¤ mentioned coding could be real fun, especially when you're tired of making graphics.

[Mr Jones]

Coding is most rewarding, nothing gives me a better feeling than seeing a huge chunk of code work correctly and make that skin come to life in ways you didn't think possible, so much so that I've even started to gather all my various scripts and stuff together on a web site for easy reference.

I'm always on the look out for a decent coding project to fill in some of the quiet momments when I'm not working on stuff of my own, so if any of you guys come up with something eye catching I can be easily persuded, however, before you comit , speak to xerxes, he can testify to my ever evolving tweaking style that was used on Media Whore to great effect, the original skin started off pretty simple, but the more I tweaked the more complicated and user involving it got :D, I think by the time I'd got to a final product, we'd been thru about 20 betas of the skin, plus since then there have been half a dozen tweaks and re-finements to it, and I'm always on the look out for new and interesting ways to implement new ideas into the skin, I do exactly the same with my own stuff, mainly because you learn new stuff every day.

Sadly, I look around the WA3 forums and see tons of people asking for a coder, but very little, in fact nothing since MW , has grabbed my attention and made me WANT to work on it, so I stick to my own stuff.

db mentions, how does it work?, well with MW, Xerxes basically supplied me with a finished PSD file, comprised of many many layers, on /off states stuff like that, I took that PSD, and started to cut it up into a skin, using methods I'd developed for my own skins,any additonal artwork that was required was requested, and Xerxes supplied.

Scripting it came second, but it's important that the scripting and actual make up of the skin go hand in hand, the scripting relies on the XML and so on, at least thats the way I work.

For credit wise, the skin was built with equal credits, Xerxes for the art, me for the build/code, with links and so on provided to both our personal web sites.

So, if your looking, make something eye wateringly good, all I need is a PSD and I'm good to go :), and while we are boasting, 7 fully finished, fully scripted WA3 skins at WA.com, nother 1 over at 1000, nother 2 finished waiting for WA3.01 to be released :)

[binary hero]

i like to code from a full PSD too (that way i can change it all and paing my name over it IN BIG RED LETTERS MUAHAHAHAHA!).

but if you kids don't move fast i may become unavailable...i have An Idea.

[dimichan]

at home for 24 hours on my much missed and loved and upgraded (woohoo!) computer, 3 bugs mentioned fixed :p

(does anyone else have a weird color in the PL? My dad's POS monitor makes it contrast even though the color code was matched... O_o)

and ^_^!!! thanks BH for the review!!!

PS - if I can get ever get a main window I like, this will crossover to WA3 methinks

[FooMonkey]

if you don't have the colors set as high as you can it does that sometimes