Wheel of Time Amp

[HawkMan]

This is my first Winamp skin so I ave no idea how to do it all. but I'll worry about that when the graphics are done :)

What do you think so far, and any ideas what I'll put in the "flame" ?
or what else I need in the dragons fang ?

http://home.enter.vg/kkvilvan/WheelOfTimeAmp.jpg

[Gonzotek]

It look good - I would concentrate on working in the text next if it were me. The upper circle would be a good place for it, if you hadn't already had that in mind. You could put a matching circle on the bottom, and put the AVS in there like Winique. If you need any help with the xml let me know. I'm always on.

I like you choice of designs a lot! Good job.

-=Gonzotek=-

[HawkMan]

http://home.enter.vg/kkvilvan/WheelOfTimeAmp2.jpg

Got the volume knob in.
I thoguh Id' have the text and some stuff int he blue circle. or display :) maybe the seek bar in there as well. I though of havign the "flame" as the VIS window or something, I'll have to see if I can fit another display or somehting in there, Can the displays (for vis) be any shape you want ?

[Gonzotek]

I know for AVS that they can be whatever you like, you can take apart Winique (http://www.angelfire.com/yt3/lunarboy1) to see how it was done. To see the whole flame as one big AVS screen would be pretty cool, actually. I don't know if the regular "VIS" (eq bars or scope)can be shaped, that may have to be the standard horizontally aligned rectangle. You can make some "slice buttons" abopve and below the vol knob. I like to see a button for the thinger in the main window of skins, and unless I counted wrong, you need an "open" button still, too; so that's one button above the vol knob and one below it. These are only personal feelings, so I don't mind how you end up implementing things, of course.

And again, nice style :)
-=Gonzotek=-

[HawkMan]

Added a display for the Flame, I'll probably use this for the VIS or something.

Now I just need to figure out how to do everything else :)

http://home.enter.vg/kkvilvan/WheelOfTimeAmp3.jpg

and thank you, I'd appreaciate any help in coding the xml for this thing as I have no idea myself :)

[HawkMan]

Doh.. the open button.. yeah.. :)

[Gonzotek]

No problem...If I can ask how you create and modify shapes like the one inside of the flame? I have and have used Photoshop for some time ( > 3 years now), and I don't understand how skinners create some of the shapes that they do...how do you do it? Do you use another program to create the basic shape and then add all the textures, shading, beveling, whatever in PS, I understand how to do all that. It's something I've always wondered about.

-=Gonzotek=-

[HawkMan]

Actually I did it quit easy, it's pretty much only Spherical selections. using the Subtract and delete form selection options. that's how I made the first shape to. first one big circle. then I cut of half of it with a recatungal selection. then I cut out the top half circle with a circle half the size. and then finally I add the bottom circle with another half size circle.

that's "basically what I did for that shape too, except it required some expreimentation to get the right shape. then I used the Selection->modify->smooth and smoothed iit by 5 pixels to round of the top corner with was sharp.

[Gonzotek]

Wow. I'm going to have to go play and see what I can do. Thanks.

-=Gonzotek=-

[HawkMan]

I've been looking at the bitmaps for Winique, and I was wondering. does the rotatign volume bar and stuff have to be drawnin every state of the rotation ? is there no way you can use the scripts to automatically rotate the colum knob bitmap by itself ?

http://home.enter.vg/kkvilvan/WheelOfTimeAmp4.jpg

added a few more buttons. I'll add the close, minimize and playlist buttons below the volume know I think. then I might take a chance at finishing the Dragons fang before doign the Flame or AVS window.

oh and do you have to make a "text"graphics ? can't you use true type fonts ?

[Gonzotek]

You can use truetype fonts.
<font id="arialfont" file="arial.ttf"/>
<text
id="timer"
display="time"
x="110" y="100"
w="80" h="50"
font="arialfont" fontsize="50" align="center"
color="0,0,0"
timecolonwidth="7"
/>

Put <font id> wherever you are putting you declarations, player-elements.xml probably.

I'm still learning the scripting, but you can use rotationlayer.m from winamp3/lib/ to rotate the volume knob or do the animated sequence like Winique, whichever seems easier for you.
-=Gonzotek=-

[mc^^^^]

nice work! clean and sleek. i can never get my graphics that clean, dont know why but i hate it. good work!

[Naamloos]

It's still a .psd file i guess...

:D :D :D :D :D

[mark e]

OMG... Cool :cool:

[HawkMan]

http://home.enter.vg/kkvilvan/WheelOfTimeAmp5.jpg

Graphics for the player all done.
I think :)
now I just need to make this into a working skin.....


wish I had some more experience in skinning beyond Icesphere :)
anyway I wonders those the WA3 skinning engine have any built in "filters" and stuff, for fading between to graphics files (instead of just swapping them). or some other built in features like that, or does that all have to be built into the graphics beforehand ?

[danbee]

this skin looks really cool! good work hawkman!

[Ice]

looks like a real good start...

just a few things... on the pause button, the label seems to be a bit high and in the flame thing, there is little bump on the right top (where the sphere is)..

might want to spend some time learning the pen tool, you can create shapes like that much easily.

[lunarboy1]

regions can shape the vis as well as anything else. If you need any regions help just e-mail me

[Brennan]

anyway I wonders those the WA3 skinning engine have any built in "filters" and stuff, for fading between to graphics files (instead of just swapping them). or some other built in features like that, or does that all have to be built into the graphics beforehand ?

Sounds like it's time to get into MAKI scripting. Via scripting you can fade any element in or out or move it around or whatever else you can think of.


--Brennan

[schweitn]

Very zen....

I feel at peace already :p

[phizzure]

Very cool.

P.S. The only thing really missing from Sonique is button fading.... I may have mentioned it before, maybe not.

[Lucas]

Originally posted by phizzure
Very cool.

P.S. The only thing really missing from Sonique is button fading.... I may have mentioned it before, maybe not.
Can be done with animations or scripting.

-L

[HawkMan]

Oh well I guess I should get started on exporting all all the graphics for th eplayer now then...

btw do you guys have any tricks for finding the coordinates to place your graphics ? or do you just guess your way there?

[Plague]

I do it with help of the rulers in photoshop...

[HawkMan]

http://home.enter.vg/kkvilvan/WheelOfTimeAmp6.jpg

does anyone have any good ideas on how to make the seek bar on the display work easily ?
the one way I can think of doign it would require using a mask on a mask wich probably isn't possible.

[Brennan]

Man, that is a good-looking skin. Those edges are gonna look super nice with desktop alpha enabled in beta 2. Don't forget to put desktopalpha="1" in your layout options so it will kick in.


--Brennan

[HawkMan]

hmm you guys say the Scripting for WA3 is so powerful, so let's put it to the test :)

Would it be possible to either A: Fill and area with a specific color(preferably a semi transparent color :)) based on a grauscale gradient. Or B: Fade in another overlaying image/layer based on a gradient. that would making my Seekbar a lot easier to make work :)

I'm probably way to optimistic in hoping somethine like this would be possible though..

[Naamloos]

Go for B cause I don't think colors are enabled in scripting...

I can be wrong about that :)

[Brennan]

Option B will work right now. Option A isn't supported right now (There is no solid fill object.) Although you could use a bitmap of a solid color, 1x1, and stretch it out to whatever size and set whatever alpha you want.

But if you want to use a grayscale gradient and set another image's alpha to that gradient value as the mouse moves over it, that would be pretty easy.


--Brennan

[HawkMan]

hmm ok......
So I have that green circle like thing in the display window wich will be the seekbar, and I have a circular Greysclae map made for it, (even alphae'd in PS).
so if I want to you can use this greyscale map both for jumping to a place in the song, but also use it to sorta say that when the song has played halfway the seekbar image/layer is only visible up untill the grey scale image's values 128,128,128 ?
if so that saves me form lots of complex borign work in manually making an animationof the seekbar :)

on the good side, I got all the images exported now, and I'm on a good way to have them all defined in the XML :)but it takes time with the green buttosn having two up satets (red and green) and opn down state to put in there. all that typing
/me quietly begs for a working WYSIWYG skinner to be finished soon :), especially when I start having to place all the damn images...

[Brennan]

Yep! Check out the k-jofol skin for an example. Its seek bar is implemented just like that.


--Brennan

[HawkMan]

Cool.

I guess I shoudl start adding the last imags to the XML then... I wish I had some minimum salary workers doing this for me :)

[deXtah]

I might just be interested ;)

[HawkMan]

Well 10% of my salary..

oh btw I'm an unemployed student :)

[deXtah]

damn! Just like me then :)

[will]

Wow!

Congrats! that is one suhweet skin man.

keep it up!

[HawkMan]

Got some problems, got all the graphics defined in the studio-elements.xml except for the volume and seek bar because I'll concentrate on getting the buttons and stuff where want them first.

and made a player.xml liek th eone in Boxor with all the buttons and stuff in. but when I start the skin, hopign to see at least the background with a lot of misplaced buttons :) all I get is a black circle like thing (could be a very small very enlarged part of part of the bg bitmap) and the text bitmap not foudn I think behidn that.

so exactly what do I need in the XML's just to get it to work ?

[HawkMan]

hmm well I got it sorta workgin now....

except .. it looks like this instead of the full background picture...

[Gonzotek]

Delete studio.xnf. That usually fixes this problem. Let me know if it doesn't work, cause there might be a few other things we can try.
-=Gonzotek=-

[HawkMan]

Thanks that worked..
now I just gotta work out the position of all the buttons and stuff :)

[schweitn]

Originally posted by Gonzotek
Delete studio.xnf. That usually fixes this problem. Let me know if it doesn't work, cause there might be a few other things we can try.
-=Gonzotek=-

Although deleting studio.xnf will fix the problem usually, thats often like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Usually the problem is with the settings that are stored in studio.xnf that have to do with your particular skin. So if you want to keep the settings you have, and just make your skin work again, EDIT studio.xnf instead. You'll see its an XML file, and all you'll really have to do is delete the node that contains the info about your skin.

[HawkMan]

Well I've got the buttons all in their right places and workign now.
those I can check anyway.

now I just have no idea how to make the volume knob rotate and chaneg volume :)

ah well I guess I'll but you guys about it tomorrow, need sleep :)

[schweitn]

Originally posted by HawkMan
Well I've got the buttons all in their right places and workign now.
those I can check anyway.

now I just have no idea how to make the volume knob rotate and chaneg volume :)

ah well I guess I'll but you guys about it tomorrow, need sleep :)

Look at Kjofol for how to do the volume knob...

[HawkMan]

It's on hold temporarily untill over X-Mas, I've been working on some 3D models and artwork for the 3D group I'm part of, and I haven't even been able to do much for that :)

[Thor]

wow this skin really looks cool :)
keep it up ! :D

[jakov.sosic]

If you need help with volume knob, just ask.
I made Eq with knobs in my skin, so practicaly I have 12 knobs in my skin

:eek:

[bobo]

the skin looks great. might be a bit too big in my op. i want a working version