That's right, another skin
 

Here's something I've been working on for a bit. I have a fair bit of the EQ done so far. Just need to do buttons. That blue line is a result of me taking this screenshot in xmms and not winamp. I think it's turning out okay so far.

i dont know.
Edit: *Scratches Head*

In this skin, I have discovered that layers are your friend. But, can somebody explain to me how they preview ther skins. Do you export the image to bmp? I currently have two version of each file: a bmp and an xcf (the gimp native format. i run linux, remember?). After I finish working, I flatten the image, ctrl+a and ctrl+c then ctrl+v into the bmp. then i exit the xcf without saving so that I have a non flattened image to work with. Surely there is an easier way to do this.

When I make a skin in photoshop, I usually open the skinner's atlas bitmaps in mspaint and then copy the finished elements from photoshop and paste them into paint. Then I don't have to flatten anything. Does linux have a generic bitmap editor, and does the gimp have a "copy merged" feature? All you really need is the copy merged, so you don't have to flatten your original.

yes, linux has the generic mspaint type program. D'oh. it does have a copy merged feature. Except it is called copy visible. I can't believe i never noticed that.

Don't feel bad, I just found the Fade.. command a few weeks ago, and I've been using ps for years..

Why don't you just do that in Photoshop? I usually work on the SKELETONS2.PSD until it's near-finished, and then I start pasting everything into the respective BMPs (in photoshop, though). I paste things as separate layers, and save the BMPs as layered PSDs as well as BMPs. That way, future tweaks and bugs (both of which seem inevitable) are much easier to do, and you can do them right on the final BMPs, without having to go back to the Skeletons first.

Another method I find quite handy, especially for things that require lots of fine-tuning, like animations, is to work on the BMPs in Photoshop. So, say I'm doing the EQ. I work on a layered EQMAIN file, but I save it as BMP. It's still layered and has all the benefits of a PSD, but it's in BMP. That means that whenever I make a change (eg. to the onauto buttons or to the slider animation) that I would like to preview, I simply press Ctrl-Sto save, cross over to winamp, press F5 to reload the skin, and hey presto, the changes are now loaded on winamp - no time-consuming flattening and BMP conversion neceessary.

So that means that I have the full flexibility and ease of use of a leyered file, but I'm also able to see the changes I'm making on winamp itself within just a couple of seconds. But if you do this, you MUST remember to save all these BMP files as PSDs at the end of your skinning session (ie. before you close Photoshop), otherwise all the layer info will be lost.

I definately use photoshop for volume and balance and stuff, and over my last few skins I have been doing that more and more, but I do think it's annoying to do "save as" every time to see it in the skin. But you're right, saving it as a bitmap first and a psd at the end makes a lot more sense, and I'll probably do that from now on, it just never occurred to me. Doy.

I <3 layers. You guys should have seen some of the insane methods i went to before I discovered them around 4 hours ago. It would literally take me hours to fix one small detail. That is one of the reasons I am such a slow skinner.

Yeah, layers are teh roxor.
... You know, I haven't made a nintendo sprite skin since I got photoshop, but I can only imagine that with layers and layer sets it would be 1000 percent easier than it was before.

here's some recent progress on the main window. Layers are cool as is the gaussian blur.

Thats a nice skin. im sertanly downloading that one when its done.:):up:

Off topic question here how the hell do i round off the corners in the Equalizer?

Depends what program you're using. If it's MS Paint then you just use the rectangular shape at the bottom. In photoshop though, you use the rectangular shape tool.

Cool skin K_rock. I like pixel skins and this looks as if it's coming out well.

Reading the start of this thread with all the copy and pasting, i'm glad i don't do calssic skins. Couldn't stand all that lining up on the atlas and stuff.

Thanks guys. As far as mik's question, do you mean using transparency? or having rectangular ones appear as if they are round?

Yes. I already have done the main now i need to do the EQ and playlist.

Just save the xcf as bmp (with file format: by extension).
The export filter will do the flattening.

Wow. that's a great idea.

can somebody who knows that their monitor is calibrated correctly tall me if the brown barrel in the pause button looks right? One one of my screens, it looks brown like I think it's supposed to. On another one, it looks completely black. I hope it's not black to everyone else because that would mean I've made a lot of things lately with a very badly calibrated screen which would totally suck. Thanks

looks brown to me

Yea its brown.

thanks guys

added a sky and decided to move the helicopter into the sky so it would actually look like it was flying. I'll make the shufrep a jeep or something i think.

see this thread: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....hreadid=209701 It applies to all of you as well.

new ss. . .

Looks great, but might I suggest labeling the CButtons, if I didn't know what order they were in, I woud have no clue which is which.

Do you guys think it's too over the top if I make pixel art birds? You know the kind. They look like wide V's.

They'd work as well as anything else...
Uh, what are you doing with the vis area? I appreciate the idea, but unless you have some tricks up your sleeve, that's going to look very poor when playing.

yea, i've been thinking about that. I've found that a neae black background and garyish dots look, well, allright. But, I'd rather not move the wall structure because it would have to cover up the entire song scroll window.

well, i could make the wall like this too. In the text area instead of the vis area. I'm not sure whether that looks better or not.

That works out better logistically anyway, but if you liked it better in the vis area you can go with that. It just depends on whether you think the vis and numbers popping up right over the names hurts your skin or not. I haven't seen it in action, so I wouldn't know, but remember that Winamp is generally playing when open.

Here's my suggestion rather you take it or not that's your choice or opinion. Now, What if you were to dress up like a chicken and jump up and down.

*Clears Throat*

If there's someway you can intergate the wall into the playlist, and have the song titles as the name's, instead of it being blurred out. It would feel more comfortable.

Well, i couldn't really do that because the names are friends/relatives/members of these forums. It is a good idea though. I think I solved the problem with this latest update. Have a look. . .

That certainly works. Fiddle with the text.bmp to make it match the rest of the block, both the background and the letters, and it should look very smooth. I would put outlines on the flagpole and the ground for consistency.

Tthat looks great i agree with luigi on the text and the flag but what if you make it look like there was some wind there, like it was fluttering in the wind?

I scruwed arond with it abit i dont exxpect you to use this but this is what i sort of meant.

I see what you're going for there, mik. But the reason that it's straight is so it looks ok when the numbers go over it.

yea i see that.

You could make a simple up-down wave and have it repeat, so that it's the same for each number, but I think the rectangle flag with the numbers on it won't look too bad.

new screenshot. if anyone has any ideas for a balance slider, now is the time. Because I can't think of any. I think i'll just move on to the playlist for now.

Hey why dont you fiddle around with it untill they look like solders walking? so if you put the balance to the left they go right and when you put the balance to the right they go left? :):up: that would look pretty cool.