First Preview & Question... (New Skin)
 

Ok first preview - something I been working on since last night. IT was a lot harder than it looks. Anywayz, I like it both ways and the difference is very subtle, but I'm curious

With or without the drop shadows around the border and window?

the drop shadow on the cbutton is staying.

http://members.aol.com/forevever/win...ld_without.png
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_with.png

Can't figure out how to incorporate any pink yet ::sigh:: No shade seems to contrast well. (ignore the slight pink tint in the window)

Holy shit that's good!
How did you draw that?!?
wowowow!
Um...
Wow!

...

I *um.. don't* think it would look good if you made it lighter where the drop shadow is. So the window looks inset rather than sticking out.

Again: WOW!

I didn't edit my post... really...http://www.davidmear.com/smilies/grin.gif

I'm impressed - I can honestly say I'm excited about this skin Forever. I hope you take more than a day or two on it. For God's sake - DON'T make it look inset. BLECH. I love the hanging 'magic mirror' effect you've got goin. I don't like the dropshadow as is, but that could change depending on what you do with the Cbuttons. Lucid got it with wowowow though - this is a incredibly nice start.

ok so is that a definitely "no inset"? LOL
I was just about to quote you on that one too :D

No worries BG, I spent about 6 hours total on just the top bar, and at least an hour on the 3 cbuttons.

how did I do it? I have no idea. I'll tell you in those 6 hours this thing has changed colors, textures, mad effects, mad drop shadows, blah blah blah, about 12 different plugins, and all of this on top of each other... in fact, the first thing I said when I got to a copy that made me happy was "I could never freakin' recreate that"

the man can vouch for me on that one :D

bling bling!
 

expensive...
i prefer the dropshadow version.
but those 5 triangular shapes look like they are raised, so the shadow should be lower in between the triangles or higher in the middles....
does that make sense?

:eek:WOW, Forevever, That's really amazing!!!

I vote drop shadow.

Amazing!

for some reason the top pic wont load for me so im looking at the bottom one (the one with with dropshadow?):D:D:D

those cbuttons look sweeeet.. :D:D

the window looks great but then.... i cant see how it looks in the other pic :D .. but it seems like i dont need to since everyone seems to like it better with the dropshadow :D:D:D

(sorry for wasting space in your thread forever but........
**yay i finally have 100 posts :D:D:D**

ok im finished wasting space now :D

LOL, anything for that 100th post eh ch33zels? :)

this looks sweeeet!
i luv those golden thingies!

and the drop shadow shall stay :D

with drop shadow looks best imho

oh my...

holy hell.

absolutely.

yeah.

that's... yeah.

(i can't decide whether i like the first one or second one better)

**********

sod's law defines that just as WA2 skins are getting pretty damn close to perfect (Kinashi's ones, Fe3O2 (Fe2O3?), this one) WA3 comes out and we're back to square one.

fsnl
marc

eo: Asian Dub Foundation - New Way New Life

Second Preview - Second Question
 

Concerned with the main bar at the top. The white glassy areas (or at least the 3 that stand out), the 2 large ones and the one in the center...
As you can see from the above screen shots, (or the one below, provided for comparison), there's a like sorta... gold reflection. Now for realistic purposes this should probably stay, but its been really bugging me in the sense that it makes it look not so smooth. So what I"ve done is cut out those 3 areas, smoothed them out, colorized them white and reapplied the glassy effect I originally used. Now I like them both. Which one do you think would be more appropriate for this skin.

http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_glass.png
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_glass2.png

Third question!
What do you think of my menu/min/ws/close buttons? I kinda like them myself. Gives it another dimension persay.

Keep them looking realistic. I thought they looked very smooth until you drew my attention to them. Yeah, and the buttons look really nice too http://www.davidmear.com/smilies/grin.gif.

lol - I like the lower shot better - but it does stand out a tad. Perhaps a nice compromise? I think it'd look pretty good halfway.

somewhere in the middle, I just added a 10% opacity, white overlay on the white areas to make the yellow reflection not stand out so much. I think it looks better.
This seems kinda girlie already. I keep thinking it looks like a jewelry box, although I'm seriously considering the name "Expensive" thanks to ripe :D but Pandora's Box comes to mind as well... Thoughts on the name are more than welcome. I so do suck at naming skins.
Anywayz, back to my point. It looks kinda girlie already, but do you think the butterfly for the open button makes it toooo girlie? And I'm not particularly fond of the posbar, will probably change it. I added a lesser drop shadow so it doesn't stick out as much. It looked real bad when it was the same height as everything else.
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_open.png


It's so interesting to see who is attracted to different types of skins.
I'm seeing some totally different people have feedback on this one than the last one. And some of the people from the last one haven't said anything. Just an observation I thought I'd share :)

ignore some weird specs in the above screen shot

here's a second option for the posbar. I think its starting to look a little too busy. Not sure if I'm happy now or not, might redo something...
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_posbar.png
what I like better about the first one is that it doesn't look so busy

yup... i think it is gettin a bit busy too
ha ha i said gettin busy

out of the two, i prefer the first posbar..maybe the ends of those two thin bars could be welded down into the background?

as for girlie.... well yes but there's nothin wrong with that.
i tried to make a gold skin maybe it is too boy-ie :D

nice jewelry skin :D
did you scann of your own?

WOW! <--my 1st reaction :D

(you're almost as fast as raydream, no matter what you say ;))

yeah! I like it because of it's golden warmth, no cool/ice-cold metal skin this time :D...that's good!

I wanted to say that I like your first posbar better, but now I can't really tell :D....ummm...*staring at the screen*...I vote for a combination of both, if it's possible (thicker gold "lines" for the 2nd one, like in the first?) :D

Just a thing that caught my eye: it's only the main, so I'm not sure, but I think the bottom right area (NS info field) is looking a bit empty...dunno...maybe it'll be too much gold then :p

a thought not completely unfamiliar for me :D

nope I'm using some wingding fonts for base outlines, mad editing on them so they don't look too similar to the actual font. A metal plugin, a glass plugin, various noise additions, feathering here and there, another metal plugin, increasing/decreasing color depths/opacity, and multiple drop shadows to color it. Thats why almost every element is slightly different than the rest, cause I can't remember from one to the next how i did it really.

anywayz, I didn't like the busy at all, so recreated the posbar and cbuttons totally. whatcha think of this?
http://members.aol.com/forevever/win...d_cbuttons.png

sorry....like the other one better :)

What we sacrifice in the name of perfection...
 

new posbar. I think I like this one by far, kept the shufrep, still not sure about those buttons though, might toss them all. Added vol/bal/eq/pl buttons, what think you? Wanted to match with the top buttons so they didn't look so out of place

http://members.aol.com/forevever/win...ld_posbar2.png
also possible - no lights at the bottom
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_nolite.png

this is a nice posbar

btw.. i posted cbuttons in my topic ;)

WOW! Sorry that I didn't reply earlier but I didn't have anything useful to say, so I thought I'd wait.

I really like this skin. It has soooooooooo much detail. The vol/bal/close/min/etc. buttons are sooooooooo cool. Loving it all. I'd go for no lights at the bottom.

BTW, is that transparency I spot there? If so, must have been a nightmare! :D

*put into place by Forever*

No transparencies yet, where do you see I might could add some? Tell me!! I was thinking about it, but wasn't sure where to put it.

i think no lights at bottom and the old cbuttons look cooler, but thats only my humble opinion

I was thinking of in the titlebar, around the intricate gold thingies (to use the technical word). Antialiase it (as Lucid would tell you) against a low saturation brown such as 140,120,110. :D

Have fun w/ the region.txt if you do. If you really can't be asked I may have a free day I might be willing to spend on it :D

I like the old cbuttons better too. I haven't tested them with the new posbar yet. It might look good. And I did ditch the bottom lights after all. The top ones make up for it.

one question, you think I should extend the cbuttons over to the open button or extend the shufrep to the open button, or should I keep the butterfly?

i liked the butterfly, coz it breaks the pattenr to make it more alive.. understand?
i think the butterfly looks like a ring or so

I wuv my 140,120,110 http://www.davidmear.com/smilies/grin.gif.

keep the butterfly or I'll have to call the RSPCA in :D

PS: RSPCA = Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (for all you foreigners)

the butterfly was good, i think the old cbuttons but with lights some how???

how about having transparencies on the top of the skin above the top gold band? having them zigzaging with the outline of it?? but only between the buttons??
how about having the top part of the white bit darker and lighter on the active and inactive state??

is there going to be much animation on the sliders??

there is going to be at least 2 different animations on the vol/bal sliders. I haven't even started thinking about the eq yet (Gods help me)

anywayz, kept the butterfly :D Yay!! glad to see there were at least 2 votes for it by the time I got back

we got SPCAs in America too, just without the R (society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, or something like that) <---duh you said that..

I'm liking this myself :D
http://members.aol.com/forevever/win..._butterfly.png

[edit]now that I look at this... I'm not sure I like it with the cbutton labels (goes works out something else with that, and thinks about lights again)

try putting the cbutton labels all below or above the cbuttons, so that they are all in a line instead of up and down

the only problem with that is I was hoping to get away with just animating the labels and not the pearls. If I put them all in a line, due to the shape of the cbuttons themselves, they won't actually be in the workable area to animate them.

i don't know. I'm about to put this thing away for a while, all this gold is making me wish I'd win the lottery :D (which would be a real miracle since I don't play it)

how about making the smaller pearls a little bigger and then putting the control onto the pearl and making the whole pearl brighter when it is in a pressed state?? or putting the labels all above or below and making the pearl brighter, copy them into a new layer hide the old one and then adjust the brightness so you have pressed and un-pressed pearls?

yeah I had considered doing that on the pearls, or even making them a shade of pink similar to the window

I don't think I like the transparencies (too lazy to open my FTP, see attached, ignore the "D" will change)

edit: like these, pink for normal, white for pressed (or vice versa), i'm sorta becoming attached to the gold labels
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_up.png
http://members.aol.com/forevever/winamp/gold_down.png
/edit

i think that the transparencies will look a lot better on a darker backing or a backing that isnt a constant white, i personally dont think it looks bad, i quite like it, if you look beyond the white then it looks better

BTW check out our post counts! identical!

hey! Thats awesome! (now if I do the pink I gotta change the stones in the shufrep to pink... thinks....)


you know why Raydream, Lucid, Me, and whoever I'm forgetting are fast skinners? Because we can't freaking stop!!!
I been working on this skin for the last 10 hours now.