new skin preview
 

http://skinme.cjb.net/misc/scrnshts/metal/pv1.gif

This is my new skin, which is as yet untitled, and obviously in the very early stages (2.5 hours work including conception).

I want comments, constrcutive criticisms, advice and money (:D). I'll post more previews as it happens.

BTW, the load/eject button is in the pressed state. Do you think it needs to be darker. I want a pressed in effect. Also, should I get rid of the 2px high difference?

*not put off by the lack of replies* It's the middle of night - you're all asleep, surely :D

http://skinme.cjb.net/misc/scrnshts/metal/pv2.gif

Like the new style of pressed state on the previous button? Good. I'm currently working on the vol/bal. Wish me luck.

BTW, when animating the balance bar not all the frames are used are they? Care to expand, anybody.

I like the blue/yellow color scheme. Almost like IKEA, but not. The red though, throws it off a little, but not that its a bad thing. I enjoy the vol and bal sliders and think you should use that format for the eq sliders. I don't really know how to change it so it doesn't look like another one of those metallic LCD skins.:confused:

for the balance, no, i think they only use the numbers (starting at the top and counting down) 1, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 28 and 29 (the last one). <- i could be wrong. your skin looks cool so far!

Thanks for your comments. I agree that the red is quite a radical colour to introduce, but that was my intention. I want it to draw the eye to the most important features - the control buttons (in my opinion).

Also, addressing the fact that it's just another metal skin, I don't mind. Personally I quite like metal skins (I know it's a cardinal sin round here :D) Also, most metal skins are quite complex - since the trend is to go very industrial. This is quite minimalistic, until the LCD display and I think it sets it apart from the trend. But that has given me an idea for the name.

Anybody able to confirm the frames used in the balance bar animation since I think there are only 28 frames.

Yep, not all frames get used.. mostly from the middle (or a little before) to the end every second one or so does.. its just a matter of putting a dot in the frame, saving & checking if winamp see's the dot and then put another dot on the following frame, which winamp may not see the a dot, or it may.. slow way of doing things.
I just do every frame anyhow.. it usually runs smooth enough;)

Yes, we were all asleep :p
Cant comment your skin right now, but :up: :up: :D

skinning is way too addictive
 

I go back to school on Tuesday and I have my mock GCSEs. Right now I should be revising since I've done no revision at all yet. But what am I doing?

http://skinme.cjb.net/misc/scrnshts/metal/pv3.gif

I've animated the volume and balance bar. The volume bar gets bigger from the left and the balance bar splits in half and moves to the extremities.

BTW, for future reference the balance bar uses the following frames: 1(center), 7(24%), 9(33%), 12(40%), 14(49%) 16(58%), 18(66%), 21(74%), 23(82%), 25(91%) and 28(100%).

LCD skins rock!!
 

good job so far, but these buttons... that yellow is too bright, doesn't fit to the rest of the skin. uh well, that's just my opinion.

-Kuki

PS: whooo, finally finished the PAD v2 skin!! here's a screenshot.

i should hope so. all my skins are lcd. are people actually against these skins? i couldnt understand why you would be.

dude883, yeah, now I've done the LCD area, the do look too bright and just generally wrong. So I will redo them. And dude, that skin of yours looks great. Now you got a download link? I really like the brown/gold colour.

jasonl, I don't think people dislike them aesthetically, just a lot of people think the genre is way overdone and although there is some quality shit there's also a lot of not so quality shit. Your stuff though is great.

I've been working on this since 10 am (6 hours). Here's the main so far:

http://skinme.cjb.net/misc/scrnshts/metal/pv4.gif

On the main window, I still have the windowshade, the normal titlebar and new cbuttons to do. Plus the rest of the skin :D

are you gonna 3d it :)?
me loves 3d!
[IMG]www.ampskins.f2s.com/external/skin_fix_00.gif[/IMG]
take a few seconds of your life to double the aesthetics of an already wicked skin.

jasonl, what do you mean 3d it? where?

I need some help with making my cbuttons 3d and a better color.

just use PSP's bevel effect.

well IF my web host worked then the friggin picture should show up. thats what i mean by '3d it'

and then you may want to add the extra useless details that everyone likes [wires, vents, pipes, rust, metal bit, other wear effects, lights, bio-stuff, or whatever stuits you skin]. using one effect in a skin is very important, but it needs to be used in a perfect amount. leave the people wanting more, but dont starve them.:igor:

lets see if it works now...
http://www.ampskins.f2s.com/external/skin_fix_00.gif

Looks good
 

that skin looks great
:up:

Thanks for the advice but I've decided to add a subtler 3D effect to it since I'd like to keep it quite clean.

And I don't approve of using the bevel effect in PSP 'coz it sucks.

WOW, that is really coming along- :)=:up:

i love seeing the progression of skins,
it really is a good way to see how creative people work!

wo0W, how make you the 3d-effekt?
with photoshop? how?

http://skinme.cjb.net/misc/scrnshts/metal/pv5.gif

Ok, now I'm working on the windowshade.

Thanks Bop for your kind words. I agree I love watching people (Raydream and Forever especially) - you can see how people minds are working and what different avenues they went down till they were happy with it.

Also, any suggestions for names would be greatly appreciated.

Names? I'll Give A Few Suggestions
 

BlEuphoric

Blue Digitalix

Titanium Dream

Liquid Sapphire

way to go...
 

i've seen a bunch of skins featuring too many 3d effects, ... people seem to like them, but that's just what everybody does. i like the new buttons btw. the red stripes make it look a little like star trek :D. well anyway, keep it up!

PS: anybody out there who has any experience in winamp 3 skinning?? i downloaded some skins and the beta version, and it looks f***ing hard...

i think jasonl should write a photoshop tutorial, its just teasing by posting it and keeping all the secrets:D just kidding. it would be pretty cool to have a tutorial made by a forum member, i bet it would get stickied (maybe i dont know, i just want to know how jasonl does that!) kaolla was fukkin awesome! i just got photoshop and im retrded at it, but im learning slowly. if anyone does know a good tutorial site i would appreciate it a lot! please please please please please please :)

you want tutorials??? well if u have paint shop pro.. goto http://www.pspug.org/tut/tutmain.shtml ..(psp users group) u can get all sorts of stuff and help from there:D

Not -everything- needs to be 3D and have rust. Some skins look really great like that, but it's not necessary for everything. Even if it is what the average person wants everything to look like, I'm not sure that doing everything the way the average person wants is such a good idea, after all, they're the same people giving skinner.exe skins 5 stars because they wish they could screw the female shown in the picture used to make the skin.
LCD skins are done a lot...and I wouldn't want every single skin to be like that, either...but I really like them when they're done well, and this one is. Purdy lines =D I've tried to make LCD-looking stuff and it always comes out like crap, because I just make random patterns, and they look interesting, but never very good...

i catch myself making spirals for no reason while making a skin. ill check out those tutorials when i have a little time, thanks for the link, man! since i bought;) psp and photoshop, does anybody have a good site for photoshop? hats why i asked jasonl, like a joke, but he uses photoshop, i think. anyway, thank you so much for the link, ill spen lotsa time there, i guarantee it :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------skinme, sorry forhijacking your thread! so sorry. i love your skin, though! the posbar/volbar/balance area is great and looks good together. i, for one, love lcd skins, but not the dark monochomatic ones like xtrmntr and stuff. i like this one, though. i am making something kinda like this but in msp. skinme, what you have as of your last ss is great! the titlebar looks empty compared to the inner window, but i assume you already have plans. great work so far. post a link when youre done~

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about - the titlebar. I could put some nice straightline transparency there or I could think of a name and put it there. If I use transparency I would only use it there since it would look pretty bad if I had transparency on the main and eq but not the rest. Still open for names. I like BlEuphoric until I realised it was Bleu not Blue. Bah, French. I looked in the dictionary and there are only three words or so being with UE and there are proper nouns.

Also, do people think I should put a logo of some sort in the bottom right?

http://www.photoshoptutorials.de/ps/...als/index.html
http://fyreskins.plastiqueweb.com/main.htm
http://www.phong.com/tutorials/

yeah, you could create a logo that you put on all of your skins, so people know it's one of yours. you could also put a fake button with a winamp like logo on it, not that original though.

skins lookin good!

and you dont need to use tutorials to do that 3d stuff i did. its basic layer effects and nothing more [bevel/emboss, dropshadow, gradient overlay]. you can count the number of second it takes to do that suff on your fingers. dont belive me? think you need skill? fine, someone shout and ill post the psd and show you.

oh yeah, but its only 'easy' providing your using ps6. sorry, but ive been trying out psp7 and its simply not as poweful. in the end, regardless of how easy you find psp7 to use, you can make better stuff quicker with photoshop6.

let us say that I had the "full" version of photoshop and it was "broken". what could i downloaad to "fix" it?

Sorry, I don't have £33million for Photoshop so I'll make do with my pirate version of PSP6 (don't like 7).

binary hero, you could take it back to the shop. No, seriously have you tried Astalavista? Want me to PM you the address.

http://skinme.cjb.net/misc/scrnshts/metal/pv6.gif

Finally finished the eq and windowshades. The eq may look darker / more packed but that was down to the number of pixels between the bars. I had a choice - make there a 3px gap of background LCD colour between the bars or put a 1px line down the middle of that gap. I chose the latter option and as such there is much more in the LCD display. There are also a few 1px lines elsewhere to accomodate the bar positioning. Freeform skinning 1. Fixed position skinning 0. :D

Dude. Five points (and a mention in the readme.txt) for the first person to find the 4 hidden letters in the EQ (there are 3 together and then 1 on its own).

Comments / criticisms / blind praises / credit card details / adoration are all welcome (and expected!) :D

Just a quick thought: How about Computation Overload for a name?

Looking good. The only thing that upsets me (well not upsets, but throws me off), is the positioning of the text in the on, preset and auto buttons in the eq. That is all.

Do you mean because they're vertically aligned bottom? I was just being consistent with the cbuttons with their icons but I'll bear that in mind if I change those buttons and the shuf/rep to become toggle buttons.

Ahh, spotted my own bug. Check out the text that supposed to say -20DB on the EQ. Fixed.

thanks for the tutorial sites. i just need a shove in the right direction and then il be ok with it. personally i think phtoshop is more powerful. this guy morpheus sells copies of photoshop that work really cheap :p

You did not hide them very well, did you? :D

:weird: :igor: :cry: :blah: :hang: :confused: :eek: :rolleyes: :p :(
Attachements, Duh!

Of course, they're not hidden too well. But it made you look at the skin didn't it. Yup. Ok, you get five points and a mention in the readme.txt