Anyone still working on custom skins?

buckely · Post by **buckely** » Wed May 09, 2012 7:42 am

I am interested in trying my hand in making a few new skins/themes for Scummvm. Is there a good place to get started? I haven't seen any new skins for quite a long time, is the format the same? Is there any type of template available?

Post by **sev** » Wed May 09, 2012 8:42 am

Since the last usermade custom skins, the format changed to XML. It became somewhat more thorough and easier to maintain.

The format is described in details here, and the only template which you can use is our modern theme.

There are talks about creating a Touch GUI theme, so any mock-ups or suggestions are welcome.

Also if somebody's good designs require some additional GUI widgets, I will look into implementing these.

Eugene

buckely · Post by **buckely** » Thu May 10, 2012 3:24 am

Thanks for the quick reply. I have some ideas to make a higher resolution skin for the pc. I did love the layout mocked up for the ipad. Right now I will base it mostly on the modern theme for the sake of coding, which I am not very good at, but do understand enough to get started. I am good with Illustrator and graphic design. I would like to possibly try to implement the idea from the ipad gui where it shows an example of the different graphical options.

buckely · Post by **buckely** » Sun May 13, 2012 12:34 am

I started working on a mock-up for a higher resolution skin. Let me know what you think so far. This is a really early version. I have some ideas for more advanced features but my coding is not great and would need some help with that.

I'll make different versions with different character sets. Is there a way to sort the games by the engine it uses? I could make a different look based on which engine's games you are looking at.

I'm not in love with the font so think of it as a placeholder for now.

[/img]

Raziel · Post by **Raziel** » Sun May 13, 2012 6:02 am

Heh, nice

The characters on top need to be stretched a little, especially the tentacles look as if they were crunched.

I like the font

I think you need to add shadows to the buttons to add a somewhat 3D effect

Now...if one could add the possibility for animated characters...

buckely · Post by **buckely** » Sun May 13, 2012 8:14 am

Here are a few more little tweeks. Does anyone have a vector based version of the logo? I would like to be able to scale the whole thing to different resolutions. I'm thinking of adding a sprite of a character hanging on the selection bar that would move up and down with it. Any suggestions of what sprite to use?

Once I'm happy with the main page design I will start to design the option pages.

Again any input is appreciated and anyone offering to help with code would allow me to add more flair. Possibly an animated gif of the sprites or something.

alpeyn · Post by **alpeyn** » Sun May 13, 2012 8:40 am

i was also planning on making new custom skin becasue i am getting a bit bored on the old ones i always see, and i wanted it to be something more personal too so i was wondering of the same thing, thanks for the answer here atleast i can start on something

Post by **criezy** » Sun May 13, 2012 2:04 pm

buckely wrote:Does anyone have a vector based version of the logo?

See our CVS repository here

Raziel · Post by **Raziel** » Sun May 13, 2012 4:01 pm

Character hanging from the selection bar:

1) The monkey from MI (see the main site at the right)
2) The slimey meteor from MM
3) The Marx-Brothers Mask from Zak
4) Stan from MI

Uuh, imagine Stan and his waving hands

buckely · Post by **buckely** » Mon May 14, 2012 8:32 am

Since the whole image is a gif we lose some color depth, in the final only the monkey would be limited to 256 colors. I would like to animate the other characters as well, if anyone knows a good place to find pre-made gifs it would help. Also other ideas are welcomed.

I was thinking Guybrush hanging with the chest from MI2 for the upper corner. I would then lose him from MI3 and put maybe Stan pointing at different games trying to "sell" them to you

Raziel · Post by **Raziel** » Mon May 14, 2012 11:57 am

Love it already

Animated gifs...Knock yourself out

You could even do more versions of your skin...I'm thinking one Scumm, one Sierra, one mixed and so on

WNivek · Post by **WNivek** » Wed May 16, 2012 10:51 am

Oh great, an all-new theme format? I guess it's time to start recreating my old work, again.

buckely · Post by **buckely** » Mon May 21, 2012 6:52 am

So I'm looking to test out my very basic theme and I have a few questions about the coding. I am going to use the modern theme stx as a basic template, I can follow that well enough. My questions are

1)Can you only use .bmp files? Is there anyway to incorporate the animated gif files? Could I use .png files to take advantage of the transparency?

2)How does the font work if the user does not have said font installed?

3)Is there any way to figure out the layout in something like visual studio or maybe even Dreamweaver without a lot of trial and error.

My coding skills are still very basic but I can usually pick it up fairly quick once I know where to start. I am more of a graphic artist and animator and less of a coder.

Once I get a basic version working I would like to start to create more versions with possibly different color schemes and characters based on the games from the various engines that ScummVM can interpret.

Would there be any way to add functionality to the menu to show only games from one engine or subgroup and switch themes according to which subgroup you see.

Post by **sev** » Mon May 21, 2012 10:11 pm

buckely wrote:1)Can you only use .bmp files? Is there anyway to incorporate the animated gif files? Could I use .png files to take advantage of the transparency?

Yes, only BMP, though you may use color 0xff00ff for transparency. Animated gifs will require a lot of coding.

buckely wrote: 2)How does the font work if the user does not have said font installed?

The system fonts aren't used. All fonts have to be put as part of the theme package. If the referred font is not in the package, this is considered to be an error.

buckely wrote: 3)Is there any way to figure out the layout in something like visual studio or maybe even Dreamweaver without a lot of trial and error.

Unfortunately nobody made such tool.

buckely wrote: Once I get a basic version working I would like to start to create more versions with possibly different color schemes and characters based on the games from the various engines that ScummVM can interpret.

Be careful with that, as that is connected with copyrights.

buckely wrote: Would there be any way to add functionality to the menu to show only games from one engine or subgroup and switch themes according to which subgroup you see.

There is always a way to implement something. But frankly I do not see this idea worthy of the effort, since the users will spend a negligibly small time in the GUI, and then just start playing.

Eugene