Gif Transparency Support?

**PCF_Ronin** · 12-11-2003, 10:17 PM

Will there be any Gif Transparency support in later versions of Media Engine?
Because having Transparent buttons on the main menu would make it easyer for skinners eg. you wouldn't need to line up your background with your buttons.
Please feel free to flame my if this is impossible
--
Ronin

**CarComp** · 12-12-2003, 12:17 AM

Originally Posted by PCF_Ronin

Will there be any Gif Transparency support in later versions of Media Engine?
Because having Transparent buttons on the main menu would make it easyer for skinners eg. you wouldn't need to line up your background with your buttons.
Please feel free to flame my if this is impossible
--
Ronin

Well, gifs won't really offer you the same quality you can get from using a JPEG... One thing that I haven't seen anyone do yet is have a skin where theres a large one color area for the buttons to be. You wouldn't have to line anything up that way. Its possible to use transparent gifs no doubt, but the results won't be near what a jpeg will be. Another trick is to make a square button with a graphic in it. Those can be placed anywhere as well. The original mediaengine skin (not torque converter) used some really cool transparency effects but it was a nightmare to line it all up.. Just use your imagination, and think about how the skin works. I am sure you can come up with more tricks. (How about an IRman / CPremote only skin where the whole screen is the button, and for each screen it looks totally different?) Or perhaps a skin where the buttons are only at the edge and the graphic is in the middle? Or maybe no buttons at all and just a "box" with the name of the current function in it that changes when you use up / down keys etc? Theres a lot that can be done. Current button is always at the top.. You can layer them. You can also have more buttons than functions. Or less. Or hidden buttons that hide other buttons when they are current selection, or maybe instead of buttons, have a bunch of overlayed buttons with a speedometer pointing to the current function? Granted these ideas are not too touch screen friendly, but I think everyone should own an IRman or CPRemote anyways

**m00k** · 12-20-2003, 06:32 AM

a better solution would be to add support for PNG files... better quality than JPEG (its a lossless compression format), its completely free and open source (unlike gif), and it has alpha transparency support... IMO, the best image format out there at the moment

Originally Posted by CarComp

Well, gifs won't really offer you the same quality you can get from using a JPEG... One thing that I haven't seen anyone do yet is have a skin where theres a large one color area for the buttons to be. You wouldn't have to line anything up that way. Its possible to use transparent gifs no doubt, but the results won't be near what a jpeg will be. Another trick is to make a square button with a graphic in it. Those can be placed anywhere as well. The original mediaengine skin (not torque converter) used some really cool transparency effects but it was a nightmare to line it all up.. Just use your imagination, and think about how the skin works. I am sure you can come up with more tricks. (How about an IRman / CPremote only skin where the whole screen is the button, and for each screen it looks totally different?) Or perhaps a skin where the buttons are only at the edge and the graphic is in the middle? Or maybe no buttons at all and just a "box" with the name of the current function in it that changes when you use up / down keys etc? Theres a lot that can be done. Current button is always at the top.. You can layer them. You can also have more buttons than functions. Or less. Or hidden buttons that hide other buttons when they are current selection, or maybe instead of buttons, have a bunch of overlayed buttons with a speedometer pointing to the current function? Granted these ideas are not too touch screen friendly, but I think everyone should own an IRman or CPRemote anyways