SLIM JIM SKIN-worklog

**monkeyracer** · 06-02-2008, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by eric_barcus

hey quick question for you guys, havent even looked in the forums yet, but i was wondering, when you "mouse over" a button and it changes to the _on position why is it that when you "mouse off" a button it dosent always go back to that off position?
figured id ask a noob question

The mouse over thing is really pretty useless for a touchscreen, unless you use navigation buttons to move through the screen, it came from media car, and wasn't important enough to change.

I like the first "concept" a lot better. The oval buttons are just weird, and not in that "it's supposed to be" kinda way.

I'm still using PS6 and I tried CS3 but I've used 6 for so long, it's not really worth the money for the upgrade.

**eric_barcus** · 06-02-2008, 12:57 PM

withteh first skin i didnt make the round buttons (i guess i could) bt they came from a freeware site, ive got ps7 installed now on my xp virtual machine (i recently purchased a mac) so ill be able to work more on better looking buttons, what im going to try to do today is going to get one solid gray "curved bar" like in the MS paint preview then make "aqua" buttons sitting in the bar...

the mouse over thing is the menu_down sooo what your saying is no one really uses them any more? and its faster (duh) and easier (duh) to duplicate menu_off as menu_down?

**monkeyracer** · 06-02-2008, 04:00 PM

I've only got two images per screen;
_Off and _Down. _Down lets you know when you have clicked the button, and that is still used. _On is used for indicator support, but all my IND's are labels, and set with the BYIND command.

**eric_barcus** · 06-02-2008, 04:06 PM

well now i know ive got alot of reading to do... anywhere i should start thats not in the skin command.txt file

**monkeyracer** · 06-02-2008, 06:03 PM

I started by reverse engineering other skins. I opened the BMV2 and a few other skins in the editor and kind of learned a little that way. My first skin was the "Triton" skin with different images and the buttons moved around. My newest skin "mAv1c" is a totally different animal.

**eric_barcus** · 06-02-2008, 07:38 PM

yeah im taking the reverse approach in my learning

AND todays 8hr work day is startign to show a nice skin, thanks real job for paying me to be on the forums

**monkeyracer** · 06-02-2008, 07:41 PM

When we were first talking about a MS Paint skin, I was thinking that finally I can work on a skin at work, and get paid for it. Instead of having to wait to get home to putz around in photoshop.

**blk02si** · 06-02-2008, 07:50 PM

Personally I think using MS Paint to skin is the worst idea in skinning ever, because of the nature of how the skins work (on/off/down)

Without layers in your design program you will be doing 3x - 4x more work for something thats never going to look as good as a photoshop render.

I started messing with illustrator CS3 and this may be even better than photoshop for creating skins from scratch.

**monkeyracer** · 06-02-2008, 08:03 PM

It became more of a "it's not impossible, see..." thinking that it would be something to kill some down time at work. I never intended to finish anything though.

**eric_barcus** · 06-02-2008, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by monkeyracer

It became more of a "it's not impossible, see..." thinking

thats what i like to hear/see although NOTHING motivates me more than someone telling me something cant be done... so i will work even harder at getting a SUPER awesome (pretty lame) looking mspaint skin it will look like a kids art project (think finger paint ha)

I fortunately can work on my laptop while i do my other job on my work pc at the same time (tech support sorta)

so ive been playing in photoshop and should have a better skin preview tonight