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Some new Skin Engine Updates...
Dragon_slayer - 3-25-2008 at 09:16 AM

Hi Audiosoft, when you next update the Skin Engine it would be great if you could add the following changes: allow the option of changing the file extension of the ‘AlbumListHeader’ & ‘volback’ from jpeg to GIF.

Audiosoft - 3-25-2008 at 11:22 PM

why gif? jpeg can show more colors. if I enabled it for gif it would just show a solid color background if the gif had transparent background. also animated gifs can not work for those skin elements. Eventually I will update the volume slider to allow you to use png. Could add a png for over the top of the albumlistheader jpg too if you want the header cast a shadow.

Dragon_slayer - 3-26-2008 at 01:13 AM

I’m not suggesting i want to substitute the skin elements where jpeg & png perform the task better, in most cases i would prefer to use these ‘but’ there are some instances where gif can work better as a stylistic choice.
“jpeg can show more colors” i haven’t found GIFs to be too limited this way. If you started your work from scratch in ImageReady maybe but i complete my image it in Photoshop and then open ImageReady to animate it.
“also animated gifs can not work for those skin elements.” Are you referring to the volback? I basically wanted to make it look like there were little lights running down its length.
I’ll post an example of what i was talking about with the albumlisthaeder.

Audiosoft - 3-26-2008 at 03:34 AM

looks really nice! unfortunately right now only the display areas controlled by the .dis files are capable of actually animating Animated .GIFs.
I will see what can be done about this. I know it will be possible to add animated gifs but I can't add support on all the non .dis elements at once. It will be a one by one thing. More likely optional animated gif ontop instead of replacing the jpeg. I know I could add one on the albumlistheader to do what you want. but I am not sure yet if it would flicker like crazy when under text/buttons. I will do some tests on this and get back to you.

Audiosoft - 3-26-2008 at 04:43 AM

OK got it working with your animated header! Looks great and uses less cpu than animated gif in the .dis files. Give me a day or 2 and I will put up beta 14 with support for an animated AlbumListHeaderANI.gif. Hopefully for the volume too if it works good. Can you post your volback.gif so I can test with it? The way it will work is...if the AlbumListHeaderANI.gif is present it will render it (with transparency support btw) ontop of the normal AlbumListHeader jpg. I should be able to add animated gif support in the same way for other elements as requested.

Pirk - 3-26-2008 at 12:34 PM

Dragon_slayer,
Awesome effect your animated albumlist header! :o And Audiosoft will add support for animated gifs for non .dis elements.. Excellent news!

Audiosoft,
Could you also allow PNG files with alpha transparency for the non .dis parts? In particular for the songlist headers??

Thanks!

Audiosoft - 3-26-2008 at 10:57 PM

Pirk, what would make the songlist header png different than a jpg? where do you need the transparency?

Dragon_slayer - 3-26-2008 at 11:42 PM

Audiosoft,
That’s good to hear! It looks like I’ll have to get to work on my new skin after all.
It turns out i won’t be changing the file extension of the volback. After trying a few different effects i wasn’t really happy with the results, so it looks like I’ll be mainly concentrating my efforts on my new skin.

Thanks Pirk, now all i have to do is see if i can incorporate it into decent skin, phew, just when i was getting over skin making fatigue from my last one.

Pirk - 3-28-2008 at 02:40 PM

Quote:
Message original : Audiosoft
Pirk, what would make the songlist header png different than a jpg? where do you need the transparency?


My idea would be to see the bottom of the shelf3d behind the top of the songlist header, and maybe also the top of the songlist behind the bottom part of the songlist header.
In my Crimsonlive skin, only the yellow note, the blue cd and the text of the header would by opaque, the rest would mix with the shelf3d background by transparency.. In this way my blue cd would seem to float from the focused sleeve to the song list!

Audiosoft - 4-1-2008 at 10:20 PM

Pirk, that would need 3 new sized pngs for the different sized headers. The png would be the same width as the the jpg but overlap and center itself over the songlistheader so that you can make the source image have more height and add shadow effects too. How does that sound? also how about a png over the albumlist header? and one for the bottom of the album list?

Dragon_slayer,

Here is the Beta 14 exe
-added skin support for an animated albumlist header. can now add an optional AlbumListHeaderANI.gif to have it overlap AlbumListHeader.jpg with an animated gif.

Note that when you use a AlbumListHeaderANI.gif it will honor the animated gif frame ms delay settings so make sure to give a delay to each frame in ImageReady if you don't want each frame to immediately replace the other. Also AlbumListHeaderANI.gif should be 822x37 in dimensions.

Pirk - 4-2-2008 at 09:26 AM

Audiosoft, That sounds excellent! :) OK for the 3 different sized png headers with the same width and overlapping height. I think that could produce some nice effects.
A png for the albumlist header and another one for the bottom of the album list? Great idea!! I'm longing..