I've been becoming more interested in skins recently and having seen a decent number of pro skins, I certainly found some that I liked more than others.

And then I suddenly thought, I should make a simplistic skin myself.
What followed is my thread right here. Just what do you guys like most in the skins you like?

There are no set answers so don't refrain from posting anything you guys like, after all I'm trying to make something many people can like.

so this is an opinion thread about what players look for in skins?
interesting idea

Semi invisible hitcircles.

It's hot that Hidden feeling that I like.

My view of Professional Skins:

Every professional player may require a skin for which to cancel out any of the distractions that affect their performances (storyboards, backgrounds, 300s, etc...) to give themselves increased focue of playing maps that are extremely difficult than others. Skins like these usually comprises of elements which came from other original skins, mixing them gives the best playing performance as these are optimal for their hardcore playing experience.

My view on For Fun Skins:

The skinner makes this kind of skins in order to satisfy the newcomers and current average (or below average) osu! players which in fact playing with these matching with the themed beatmap the user is playing probably gives the best experience. Example of these are from popular Japanese anime series (such as Shingeki no Kyojin because of the popularity of the beatmap "Guren no Yumiya") and some themes from other genres (game, movie, etc...).

Apart from these themes, there are in fact novelty themes which 'maximizes' the players' experience due to the expression of humour. Moreover, it is unknown of why these were the crowns of other skins as viewed by players seeking an overly sense of novelty. Examples are skins which overuses the Doge face, and Nicolas Cage face. These faces usually offer an intensifying sense of humor as depicted by players, replacing their boredom of the default skin because they wanted to look for some humorous skin which makes their day.

Every skin are designed with quality to ensure that players can be satisfied with, even the designer himself (or herself). If the quality isn't good enough then the player might not download it. Every gamer in the world has to be impressed in quality, that is because every console game that you play (even if you don't have one) typically have cutting-edge graphics, sound, and 3D effects. Older games usually have low-quality graphics due to the usage of old gaming consoles. Yes, we're living in the higher generation of video games, so gaming console developers have stopped sales on old consoles as we know it, yet cheap markets rarely sell these at a lower price than how much it originally was.

These are my depictions of how skins looks like that gives the best experience. Thanks for reading these!

Since this isn't a skinning question and this is one opinion thread that is full of information from anyone for everyone, this can live.

For skins, flatness (for minimals) isn't the key. The elements' smooth edges, good color choice and In-Game and UI coordination are the real keys.
more to come since it's so hard to type on an Android tablet

As I'm playing I like it when a skin has a more minimal feel to it and nothing flashy that detracts from the circle clicking fest, but the menu and UI can be all nice and shiny to show off and gives you that good feeling when you look at it.

for me, if it's sleek, has an elegant look, not overly simple, it's good to me. examples: simplosu, aethestic

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Redon wrote:

Consistency in its design. If you're going to bother releasing a skin, it should offer what most mix skins don't, and that's elements that are created after a common idea and don't conflict visually.

i forgot about your skin, yours look extremely good, one of the best skins i have ever seen. trust what this man says, he knows what he's doing.

wew I will check this thread every day

actualy ,it up to people taste
because people have they own taste on skin.
but I like skin that easy to play and have cool animetion

For "ka-boom" skins, animations and theme are the keys. A skinner would give his/her all in animating ALL POSSIBLE animated elements and making them WONDERFUL, at the same time, fits the theme and style. DJNightmare tend to do this "a lot" but the best example is RBRat (even though it's just a VERY SPARKLING fountain mania burst).

lots of anime grils

Asuna- wrote:

lots of anime grils

I might be wondering if this idea would be prominent. From my thinking, anime girls preserves an unparalled magnificence typically to anime fans (like newcomers of osu!). The skinner thinks that including these within most skin sprites would add beauty to the skin and goes on just to impress for himself (or herself) but may not be magnificent to others as they think that they "aren't related" with the theme. Commonly, these girls are taken over the Internet database and placed them into some of his or her skin sprites, or others like producing these by their own would be challenging for themselves but to show off the owner's talent to others. You can Google these from the Internet and place these onto your skins just for your impressions or to have fun while playing, but may be inappropriate within your specified theme (unless you're pro enough to have others to grab your copy of your skin regardless of how good it is). Give it a try!

I might have a feeling that it's great if we could make "The Encyclopedia of osu! Skinning" but I need others to help with this project. Would this be a good idea?

Redon wrote:

Consistency in its design. If you're going to bother releasing a skin, it should offer what most mix skins don't, and that's elements that are created after a common idea and don't conflict visually.

I agree with this entirely. I've seen way too many "pro skins" that just throw random elements together, causing them to lack any sort of cohesiveness. I ended up making my own skin with exactly what I'm looking for (although it's still a work in progress. I still need to come up with ideas for skinning the menus).

Redon wrote:

Consistency in its design. If you're going to bother releasing a skin, it should offer what most mix skins don't, and that's elements that are created after a common idea and don't conflict visually.

I can give him props. He definitely on point. I do like a skin when it directly talks about a certain kind of area and also when there are no distractions so game-play can be easy and really fun

Something easy on the eyes. Whenever I see skins that have ridiculously bright hit circles and sliders, I just can't help but wonder how a person could actually play with that.

Garygoh884 wrote:

I might have a feeling that it's great if we could make "The Encyclopedia of osu! Skinning" but I need others to help with this project. Would this be a good idea?

Ain't an encyclopedia for now. The largest piece was pinned though.

I'm not exactly a pro player, but a good skin in my opinion should be something that you can play well with and a little good with the design.
It's pretty much going over the top when you have a spinner with someones most "kawaii" anime character on.
The hitcircles in my opinion shouldn't matter, as long as you can read it yourself. But even people have limits, it shouldn't look ugly.
Basically all I've said is preference. And that's all it is. People like the kamui skin cursor, however I love the default cursor. If there is one thing that all skins really should have is invisible 300's.

no visible 300's, distinct combo colors, followpoints that are easy to read but not in the way, at least some amount of hollowness to the hitcircles... that's it really, everything else menus, icons, ranks, buttons etc are all preference

Heibel pro has been the best skin i've used so far

RedPanda wrote:

If there is one thing that all skins really should have is invisible 300's.

Bassist Vinyl wrote:

no visible 300's...

Invisible 300s are incredibly overrated. There is a way to make 300s appear out of the way.

YayMii wrote:

RedPanda wrote:

If there is one thing that all skins really should have is invisible 300's.

Bassist Vinyl wrote:

no visible 300's...

Invisible 300s are incredibly overrated. There is a way to make 300s appear out of the way.

idk i just feel they have no functional reason to appear at all, like combo bursts.

100 or 50 that's relevant information, 300 not so much

anything nonfunctional off the playing field is good

For me, what makes a skin good is the cursor and if there's 300's showing.

With the cursor, I'm the type who likes cursors like these


Not really a fan of cursors like this one

With the 300's, I prefer them not to show, because if they show, I get really distracted.

OMGPingu wrote:

For me, what makes a skin good is the cursor and if there's 300's showing.

With the cursor, I'm the type who likes cursors like these


Not really a fan of cursors like this one

With the 300's, I prefer them not to show, because if they show, I get really distracted.

yeah i find most tablet players prefer the really tiny cursors whereas mouse players like them to look bigger because it feels more natural i mean.. our mouse is gigantic compared to a tablet pen, that tiny dot feels off.

Bassist Vinyl wrote:

anything nonfunctional off the playing field is good

I guess we're coming from different viewpoints then. Personally, I livestream osu! on Twitch, and I'd find that having stuff like combo bursts makes the stream more visually interesting to watch. And I honestly don't find it detracting from my gameplay at all.
I've also had newer players questioning the lack of visual feedback when watching me, back when I used invisible 300s. But that's irrelevant.

I like the skins where the 0, 50, 100 and 300 are just something with a color (a spark or something), that makes it really easy to read. Sometimes i like to get rid of the default numbers, and replace with dots aaand... don't use followpoints. About the spinner, it isn't really important how it looks for gameplay, if it has a center point and isn't really ugly it's fine by me.

Taking about the cursor I believe it is very personal, every one has a different taste.

Sorry for my poor english.

Having just built myself a skin from the ground up and learning quite a bit about what makes skins (and just graphics in general) flow, here are a couple of things i picked up about my tastes and skinning in general.

my own tastes:
transparent 300s and star particles, transparent hit circles (in some way, either center transparent or just low opacity, clean looking circle numbers, and general cohesiveness are a must. I like small cursors with long trails (cursormiddle style), but that is just personal preference. I play on Hidden 80% of the time so many skins with very thin circle outlines and overly elaborate lighting effects can be confusing. Color combos nice, but not necessary.


Opinions of skinning as a whole:
If you plan to release a skin as your own, don't use the components of others. At the very least, create something similar yourself with your own flair. This is how I have actually learned most of my photo editing... "Oh hey that looks cool... I wonder how i can make something like that" then 30 minutes of googling and youtube tutorials later, I end up with something, but I digress.

Keeping the skin consistent definitely makes is look more "complete" than a hodgepodge of different fonts, animations, colors, etc. Of course making sure that things are trimmed and fit properly can make or break a skin too. If skin elements are being force cropped by osu due to bad sizing, or your elements are running off the screen or under other elements because they are too large. I have used multiple pro looking skins that are ruined for me by improper sizing. (the skin "Life" comes to mind) Seriously, its not that hard to just make sure your skin elements fit right.


Sorry for the eyeful of text but if you want my opinion you will get the verbose version because I am bored in class. ^_^

TL;DR: 300s are bad, (semi)transparent hitcircles are a must, don't use elements straight out of other skins for your own releases, and make sure your shit fits right.

Bassist Vinyl wrote:

yeah i find most tablet players prefer the really tiny cursors whereas mouse players like them to look bigger because it feels more natural i mean.. our mouse is gigantic compared to a tablet pen, that tiny dot feels off.

Whoa whoa whoa, that's actually the first time I've heard that from a mouse player! I prefer smaller cursors just because it feels a lot more precise, but I can see where you're coming from.

Good design always follows a function, however excessive minimalism lacks character.. right now I prefere a nice balance.

However all things static become dull over time, skinning trends have been about a clean and plain look for a while and I expect them to be shifting towards more complex designs. ⌒．⌒

Something that I have noticed is that most people tend to play with transparent/partly transparent hitcircles. That said I personally can't play with them. I've taken a real liking to skins with a nice hitcircle design recently and probably will use an opaque hitcircle. That aside I'll try to make a design that is transparent as well so people can just swap in the one they like

-Ephemeral- wrote:

Something that I have noticed is that most people tend to play with transparent/partly transparent hitcircles. That said I personally can't play with them. I've taken a real liking to skins with a nice hitcircle design recently and probably will use an opaque hitcircle. That aside I'll try to make a design that is transparent as well so people can just swap in the one they like

The reason you play with transparent hit circles is because it makes hidden 100x easier

Readability. I'm deciding to cut half of the hit circle to be transparent, and leaves the rest to be opaque.

Bassist Vinyl wrote:

yeah i find most tablet players prefer the really tiny cursors whereas mouse players like them to look bigger because it feels more natural i mean.. our mouse is gigantic compared to a tablet pen, that tiny dot feels off.

Wut.

Smaller cursor improves visibility. There's little reason not to use one.

Transparent to semi-transparent Hit Circles, Spinners and Slider Balls
Distinct Approach Circles, as in completely different form the Hit Circles's color, appearance

Hit scoring (like those "300" that pop out) should appear somewhere else like beside the score meter.
Cursors that aren't too flashy or bland and should not have long trails.

Outside the game interface, like in the menu, blow my eyes out.