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The Contease Skin (1.2 FINAL)

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Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Hey everyone !

Skin Information
[General]
Skin Name: Contease
Creator: MathiasXII
Theme: Ease of play, Simplicity
Version: 1.2 FINAL (as of March 14th 2012)
Tags: Contour Contrast Ease Simple
Download: Download Here!

[Data]
Size: 1.87MB
Is it fully skinned? No. Osu! Gameplay/menu only is skinned with some original graphics from the default skin (such as the sliderball and slider repeat). Taiko and CTB remained untouched.

[Misc]
Creator's comment: At first, I made this skin mainly to pass time, but as I added a little touch now and then to it, I started using it regularly to the extent it's the only skin I use.

So why would you want this skin ?

  1. High contrast generally makes notes easier to see
  2. Completely Kiai proof (Kiai won't blind you/disorient you unless that particular beatmap uses skin customization)
  3. The countour of the hitnote has the color instead of the inside, leaving numbers and hitnotes clearly visible at all times.
  4. No Cursor tails (although you can have cool sparks by downloading it in optional graphics below which was the cursor tail initially).
  5. Score graphics are replaced by convenient tiny color coded stars (which are pretty and accompanied by star lightning). Bigger stars are available in the optional graphics below
  6. Health bar warns you with "!" only when you're going to have a section fail.
  7. Approach circles have been modified to fit the hitnote's contour EXACTLY when you're suppose to hit (rather than only touch it). This is by personal preference. + a little semi-transparent trail has been added to make it show a little more.
  8. Spinner has been simplified (removing useless graphics/reducing size of remaining ones) and made kiai proof as well.
  9. You aboslutely love the mix of color and black.
  10. You like menu sounds that are retro.
Updates: -
Requests: -

Change Log
1.1 :

  1. Spinner is now balanced and completed.
  2. Hitnotes have been updated with cleaner graphics.
  3. Graphics have been smoothed down and polished overall.
  4. Added follow points.
  5. Compressed PNGs for minimal space requirements.
1.2 :

  1. Tweaked the lifebar a little (Thanks Ziin)
  2. Song selection bars updated (Thanks Ziin)
  3. Realigned some of the graphics so they sit nicely
[box=Optional Graphics]Useful skin customization that won't alter the gameplay the skin tries to offer :
More readable fonts.
Clockwise spinner arrows

Skin customizations that may alter the gameplay that this skins tries to offer, but looks good :
Stars that are hitcircle size
Spark your kiai times/comboburts with this spark (cursor tail).

Streamers and rankers : You might enjoy having VERY LARGE stars for 100s and 50s to clearly know you've mistimed a hit. It might be distracting at first, but it helps on the long run.


Many thanks to ziin for all of his help about all the little details that makes this skin better :)!!!!!!

Many thanks also to everyone supporting this skin and leaving feedback ! =D ILU all !
Gonzvlo
Oh god, this skin :o

I like the idea of the "stars" instead of numbers. Everything is great, the spinner-circle could be a bit more centered tho.

I've been looking for a skin like this for a while, great job.
Pereira006
hooo
cool *-* nice skin
ziin

MathiasXII wrote:

The countour of the hitnote has the color instead of the inside, leaving numbers and hitnotes clearly visible at all times EXCEPT when the hit note color is black AND the background is comlpetely black... I'll have to find a workaround on this.
This would mean the approach circle is invisible as well, thus not rankable. I wouldn't worry about it.

As gonzvlo said, spinner isn't centered. IMO the default spinner circle (those two differently colored semi circles) is excellent because it tells you how fast you're going without seeing the rpm.

If you can work white/gray into the hitcircleoverlay, that would make things even easier to see. Adding a little depth to the approach circle also helps.

Finally, it would probably be better to have hitcircle completely flat, with the overlay adding any depth/highlights. Right now hitcircle isn't completely black, though I suppose you might want it that way. A radial gradient of black to dark gray would probably give a better effect.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Made some updates !!!

Shading of hitnotes still missing but I think I'll get help to get that done =).
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Bump

Reupdate ! Added a very discreet color shading in hitcircle :).

ziin, I tried as you suggested (put some grey gradient in hitcircleoverlay), but then it didn't look right. I didn't like the small film it added on the hitnote, even with the lightest opacity... so yeah I want to keep the color in the hitcircle, but it does look a lot better than the default hitcircle shading.
ziin


I was saying that I didn't like the hitcircle being colored. It looks slightly off, and I think it looks better completely black. You can add the shading in the hitcircleoverlay where it won't get colorized. It's not so much a film as it is a highlight. However there's merit to coloring the hitcircle a bit too.

Add a spinner approach circle, otherwise it uses the default approach circle, but zoomed in and thus really ugly. Also, you can see what happens when you enlarge an image with a partial alpha channel on the edge. You get that ugly line. Make sure your always have a completely transparent border around all your images to avoid getting that ugly line when it gets enlarged.

The radial effect I was thinking of isn't working out.

A problem with maps that use map specific skins is that they work fine except for the combo color, which you have as a grayish. Now that the outer edge is sorta-white, a very light gray would work for both.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

ziin wrote:



I was saying that I didn't like the hitcircle being colored. It looks slightly off, and I think it looks better completely black. You can add the shading in the hitcircleoverlay where it won't get colorized. It's not so much a film as it is a highlight. However there's merit to coloring the hitcircle a bit too.

Add a spinner approach circle, otherwise it uses the default approach circle, but zoomed in and thus really ugly. Also, you can see what happens when you enlarge an image with a partial alpha channel on the edge. You get that ugly line. Make sure your always have a completely transparent border around all your images to avoid getting that ugly line when it gets enlarged.

The radial effect I was thinking of isn't working out.

A problem with maps that use map specific skins is that they work fine except for the combo color, which you have as a grayish. Now that the outer edge is sorta-white, a very light gray would work for both.
Omg you made the hit circle look A LOT BETTER than I made it look when using some grey shading in hitcircleoverlay. Thank you thank you thank you !!!! ~ it does look better all black, I agree now =).

Alright I'll get to make a spinner approach circle ... and continue skinning

Thank you again ziin !!!! Rawr.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
UPDATES:
  1. Now has custom menusounds and sectionpass/sectionfail graphics/sounds
  2. New healthbar that's prettier than the previous one...
  3. Song selection design...cheap for now, but plan on making it prettier
  4. Hitnotes graphics are now complete and will stay as they are!
TO DO:
  1. Make it look better I guess
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Skin is done !!!!!! Now I welcome suggestions as to changes or things to make it prettier =).

IF YOU DO, PLEASE ALWAYS INCLUDE A GRAPHIC NAME OR ELEMENT OF MY SKIN TO MODIFY, IN OTHER WORDS, BE CONCRETE!!!

Example :

This skin needs to be cleaner <- This comment will be ignored

This skin sucks <- This comment will also be ignored

This skin to be cleaner, as X.png's graphics are too chunky and I'm not really fond of the idea of the fading borders <- This comment will be considered.

It's even better if you can provide me with examples of solutions :). Anyway enjoy !!!
Pereira006
i can´t download
because this http://puu.sh/1xCP
??????
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

Pereira006 wrote:

i can´t download
because this http://puu.sh/1xCP
??????
LMAO !!! I'm so sorry it should work now =).
Lucky
This skin look awesome! Honestly, kudos on the fine job bro xD
Pereira006

MathiasXII wrote:

Pereira006 wrote:

i can´t download
because this http://puu.sh/1xCP
??????
LMAO !!! I'm so sorry it should work now =).

WOOOWOO !!!

now it is better ! ^^

I love it

good joob


xD
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Thank you Avionix and Pereira006 :).

And thank you ztrot for pointing out some graphics imperfections... all corrected and reuploaded yay ! But it's totally optional for those who just downloaded... it's only very precise esthetical matters :P.
Verdisphena

justsaying
Very nice skin
_Kiva
;D
awesome skin
gettin a higher score with this :P
Hanyuu
Hi some suggestions what i think of the skin :)
The numbers on the circles are too big i think and the hit stars too small.
Also the slider looks a bit transparent O.o it gets hard to see in some moments for me.
In the spinner the arrows go clockwise but i spin the other way :D

overall it looks very good
-----
Wow, Great job on the skin :)
Glad to know there's actually someone doing skins for usability.

But I'm not a fan of the font you used on the numbers for notes
I mean, It takes a relatively long time to figure out the note number compared to other skin
(like default skin or xi-style).
I often confused between number 3, 5 and among number 2, 4, 6 :o
or is this only a personal issue?
Nilsso
Good job, keep em coming!
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Wow interest for my skin <3 thank you guys. Alright, I'll respond to each of your responses/concerns.
To Verdisphena

justsaying
Very nice skin
... FUUUUUUUUUUUUU- fixed ...

partially (I KNOW there's still a little border at the right grrr but I don't really care).
To Hanyuu
The numbers on the circles are too big i think and the hit stars too small.
Could you try these fonts here and tell me what you think (replace with the fonts in the folder) : Download

Stars are intentionally made that small to not be in the way of seeing other notes. If I make them bigger, they start to hide other hitcircles and then my skin loses some of it's usefulness.

But, for you, I made hitstars that are the size of the hitcircles :). Might need a bit of transparency though. Tell me what you think :D. Here : Download

Also the slider looks a bit transparent O.o it gets hard to see in some moments for me.
Yeah but the default layered slider is very ugly with this skin compared to the semi transparent one :S... but I know what you mean. I'll try to think of something.

In the spinner the arrows go clockwise but i spin the other way :)
See optional graphics in first post ;). Added.
To -----
Wow, Great job on the skin


Thanks :)
But I'm not a fan of the font you used on the numbers for notes
I mean, It takes a relatively long time to figure out the note number compared to other skin
(like default skin or xi-style).
I often confused between number 3, 5 and among number 2, 4, 6
or is this only a personal issue?
Nah you're not the only one who has a hard time with the font. I would suggest you to try these and leave me feedback :).

Nilsso wrote:

Good job, keep em coming!
Will do :D
Hanyuu
wow :) thanks for your update it made a new impression to me. everything works better. the numbers look good but maybe a little simple compared to the art of the skin but good. the size for stars is really good too to see. and i think because of the shape of a star it does not get in the way too much. and the spinner thing.. ah i missed it XD thanks and nice idea! looks good when spinning to see the arrows, instead of SPIN!

good improvements for me
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

Hanyuu wrote:

wow :) thanks for your update it made a new impression to me. everything works better. the numbers look good but maybe a little simple compared to the art of the skin but good. the size for stars is really good too to see. and i think because of the shape of a star it does not get in the way too much. and the spinner thing.. ah i missed it XD thanks and nice idea! looks good when spinning to see the arrows, instead of SPIN!

good improvements for me
Glad I could content you with some mods :). As for the numbers, I think it's relative. Basic fonts are easy to read, artistic fonts are rather hard'ish to read. But if you have any fonts idea that would give a better look while being not too hard to read, don't hesitate :). I'll try it.

UPDATE : Changed size of default font so it doesn't exceed the hitcircle borders with 2 digit numbers.
-----

MathiasXII wrote:

To -----
Wow, Great job on the skin

Thanks :)

But I'm not a fan of the font you used on the numbers for notes
I mean, It takes a relatively long time to figure out the note number compared to other skin
(like default skin or xi-style).
I often confused between number 3, 5 and among number 2, 4, 6
or is this only a personal issue?
Nah you're not the only one who has a hard time with the font. I would suggest you to try these and leave me feedback :).
Awesome :D Much better now
[Ryuji]
Where is the link ? o,o
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

[Ryuji] wrote:

Where is the link ? o,o
First post, it says "Download Here" like at the 4th line...

oh well!

Download Here!
Verdisphena

MathiasXII wrote:

Wow interest for my skin <3 thank you guys. Alright, I'll respond to each of your responses/concerns.
To Verdisphena

justsaying
Very nice skin
... FUUUUUUUUUUUUU- fixed ...

partially (I KNOW there's still a little border at the right grrr but I don't really care).
Better :D
ziin
Just some things I'm noticing. Skin's great, I'm just picky.
  1. If you ever have an alpha channel fading to completely transparent (there's a lot) make sure you leave at least a 1 pixel wide line of complete transparency along the edge. The way most image editors resize/displaying stuff on an edge gives the illusion of a straight edge, when it shouldn't be. Virtually every image has this right now.
  2. spinner-background.png needs to have the gradient dithered. You might as well make it 1024x692 as well, as that's the real width of the screen (the template isn't really 100% correct). The gray line on the top looks bad and should just be black.
  3. spinner-circle.png is still not centered. Make the actual spinner 664x664 and leave a 1 pixel wide box around it to make it 666x666. The left and bottom edges have a 6 pixel black area, but the top and right edges have a 7 pixel black area.
  4. spinner-clear.png - completely optional, but it's not imperative that all the images be the same dimension as the template skin. If they are smaller, that's fine. If they are bigger, it might be a problem. This particular one has a lot of transparent space which has to be displayed. Cropping it out cuts down on the size and the processing time.
  5. sliderpoint10 and sliderpoint30 - make the black pixels gray. They are very jagged when black.
  6. star2.png and any other invisible items - you may as well make them 1 pixel and transparent. If you want a 68 byte invisible png, take it out of my blythe map, or compress it yourself.
  7. score-x.png - you need the score period, comma, x, and percent for score items. It's not necessary for default unless you are going to use the default as your score numbers.
  8. ranking-x.png - all of the SS ones are lighter than their counterparts, and thus hard to see, not that it's necessary to know you have an SS when you can see you have 100% accuracy.
  9. playfield.png - not that anyone ever sees this, but it is colorized based on the map background color, so it's supposed to be grayscale. However, the different colors make more distinct shades of blue/green/red or whatever the colors are so maybe it's fine the way it is.
    menu-button-background.png - shouldn't this be a circle, not an oval?
  10. spinnerspin.png - Shouldn't this be flipped? AFAIK most people spin counter-clockwise, and the spinner circle looks like it was meant to spin counter clockwise. You can also crop out the left and right portions as they are not used.
Finally, if you care at all about compression and download speed (I certainly do) you can compress all your pngs down to a very small size using pngslim or just one or two of the programs included in the zip. When you reduce every image by 20-95% of their original size, that sort of compression really adds up.
dkun
this skin rocks.
end of story.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
ziin, I'll do the best I can, but I don't have any fancy and costy graphic editors and am not a graphic designer in profession so when I hear terms like alpha channel transparency and dithered gradients, I basically have no idea what you're talking about. I did some things though...

I balanced the spinner finally. If it's not balanced still, there's not much I can do else.
I also resized images that needed resizing... I'll try compressing the pngs.
For the spinner arrows, there have been a reversed version in the optional graphics ever since I used the arrows in the spinner.

I did not update the .zip yet though...I'll run that png compressor overnight for it to work (as I see it takes much time to compress).

I also have no idea how to remove jagers and turning pixels grey to black and all that... plus I don't redeem necessary to do such elite graphical changes at the moment... There might be some time where I'm ulterly bored or very motivate that I'll put my mind to it. Just not now.
ziin
Ahaha, sorry neither am I. I just know these things from gimp.


dithering is when you mix in different colors to trick your eyes into thinking a gradient is smooth, rather than each horizontal or vertical line being exactly the same color. Since you just recolored the original, what you can do if you want is select the gradient at the bottom and do a gaussian blur (filters - blur - gaussian blur).


Alpha channel is transparency. You can double check your transparency by using the fuzzy select tool and set it all the way to 0 threshold (so you only get stuff that is all 1 color, in this case transparent). See how the selection leaves at least 1 pixel of complete transparency all the way around?

To get rid of the jaggies, you can just blur it, or use a select by color and paint in a gray color.

And yes, pngslim takes a LONG time to work, but when it cuts off 5 MB off of SB heavy maps like miracle hinacle and don't stop me now, it's worth it.
Danzai_old
I bow for you, Matt. This skin is far superior to anything I have tried so far. Damn man. <3

Star!
oh wait...
+1 support!
oh wait

ANYWAYS, I PRAISE YOU :D
Xact
I must say, this is a very nice skin bud. I've been using the Xiao skin (personally modified though) for as long as I can remember because like your skin, it was all about ENHANCING your performance...making everything easier to see and making it easier on the eyes. Until now, I have used nothing else but my modified Xiao style skin, thanks for making such a clean and sharp looking skin. I really wish more people would make skins like these 8-) Keep working on it, it's turning out great, definitely one of my favorites I can honestly say.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Oh Wow, your comments are so uplifting, I'm impressed of the impact and interest this skin has... I really appreciate all your positive and encouraging comments Xact and Danzai. You're the reason why I want to improve and make the best out of this skin by constantly improving it and make it cleaner and better with each release. Expect some more work on this :). ~

And also MANY MANY MANY thanks to ziin for pushing me to make my skin looks as perfect as possible with all his graphic help.

Next updates will be about graphics compression (making it easier for computers to process graphics), image croping removing useless space, and correcting that damn wobbly spinner that I can't get perfect grrr...

Then I will plan a cleaner interface, a new health bar, and maybe some CTB skinning for the next release :). Stay tuned !!!
-----

MathiasXII wrote:

Oh Wow, your comments are so uplifting, I'm impressed of the impact and interest this skin has... I really appreciate all your positive and encouraging comments Xact and Danzai. You're the reason why I want to improve and make the best out of this skin by constantly improving it and make it cleaner and better with each release. Expect some more work on this :). ~

And also MANY MANY MANY thanks to ziin for pushing me to make my skin looks as perfect as possible with all his graphic help.

Next updates will be about graphics compression (making it easier for computers to process graphics), image croping removing useless space, and correcting that damn wobbly spinner that I can't get perfect grrr...

Then I will plan a cleaner interface, a new health bar, and maybe some CTB skinning for the next release :). Stay tuned !!!
Looking forward to it as well. It has been my favorite skin for a while now and definitely glad to know you are polishing it to the next level.

A minor suggestion though:
Can you turn up the transparency of the slider? there are times (rare through) when there are notes hidden behind the slider and it's not standing out really much to my eyes.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

----- wrote:

A minor suggestion though:
Can you turn up the transparency of the slider? there are times (rare through) when there are notes hidden behind the slider and it's not standing out really much to my eyes.
Hehe glad my skin makes you happy :D .

Alright as for the slider matter, as much as I would want to be able to customize it to my own liking, customizing that slider isn't possible... You can chose between different presets...

How it works :

In the skin configuration file (skin.ini) inside the skin folder, there's this line :

SliderStyle : [1-3]

You can chose between 3 sliders and I think it has something to do with how. Here's what each look like

SliderStyle : 1 | Default. Layered and transparency between the layers.



SliderStyle : 2 | Plain with transparency



SliderStyle : 3 | Plain, low res color with transparency



So yeah...that's the variety of sliders I can chose from >:( . Not much eh ? I think they are ordered from the slider which uses the more computer ressources to the one which uses less.

Edit: UPDATES ! MUCH MORE COMPRESSED PNGs (easing the processing of those images) and more centered spinner (might wanna check ziin).
-----

MathiasXII wrote:

Hehe glad my skin makes you happy :D .

Alright as for the slider matter, as much as I would want to be able to customize it to my own liking, customizing that slider isn't possible... You can chose between different presets...

How it works :
In the skin configuration file (skin.ini) inside the skin folder, there's this line :

SliderStyle : [1-3]

You can chose between 3 sliders and I think it has something to do with how. Here's what each look like

SliderStyle : 1 | Default. Layered and transparency between the layers.



SliderStyle : 2 | Plain with transparency



SliderStyle : 3 | Plain, low res color with transparency



So yeah...that's the variety of sliders I can chose from >:( .
Not much eh ? I think they are ordered from the slider which uses the more computer ressources to the one which uses less.
So, you can't change the slider body, but there's already 3 styles of slider body built-in you can choose from the game?
I have absolute no idea about this before... :o will try it later, thanks for telling me :)
ziin

MathiasXII wrote:

and more centered spinner (might wanna check ziin).
The center circle is 41x41, which gives wobble. Needs to be an even number (666x666 is even)
The second blue outer circle isn't a good circle; it gets thinner near the 45 degree angles, but is the full 634x634 along the horizontal and vertical, just not the diagonal.

Also, approachcircle and sliderfollowcircle need to be redone to get rid of the straight line on the edge.

spinner-approachcircle's inner section is pretty jagged. I hope you saved a backup copy of it too, gimp can't edit 16 bit pngs and support is pretty low among other editors, though not so much viewers.

A quick way to test to see if you've already compressed an image is stick it in a rar or 7z file and look to see the difference between compressed size and actual size. If the archive is compressing it more than 100 bytes, it's probably not compressed at all. The ki-danger images aren't right now. Or just do it all again, since the randomized huffman trials can cut a few more bytes off with each run.
Hanyuu
hi i just saw your skin was used in a beatmap now ;) what a nice success congrats and keep working on it :)
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

ziin wrote:

MathiasXII wrote:

and more centered spinner (might wanna check ziin).
The center circle is 41x41, which gives wobble. Needs to be an even number (666x666 is even)
The second blue outer circle isn't a good circle; it gets thinner near the 45 degree angles, but is the full 634x634 along the horizontal and vertical, just not the diagonal.

Also, approachcircle and sliderfollowcircle need to be redone to get rid of the straight line on the edge.

spinner-approachcircle's inner section is pretty jagged. I hope you saved a backup copy of it too, gimp can't edit 16 bit pngs and support is pretty low among other editors, though not so much viewers.

A quick way to test to see if you've already compressed an image is stick it in a rar or 7z file and look to see the difference between compressed size and actual size. If the archive is compressing it more than 100 bytes, it's probably not compressed at all. The ki-danger images aren't right now. Or just do it all again, since the randomized huffman trials can cut a few more bytes off with each run.
Okay now, my spinner should not be wobbly at all ANYMORE !!! I tested it in every possible way. It may look wobbly but that's because of the color gradient. I'm kinda deceived it lost a little of it's depth and beauty in general, but the center and all circles are now perfectly balanced.

I reduced the alpha of approah circle and sliderfollowcircle so there's no appearant edges anymore (last layer being transparent).

I also removed the jagged line in the spinner-approachcircle by doing a smiple quality radial blur.

Every image has been compressed I believe now.

Will update everything after image compression is done.

Don't hesitate to point out further adjustments if needed :).

Hanyuu wrote:

hi i just saw your skin was used in a beatmap now ;) what a nice success congrats and keep working on it :)
Thanks ! :) Will continue to work on it till I feel it's complete then try to submit it to the skin compendium :3 !
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Alright, since this skin has known much improvements, I raised the version to 1.1.

Enjoy :).

Added change log to the first post and updated screenshots.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Alright so before submitting this skin to the skin compendium, I need to make a new lifebar... I just have no idea of a good concept of a lifebar.

So ANY !!! Help would be very appreciated :).



Xact
Nice work fixing those approach circles, just noticed you made an update :) Looks nice and sharp now. The only other thing I would say is make the 300 and 100 hits a little different, its hard to tell if I'm getting 300's or 100's, but the 50's are fine. I kinda use the 300's and 100's as reference if im going too fast or too slow, etc so having hard time distinguishing if im getting 300's or 100's messes with my accuracy XD
ziin
Guess who's back, back again
ziin is back, tell a friend

>selection-mod-autoplay.pdn
what's this?
>scorebar stuff:
Keep it simple and small. Many people disable this. I also happen to like your blue-green theme. Why not stick to it? I actually replaced spinner-meter.png with a blue-green gradient as well. I suppose you want the contrast there, but IMO that's why you outline everything.
This is what I whipped up in a few minutes:
colour clicky
bg clicky
>sliderfollowcircle.png and approachcircle.png
still have the lines on the edges since you don't have a completely transparent border
>selection mods
I have a hard time telling what's what. Perhaps with use, it will be easier, but just putting "No Video", "Auto", and "Spun Out" in actual words would help me tremendously. You did a good job with relax in that way.

Some ideas for the selection mods:
Easy - Easy button from staples
No fail - I like the star, though using the actual star from mario brothers would be nice, and of course, say "no fail" at the top.
Half time - good, though I'd prefer ".5x"
Hard Rock - use a guitar
sudden death - good
Double time - good, though I'd prefer "2x"
hidden - good
flashlight - I don't get it. A battery and a sun? just a side view of a flashlight would be fine.
no video - good
relax - good, though I'd prefer a stick figure lounging, or a recliner of some sort.
Auto pilot - how about an airplane?
spun out - okay
Auto - okay, or the "no video" without the cancel icon over it.

about slider border:
most custom maps which have custom skins do not force the white border, so when you play them, it defaults to the dark border from your skin which doesn't match the actual skin. Considering this is a skin, anyone can change the settings any way they please, so it doesn't matter much. It's just something to think about. I don't think the white slider border looks bad on your skin, since the overlay has white on it.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII

ziin wrote:

Guess who's back, back again
ziin is back, tell a friend Yayyy ^^ *hops around, purrs, giggles, and run in circles at the same time*

>selection-mod-autoplay.pdn
what's this?oops...removed!!
>scorebar stuff:
Keep it simple and small. Many people disable this. I also happen to like your blue-green theme. Why not stick to it? I actually replaced spinner-meter.png with a blue-green gradient as well. I suppose you want the contrast there, but IMO that's why you outline everything. Yeah I tried placing a gradient of about the same color as the spinner around it, and I didn't think it was really neat as there's too much of the same color on the screen. :S
This is what I whipped up in a few minutes: I'll use this material with a personal touch if you don't mind =).
colour clicky I want the colors between Section Fail and Section Pass to be clearly visible at all times. So I'll probably use a color gradient that divides better in the middle OR 4 solid color for each section.
bg clicky Perfect ! I Will draw grey lines in there. They make the division in health bar neater.
>sliderfollowcircle.png and approachcircle.png
still have the lines on the edges since you don't have a completely transparent border. ARGH !!! Now checked the contour with the color pick tool (never thought of that before) and it shows alpha = 0 and colors = 0 everywhere around.
>selection mods
I have a hard time telling what's what. Perhaps with use, it will be easier, but just putting "No Video", "Auto", and "Spun Out" in actual words would help me tremendously. You did a good job with relax in that way. Yeah I'll have to work on that... but a description hilight when you slide your mouse over a mod. So I didn't deem necessary to actually put words on pictures. I thought it was easy to figure out XD.

Some ideas for the selection mods: Will consider these when I rework my mod buttons.
Easy - Easy button from staples
No fail - I like the star, though using the actual star from mario brothers would be nice, and of course, say "no fail" at the top.
Half time - good, though I'd prefer ".5x"
Hard Rock - use a guitar
sudden death - good
Double time - good, though I'd prefer "2x"
hidden - good
flashlight - I don't get it. A battery and a sun? just a side view of a flashlight would be fine.
no video - good
relax - good, though I'd prefer a stick figure lounging, or a recliner of some sort.
Auto pilot - how about an airplane?
spun out - okay
Auto - okay, or the "no video" without the cancel icon over it.

about slider border:
most custom maps which have custom skins do not force the white border, so when you play them, it defaults to the dark border from your skin which doesn't match the actual skin. Considering this is a skin, anyone can change the settings any way they please, so it doesn't matter much. It's just something to think about. I don't think the white slider border looks bad on your skin, since the overlay has white on it. Hmm... you're right! Changed back to white :)
Once again, very valuable help. Thanks ziin :)
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Woah, this skin's thread was on the 4th page of threads. I'm glad to see the community actively working on skins =).

Updated to 1.11. Most noticeable updates (although not really THAT noticeable) :

- Polished some graphics (the jaggery line inside the hitcircleoverlay and the exclamation mark for danger)
- Tweaked the life bar...although it's not really what I wanted lol, will re-tweak for 1.2 release.

Updated first post!!!

I would also have a request...

If someone is good at glossing graphics, I'd like to gloss (Attachment). The whole skin is kinda well rounded up and 3d-ish, but this looks a little flat. I don't have the eye for that kind of job. I bet anyone can do better than me on this.

Thank you!

ziin
you may need to redo the rankings. That oval was bugging me.

Also, I don't really like the cyan. Doesn't let the bump map show up well when it's colored red or orange.



I fucked up the bottom right corner too, but it's not much different from how you had it.

Here we go.
Topic Starter
MathiasXII
Well this is pretty much it... The final update to my skin.

As I consider it PERFECT to my liking, I will make no further changes to this skin, since as the date between the last update and this one suggest (with the fery few changes that have been made), it's getting nowhere farther...

Actually there's one change that could occur which is the spinner circle that's wobbling SLIGHTLY, but the fix is hard to do so if anyone can help me fix it, I would be THRILLED. Still if I update my skin, it will still be called 1.2.

I'd like to thank Ziin who's been supporting me A WHOLE M*F*LOT in this project with all his graphical knowledge and also anyone else who liked this skin and uses it. I'm glad I could do something that you also like :). I'm also thrilled to have done a skin like this! I didn't know I was capable of making such awesomeness lol.

Lots of <3.

Will try to add this to the Skin Compendium
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