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Author Topic: Skin inspiration  (Read 1990 times)

Tab

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Skin inspiration
« on: August 11, 2005, 10:51:11 am »

There are a number of skins, and they do look great, no doubt about it, but theyre all 'normal,' and mostly metal. I cant help thinking that between us we might manage to come up with an idea for something very different to add to the range. There are some first class skinners here, and who knows, someone just might like one of the ideas and play with it.


Things I like the sound of, but dont have the skills to make, are:

1. Mercury skin. Its metal, but this one looks like liquid mercury snaking around. Reflective silver, rounded, not quite straight lines, and a few leaks of the liquid mercury into neighbouring areas. Buttons might be little round balls of mercury.

2. 1920s or 30s radio skin. There are a few styles to choose from here, I was thinking of the home made ebonite fronted radios of the era, black-brown octagonal knobs, maybe even a variometer on top. Connectors were black, dark red or bare metal, and maybe these could be used for buttons etc

3. Maybe if you really want to push the idea, a foxhole radio style skin. Plenty of free reign for any designer there. Would certainly make a change from the usual smooth finishes :)

4. Rainbow skin, pastel rainbow borders, mixed pastel buttons.

5. Is it possible to make a skin thats a different random color each time you alt-tab back to MC? Probly not, but would be fun.


You have any ideas?


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datdude

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2005, 11:22:08 pm »

I would really like to see a skin visualizer.  The skin itself changes color and warps itself to the beat of the song.
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Tab

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2005, 05:28:15 pm »

Intersting. I'm going to explore...

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2005, 08:04:49 am »

In short I was thinking of an approach that wont work.

The skins could always be played with using external software, so the skin color set is different at each startup of MC. An external piece of software recolors an original set of gifs every so often, saving them as the gifs used in the skin. Then MC will look diffrent at each startup.

The simplest method would presumably be a batch file to just rename a set of gif files every so often. That sounds relatively easy. What do you think?


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datdude

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2005, 05:57:03 pm »

I like that idea.  One thing to think about is the relationship between all of the colors.  I like some skins because of how bright or not bright they are.  If changing colors, the color scheme needs to be the same brightness or gradient so that when it switches the user is not visually shocked.
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Tab

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2005, 10:33:33 am »

Heh, I like a bit of colour shock. It could be done either way, either setting them to preset combinations, or related colours, random, whatever. Its all good. :) Batch renaming would imply preset colour combos.

It would stretch the present skins' eye appeal further. Some already have different color versions.


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datdude

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2005, 01:04:55 am »

Any updates on this Tab?
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"You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake." -  Just a very big snowball

Tab

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Re: Skin inspiration
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2005, 07:59:14 am »

Any updates on this Tab?

Not really, I've got a bazillion things to do here, just had surgery (think they took my antennae off), getting another project off the ground, and seriously dont have the luxury time to start doing skins at the mo.

I was thinking this thread could serve as one possible source of ideas for future skinners.

There are many fine skins for MC, but theyre very much of the same school: sleek, fine, immaculate, and uberserious. Would be nice to see something trash the mould and go totally wild.

If I had the time I'd make the Self-harm skin. It would feature real life graphics, its own themed set of tweaked wordage, and be very very different to all those metal skins. Very punky, very shock.


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