While browsing deviantART I noticed that em3 has released his new VS. It's called 'Ambient, a Windows XP visual style inspired by the default themes of Windows XP, Vista and 7.'

Screenshot:
Click to view attachment
More information and download on deviantART.

not bad but i don't use xp anymore.

Look nice, but I don't think it will best Luna Element anytime soon.

I love it.
Pure beauty.

Great VS, using it now. em3 does excellent work. +fav'ed on dA

Brilliant!! I think this out does Luna Element.

Now I am hoping for something for Vista

It's updated.
A compact style is added.
(Hopes for a black version.)

If I where you I wouldn't hope for a black version.

This visual style is awesome if you ask me. I've been using it since the first hour of it's released and I still like it a lot

I always used blue Visual Styles. (Luna Element 3 was the first custom Visual Style I ever used.)
But got used to black Visual Styles so it will take some to get used to blue again. (I like this VS better than Luna Element...!)

I'm not sure if I like this better then Luna Element 5.1. Some stuff looks better and other stuff doesn't. Bot on the other hand, I don't think that this theme should be compared with LE. For this theme he took inspiration from Luna, Aero Basic and Windows 7's Aero. For Luna Element 5.1 he took inspiration from Luna and Aero/Vista Beta.

There are also some similarities between this theme and my new theme. But we all knew that that was bound to happen.

Nice, but I wouldn't stop using Watercolor Emico for it though

This is a great theme! Ranks right up there with Watercolor Emico and Luna Element as the best XP visual styles out there.

Agreed .

Scirwode

Thats a great theme for XP...he should release a black taskbar with the green startbar button. Too bad I don't use XP anymore....finally made the upgrade to vista when I built my new computer 3 weeks ago.

Looks great. Will use it on my work PC, since it's the only one I have XP on.

Good thing we have em3 after Bant "left" the scene...

Click to view attachment
Am I the only one who is missing the 'help' button in the frame captions?

Looks OK here

No problems here...
It shows for me.

Thanks you two...

I'm using this at work ATM with Styler. I couldn't remember seeing this in my home pc yesterday... (and I thought I would have noticed it)

Another one to add to my Visual Style Collection

great looking theme. am i the only to think that theme wud look better with google chrome's aero styled buttons for xp? (or as a substyle?)

Another update.
I still hope there will be a black version.
Grrr.

Absolutely brilliant. This might be the top 3 VS's I've ever used.

Luna, Clearlooks black, windows classic, this.

Looks fine over here

@martin10018: Both em3 and me couldn't reproduce the bug so it's also unknown how to fix it. Have you tried using the visual style without Styler on that PC?

No since I cannot. I don't have adminstrative rights on this pc and therefore cannot patch uxtheme.dll. This is the first visual style to have this problem. But I can live with it since I use another visual style ATM where I do the beta test for an artist from the Netherlands.

Hm, interesting. I suppose that visual style doesn't have that bug?

Love this theme but its a tough choice though, its either this or Watercolor Emoico which are 2 great themes.

Looks awesome! Though I can't use it as I moved to Vista. Though I like the default vista UI, I am hoping there be some similarly slick themes for Vista in the future.

No, of course not. Ambient is 'a first' with this bug for me...

Styler is causing this. At the moment I don't know how to fix it. I'm still trying though.

Nice VS, even better than Watercolor Emico. Anyway, anyone make shellstyle?

A small update is out.

And you can also read now that there's not going to be a black version

Releasing a fine theme is never enough for some people

Indeed. It's becoming a standard for users that a visual style that isn't black should be made black. If you look at the comments on Ambient at deviantART you'll see a whole lot of people almost demanding it.

This is nothing against you though Krokus

2009-02-06. (~2410 Downloads):
* Fixed small issue with help button position.

Hmm, did not help for me. But I can live with it.

i'm saddened. this vs has one of the nicest start buttons that i've seen in a long time, but i use an alt. shell and never see the standard windows start button/taskbar.

I know this fix don't fix the issue with Styler. It was a fix for the position as the text say. The help button was 1px to far to the left.

Thanks, em3.

2nd that. Cap has his custom-made. Wish he can release soon.

Here is my custom made shellstyle. Click the image to go to the download page

^ Thanks man.

^ Awesome thanks!

Yay nice shellstyle, Capric0rn. +fav,ed on dA

New version available.

v1.2 - 2009-02-22
• Added alternative window style. (Classic)
• New start menu design.
• Removed right white line on tab page, causing issue with tabs aligned right.
• Fixed issue on the tray area.
• Fixed unintentional light on taskbar buttons and grouped taskbar buttons.
• Made some minor changes to separators on the toolbar and statusbar.
• Changed color of the explorerbar background.

Problem with start menu right panel icon in the new version. icons are not shown correctly. icons are set to 48x48. Dont have problem with old version.
Click to view attachment

I don't know how you changed the icon sizes but this is not a bug since you've changed the default settings. The icons on the right should be 24x24.

EDIT:
Found the Large Icons options. Gonna look into this and see if I can fix it.

Update out. Support for large icons. If you use large icons select this option in the Font Size list.

Thanks for the updates em3, I like the new start menu. I miss the Segoe font option though lol