state of winxp themes...


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i just cant understand it...

you know, i give all you skinners alot of credit for the time and effort you put into these themes...you have talent, and i know a good majority of you have an amazing imagination as well...

i was reading a thread earlier today about how theres maybe just a handful themes that stand out fromt he crowd...and the rest...well, i cant help but feel 90% of the themes ive seen look like giant marshmellow orgies...not much better then the default xp in terms of eyecandy...what doesnt look like luna, or what have you, is another mac/osx theme...not much different from the other ones out there (and im definitly not bashing those, i use one myself, lol)

im not basing this off of ones ive seen strictly on neowin, as the only good ones ive seen appear have come out of these forums...

then the other day, something miraculous happened...we finally had a skin that wasnt longhorn, osx, psuedo-luna, ect...

"parsout" used the design of 2advanced.com and ported it into a theme...and people were pretty amazed...

now, i give him alot of credit (though the release/setup/ect. has been pretty half assed) for deciding to make something new...and you know what, it payed off...alot of us were like "wow...i must have that"...why?

I didnt find anything spectacular about the graphics...hell, its very minimalistic, minus the wallpaper..ive been to the site many a time as well...its pretty gloomy, and dull after a while...but if you ask me, the reason we were so wowed was because this was a theme like nothing we have really seen..without the need of something like windowblinds or hoverdesk...and that brings me to why i posted this...

i made a post over at these boards ill be helping out with (as they are still in the works)after i made a stop over at deviantart a few hours ago...

I accidentally landed in the hoverdesk section...and i stumbled upon the most amazing screenshot i have ever seen...

maybe im a sucker for the trends and little pixelated work (hell, alot of my own artwork reflects that) but it was amazing..like most of the other ones ive seen put out for that piece of software.

http://www.lucidbreed.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaB...;num=1013566889

there are some screenies right there..

now, isnt that amazing? even if you dont like the style, you still have to admit..thats pretty different...espescially for your machines gui.

of course, we could never really have stylezxp do all of that...but i figured maybe i could give people some ideas...

so whats the point of this post? just a vent maybe...and also, a call for anyone that wanted a new project or maybe some inspiration...and on top of that...anyone who might want to help me out...if noone wants to try and take on some themes of this genre...ill design them, if they can implement them and make them a theme with me...i never skinned for xp, or let alone many other mainstream apps before...

pft.

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I agree also... I think that there need be more darker styles, they all seem light in color and thats not the color I like my computer to be... looks kind of, you know... :p

The only style I ever use for anythign is this one called night vision, it is blue and black blended... Looks nice since my monitor is black and most icons are lighter colored... I hate light on light...

I used to have a desktop pretty similiar to that using tons and tons of programs, but it as a darker color and it talked to you and some of the stuff was animated... It took me three weeks of work to build it, then it was killing my gameplay because of all the power it took to run, so I kind of destroyed it... :(

well said though wonk

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While I appreciate your desire to see something "different", in your example beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder. This looks more like the old Dos shells (sans windows). I guess we need to keep in mind that most skinners try to produce themes or styles, if you prefer; using free engines. IMO this limits somewhat what can be accomplished from a UI perspective. Apps like Objectbar and DesktopX allow for more creative enhancements. Of course at a cost. Both financially and resource wise.

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You'll find that with any program that most of the skins are not terribly good. It's not confined just to msstyles.

Look at WinAmp, WindowBlinds, ICQ Plus, etc. They all have the same problems.

And worse, even ones that LOOK nice in a screenshot turn out to be unusable in practice.

One thing that would help msstyles I think would be if there was some moderation on the main sites that they're on. That is, don't let any old skin be accepted. At WinCustomize, we reject about half the WindowBlinds skins that are submitted because they are either identical to something else up or just are terrible.

I think most would agree that any skinning program only needs 100 to 200 decent skins to be viable.

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I agree frogboy.... Actually... 1 or 2 skins is more accurate... I used to use stylexp for one skin, nightvision...

You are definetly right about that looks nice in the screenshot statement.... You couldn't be more right..

for the sake of convo... I have viewed everything pretty much ever submitted to wincustomize and I must say, your work was very nice and a nice change... I found a few nice things in there and compared to others, the quality showed through...

I never knew you hung out around here though... nice to run into you

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Thanks for your kind words. Though I must confess, my WB skins are awful in comparison with the "modern day" skins. I'm not really an artist.

I don't know about others reading this but as more and more really good artists get into skinning, the less I've been inclined to skin since I can't make a decent skin. I've made a few WindowBlinds skins this year and 2 msstyles skins but I would never release them as they..well they suck comparatively.

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i agree too. although i would say there are about, ummm, lemme look, about 13 actually good themes for msstyles. i was this close to installing windowblinds yesterday until arhra release prolix, a very impressive theme. other than that, good themes are few and far between. and with the gui olympics going on, there are several wb skins i'd like to try. ah well. i agree with the filtering though, actually, i think themexp might do it a little, i'm not sure. someone ripped brw2k1's classic and put it up, i immediately commented that it was a rip, and when i went back a few hours later, it was gone. i dunno what happened. but like i was saying, filtering is good, and also, i think "report a rip" links are good too. we need to preserve the integrity of the skinning community.

cheers,

joe

Hey Brad, i've been meaning to ask you, how did you guys get away with the mac themes in object bar? i remember you said you didn't want to release objectdock because of the implications it could cause.

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I really think it's just what you are into. Some people love extra crap all over. They love extremely complicated start menus and window borders with tons of transparency. Other want simple as possible, flat designs, sans transparency etc. Personally I'd rather drink clorox than see another Mac component ported over, but that's just me. To each their own I suppose.

However, it's really not right to come here and crap on peoples stuff. Like their theme or not, it takes a while to do these, and someone put some sort of effort into them at the very lease.

As for your desktop, it's interesting, but there is a lot of crap I would never want to having running all the time(I assume its lightstep or some other shell than explorer). Nor would I care for that busy of a desktop. The cartoon is cute, but I see you didn't do that. I do like winamp on the desktop.

To inspire is one thing, to insult is another.

Thats just my point of view.

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Really, I don't really care for every new theme that comes out but that doesn't mean someone else doesn't. I personally have 20-30 stylexp themes that I switch between daily if not more. People have all different kinds of tastes and there are probably people out there that like the stuff like the recolored Luna themes. Besides the whole point of the stylexp hack was to let us use themes that other people make without having to wait for Microsoft to make more and give (or even try sell) them to us. If people want to use it to make recolored Lunas, I'm cool with that. Maybe they just need to make categories over at ThemeXP so you can find what you're looking for easier.

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and the answer is simple;

"EVERYONE THAT OPENS UP PHOTOSHOP ISN"T AN ARTIST"

But let someone figure out how to apply a filter and they're off and running like they've taken art classes all of their life.

I'm not claiming I'm a good artist, but for 30 of 31 years of my life I've done something artistically connected.

I only release maybe 2 'skins' a year, even though I might make 50 a year. If you don't have a good enough eye to admit when your own creation is really bad, stay away from the skinning business. I'd love to live in a 'Candide' world where all it takes is some effort, but that just ain't how it is...

Take Frogboy for example, he knows his skins are bad...

LOL! (heheheh, sorry Frogboy, just couldn't help it!)

Actually, people could learn a thing or 2 from Lord Frogboy...

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