Creating Bootskins - bitdepth problem?

[MartinGrandahl]

Sorry for the length of this....I just wanted to be clear and hopfully answer some questions in advance....

I'm new to creating skins, and although I've googled the hell out of the 'net, I've had nearly zero luck in finding real, understandable, clear instructions on creating bootscreens.

I have XP SP2 installed. I'm using StyleXP to switch, and I've had no problems using the supplied screens. They work fine.

But I've had troubles trying to create my own. I've even simplified things to the point where I just took the supplied "Pirate Edition" bootskin file, unzipped it, and replaced the images with my own. They were all the same size as the "Pirate Edition" files (640x480x16 for the main image, etc), and they all shared the same palette (custom). I didn't modify the info.ini file at all.

It didn't work. I got nothing but a blank screen until it reached the logon screen.

The only differences I can find between my images and the supplied are:

- The palette. I understand that some odd things can happen with custom palettes...I've read about how the first two colors have to be the BG color and black, etc), but that doesn't seem to be what's happening. I could be wrong.

- The 'bit depth'. My files were 16 colors, and when I view info using a right-click Properties, they show as 4 bit images. However, if I view the original Pirate files (the working ones), they show as 16 colors, but a 32 bit bit-depth. I'm not sure why, but I've tried to duplicate it using Photoshop and have been unable to do it (32 bit is greyed out when saving because the palette is only 16 colors). To me, that looks like the correct, working files are incorrectly saved! 32 bit, 16 colors?

I know you guys get awfully tired of newbies asking 'dumb' questions, but I'd really appreciate some patience and some real help. I've honestly spent time looking for information on this (here and elsewhere), but it just doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

What are the exact specs on the images for bootscreens? How do you create them (save settings), if they are non-standard? What, precisely, needs to be done for success, considering how sensitive the whole system seems to be?

Thanks for your time! I really appreciate any help, and I'm sure there are others out there besides myself that would love to have all the necessary information centralized in one place...

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Martin Grandahl