Anyone Want To Make A Skinning Program? Options

[pmh]

I was thinking, why doesn't some one with experience write an app so you can make skins on you PC and then FTP it to your xbox. I know that the there is a lot for Evox and such, so maybe someone could make it for this. I also think we should have 1 Universal one thats open source.

Thats all and Execenlent work on the dash! Best to date even with the bugs!

[fireflier]

Geniusalz is looking into this, from what I read of his post in MXM forum.

[geniusalz]

Yeah, you might have heard of MXM Skinner.
From what I gather, UnleashX skins are similar to MXM skins, so it's pretty easy to put UnleashX support in the program. I'll be working on it soon.

This post has been edited by geniusalz: Nov 29 2003, 01:44 AM

[fireflier]

MXM skinner is an excellent program. Very GUI...not that I've had any personal success with developing a skin, art is my weakness, but I have played with the program with my limited artistic ability. Ease of use....simplistic!!!

[pmh]

[Mr. Burns] Excellent! [Mr. Burns]

[Sinista]

IMO, I say forget making a skinning app, and leave the skinning to people who can actually make decent skins. We don't need AXS being filled up with a bunch of pixelated/streched-out pics of Britney or Christina. I'm not saying I can make anything better, but I prefer the more "professional" looking skins, and I doubt the guys that make those would need an app to help them out.

Note that I don't use MXM and have never tried MXMSkinner, but, I'm sure it's a great app and I mean no offense to geniusalz. I appreciate ALL contributions to the scene!

[hydraulix]

QUOTE

We don't need AXS being filled up with a bunch of pixelated/streched-out pics of Britney or Christina.

You got that right!

They better be highres, unpixelated, unstretched, unadulterated tang!!!

[tweaqr]

@Sinista

i see your piont but im lazzy and i like little apps that help me out, although even with an app id probably still do some of the work in xml

[fireflier]

Very true, nobody wants a mediocre skin taking up space; but, the skinnnig app is a fantastic tool that can help turn mediocre, pixelated skinning artists into something better, just from the learning experience of using the app. The MXM Skinner prepares the xml for you, it's excellent to see the layout of the skin in xml format, and the visual product you produced to see how the to two co-relate. I have seen some very high quality skins made with this app.

If you don't try, you'll never know....

[BenJeremy]

Actually, I proposed a skin converter, too, over at the MXM forum.

Something that converts Evo-X skins TO MXM or UnleashX skins (should be a snap) and something that converts BETWEEN UnleashX and MXM, where they are common.

Along with Genuisalz most excellent MXM skinner getting a "Save as UnleashX" or "UnleashX mode" I think we might see a lot of new skins for these dashboards.

[unleashx]

Hey, BenJeremy, nice to see you here.

This is off topic, but I was thinking something along that line, just a bit different.

I was thinking, why not do something different? Why don't us, dash makers (that includes Team AVA, Evox, XOS...etc -anyone who's willing), collaborate to come up with something, sort of the standard for dashboards. I'm not talking about making the same features but something less, like, file naming convention of images/preview videos, and control handling? Everyone knows how to handle xbxs/pngs/jpgs, it's just a matter of knowing which file to display.

Let's accept the fact that no one here really uses just one dash. It would be a very cool experience for users trying different dash/apps to feel familiar right away with the controls, and find that the custom icons they made for some apps/games will show up without even touching the skin, configuration file or something else. Less file, less clutter, more space. It's a little work for all of us, but I see great benefits for users.

This is not something immediate but let me know if this is something worth thinking about. Please do let me know what you think.

Thanks.

[BenJeremy]

Well, the only problem with a real standard is that it is really dependent on the underlying code (as I'm sure you are well aware by now ).

MXM's skin system was designed to be expanded - I have considered how to add 3-D elements, for example, and I've tried to make things as generic as possible. The idea of layouts and elements will probably last MXM for quite some time, with a few more additions. Resources allowed me to change quite a few things, particularly the fonts. Of course, this was my personal "vision" - others like yourself might have a different view, and a standard would most certainly impose some sort of restrictions on a dashboard's skinning capability.

What might be nice is a standard for handling icons and preview videos, as well as a good way to handle auto-scanning for games/apps on the hard drives. I'm revisiting a lot of that code soon, and I would consider using alternative names for the "magic" files and such.

[unleashx]

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Nov 30 2003, 06:33 PM)

What might be nice is a standard for handling icons and preview videos, as well as a good way to handle auto-scanning for games/apps on the hard drives. I'm revisiting a lot of that code soon, and I would consider using alternative names for the "magic" files and such.

This is exactly my point, Ben. Not the skinning feature. I started adding the xml tags but I thought it's gonna take too much time and revision, so I settled with the icons and videos.

Here's my thought: Currently, correct me if I'm wrong, MXM uses SS_xxx.xxx while Team AVA uses Avalaunch_icon(?).xxx. We could agree with something like "DefaultIcon.png" or "DefaultIcon.jpg", or "Preview.wmv" for videos. Of course, to maintain backwards compatibility, you still need to support the current implementation but it should be easy enough to support the mentioned names.

[pmh]

that would be killer!

[BenJeremy]

QUOTE (unleashx @ Nov 30 2003, 08:10 PM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Nov 30 2003, 06:33 PM) What might be nice is a standard for handling icons and preview videos, as well as a good way to handle auto-scanning for games/apps on the hard drives. I'm revisiting a lot of that code soon, and I would consider using alternative names for the "magic" files and such. This is exactly my point, Ben. Not the skinning feature. I started adding the xml tags but I thought it's gonna take too much time and revision, so I settled with the icons and videos. Here's my thought: Currently, correct me if I'm wrong, MXM uses SS_xxx.xxx while Team AVA uses Avalaunch_icon(?).xxx. We could agree with something like "DefaultIcon.png" or "DefaultIcon.jpg", or "Preview.wmv" for videos. Of course, to maintain backwards compatibility, you still need to support the current implementation but it should be easy enough to support the mentioned names.

Yes, I would like to standardize the "autos" - we might also standardize a games/apps database to hold all the info users might want about the programs they run (number of times run, last date, date installed, etc... along with preferred name, description, previews/icons, and maybe even text help screens.

I use MXM_ as a prefix, only to avoid the confusion with pre-existing files. I could alternately use an agreed-upon standard.