Finally, here it is ... enjoy

MXM Skinner Webpage for download

And check out the Skinning Guide too

----- IMPORTANT -----
This program requires Visual Basic 6 runtime files to be installed on your computer. The installer for the runtime files can be downloaded from the M$ site

FEATURES

- *Full PNG support!!! And transparency!
- *All screens editable (Title, Load, Menu, Saver)
- *Allows editing after creation of elements
- *Locking Elements to fix background in place
- *Menus for better organization
- *Right-click menu for elements
- *Elements viewable while moving/resizing
- Drawing Elements (Box, Line, Image, Text, MXM Menu)
- Generating skin folders (including XML files and all resources)
- Loading skins from folders
- Settings (System Colors, Music options, Timers, Modifiers, Conditionals)

*New this release

Not supported:
- Transparent boxes (they show up opaque)
- Fonts

quick question if I may...
what is the best way to go about adding a preview window using this program? I've always done this manually in the xml file but was wondering how to go about this using the program. Would it be under the video resources section?

Thanks alot, appreciate it.

Sweet app. I'm trying it out now for the first time!

Looks VERY decent...
Any chance of allowing it to make themes for 16X9 tv's?? ;-)

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Oct 29 2003, 12:57 AM)

That has been discussed before, and I thought it would be reasonable to implement widescreen/hdtv support after mxm completely supports it (as in outputs full resolution). If this has been implemented already, BJ, tell me about it so I can put it in skinner

Not yet.

I do have the equipment to work on it, though, so it will happen.

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Oct 28 2003, 11:16 PM)

MXM Skinner 5.0 has been released with a complete step-by-step tutorial on how to create MXM skins. For more info, check out this thread in the Skinning Forum.

F***ING SWEET!!

Heh, no worries.. I just figured it could be stretched out or something... eitherway, my TV stretches what I'm working on just fine...

but now another question, I don't suppose it's possible to resize images within the skinner app??? I like to create 'boxes'... (png images of basically a frame)... Now I need at least 4 of them, all different sizes...
Is it possible to just create one resource, add it 4 times, and then use the skinner to stretch each copy into the appropriate size?? (instead of popping back to photoshop and calculating/tweaking 4 different images slightly)
The way it seems to work for me now, it just allows part of the image to be visible - doesn't stretch the image, just stretches the viewable portion...

still, sweet work.. makes it much easier!! ;-)

Skinner can't display stretched png images just yet. However, they WILL show up stretched on the xbox. So you don't need to make 4 pics; just resize them in skinner.

Guess I lied when I said full PNG support

geniusalz, I tried the skinner out for the first time last night. I made (actually edited) my first layout that I wanted to use and just placed the Game list, thumbnail, preview vid, and background image using the skinner. Saved and loaded it into MXM and it worked fine.

I noticed I was off on the video preview vids so I decided to edit the skin, as well as add the rest of the elements I wanted like DriveEFree, DriveFFree, IP, and date/time. Now the same skin won't load up at all and freezes MXM... I'll give it another shot again later I guess but it happened a few times already.

And BTW, I tried to run the new skin I made in an app instance of MXM but for some odd reason whenever I changed the App instance of MXM, it changed the default dash instance of MXM as well.

Well thats my progress for the first day of skinning. I'll report back later when I have more progress.

Technically, a skin can't make MXM freeze.

But if the xml structure is broken, it might cause nothing to show up.
Or WMV9 can cause freezing.

Let's see your mxm_skin.xml file.

You probably know this already, but to start MXM with the default skin, goto safe mode (hold start)

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Oct 29 2003, 08:15 AM)

Skinner can't display stretched png images just yet.  However, they WILL show up stretched on the xbox.  So you don't need to make 4 pics; just resize them in skinner. Guess I lied when I said full PNG support

Heh, well that's easy enough to fix.. There was no reason for my boxes to be png, so I switched 'em to jpg... Works great - and should generate a lot more skins for mxm!!!!

I'm working on creating COM-based tools to perform both FontMaker functionality and Bundler functionality.

The Bundler replacement is almost done, as a full-fledged COM object, ready for VB users to play with. Once these tools are done, it should be nice for geniusalz to incorporate. If I have time, perhaps I'll make a font/text display control, so that it can be fully integrated into the skinning desing screen.

Cool ... Just one thing; if you make a display control, make sure it is "lightweight"; i.e. draws using the container window's hDC.

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Oct 30 2003, 11:04 PM)

Cool ... Just one thing; if you make a display control, make sure it is "lightweight"; i.e. draws using the container window's hDC.

Sure thing... I'll have to play around with a control and get something to you to test out.

alright, prepare yourself for what is probably a very dumb noob question, here goes:

i am making a skin with mxm5.0 (obviously if im posting here...) and under the configuration menu i set my menu boxes to the color i want them to be (white with red and black text) and then when im actually creating the skin and i go down and click on the create game list (mxm menu) button it only allows me to draw in black boxes,... i can change the color of the text but not the boxes themselves,.. wut am i doing wrong?

Menus don't have a box around them. They are transparent.
If you want a box, you can draw one, then draw a menu over it.

I just put black there because it is the default screen color.

oh ok,... makes sense, thank you very much....

now i am still having a problem getting the skin to work, tho...

i read the mxm users guide on how to put a skin in the xml, and im trying to do it, but it just is not working for me,... i am editing the xml directly bc i dont have the .net 1.1 and i dont feel like waiting 2hrs to download it with my 56k..... anyways i made a subfolder with my skin as the only item in it as of now,... this is what it looks like

<submenu>
<sortfield>title</sortfield>
<description>needful things</description>
<title>skins</title>
<skinspath>c:mxmskins</skinspath>
<item>
<title>deathbloodandrobots</title>
<description>redbloodandblackdeath</description>
<dir>c:(backslash)mxmskins<dir>
<dir>c:(backslash)mxmskins(backslash)deathbloodandrobots</dir>
<dir>c:(backslash)mxmskins(backslash)deathbloodandrobots(backslash)media</dir>
<dir>c:mxmskins(backslash)deathbloodandrobots(backslash)mxm_skin.xml</dir>
<exe>c:(backslash)mxmskins(backslash)deathbloodandrobots(backslash)mxm_skin.xml</exe>
<xbeid>16974304</xbeid>
<verified>true</verified>
</item>
</submenu>


i am slightly confused, so i dont know if i need all of those dir's but i put them there just in case,.... any help on this would be appreciated,....

p.s. im begining to love this mxm thing,.... ive had evox for a long time now, and there is just so much more that you can do with mxm,... i just need to learn all over again, anyways... thanks in advance


edit: there is backslashes in my actual xml, but for somereason x-s takes them out.... i put them in as (backslash) sorry it looks all goofy now....

Whoa! You don't need to specify skins in your mxm.xml!
Look at this site on how to "install" skins (you only need to copy the folder over)
MXM Guide

All you need to do is specify a skinspath (Default, I think, is c:Skins)
And put your skin folder in there.

ok, im sorry i am being such a dumbass with this... but listen to what is happening to me now....
ok, i have a cache_menu.xml and a mxm.xml
in my mxm.xml i have:

CODE

<skinspath>c:mxmskins</skinspath>

then in my cache_menu.xml i have:

CODE

<item> <dir>c:mxm.xml</dir> <exe>c:mxmskinsdeathbloodandrobotsMXM_Skin.xml</exe> <xbeid>17085048</xbeid> <verified>true</verified> </item>

now the funny part is, about 1 out of every 15 times i start my xbox it loads up my created skin (deathbloodandrobots) but the other 14 times it does a bunch of color variations of this other skin that came with mxm i think its called simplicity remixed, im not sure

p.s. deathbloodandrobots is a skin i created in mxmskinner, but all credit goes to someone else on it, im not sure who but it was orignally a evo-x skin that i really liked and just stole the .jpgs from....


edit: also, is there a way to make images opaque? i.e. ICO-Media images transparent over your original skin sorta thing?

Remove this:

QUOTE

<item> <dir>c:mxm.xml</dir> <exe>c:mxmskinsdeathbloodandrobotsMXM_Skin.xml</exe> <xbeid>17085048</xbeid> <verified>true</verified> </item>

To select a skin:

Press Y (in mxm)
Go to configuration
Skins or something, and select a skin

By default mxm has it set to random, that's why you see random skins.

As for the transparency, not yet. However, BJ is working on a way to set any image transparent. Actually, working on a way to use a grayscale image as an alpha channel for another image. If that makes sense. lol

thanks, got it working, sorry had to do it step by step lol.... and im looking forward to the next upgrade there... thanks again

Hi, I have a problem with MXM skinner. When I open the program the window it displays in is too larg and the bottom and right side of the screen are cut off. I've tried all kinds of resizing and resolution changes and even when I get the the whole window to fit on screen it's still cut off at bottom and right side. I've looked everywhere for a solution but haven't been able to find any refference to anyone having similar problem. MXM & Skinner are just what i've been looking for but it's a little annoying to work under these conditions. I'm sure there's some simple solution so if you could help me out...

Thanks for any help.

Skinner is designed for use with 1024x768 (or greater) resolution.

I tried, but fitting everything on 800x600 wasn't working. Because the screen's size itself is 640x480.

So if you switch to 1024x768 all of it should show up.

quick question, is there a way to have the game's thumbnail show up on the loading screen,... kinda like the "cgtitle" or "cg desc" kinda thing?

Go to resource manager, and select "Preset". Then select "GameIcon". Add that.

Then create an image element in the "load" screen, selecting the GameIcon resource.

I came across a bug in MXM Skinner 5.

I was almost done and for some reason I hit the stop video button (when no video was playing) and the program closed on me before I saved. You should make the button disabled until a video is actual running.

I'll look into that

I can use jpg with this program fine, however anytime I attempt to place a png on the screen box, the program abruptly closes itself down. Any suggestions???

Try registering the dlls and ocx like it says in the readme.

I did. I have RTFM. is there anything else which may be causing this?

Not really. The PNG dll seems to be the culprit..
What OS are you using?

xp home. I will make another attempt at this in a couple of hours. I'll rereg the dll and see if it works.

In my opinion you should consider changing the name from MXM Skinner to something like Xbox Skin Studio. Seeing how it can be used for so much more then just MXM skins.

Sure, for the next release (whenever that is )

I did notice one error with the PNG. I think it is from an option in Photoshop. It gives me the option of saving the PNG interlaced. If I used the interlaced option the MXM5 does not like it. If I make sure to save in non-Interlaced it works fine.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info

However, I can't fix it, as I know nothing about the PNG format. I'm just using one of those png libraries.

Hi all
I haven't used MXM for quite a while and the same goes for the skins/skinning so I was just wondering something...

Can a skin do this... Let's say the menu is on the right and there is a small empty box above it that displays video previews as the item is selected. Is it possible when you select (for example) a game that it displays the video but also a seperate image file (not the xbe icon) (somewhere else on the screen) at the same time?

So, I am highlighting over Halo... in the video preview window we see video footage of Halo but also over to the left a nice picture of the box, or Master Chief or something is also displayed.

Sorry if this has been done before, or can't be done at all. As I said, I really forgot all about this since not using it for a long time.

Thanks for your time!

Yes, you can.

Thanks mate

Suggestion - Make it able to fit onto any resolution of a monitor.. i have my laptop at 800x600 and I have to change it then i have to scroll and stuff...