One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part IV
Putting It Together : Start Menu
Friday, February 3, 2012 by PoSmedley | Discussion: WindowBlinds Tutorials
We're going to take a break from One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part III for just a moment and get into the assembling of the windowblind in SKS. There are a few reasons for this that you may have picked up on if you have been following along.
- We've been making sections of the blind without putting them into SkinStudio as we go along. A majority of skinners will go back and forth between their graphics program (Photoshop, Paint, etc.) and SKS as they go along. That method hasn't worked for me in the past and I wanted to go through the actual design of several areas without the added confusion of SKS.
- There comes a point, once you get past the Start Menu and Window Frames and start getting into the Edit Controls, buttons, etc., that you need to see what they are going to look like and if they will work they way they should. I tried to just keep making the graphics without going into SKS but it's just too much detail and in this particular case, with a lot of the areas we'll be getting into, 'size does matter'.
One of the main reasons that I may have not mentioned for doing the Start Menu and Task Bar areas first is also to assist visually in determining how the overall windowblind will look (per Tim's suggestion). This will actually help a great deal when you get into the buttons, header bars, and other details and you're trying to determine the best colors and other design details.
The way in which I am approaching this is something I came up with some help from 2of3(aka Tim). As I said, not all skinners do it this way and the opinions I offer are just that (my opinions) and by no means written in stone (or sand, Lucite, chalk, crayola, etc.) It if it helps anyone, let me know.
We'll be going back and forth between this thread and Part III. There will also, more than likely, be another thread where we can go over testing the skin and putting on the finishing touches. In this thread we'll be going over the assembling of the Start Menu.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS as to why something is done this way and not that or anything pertaining to the Start Menu ask them here. We will try to explain as we go along and may miss some things that you consider important or problematic.
If you're looking for Part I, II, III you can find them here:
One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part I
Design : Start Menu and Taskbar
One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part II
Design: Title Bars & Window Frames
One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part II
Design: Edit Controls
PLEASE :
- I am open to suggestions but may not use any of them. Please, don't be offended if I don't use yours.
- Keep the image posting to the skin(s)
- If you want to make a skin to go with this, PM me for the files. My PSD's tend to be a mess, but I save everything and will be happy to share. I am uploading the actual files to the Graphics Gallery here on Wincustomize.
- We'll be skinning for Windows7, maybe Vista. If someone wants to do XP, PM me and I will get you what you need.
- Any files you request will come as I complete them. I won't be jumping ahead. Please be patient.
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The PSD files for the previous threads are in the Graphics Gallery.
Roan WB Title Bars and Window Frames
Roan WB Taskbar Buttons
ROAN WB Start Panel UPDATED
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Reply #103 Saturday, February 4, 2012 5:22 AM
I may have sliced the panel wrong with respect to the stitching layers.......working to see if I can fix it.
Reply #105 Saturday, February 4, 2012 11:09 AM
I have a very unconventional idea that works in my head. I want to avoid changing what we've done at all cost!
Stay tuned 
Reply #110 Saturday, February 4, 2012 2:35 PM
The problem was with the spacing of the stitches. Whenever you're ready, we can continue!
Reply #111 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:13 PM
Ok...we're ready for the next part.
Stitches layer.
Reply #112 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:18 PM
***Here. Following in messenger and will just post questions if I have them as you go along.
msn = PoSmedley63 if anyone wants to join
Reply #113 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:19 PM
I spent several hours trying to make the tiling on this section to work and finally came up with an unusual solution.
We're going to make the next layer as an animation in the sks animation builder! There are several advantages to doing it this way:
Instead of making a new layer for each of the 5 sections, we do one single image that covers the entire panel.
The "animation" will also show up in search mode, saving us the trouble of creating multiple layers for that section.
Reply #114 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:25 PM
Firstly, I realized that I would have to adjust the graphics a tad. I grabbed the stitches layer and sliced up a section. I realized that in order for this to work, I needed a tiny bit more room between the vertical stitches.
This is the image, I came up with:
Reply #115 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:26 PM
Alright. Open your skin in sks and select Start menu animation builder from the tools menu.
Reply #116 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:34 PM
Import the image into the builder.
These are the settings that you'll need:
Reply #117 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:41 PM
Let me explain the settings a bit.
Animation canvas margins: That moves the canvas of your image (fine adjust) You will see a representation of this to your left.......I had to adjust the bottom value to -2.
For this one, you want fill entire area selected (it's just under the box showing your image) there are several other options in the dropdown.
Frame count is 1 here because it's a static image. If it were a true animation, you would want more frames.
I checked off the do not loop box.....I'm not sure that's necessary here....but it won't hurt.
Reply #118 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:42 PM
The top slider is for adjusting the frame rate...which we don't need here.
Reply #119 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:44 PM
Now for the painting margins.
Click on that and set it to these settings:
Reply #120 Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:45 PM
Q - Why use animation instead of Additional Layers?
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Reply #101 Friday, February 3, 2012 8:39 PM
<---------. Lurching