03-08-2008, 12:02 AM
Well as promised here is a more in depth look at Iron Man.
The point of this skin was to construct something that would truly test what is possible in Windows Live Messenger skinning. In the past my skins have followed a more conventional design with most things being roughly in the same place as the default look.
Messenger Plus! skinning introduced the window shaping feature which is really cool, but up until now I could not think of a subject matter that would compliment something crazy in shape. So then comes Iron Man, I figured Iron Man would be the best way to create something crazy in shape.
Iron Man is probably the first design to take full advantage of the shaping feature. The skin is fully re-sizable so you are not restricted to a static window size like most shaped skins used. Was it a pain to set up? Well yes and no.
With a shaped skin you really have to think about how you want the window to stretch before you actually make anything. It took a bit of experimentation to get something that works, so whilst it was tedious to get right it was not really technically hard.
Anyway onto some screen shots!
The contact list:
Patchou has put a screen shot on the Messenger Plus! Live website, but here is one that is a bit bigger so you can see what is going on a bit better. This skin is the sort of skin where you actually have to use it to understand the serious complexity behind it.
I have hacked this skin to pieces in a lot of ways. One of the new things that the skin features is fade animations for buttons. This is something new I have begun to experiment with in my skins, whilst it isn't fully used all the way through the skin you will see it enough.
The chat window:
Really complex is all I can say, there is a lot of stuff to consider when you design a shaped window. One of the things is how your window will work when tabs are enabled. This is something I had to play around with a lot to get to a state where it worked.
Anyway thats about all I'll reveal now. There is much more to this skin than what is shown here now, all of that will be revealed when the skin is actually released. When is that? Soon
Willz.
The point of this skin was to construct something that would truly test what is possible in Windows Live Messenger skinning. In the past my skins have followed a more conventional design with most things being roughly in the same place as the default look.
Messenger Plus! skinning introduced the window shaping feature which is really cool, but up until now I could not think of a subject matter that would compliment something crazy in shape. So then comes Iron Man, I figured Iron Man would be the best way to create something crazy in shape.
Iron Man is probably the first design to take full advantage of the shaping feature. The skin is fully re-sizable so you are not restricted to a static window size like most shaped skins used. Was it a pain to set up? Well yes and no.
With a shaped skin you really have to think about how you want the window to stretch before you actually make anything. It took a bit of experimentation to get something that works, so whilst it was tedious to get right it was not really technically hard.
Anyway onto some screen shots!
The contact list:
Patchou has put a screen shot on the Messenger Plus! Live website, but here is one that is a bit bigger so you can see what is going on a bit better. This skin is the sort of skin where you actually have to use it to understand the serious complexity behind it.
I have hacked this skin to pieces in a lot of ways. One of the new things that the skin features is fade animations for buttons. This is something new I have begun to experiment with in my skins, whilst it isn't fully used all the way through the skin you will see it enough.
The chat window:
Really complex is all I can say, there is a lot of stuff to consider when you design a shaped window. One of the things is how your window will work when tabs are enabled. This is something I had to play around with a lot to get to a state where it worked.
Anyway thats about all I'll reveal now. There is much more to this skin than what is shown here now, all of that will be revealed when the skin is actually released. When is that? Soon
Willz.
