Re: Official Forum Skin Work-In-Progress Thread - It's Remodelling Time Guys!

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Well, I have seen people doing this before.
Where pictures only appear the very bottom.
So I don't think it's impossible.

[.Luke]

Yeah, I found a couple of tutorials that explain how to do it, so I'm about to give it a try since I just finished the bottom part of the background to tile horizontally.

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Looks very cool.
I love it. <3

[.Luke]

I'm glad you like it, Paragon. ^^ As far as implementing it goes, I got the code for tiling multiple backgrounds working in CSS, the only problem is the bottom layer isn't at the bottom. XD I have a little more playing around to do in the Admin panel before our skin is finally done!

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Ah, I see.
Well, good luck figuring that out.

But I think it'll be done before long.

[.Luke]

Ah, I see.
Well, good luck figuring that out.

But I think it'll be done before long. ;)

Oh yeah, I just did better than put it at the bottom, it scrolls with the window! ^^ Check it out, how neat is that? My only problem was that the background-attachment needed to be set in fixed instead of scroll. Gotta love all the CSS documentation out there. ^_^

So what do you think? Are we done with the skin? =P

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Almost.
The only thing we need to do, is make everything transparent.
So that we can see the background through the post windows and stuff.
Think you can do this?

[.Luke]

Already got it for the post bodies, but not the main categories in the index. I need to find the variable for that first, and then everything will be transparent. XD

Code:

/*Transparent Body Lines*/
.post {
opacity:0.8;
filter:alpha(opacity=80);
}

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Okay. Good luck with that.

[.Luke]

Thanks for the luck, because I needed it! XD

Figuring out where the variables I needed on Google was close to impossible, but when I decided to look over our basic CSS sheet, it was just a matter of poking and stabbing it until I found what I needed for everything! ^o^ All elements but the topmost and bottommost bars are completely transparent! (Not just because I had a difficult time finding them, but I think all this transparent stuff will be somewhat taxing as it is. I'm concerned that making more elements less opaque will cause problems for low-end machines.)

So how does it look now? Are we done tweaking the forum skin itself or what? =P

[Paragon-Yoshi]

The only thing still left is the Bar at the very bottom with the Tags and stuff.

Do that and we're good to go.

[.Luke]

You mean this thing?



I'm mostly having trouble figuring out what it's even called! I know what it does, just not it's name, which makes it way more difficult to find in our CSS sheet. D: After some more Googling, and hoping the Forumotion boards can help me on this one, I'm hoping to find my answer. (Because I'd really like to get to work on these smileys!) This CSS nonsense is driving me nuts, but we're almost there so I keep pressing on. xD

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Okay then. Good luck with that.

[.Luke]

Haha, thanks to the guys at Forumotion they helped me figure that one out in no time flat! http://help.forumotion.com/t116823-what-is-this-bar-at-the-bottom-of-forums-even-called-__

So it's done now. ^^ Anything else we should change before I announce that the skin is all wrapped up? (Or you could announce it too, if you want. XD )

[Paragon-Yoshi]

You even managed to hide the bar completely.
Nicely done.

Thus, I'd say the skin is completed.


So then. Time to get started with the Shantae emoticons.

[.Luke]

Funny you post that as soon as I log out. XD Anyway, yeah, I figured it was better to hide it for performance sake instead of give it an alpha value, and it doesn't get in the way of the background, so I'm happy. ^^

it's good to know I'm not the only one who feels it's done. Now I can get to those emoticons, w00000t! XD *explodes with happyness* Time to change that scrolling announcement get busy with some chibi and 16x16 pixel smileys. ^_^

[Nai255]

Job well done, I'd say! : )
Is Luke going to be working on all the new smilies by himself?
And were they going to be original works instead of being based off any existing sprites?

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I think I might as well say that "Ex321" volunteered to help out with the emoticons in the Blog of our DA-Group.

Hope we will receive word from him soon here.

[.Luke]

Thanks for the congratulations guys, it was a week's effort well spent. ^_^ I don't know why I didn't do this sooner! XD I think I'm going to compress our icons, colors, and CSS scripts to a zip archive and keep it backed up on my SD card, as well as a filehost encase any of us need it in the future. Backups are always nice to have! ^^

And were they going to be original works instead of being based off any existing sprites?

The animated chibi icons are definitely going to be original works, and I may avoid using sprite rips for the 16x16 pixel-based ones for copyright reasons. (It would come off as lazy anyway.) I think I can do smilies of Bolo and Sky from scratch easy anyway. =P

I think I might as well say that "Ex321" volunteered to help out with the emoticons in the Blog of our DA-Group.

Hope we will receive word from him soon here.

I didn't see the comments on that post until you pointed it out. XD Anyway, yeah, I would appreciate any contributons he might add to the smiley gallery. There's an endless range of emotions that could be expressed, so the sky's the limit. ^^

[Nai255]

I'm still kinda confused as to whether or not suggestions were being taken for smilies.
I went ahead and did up some sample 16x16s with 8-bit colors for the what of it

[.Luke]

I'm still kinda confused as to whether or not suggestions were being taken for smilies.
I went ahead and did up some sample 16x16s with 8-bit colors for the what of it

I think you're on to something there Nai, but the faces are pretty small, like almost smaller than the mod tools buttons. XD I think it would a little tough to tell apart certain expressions. If 16x16 is too tiny give it a 24x24 or even 28x28, that way you'll have more room; we don't have a specific size limit to go by, outside the kilobytes each one would eat up. =P We're not using anti-aliasing so far, so the number of colors won't be a problem either. Go nuts with ideas if you want. XD

Anyway, getting somewhere on a rough for one of the emoticons!



"SQUEEEEE!!!!"

Is it cute enough, guys? =P Her ponytail gets cut off at the top sadly, I gotta figure out how to fix that. :#

[.Luke]

As it turns out, ShantaeVocaloid has something to contribute to our forums as well!

http://sonicstarvocaloid.deviantart.com/art/Shantae-Fans-Portal-Logo-336561978

Thought I'd whip up this logo for the Fans Portal. Go ahead and join, if ya want!
-SSV

IMO, it could fit right into our banner, or be integrated into our Twitter background above the links box. What do you guys think? I think it's a great banner that looks Shantae-esque without any obvious brand confusion with the logo of the original Shantae, but your opinions matter too, of course. XD There's also randimg to rotate our forum backgrounds with each refresh but it's giving me problems at the moment, or at least on Firefox.

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I was thinking the same thing.
But I thought to have it replace the current banner.
Since it looks a little strange in the picture.
But okay.

Also, if you decide to use it, could you please move it to the center?
It'd look so much better.
The text should be written below it.

[.Luke]

Yeah, that's why I needed someone else's opinion on the idea of using it to replace the text inside the banner. I mean, it was kinda funny how the logo fit right into the banner's project file like a puzzle piece without scaling or stretching it any, but it does kinda pop out, even if I did mess with the color balance.

And yeah, centering it on the header will be more preferable, but we'll see how I get the text to center. XD Shouldn't be too much trouble in CSS now that I find variables with Firefox's inspect tool, maybe I can get the banner's text to change without modifying the main index's text color?

Hmm, I just got an idea! Since the header's color makes white colors harder to read anyway, I could change the current banner so that Shantae's still on the side dancing, while the background tiles, and then the logo is centered in the middle of the header with a separate image file. Then the text could be put anywhere without changing it color. Or should I just dump the old banner and find a way to change the header's text color while centering the new logo? I need some feedback on this one, my head's always full of ideas. =P

Also, as for the emoticons, I will likely have to draw them at the 64x64 resolution, because they're not scaling down so well at a working resolution of 256x256. So this emoticon below may just hit the trash bin while I rethink the whole approach. In the meantime, I'll probably take a crack at pixel art smilies so that we can finally replace those generic PHPBB3 smilies. I have a few good ideas for smilies too. =P



(Since it's not animated I have to point out that Shantae's supposed to be shaking her wrists wildly like she's squeeing with joy.)

Besides the stumbling block I just hit, these emoticons will take way too long to animate a whole batch of them in a weekend at a time, I was crazy to waste so much time on the idea this week. There's a good chance I'll probably make a couple emoticons each weekend so we'll build up a good library of not-so-rough emoticons over time. I have quality standards now for Pete's sake! I don't plan on cutting corners here, I want to impress. We're the first Shantae fan web forum that I'm aware of, so we're going to look our best and represent how much we really care about Shantae through our art.

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I think you misunderstood me.
I meant that ShantaeVocaloid's banner replaces our current one.
Along with the picture of Shantae and the city in the background.
I think it looks better by itself, then inside that current banner we use.
It looks a little wierd inside there. At least to me.

As for everything else: Good luck with that.

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