Hacking Themes for Configurable USB Loader

[SpikeBolt]

Hi there. My girlfriend made some cool SSBB backgrounds and I felt like sharing the theme we made.



Super Smash Bros Theme

 

[milcoi]

When you only have the flat frontcover and want to create a 3D cover? use Stylebuilder:

Download this version:

Tutorial to Create 3D Box Styled Wii Covers
-------------------------------------------
unpack at C: (root)
1) Open StyleBuilder
2) File->Open, select "WiiFrontOnly.xml" style / WiiFrontOnlyShadow.xml will create shadow
3) Click "Choose Input" button on the top left side
4) Browse for and select the WII flat DVD cover to transform
5) Click "Do Transform" to perform the transformation
6) Click "Save Output" button on the bottom left side
7) Enter the name of the file to save the PNG output

Wii flat frontcover to 3D Boxart

 

[SpikeBolt]

Btw milcoi it's "Themes" not "Theme's"

 

[milcoi]

Ok, ty.

 

[milcoi]

Maybe we can make a contest who makes the beste looking Configurable USB Loader Theme. We can ask the guy's from the Configurable USB Loader team, that the winner will have his Theme inside the new update.

If they like the idea and willing to support the possibility to put the best inside their new update, please let me know.

After 4 weeks we will start a poll and vote for the best.

 

[oggzee]

Actually for the next release i will split the package to the base and themes, removing most of the themes from the base package so that it is small and fast to download. However if you do have a contest and come up with a nice theme i can always include it in the theme package.

 

[usptactical]

Maybe we can make a contest who makes the beste looking Configurable USB Loader Theme. We can ask the guy's from the Configurable USB Loader team, that the winner will have his Theme inside the new update.

If they like the idea and willing to support the possibility to put the best inside their new update, please let me know.

After 4 weeks we will start a poll and vote for the best.

Sounds good to me

Actually, if you want a contest - we need a loading screen. This will be displayed when the app first loads, so it needs to say Configurable USB Loader and preferably have the logo (as in my sig) incorporated somehow. The "winner" will have their logo displayed for the world to see - and no, I'm not allowing it to be overridden, either.

You can also assume that the console isn't going to be there, so the entire screen is wide open for your creativity.

 

[oggzee]

Apropo loading screen, it should preferably be lightweight, so that it compresses well, I would target for 50k png or at max 100k, preferably less. That usually means large areas of uniform color or reduced color usage. vertical gradients compress particularily well, especially if made without dithering. For example, the builtin background and gui background compressed png is just 5k.

 

[milcoi]

Ok, A contest for the best loadingscreen.

- It needs to say Configurable USB Loader
(preferably have the logo

incorporated somehow)
- Add your own logo or name inside the loadingscreen.
- max size 50k .png
What size?
640 x 480 or 800 x 480 (both)
Where to find a bigger size of the Configurable USB Loader logo?

The "winner" will have their logo displayed for the world to see - and no, I'm not allowing it to be overridden, either.

 

[Dr. Clipper]

Size-wise, I reckon it should use the same rules as the background_base, in that it will be stretched for the widescreen version and the centre of the image will be used in 4:3 mode (with the edges being ignored). That way you get both views in one image and the external part will just not be seen when you are in 4:3.

To see how it will look in both modes simultaneously, you could use the overlay wizard of my Configurator and turn on the clipping lines.

 

[milcoi]

For my understanding: the edges will stretch and the center will be untouched. So 1 image will do fine.?

 

[Dr. Clipper]

For my understanding: the edges will stretch and the center will be untouched. So 1 image will do fine.?

Not quite.

When in 16:9 mode, the whole image is stretched to fill the screen.
When in 4:3 mode, the central 640 columns are taken to fill the screen.

The following image describes the point:

16:9 users would get the full image, 4:3 users would get the part between the orange vertical lines.

 

[milcoi]

So if I make a 768px image it will be fit for 16:9 and the 4:3 will use the center part. 1 image is ok then.

 

[Dr. Clipper]

So if I make a 768px image it will be fit for 16:9 and the 4:3 will use the center part. 1 image is ok then.

Yeah 1 image is OK. However, 768 is probably a poor native size. I just used that because it's the one I picked to demonstrate the overlay wizard for the Configurator. The full image would be best off at either 800 or 854 pixels (854 is true widescreen, but most people seem to prefer 800).

Edit: For competition purposes, I reckon you can just allow any width and a height of 480, knowing that it will be stretched or cropped as shown. That way people can use their preferred stretching ratio, and we can judge the entries in the Loader itself by just making a theme pack of all the submitted ones. We can nicely use the theme.txts to trick either the console or gui mode into not displaying anything to see how the splash screen would look.

 

[milcoi]

you mean something like this:
800 x 480 (loading... is inside the borders for 640 x 480)
50kb !!!

 

[oggzee]

pretty good

a minor comment... the switch seems a bit rough, maybe using dark red instead of black for the edge of the button and also, not sure why is there that curve in top right corner...

edit: ok i made an ugly edit, i mean something like this

 

[milcoi]

adjusted the first one....

made a new switch....

 

[Blue-K]

adjusted the first one....

That one would get my vote IF you fix it (again)...there's a red line in the Switch, which simply shouldn't be there. See here:

Otherwise, realy nice one

.

(Btw: I won't jump into the Competition...no time, and there's already a good loading screen now

).

(Btw2: Why is there a need for a loading screen?)

 

[usptactical]

(Btw2: Why is there a need for a loading screen?)

There's absolutely no reason for an intro screen - other than to remove the console from view. Some people just want to see the Gui modes without the console ever appearing. I just happen to be one of those people.

 

[milcoi]

Ok, I think you will pleased with this one.