1920x1080 skins? (1 Viewer)

[falser]

Well, whatever guys. My HTPC runs at 1920x1080, so I'm making at least one 1080p skin that I can use. You don't have to, and you probably shouldn't use 1080p skins if you're not running in this resolution. And you definitely don't need SVG images to run MP in this resolution, it works just fine as it is with a Geforce 7600GT video card.

Boilermaker, I took a look through your BlueTwo 720p skin. I noticed it's not up to date with the current 4:3 BlueTwo. Yours doesn't have certain things like the tv channel selection overlay while watching tv, so I'll be basing mine also off the 4:3. I first started out with an idea for my own skin, but I dropped that for now and instead will just be getting BlueTwo resized and refitted for 1080p. I can already see this is going open up a ton of space in the interface. The TV guide for example is going to display a lot more information if I decide not to bump up the font size. ETA for BlueTwo1080p: unknown, but at least a few weeks. It's a lot of trial and error for me at the moment. I'll just be fiddling with the xml, I won't be physically resizing images quite yet - I might save that work for a 1080p design of my own.

 

[Boilermaker]

I noticed it's not up to date with the current 4:3 BlueTwo. Yours doesn't have certain things like the tv channel selection overlay while watching tv

Actually it does...try downloading the up to date file or reading thru the thread on the skin before criticizing.

so I'll be basing mine also off the 4:3

Good, because after that last comment i wasn't inclined to offer any additional help.

 

[falser]

Sorry Boilermaker, didn't mean to come across as critical. I didn't know you had updated yours.

 

[Boilermaker]

i update once a month, more often when i get a request to reskin plugin. Not only is the skin generally up to date, but i have skinned about a dozen extra plugins, very few of which i use myself. It might be wise for someone who has been around for about a month to do a little less posting and a lot more reading. A lot of the thread didn't come off well, i offered a little help and got that response. Good luck on your skin, in a few weeks you'll begin to understand why those who contribute don't at times take kindly words that are poorly chosen.

 

[falser]

Good luck on your skin, in a few weeks you'll begin to understand why those who contribute don't at times take kindly words that are poorly chosen.

You already have my respect, don't worry about that. So far I've edited only 3 of the screens for 1080p and I am flabbergasted at how tedius this work is. And I've hardly scratched the surface. At my current rate I'll be complete by about March.

 

[falser]

Okay, take a look at a rework of the EPG:

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/5901/mptv1080p3pn.jpg

1920x1080 gives you so much space to work with it's hard to resist making the fonts smaller. I'm aiming for things to still be readible on a 50" display from 10 feet back.

More to come (albeit slowly).

 

[mzemina]

Okay, take a look at a rework of the EPG:

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/5901/mptv1080p3pn.jpg

1920x1080 gives you so much space to work with it's hard to resist making the fonts smaller. I'm aiming for things to still be readible on a 50" display from 10 feet back.

More to come (albeit slowly).

Very nice general layout. Have you been using it? How long? How is it along the edges? Since you are using the screen right up to the edges I was wondering if you maybe using up too much screen and should maybe allow a little "whitespace" - that is the designer in me coming out.

Mike

 

[Boilermaker]

Don't know if they updated the quicker development thread up top..in case you haven't installed the my refresh plugin, here is the link:
https://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/Download/Plugins/Others/MyRefresh/
This will help speed things up.

Also you may want to be concious of overscan. I've never seen a 1080p display, but i know my 720p dlp tv loses around 15 pixels around each edge. Even if your display of choice doesn't have overscan, i'd bet some will have it. Just something to keep in mind when designing skins others will use, making it usable for as many as possible.

Otherwise i thought the use of space was very good. When you get far enough that you feel confident enough that you will have a usable skin at some point, you should start a separate thread for it.

 

[knutinh]

I havent looked into the skin engine at all. But it seems to me that creating (and updating) skins in several resolutions is a waste of creative energy that could be used for making genuinly new stuff?

Ideally, the skin designer would start out with a screen "size" measured in inches, not pixels. Or even better, "degrees of visual coverage", such that a 60" screen at 6 meters would equal a 10" screen at 1 meter. That is the size that matters for the user. When it is given, we can talk about ideal font-size etc. I am guessing that most elements are either synthetically composed in e.g. photoshop, rendered text, or simple lines/borders specified in pixels?

After the screen have been composed in "infinite resolution" to consist of certain elements, those elements could be "rendered" at any resolution provided that it is high enough to carry the necessary information.


I guess I am saying that even if a native SVG skinning engine is far away, it could be possible to have a local offline skin rendering engine that parses generalised skin SVG info into the current skin format, optimzed for the local resolution (and viewing size). That way, skin designers can concentrate on making good looking skins, and one does not have to re-write the run-time skinning engine.

Also, would it be possible to make a skin engine that behaves nicely when the application contains elements that isnt supported in the skin yet? This may be backwards and impossible, but I imagine scanning the skin against e.g. blue two at startup. Every element found in blue two but not in the chosen skin is rendered as blue two. In other words, one can keep up with current releases without the skin-maker, even though the new functions will look "bad".

regards
Knut

 

[falser]

Yeah overscan did occur to me. So far the EPG is the only one I expanded right to the edges. The LCD TV I plan on buying doesn't overscan, so for my own use and at least for the EPG I'd like to use all the available real estate. For an official release I'll probably include an additional xml file to replace that has a bit of a whitespace border around the EPG. Also, doesn't MP have a built-in function to account for overscan (the UI calibration thing)?

Boilermaker, thanks for reminding me to install that plugin - it does speed things up. But I'm just slow at the moment also since it's been a while since I've done work like this, and I'm spending time figuring out what control tag does what.

it seems to me that creating (and updating) skins in several resolutions is a waste of creative energy that could be used for making genuinly new stuff?

knutinh, I'm not doing anything creative at the moment. I'm just getting an existing skin to fill a 1920x1080 screen - with some layout changes to make use of the extra space. Once I have everything refitted the way I'd like for 1920x1080 I'll probably go ahead and work on a new skin.

SVG images are not available in MP and may never be, and the existing skins don't scale up to 1920x1080 as nicely as I'd like - they don't utilize the real estate as well as a 1080p native skin would. And I doubt a 1920x1080 skin will scale down to lower resolutions very well since the font sizes would be too small and things would look squished.