Again, my apologies. I read your first post as more of an accusation than a simple question. I just wanted to let you know that the MediaPortal team did not implement that. You can see where I would get that idea with the asterisk beside "borrow". Sorry for the confusion.
Did You *Borrow The Fan Art Idea? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Mucx
- Start date
Again, my apologies. I read your first post as more of an accusation than a simple question. I just wanted to let you know that the MediaPortal team did not implement that. You can see where I would get that idea with the asterisk beside "borrow". Sorry for the confusion.
- Thread starter
- #12
It's cool jburnette...forums have a way of turning up the temperature on everyone participating...
How I see this Fan Art thing working, and breaking it down into a very simple concept that could be multi-platform...
Large background image could be used at 1920 x 1080 and created by people (Photoshop etc).
We would need to get together as two different projects and agree about the positioning of our onscreen selections bars/buttons etc. (The layout of one persons Fan Art page, may not work for another persons...so a way of agreeing on a format or way of delivering it so it can be used for different projects might be a good idea)
The thing is at the moment, although it is good to see the Fan Art being done for Mediaportal I don't think, given the orientation of the artwork and how the different onscreen selections are placed that we could both utilize the same material. Which some mean spirited people would say isn't your problem lol.
How I see this Fan Art thing working, and breaking it down into a very simple concept that could be multi-platform...
Large background image could be used at 1920 x 1080 and created by people (Photoshop etc).
We would need to get together as two different projects and agree about the positioning of our onscreen selections bars/buttons etc. (The layout of one persons Fan Art page, may not work for another persons...so a way of agreeing on a format or way of delivering it so it can be used for different projects might be a good idea)
The thing is at the moment, although it is good to see the Fan Art being done for Mediaportal I don't think, given the orientation of the artwork and how the different onscreen selections are placed that we could both utilize the same material. Which some mean spirited people would say isn't your problem lol.
- April 11, 2006
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- Thread starter
- #14
They do indeed...I was lucky enough to be offered a job off the back of the design work I did for CenterStage and the concepts put forth in the Demo. (oooh look at me! lol!
)Anyway.
Any MediaPortal devs want to come online, chat on IRC/AIM/MSN or whatever with myself and the lead developer of CenterStage and see if there any areas, like Fan Art that can be cross platform? PM Me I guess or hit me up at the online form here: http://centerstageproject.com/contact.php?to=david
They do indeed...I was lucky enough to be offered a job from Apple off the back of the design work I did for CenterStage and the concepts put forth in the Demo. (oooh look at me! lol!
Far out, I wish someone would offer me a job !
I think any layout sharing would need to be very flexible and cater for low res ( around 720x576) and high res ( around 1920x1080) in both narrow and wide screen formats... Something to keep in mind.
Cheers,
- Thread starter
- #16
They do indeed...I was lucky enough to be offered a job from Apple off the back of the design work I did for CenterStage and the concepts put forth in the Demo. (oooh look at me! lol!
Far out, I wish someone would offer me a job !
I think any layout sharing would need to be very flexible and cater for low res ( around 720x576) and high res ( around 1920x1080) in both narrow and wide screen formats... Something to keep in mind.
Cheers,
Yes I agree, I quoted the largest HD resolution as a 'marker' but there are people that would need to be able to use the material for the different resolutions their TV sets have. There is also the 16:9 vs the 4:3 factor as well.
I need to take a look at how you guys implement the Fan Art scheme currently though as well. I'm at work at the moment on my lunch-break and not pulling up a lot of great info on the Fan Art thing here at the moment.
If we could, as two different project agree on the x, y, positioning of onscreen material, buttons etc, then we can both utilise any Fan Art database that is created.
- Thread starter
- #18
Here is a quick example of just how close the two layouts are....
So I think between the two projects we could both tweak our layouts and get a usuable Fan Art concept that we can both utilize. It is like we are 90% there as the layout is very similar (which is why I stated *borowed...which is a nice way of saying, someone saw a nice idea and used it for their own purposes...which I'm not bitter about, as long as we can all benefit).
Anyway, looking at how the MediaPortal Fan Art concept is applied, it seems like just a background image is used to create the effect and the rest is internally driven?
The CenterStage version was going to be slightly different in that I imagined that the buttons/bars etc could be changed to match the overall design of the page and compliment it. You can see from the Collateral CenterStage Fan Art example, there are deep moody purple button highlights which match the feel and the rest of the design. This isn't a requirement but, just an aesthetic touch that a 'Fan Art Artist' could do for each Fan Art they create...and one we may not be able to do cross platform?
Unless maybe, we could each use some sort of CSS or XML file that can control buttons or font colour and other such things? (Im not a developer just a graphics guy).
The only other stumbling block to a cross platform version is the CenterStage UI (the concept anyway), you will see at the top of the screenshot we have the 'menu bar' that tells the user which section they are in, and also has a breadcrumb navigation running across the screen (this is the black/grey 'stuff' just above the collateral text in the image above).
I suppose the background image on the CenterStage side could just align the background image differently to how MediaPortal aligns it. (e.g. through MediaPortal the background image has a x,y co-ordinate of 0, 0 --- CenterStage would align the picture to 0, 140)
So you can see we are close, there is a solution here and I would love it if we could both find an answer so Fan Art can be a cross-platform event! It just needs careful consideration and 'rules' setup I think...
So I think between the two projects we could both tweak our layouts and get a usuable Fan Art concept that we can both utilize. It is like we are 90% there as the layout is very similar (which is why I stated *borowed...which is a nice way of saying, someone saw a nice idea and used it for their own purposes...which I'm not bitter about, as long as we can all benefit).
Anyway, looking at how the MediaPortal Fan Art concept is applied, it seems like just a background image is used to create the effect and the rest is internally driven?
The CenterStage version was going to be slightly different in that I imagined that the buttons/bars etc could be changed to match the overall design of the page and compliment it. You can see from the Collateral CenterStage Fan Art example, there are deep moody purple button highlights which match the feel and the rest of the design. This isn't a requirement but, just an aesthetic touch that a 'Fan Art Artist' could do for each Fan Art they create...and one we may not be able to do cross platform?
Unless maybe, we could each use some sort of CSS or XML file that can control buttons or font colour and other such things? (Im not a developer just a graphics guy).
The only other stumbling block to a cross platform version is the CenterStage UI (the concept anyway), you will see at the top of the screenshot we have the 'menu bar' that tells the user which section they are in, and also has a breadcrumb navigation running across the screen (this is the black/grey 'stuff' just above the collateral text in the image above).
I suppose the background image on the CenterStage side could just align the background image differently to how MediaPortal aligns it. (e.g. through MediaPortal the background image has a x,y co-ordinate of 0, 0 --- CenterStage would align the picture to 0, 140)
So you can see we are close, there is a solution here and I would love it if we could both find an answer so Fan Art can be a cross-platform event! It just needs careful consideration and 'rules' setup I think...
- December 6, 2004
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They do indeed...I was lucky enough to be offered a job from Apple off the back of the design work I did for CenterStage and the concepts put forth in the Demo. (oooh look at me! lol!
Far out, I wish someone would offer me a job !
I think any layout sharing would need to be very flexible and cater for low res ( around 720x576) and high res ( around 1920x1080) in both narrow and wide screen formats... Something to keep in mind.
Cheers,
Yes I agree, I quoted the largest HD resolution as a 'marker' but there are people that would need to be able to use the material for the different resolutions their TV sets have. There is also the 16:9 vs the 4:3 factor as well.
I need to take a look at how you guys implement the Fan Art scheme currently though as well. I'm at work at the moment on my lunch-break and not pulling up a lot of great info on the Fan Art thing here at the moment.
If we could, as two different project agree on the x, y, positioning of onscreen material, buttons etc, then we can both utilise any Fan Art database that is created.
Well, as I said its a bit of a hack. Basically its just an image control placed behind all other controls, but in front of the general background. An appropriate image is searched for (its really stupid as it checks for filenames and a series id within that) and then giving the that control. Thats all there is to it (well, skinners can react to fanart being loaded or not and adjust other controls based on it - like move descriptions down etc. - but every fanart is treated the same way). Currently I think only 16:9 skins implement fanart (its up to the skin to support it) and the general layout is list at the right, and description in the left buttom part.
Not true, they do consider hosting Fanart, so its not out of the question, but you are right, legal status is somewhat questionable mostly I would argue due to the high resolution of these images, so we will need to see.
- December 6, 2004
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- 318
Here is a quick example of just how close the two layout are....
So I think between the two projects we could both tweak our layouts and get a usuable Fan Art concept that we can both utilize. It is like we are 90% there as the layout is very similar (which is why I stated *borowed...which is a nice way of saying, someone saw a nice idea and used for their own purposes...which I'm not bitter about, as long as we can all benefit).
Anyway, looking at how the MediaPortal Fan Art concept is applied, it seems like just a background image is used to create the effect?
The CenterStage version was going to be slightly different in that I imagined that the buttons/bars etc could be changed to match the overall design of the page and compliment it. This isn't a requirement but, just a aesthetic touch and one we could do cross platform, unless maybe, we could each use some sort of CSS or XML file that can control, buttons colours, font colour and other such things? (Im not a developer just a graphics guy).
The only other stumbling block to a cross platform version is the CenterStage UI (the concept anyway), you will see at the top of the screenshot has the 'menu bar' that tells the user which section they are in, and also has a breadcrumb navigation running across the screen. I suppose the background image on the CenterStage side could just align the background image differently. (e.g. through MediaPortal the background image has a co-ordinate of x = 0 and y = 0 --- CenterStage would aline the picture to x = 0 and y = 100)
So you can see we are close, there is a solution here and I would love it if we could both find an answer so Fan Art can be a cross-platform event!
Adjusting the entire page is and option and is something I considered for a while (I promise, without knowing about centerstage). But basically for two reason it wasn't done because its alot more complicated to code, but mainly because its alot more work to make that kind of fanart than "just" making an image. I really doubt very many people would even do that (and then, at least currently, if they make a mistake, or MP gets an upgrade or SOMETHING goes wrong that fanart would completly stop working.
I like the idea, but skins are so different. Consider a dark skin and a light one. The fanart creator doesnt even know about the light one, he uses the dark. So he places the button there, overlays it with that etc to make it look nice with the image. But then the user uses the light skin. Now the buttons look different, being too light to read. They only way to resolve this is to have every fanart supply:
1) the big background image
2) a layout describing where things are (.xml for MP)
3) all other files (skin includes, images like buttons etc.) that are being referenced inside the layout file.
ALOT of work which I predict not a whole lot of people will take advantage off (in a meaningful way). I'm open to suggestions.