SkinStudio 6 Tutorials

from WinCustomize Forums
Ok, so I've been racking my brain and wasting hours trying to create my own skins for the startmenu, taskbar, etc using skinstudio6. I dont want to make the normal rectangular taskbar, (Im trying to make one with rounded corners). Also, when I create the start menu and import the various parts into skinstudio, the image looks distorted and the various parts ( there are five parts to the startmenu) dont line up right. I even tried copying the exact sizes to match the originals. But they still dont work. I am using Photoshop CS2. My question is: are there any GOOD and SIMPLE tuts for skinng in SkinStudio6 with CS2? If this has been covered b4, please post a link. Thnx all!
skinning
2,292 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hi ablebodied - I'll kick you off with a couple of thoughts, not that I'm the best qualified.

SkinStudio6 hasn't really left the ground when it comes to tutorials and documentation. The good news is that the basic principles of creating a Start Panel remain largely the same as SkinStudio5 - it's just finding your way around is different.

There's a link below to some older guides.

Click Me for some Older Tutorials

There are also some good guides to be found at Click me for skinartistry.com.
These are in the members section, so you'll need to join to access these. They may help clue you in to some of the key principles. Tutorials will however only allow you to walk a narrow path, you'll need to play a little to get the feel of how margins etc. affect outcomes. Be prepared to accept that not everything will work as expected, some things are just about building an encyclopaedia of knowledge over time.

A couple of things that might cause distortion and ill fitting would include not having the correct 'Height of Part' and/or 'Width of Part' entered in SkinStudio. Have a look at the 'Extra Settings' or 'Code Editor' tabs for these settings and see how they compare to the size of the individual parts you are importing.

Similarly distortion can be caused by stretching an image in a way that's not pleasing to the eye. Depending on the image this can be amended using the 'Painting Margins' tab or again by going direct to these values in the 'Code Editor'

If you haven't found it already, you might consider going to File > Substyle Management to create duplicate substyles of your work that you can experiment with and then delete without affecting your original work.

Hopefully others more experienced will be able to offer something more concrete. If you can provide screenshots, these can help attract others to your questions.

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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

hey man if you need a little help....try picking apart skins that you like and designing on thier images

you have to make sure you cut the pieces to the EXACT pixel...thats a problem i had for 3 years till recently and i spent more time on it...still trying to figure out the damn window frames now...good luck...if i can help with anything at all...PM me...or leave your messenger name on my site comments and ill get back with you asap.....i have msn messenger ...aim ...and yahoo...so holla:thumbsup:

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting jojo25, reply 3
hey man if you need a little help....try picking apart skins that you like and designing on thier images

you have to make sure you cut the pieces to the EXACT pixel...thats a problem i had for 3 years till recently and i spent more time on it...still trying to figure out the damn window frames now...good luck...if i can help with anything at all...PM me...or leave your messenger name on my site comments and ill get back with you asap.....i have msn messenger ...aim ...and yahoo...so holla
End of jojo25's quote

Thanks. I just basically would like to know what each feature actually does ( how it affects the image and how each part supports or affects each other part.) but anyway, my aim screename is ortizlgnd, so feel free to add me to ur buddies.