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Yep, that was a conscious design decision to not have the whole skin dominated by the backgrounds. Our philosophy was that the media should be a prominent feature of the skin and backgrounds (such as fanart or custom backgrounds) should be visible but not completely obscure everything else.
Having said that we're always open to feedback on what people like/dislike with the skin and will take such feedback on board for future updates.
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Thank you for all of your work on this great skin! I only had a few mins to play around with it before work, but I love it! Thanks again!
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Colvs
Junior Member
Posts: 31
Massive thanks to Mike and the Razorfish team for an outstanding skin! Quick question if I may: Whats the optimal resolution and file type to use for background images, and where's the best place to find images suitable for each category?
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freezy
Team-XBMC Android Remote Developer
Posts: 888
Very nice indeed. Outstanding work.
Cheers!
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djh_
Aeon Project Founder
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Congrats to all concerned for hitting the date. Haven't tried it but I'm sure I'll get a chance over the w/e.
You're always going to have problems when throwing custom backdrops into the mix with vertical design. To be honest, I was surprised to see it in theDeviL's designs knowing his preference for backdrops; that's for him to explain if he chooses, though. Assuming you can pull it off without spoiling the look, I guess shifting the menu to the left would at least clear a space for centrally orientated artwork. I have to say it's a dealbreaker for me, but you've already stressed your individual vision for this and that should be respected. It's not like artwork features that big in many skins anyway.
One thing about the website, though. Please, for the love of God, redo those images so they're not riddled with compression artefacts. I'll happily shut up if I'm alone on this, but they're on the wrong side of the size/quality balance for me. This is a sleek-looking skin, after all.
Otherwise, +1 one to the previous comments. It looks very nice from I've seen so far. One question: did you use the remarkably Aeon-esque (it really is a coincidence but an amazing one if you've seen it) showcase view from theDeviL's design? This isn't a feature request, just for info.
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Only able to try this baby tomorrow, and i'm looking forward to it... one thing though... i believe, with all tyhe hype...
MediaStream deserves a sub-forum as aeon does... it'll be easier to navigate and report bugs and so on... I think all skins should be setup like that... its just easier for everyone in the community!
Thanks for releasing this beast... I just know it's gonna be great!
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aart
Senior Member
Posts: 135
thanks for all the work you guys put in this, now lets see how amazed I will be!
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djh_
Aeon Project Founder
Posts: 2,087
Fuck it, I tried it anyway. Work can wait!
First impressions, which I hope you'll take as they're intended:
The good:
-Iconography is lush.
-Visual style and artwork is top notch - definitely a potential replacement for PMIII on that front.
-Nice to see you've used those watched/unwatched tabs from the original design, though it looks like you've relocated them somewhat from earlier concepts. They don't quite sit right on their current frames. Maybe having them fade in along with (rather than just after) the focus object would help in that respect.
-List view is really nice. You certainly get points for actually having a scrollbar in there (not something I've managed yet). Why the lack of space for list items, though, when there's so much free for the icons?
-Dialogs are great! Put mine to shame, certainly.
-In terms of basic function, almost entirely bug-free more me so far. Can't understate the achievement there.
The maybe not-so-good:
-Something about it feels chaotic to me. Maybe it's the dramatic shifts between layouts, maybe it's having all the options together on a pop-out side panel, maybe it's the aforementioned clash of shades on the main menu. I dunno. It's probably just me.
-Personally, I'd love to see animations across the skin halved in length. All the tweening and acceleration functions in XBMC are nice an' all, but I'd rather spend less time watching them after prolonged use. The whole thing feels a bit sluggish. Nice tween on the main menu pop-out, though.
-Just a few basic design issues, like having to move up from movies to make the side menu pop out. Nothing too awful.
In all:
An extremely nice-looking skin and a fine achievement from all involved, especially given the potential strife of working in a team. A more than viable replacement for PMIII as XBMC's default skin in terms of textures, but maybe not so much in terms of function. The sluggish animation and fluctuating layout leaves the PMIII man in me feeling a little disorientated - it doesn't feel like an environment I could enjoy spending time in. That's an entirely personal point, though, and I do have quite specific tastes. For the Vision crowd, however, I reckon this'll be an irresistable proposition.
Props!
hopefully theres a option to mod it and shift it to the left or right ?
)
