vStyler vStyler

Here's how I see it...

▼

Here's how I see it...

IMO

from WinCustomize Forums

 

  In reading a recent thread I felt the need to say a couple of things..Personally, I would like to say I agree with IR, I don't think the threads title reflected the exact motive of its contents and I would have posted but could not...so with that said..

As far as tips go, there isn't some book of hidden tips and tricks we keep to ourselves, as problems arise when skinning I try to attack them with vigor, with stubborness, hard work and amibition, part of skinning IS figuring these things out, SKinning is like anything else in life, the harder you work, the more pride you take, the less apt you are to ask for help... the better your chances of success are. Ive been skinning a LONG time and can , with pride and honestly say 98% of it I learned by myself.. through trial and error, long hours, lots of coffee and cigarettes and hundreds of sleepless nights.

I highly doubt Davinci became a Master at his trade by giving up and asking for help everytime he came across what he deemed an insurmountable road block. Know this.. If you try something enough times.. it will work.. If you have the tenacity to keep at it until it's figured out no matter what.. then your well on your way to becoming a master of whatever your heart desires.

I firmly believe that one should not even ask for help until one has thouroughly exhausted body and mind in defiance of a problem, then and only then, when you have tried your best.. explorered EVERY avenue, at your wits end, then.. put your pride aside.. no matter how much it hurts.. and finally buckle.

The sense that people should be entitled to help, to less than glowing praise of their work..to me.. is unacceptable, It seems to me a very liberal philosophy and one that again.. to me.. holds no water. Now obviously.. I have zero problems helping people further their skinning knowledge, I love to help, I imagine that over the last year or so or more, other than maybe Cavan1 that Myself, IR and NT have contributed to 95% of the WB skinning help that has been given on this site so again.. I am not oppsed to helping but I do, in no way, feel obligated to hand out help or critique more mildly ot untruly because of my status on this site.

I see no need for a special Channel, or thread, or round table to be instigated.. when help is asked for.. almost 100% of the time.. it is given..and usually by myself, NT or IR. I would like to think that this in some small part is appreciated but judging by a few comments in the other thread, sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.

To speak to what ignited the post I refer to I shall only say this.... NT said under no uncertain terms exactly what many amongst us were thinking.. was it harsh?.. yes.. but sometimes a blunt sword is better than a speeding bullet. I do not disagree with the main point he made, I completely agree with him. Could he have said it in a more compassionate manner? Sure, he could have, however, this wasn't the first time this had been brought to the attention of the skinner, I myself, had a couple of times mentioned almost exactly the same thing and I wasn't the only one. Point being, nicety was not working. If Craig had not said what was said.. someone else was going to.

 For me the main reason was this.. Its VERY hard to see someone skipping all the work, breaking all the cardinal rules and then bumping those offending skins constantly to the top of page one, knocking down work that some folks spend months on. Straight and simple. If it wrong to think that is wrong. Then 7 out of 7 so called community elders, Masters, Mods alike.. were also wrong. If someone can explain to me why it might have been acceptable then please feel free.

I support stronger critique, less tolerance of the above tactics and a more open dialog when it comes to these things, I think WC may be a better place because of it.

Hard work makes a great skinner\ person. Work hard, don't give up, get it done... be proud.

 

 

 

 

 

community
61,723 views 129 replies
Reply #101 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Please....

and 'pleas'....

There's no 'a' in ' definitely' ....see? ....Spell checker

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Reply #102 from WinCustomize Forums Top
There's no 'a' in ' definitely' ....see? ....


There is when it's not spelled correctly  ;) 

If I had much less going on in my head than I do I might take some time to worry about spelling things correctly.. as it stands, I can only allocate about 2%... and.. it shows.

Wish I had more time, more energy, more life left.. as it stands I'm way behind already, spelling takes a back seat these days.

I must admit tho, you have got correcting without offending down to a science :)

Excoose muh bod speeling  X-( 




Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #103 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I just want to point out that people are getting the wrong idea what is meant when we talk standards. I recieved an email this morning from a friend asking if I was angry with them for asking to use my images to port another skin. Of course we aren't angry that people use our images. WE LOVE IT!

If a skin is only half skinned and alot of deafult images remain, this is what is meant by poor standards. Quality has nothing to do with it. Not once in any of th 2 threads has anyone criticised quality. If it is a WB skin and your SYSTEM BUTTONS of any kind are unskinned that is just tragic and in some peoles minds, not skinning. THE ONLY THING THAT HAS BEEN CRITICISED IS LAZY SKINNING AND TAKING CREDIT FOR WORK THAT IS NOT THIERS.

Some may think that this is not anyones place to police but you haven't had your work taken by someone else and claimed as their own. Until you have, you really don't have anything to stand on except a misinformed opinion.

One recent skin in question had way too many unskinned elements and the Author refused to give credit where credit is due. Most of the images were from the Diamond skin by Stardock Design and most of the other images were from Kol's Vista skin.

Noone was chased away because of anything else. Some casual users left messages about how unusable the skin was and those were justified comments. That is a to each his own thing and if a skin is unusable, then it just won't get used. We know that alot of people react to screenshots so sometimes people don't even have a clue how useless a skin is yet they leave a comment without downloading praising the work.

I recently uploaded a skin and the file was corrupt, yet people continued to leave nice comments when they could not have possibly used the skin. Had they used it they would have seen that it didn't work.


Now I have to say something in hopes of preventing what I believe is going to happen next. This will be the last thing I say on the subject (I will really try). It has to be said publicly because too many people have the completely wrong idea of what is going on.

I already called it that Butch would delete his skin to hide the evidence. Now that the evidence is gone, he comes trying to defend himself with some sort of fantasy about jealousy and downloads. The campaign will continue as he chisels away at the facts. Eventually noone will know the reality of the situation and we will all look like jerks. By removing the evidence all that is left is public perception and that is easy to sway.

Please don't be fools and play his game. Be wise and ignore. We will all end up better as a community for it.

YOu see there are so many people on DeviantArt that have altered them in one way or another that I always use the same ones so that nobody could ever say anyting. So all of my windowblinds that were here were using the same buttons.


This right here tells it all. Anyone with the ability to put 2 pixels together would have made new buttons by now dontcha think?

Anyone that has been around the site for a good lenght of time remembers that we have gone through all this before.

so·ci·o·path –noun Psychiatry.
a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
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Reply #105 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I recently uploaded a skin and the file was corrupt, yet people continued to leave nice comments when they could not have possibly used the skin. Had they used it they would have seen that it didn't work.


I think you jump to conclusions here Craig. Many a time , I will download something and not use it for a while until I am ready to change things. I also trust the workmanship of most of the authors that I follow and feel no need to test a new download until I am ready to change skins. Finally, when I know the quality of a particular skinners work I can get a good feel if I want the skin based on the screen shot and expect to enjoy all the hidden goodies when I get around to using it.
Reply #107 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Some believe that us Master's are in cahoots on instant messangers. This is not the case. I don't even have a IM proggy installed and my friends hate me for it.  :SNIFF!: 
Reply #108 from WinCustomize Forums Top

All Vista 'clones' take images from Microsoft....to the point where an MS worker Googling away found Kol's 'version' of Vista and requested its removal.

The frustrating thing [for all of us who MUST deal with the latent hypocrisy of the situation] is that Kol's was the ONLY one caught in the Googling.

There was an inbred 'group' of wannabe Vista emulators trying to upstage each other as to who had the better, more accurate 'bit' wherever.  People noticed this because it has happened EVERY time there was a new OS release ....ever since the dawn of skinning. I'll wager each and every one of the group 'used' bits from everyone else....in the race to have the first/best 'copy'.

Probably the ONLY certainty when verifying rip complaints...when it comes to these clones is...MS did it first in the native OS....and everyone else 'ripped' MS.

Exactly no-one deserves singling out in this process....including Kol [though that was Microsoft's determination, not ours or anyone else in the skinning fraternity].

Here is the reality...finding an image in one skin that may just match another....when BOTH are trying to imitate a third?  Sounds pretty darn likely, really.

Determining [with certainty] who ripped whom is not easy, not with the histories of these clones....all happening contemporaneously and on the same site [not here].  Per-pixel comparisons....date/time stamps....hues...whatever...all ultimately mean diddly-squat if it can be shown that BOTH may actually be plagiarised from a third party anyway.

I remember bitch-fights [arguments] over whose BeOS Windowblind was best/first/not a rip.

Nothing changes...

Am I looking forward to the release of Windows 7 [or whatever it'll be called]?

Not on your life.

Reply #109 from WinCustomize Forums Top
All Vista 'clones' take images from Microsoft


Not true, Ive made four 100% skinned XP and Vista version 'clones'... two as of now ..unreleased. Every pixel made by me, not most of it, all. Sure I changed them some.. put my spin on them, but even in areas that might not have deviated from the orginal Vista look,that I could have just 'cheated' a little, I chose not to.

Some parts may even look like their taken directly from Vista but they are not. I have 4 folders of original PSD's to agree with me.

Sure, when I first started, I too was guilty of leaving an image or two from the theme I had started to mod, that lasted about 10 minutes.

To me it boils down to the my original point, the harder you work, the less shortcuts you take, the better off you will be.

Guess I'm old school or something.
Reply #110 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Stardock and Winc could save themselves (and us)a lot of headache and just say no to clones.

Pay someone(like they have)to produce some superior ones to hand out to the XP users and a few variants and call it done.

If people want to mod those for personal use,great.Geez louise,how many of these dang things do people need? :LOL: 

I know that wouldnt be a very popular policy but ripping from an OS is still ripping to me. ;) 
Reply #111 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Some parts may even look like their taken directly from Vista but they are not. I have 4 folders of original PSD's to agree with me.

John...you see, that's where 'clones' fall into the trap.

Try this...

What do you get if you take a nice piece of linen-paper ...and meticulously paint every single pixel...one by one laboriously on it to look 'just like' a 20 dollar bill......apart from cramp in your fingers?

Answer....probably 20 years....;)

People paint 'original copies' of the masters' works all the time.  They even have a name for them....starts with 'f'.

Nothing is ever all that cut and dried....;)

Reply #112 from WinCustomize Forums Top
John and I were posting at the same time so I dont want my post to look like its at odds with his.

Stardock commisioned his 'clones' and had pretty strict guidelines for them...basically doing just what I said above...producing superior Aero variants for WB...and...trying to interest OEM's in OS skinning.
Something that might benefit us all. :) 

My personal take on even these variants aside from the OEM connection is I would have preferred to see Stardock have allowed him more room for change than they did.I think they had him stick too close to Aero.Especially with the ones you havnt seen yet.They could have let him innovate a bit more...Aero isnt that good of a template in my opinion.

But they have their reasons for why they didnt.I think they suspect OEM's are not as open to change as the WB community.(had to play it safe) ;) 
Reply #113 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Answer....probably 20 years....


 :LOL: 
Reply #114 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I know that wouldnt be a very popular policy but ripping from an OS is still ripping to me.

You see, I'm quite happy with the process of 'adapting' an existing Vista OS 'look' to, say, WB so it can be applied to XP...and vice versa .... just as it's 'fun' to make your Windows Computer look like it's a Mac ....it's one of the quaint appeals of skinning.

Where it gets sad and nasty is when one adapter lays claim over another for what technically is neither's.

"Hey...your images look like mine...and mine look exactly like MS"

"No...I copied mine from MS first...you copied me."

It's an unwinnable/unresolvable argument....;)

Reply #115 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This is only true when one person is actually making their images... and not ganking them. And taking one image.. streching, resizing, cutting and pasting imo, is not making.
Reply #116 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Stardock commisioned his 'clones' and had pretty strict guidelines for them...basically doing just what I said above...producing superior Aero variants for WB...and...trying to interest OEM's in OS skinning.
Something that might benefit us all.

My personal take on even these variants aside from the OEM connection is I would have preferred to see Stardock have allowed him more room for change than they did.I think they had him stick too close to Aero.Especially with the ones you havnt seen yet.They could have let him innovate a bit more...Aero isnt that good of a template in my opinion.

For the sake of 'confusion' it'd probably be clever to ignore those.  They'd very likely come under a 'special case' scenario.

It's more relevant to debate what's in public use....by public skinners...;)

Reply #117 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Honestly.. cloning really had nothing to do with my OP, I dont like clones personally, Ive made some for reasons not really relevant, my main thought was to try let folks know from my personal point of view what was the most important quality to have to become a a good skinner...and what I felt were detriments.

Agree or disagree, it's worked for me.
Reply #118 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Agree or disagree, it's worked for me.

Oh...I agree totally with what's involved in making a good skin....but I don't agree that all skins MUST be good...simply because all skins won't be.

Think of it like cars. A RR is a 'good car'.  Should all cars be RRs?  Is there still room in this world for Goggomobiles?...;)

Reply #119 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well theres room for the very best, and the very worst, my advice pertained to the former.

To each their own, I'm not saying every skin, skinner, would, should be great, that can be added to Zoomba's 'in a prefect world' post. I look at things very realistically, wishful thinking goes only so far.

Honestly, wishing all the 'barriers' between art and technical excecution could be lifted makes no sense to me, its all part of the end product, each dependant on the other for final result. You can't take the work out of art, whether it be the graphics application, the skinbuilding app, these are all tools for sculpting one's art, without them, without learning and knowing how to use them, there is no art.

I'd love to be able to do digital paintings, can't use a wacom very well yet and have a steep learning curve in the App 'Painter'

Until we can think something and it materialize in front of us.. get used to working at it.
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Reply #120 from WinCustomize Forums Top
To each their own, I'm not saying every skin, skinner, would, should be great, that can be added to Zoomba's 'in a prefect world' post. I look at things very realistically, wishful thinking goes only so far




You wouldn't want everyone to be perfect skinners. If everyone produced excellent, top notch skins then you would be out of a job. Every professional skinner would be out of a job. :LOL: 
Reply #121 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I just want to point out that people are getting the wrong idea what is meant when we talk standards. I recieved an email this morning from a friend asking if I was angry with them for asking to use my images to port another skin. Of course we aren't angry that people use our images. WE LOVE IT!


Thanks, NT. We porters/modders sometimes rely on you Masters for the awesome work that you do. We hope someday to live up to your standards. I can understand how you would feel when someone uses what you know is your work, but claims it as thier own.  ;) 
Reply #122 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Something has always confused me here. While this is sort of off topic, it's subject has been brought up in this thread. From the about link on WC..

Ownership: You own the materials you upload. This cuts both ways, we assume you made what you uploaded and we will not sell your property without your permission. You must not only own what you submit but the subcomponents of it unless you have permission from the owners of the property you are submitting. For instance, DesktopX objects are designed to be used in other people's themes. It is assumed that when you upload a DesktopX object that you are giving permission to others to use them in their themes and they can therefore upload a theme that includes your DesktopX object without permission


As primarily a DestopX skinner, this bugs the batshit out of me. Why is it ok for someone to rip a DX Object, or someone elses scripts into a DX Theme but all hell breaks loose when someone uses someone elses work in a WB? Artistic value is artistic value and neither should be allowed to be used without explicit permission from the author. bar none!
Reply #124 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Every professional skinner would be out of a job.


You sleuth you  ;p 


Seriously tho, as much potential work is out there and as few skinners as their are.. theres room for more.. I'm all for it, but I'm also for puttin in the man hours.

Reply #125 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ownership: You own the materials you upload. This cuts both ways, we assume you made what you uploaded and we will not sell your property without your permission. You must not only own what you submit but the subcomponents of it unless you have permission from the owners of the property you are submitting. For instance, DesktopX objects are designed to be used in other people's themes. It is assumed that when you upload a DesktopX object that you are giving permission to others to use them in their themes and they can therefore upload a theme that includes your DesktopX object without permission


I don't know about this, or maybe a DX object is different than a widget in this way. I have , back when I was more of a noobie than I am now, gotten turned down and scolded for using an object or widget in my themes without express permission from the owner/creator.( As it should be.) This reads like it is ok, but I don't think so. My 2 cents.