Some skinning stuff

[Ted the Penguin]

since its a wishlist, I thought I would wish for a few things.

SVG support (but sub already knew that)

mask images: it would be nice to allow the major color to be selected in the skin file, but still have a nice overlay with some good gradients and such. for oddly shaped things it would be nice to be able to create a mask image. I realize that this would probably be resource hungry, but its a thought.

textures/tiling: to allow a simple image to fill an area, but keep its aspect ratio. for something like the diagonal lines in sassari, I would like to keep them at a 45° angle, but still fill the list area fully (not just scaled).


Sub: please reply to this, even if it is just to shoot it down thanks

[sub]

SVG support (but sub already knew that)

I do intend to add this in the future.

mask images: it would be nice to allow the major color to be selected in the skin file, but still have a nice overlay with some good gradients and such. for oddly shaped things it would be nice to be able to create a mask image. I realize that this would probably be resource hungry, but its a thought.

Can you give me more details? Its not clear exactly how/where you intend to use it. Give me an example or two, or even a mocked up screenshot.

textures/tiling: to allow a simple image to fill an area, but keep its aspect ratio. for something like the diagonal lines in sassari, I would like to keep them at a 45° angle, but still fill the list area fully (not just scaled).

I'll be honest, this is unlikely to happen. There is logic to keep the aspect ratio for images, drawing them is large as possible, but this is unlikely to be extended to other types of primitives. You may be able to achieve what you want with images?

[Ted the Penguin]

I can try to do a diagram when I can use an image editor. but what I am talking about is: having a button with a wierd size/shape, like the sassari main menu button. I was hooping to make it easier to change the color of it, by having a mask image that is the exact shape of what I want the color to be, and then specifying the color, either by specifying the color when using the mask, or by creating something (like a rectangle) and then applying the mask to it.
basically using an image to specify the shape of something, and specifying the color in the image file. it really isnt a big deal, and I can work around this by just telling people to change the color of what I would have used as the mask, but I was hoping to do most everything from a skin file.

quick question about this, how much of a performance hit is it to add multiple layers of images? like say, having a rectangle for the background, with an overlay that has all of the low/highlights, then having a solid color image for the background of buttons, then an overlay for the high/lowlights of the buttons?

I dont think there is any way for me to create an image that will keep the 45° lines and still fill the list box area on both 16:9 and 4:3 displays, not that I really plan on using sassari on a 4:3 display, but it would make less work


In all honestly, I was wishing :p and I knew that you plan on including SVG, I didnt remember if that ever made it out of the pre-release thread. and the other two were more of an afterthought, just one of those things that would be nice, but not really necessary.

thanks for the reply

[tipstir]

There are ways to do it.. Good you like to know how it done.. Depends on your tools for graphic works..

[Ted the Penguin]

I am talking about withing GB-PVR, I am sure that I can create something in photoshop or whatever, where i just have to specify the size of a rectangle and it will produce a rectangle with the correct border, shadow and background (diagonal lines) but I want to do it in GB-PVR, on the fly!

[Ted the Penguin]

SUB!

could you answer my question about performance of multiple layers of transparent images?

quick question about this, how much of a performance hit is it to add multiple layers of images? like say, having a rectangle for the background, with an overlay that has all of the low/highlights, then having a solid color image for the background of buttons, then an overlay for the high/lowlights of the buttons?

thanks

[sub]

It depends where in the application you're talking about, and how exactly those items are composed. For example drawing a screen like the Recordings screen consists of a background, buttons, list background, list items and potentially popup background, popup button, and popup text, all on top of each other, but can be very quick to render with nearly everything being cached and displayed using the video cards direct3d hardware. This is just limited by the bandwidth of the videocard, and the number of pixels it can push through.

[Ted the Penguin]

Thanks for answering

so the limitation is basically on the video card... I didnt see any great performance hit when using my x800, we will have to see how the 9600 fares... which probably wont be well, since last time I tried VMR9 there as stuttering... guess I have a good excuse for a small video card upgrade :p


just for reference, what I want to do is use a mask for the background, buttons, and some other images (tribal logo) and then have a solid color image (or just draw a rectangle for the background) to change the color of the item. All of these images have transparency (including the solid colors).

think that is going to tax the GPU significantly? propably will with the mini guide up, and a show popup up, with buttons.