Xion Audio Player

Making a Preview?

General Discussion about Xion Audio Player

Postby Mudslung » June 21st, 2007, 6:34 am

Have a couple "rough" skins assembled, and can't quite figure out how to assemble a preview, for viewing in the skin browser. I know that it has to be 128 X 128, but thats all I know? LOL
Could use any help I can get. Much appreciated!
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Postby Cliff Cawley » June 21st, 2007, 7:18 am

Mudslung Wrote:Have a couple "rough" skins assembled, and can't quite figure out how to assemble a preview, for viewing in the skin browser. I know that it has to be 128 X 128, but thats all I know? LOL
Could use any help I can get. Much appreciated!


Hi Mudslung,

Yes, you are correct. You need that 128x128 image, create it as a layer in your skin add the 'preview' keyword to the layer name. This will flag it for Xion as being the preview for your skin.

Hide the layer as well, so that it doesn't show up in your skin. Xion will still find it when generating the preview.

If you don't create one, Xion will attempt to create one for you from your skin.

Cliff :)
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Postby Mudslung » June 21st, 2007, 10:21 am

Thank you for offering your support Cliff.

Obviously, I need to spend some more time learning about Layers, cause I don't know how to make a 128X128 image of my skin inside my present layer stack within the skin! Also I finished a skin and made it a zip then renamed it to the .xsf format, tryed putting it in the interfaces folder, as well as trying to drag it over the player, and nothing happened. Is there any Documentation that I could read up on to better understand what I am doing, rather than taking up space and time in the forum?

Thanks again for a wonderful product.
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Postby pictoratus » June 21st, 2007, 11:02 am

Mudslung Wrote:Thank you for offering your support Cliff.

Obviously, I need to spend some more time learning about Layers, cause I don't know how to make a 128X128 image of my skin inside my present layer stack within the skin! Also I finished a skin and made it a zip then renamed it to the .xsf format, tryed putting it in the interfaces folder, as well as trying to drag it over the player, and nothing happened. Is there any Documentation that I could read up on to better understand what I am doing, rather than taking up space and time in the forum?

Thanks again for a wonderful product.


Mudslung ... there are probably dozens of ways but to make a preview, I make a duplicate image of my psd file, flatten it, copy it, and paste as a new layer in my original psd file; with the appropriate resizing, etc.

As far as documentation, there is the tutorial (under the Help link) where you will also find a link to the Layer Keyword reference chart. Other than that, it's pretty much take skins apart to see how it's done, as far as I know.
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Postby Mudslung » June 21st, 2007, 11:32 am

Thanks for that helpful bit of info. I figured out the Preview thing, now I can't get my skin to load, I can see the preview in the skin browser, however my skin will not load into the player?
Is there something I am suppose to do before saving it...like (rasterize, or do I have to collapse all my layers?) I am using PS CS3 Extended, could this be causing any conflicts as well?
Sure do appreciate all the support here in this fine community!!
Look forward to helping someone else out in the future, and becoming a part of this fine ol' group of folks here!

Thanks again Sir.
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Postby Cliff Cawley » June 21st, 2007, 1:07 pm

Mudslung Wrote:Thanks for that helpful bit of info. I figured out the Preview thing, now I can't get my skin to load, I can see the preview in the skin browser, however my skin will not load into the player?
Is there something I am suppose to do before saving it...like (rasterize, or do I have to collapse all my layers?) I am using PS CS3 Extended, could this be causing any conflicts as well?
Sure do appreciate all the support here in this fine community!!
Look forward to helping someone else out in the future, and becoming a part of this fine ol' group of folks here!

Thanks again Sir.


Wow, I didn't know there was a CS3 already for Photoshop, I'm still using 7.0! :o

Instead of zipping it up, you can easily just drag and drop your .psd file on. This will confirm if it works.

If it works and the .zip doesn't, then its most likely to do with the paths in the .zip file.

There is a bug in Xion at the moment, where if you include the paths with the .zip file, it can't find the .psd file in the .zip file.

Are you using a .zip utility such as powerarchiver, or winzip, or are you using the Windows XP wizard?

Cliff :)
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Postby ALAS » June 21st, 2007, 4:37 pm

Mudslung- maybe I tell you something you already know... all layers have to be rasterized before xion can handle them. What doesn´t work are for example shape layers and layers with effects (bevel, outer glow etc.). They have to be rasterized before using in Xion. What´s also important is, that Xion treats each layer style as "normal" (something like color, saturation etc. won´t show up). What´s kept in Xion is layer transparency. What I do with all special layers is, place a normal layer underneath, link the desired special layers to it and merge them down.
All terms used here are for PS 7, maybe somethings are named different in CS3...
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Postby Mudslung » June 21st, 2007, 4:56 pm

Hey Cliff,

I simply renamed my .psd file to .xsf, but yes I also used winrar. It works fine if I drag the .psd onto the player, but when I put it in the interfaces folder and try to load it through the browser, it doesn't load, also if I double click on the .xsf file it does nothing! The same thing if I "zip" it up and try to put the zip file in the folder, still nothing. When I save my file in PS, can I leave all my layers stacked? Or is there anything special you have to do before saving your file that I might be missing?

Thanks for the response. Look forward to getting out of this "Retard" phase! :shock:
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Postby Mudslung » June 22nd, 2007, 2:12 am

Hay ALAS,
I tryed posting last nught but kept getting a "timed out" error!

Thanks for the input, yeah, I found out that I have to link, and merge my "fx" layers. I went in and reworked my skin this morning and was able to do some pretty neat stuff that I thought I wouldn't be able to. However, I still CAN'T get my skin to load through the browser? It works fine when I drag the .psd file onto the player, and it also shows my preview, but when i click "load skin" the player just flashes and stays on the current skin!
I was able to accomplish what you described about the layers WITHOUT making a normal layer underneath, also I didn't "rasterize" and all my effects came out fine!
Thanks for the reply.

P.S. By the way Photoshop CS3 (EXTENDED) ROCKS!!
Can you say 3D!!!
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Postby SLoB » June 22nd, 2007, 4:17 am

y cs3 looks to be cool, still costs too much to upgrade tho, ill stick with cs1

mudslung
try adding your psd to a zip file, then rename the zip file to yourskinname.xsf
also if your using non standard font(s) add the font(s) into the zip also, they will get used by Xion automatically

for previews i cheat with mine, i dont bother creating a 128*128

I create a layer at the top of the layers section, name it preview, fill it with white (any colour will do as long as its not transparent)
I then with my skin loaded in Xion line the skin up with the preview layer zoomed at 100%
I then press prntscreen to get a screen grab, past this into ps and line it up so the white edges are in the correct position, then select all, copy and past this layer and ditch the screen grab layer
then just merge the preview and new layer highlighting the preview layer so that the name of the layer remains preview
thats it, Xion doesnt like the underlying image for the preview to be transparent
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Postby ALAS » June 22nd, 2007, 5:43 am

Mudslung Wrote:..about the layers WITHOUT making a normal layer underneath


yes, "there are a thousand ways that lead to Rome..."

maybe CS3 has a special format of saving files? If there is an option like "save as.. photoshop 7 format" or so try that.

P.S.: what´s never been clear to me is: did you ever see your skin (not preview) more or less correctly in Xion? (asking cause you wrote something like "... all my effects came out fine" .. in Xion?
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Postby Mudslung » June 22nd, 2007, 6:29 am

Alas,

The "Rome" thing..... How Original!

Yes I have been able to load my skin (from the day I started) by dragging the .PSD file onto the player, but thats the ONLY way it will work. I also just tryed what slob suggested and that didn't work either!
What did "Spark" a new thought, was your suggestion to save out in an earlier version of PS. Sure, it's all good that it works (FOR ME) by draggin' it onto the player, but what good is that if I can't upload them!!
Also, it seems to eat up resources when dragging the .psd file to the player!
This is what I did on my last attempt to load from the browser;
1) Saved the PS file (after linking and merging layers)
2) Put the .psd and two font (tff) files in the same folder
3) Zipped all three up with winrar
4) Copied the .rar (zip) file to the Interfaces folder and changed the name to my skin - lookin_back.xsf
It will NOT load! I'm going to see if there is an option to save to an earlier version of PS!
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Postby SLoB » June 22nd, 2007, 7:00 am

post the skin up if you like or pm a link, will take a look as to why its not loading for ya
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Postby Cliff Cawley » June 22nd, 2007, 7:03 am

Mudslung Wrote:4) Copied the .rar (zip) file to the Interfaces folder and changed the name to my skin - lookin_back.xsf
It will NOT load! I'm going to see if there is an option to save to an earlier version of PS!


You mentioned .rar here. You can't use a .Rar file. You have to actually compress it as a .zip file and not just rename it from .rar.

Winrar provides an option to compress to .zip as far as I recall. If not, please try something like PowerArchiver or Winzip.

Cliff :)
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Postby Mudslung » June 22nd, 2007, 7:21 am

Hi Cliff,

I will try your suggestion to save as a .zip and not .rar. I'm sure whatever the problem is, I will come to find that it was right in my face this whole time!

Thanks again for your support! (Mate) 8) [/img]
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