Xion Community

Hi eveyrone, most of you probably know me from wincustomize. I got major problems with even beginning to skin xion.

first question." I know it has to be psd format, but when i make the skin in ps, does the WHOLE skin have to be a continous of play button, background..ect.... what if i need 3 layers to make the background? then what? Do i save it as background then reopen it and start on the buttons? and what if i need a few layers to make a button? this is where i am LOST. Alot of my work consists of more than one layer, so i have no idea how you guys can make these skins and yet have them in one psd file .....

im dying to make xion skins, so please explain in laymens terms if possible. thanks.

Learn by example. Take apart some of the skins for a frame of reference.

Hello Kittymalone.Welcome to the forums.

Skinning Xion is very easy and I will try to do my best in answering your questions.

kittymalone Wrote:I know it has to be psd format, but when i make the skin in ps, does the WHOLE skin have to be a continous of play button, background..ect....

Not at all.The play button can be the whole background (by just giving it the name 'play') or a very small layer.You can have in Xion as much layers as you want by naming the layers other names than those found in the reference chart.However those layers must be rasterized before as Xion doesn't support unrasterized .psd layers till now.

Here is the link to the reference chart:
http://xion.r2.com.au/index.php?page=layerref

kittymalone Wrote:what if i need 3 layers to make the background? then what? Do i save it as background then reopen it and start on the buttons?

You can have one background layer or no background or several background at the same time.
If your background has more than 2 overlapping layers then merge them.
if you have several layers away from each other then rasterize them or merge them with other layers and add to their name the keyword 'moveable' so they can be moved with the mouse.

kittymalone Wrote:and what if i need a few layers to make a button? this is where i am LOST.

It's also very simple.The button must be one layer.If your button has several layers for ex a background round layer and an arrow layer above it,after giving them the texture you want just simply merge those two layers and give the newly merged layer the name 'play' for the play button or 'stop'(without capitals) for the stop button or 'next' for the next button,etc...

Remember that all the layers must be rasterized or merged before,else they will appear in the skin as white layers.
The background of the psd must be transparent.When you create your new image in photoshop,don't forget to put the background of the image as transparent else you will have a big yellow layer behind the skin.

Here is a link on how to begin skinning Xion:
http://xion.r2.com.au/index.php?page=tut1

I hope this helped.

kittymalone Wrote:Hi eveyrone, most of you probably know me from wincustomize. I got major problems with even beginning to skin xion.

first question." I know it has to be psd format, but when i make the skin in ps, does the WHOLE skin have to be a continous of play button, background..ect.... what if i need 3 layers to make the background? then what? Do i save it as background then reopen it and start on the buttons? and what if i need a few layers to make a button? this is where i am LOST. Alot of my work consists of more than one layer, so i have no idea how you guys can make these skins and yet have them in one psd file .....

im dying to make xion skins, so please explain in laymens terms if possible. thanks.

Have you checked out the Tutorials under the Help link at the top of this page?

Cliff