BootSkin Progress Bar

Black Streak

from WinCustomize Forums
I'm trying to make a bootskin with a white background but the progress bar always leaves a black streak. I guess it has something to do with the color pallet. Is there a way to change it so that it creates a trail that blends with my image?
beginners
4,840 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
no
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Excellent, you seem to be in the know. Please test the following bootskins and then explain how the authors managed to do the impossible.

http://tinyurl.com/z7atu
http://tinyurl.com/jpcv7
http://tinyurl.com/fq2wj
http://tinyurl.com/jlojb
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You could always download those skins, and see how they did it. I mean thats one of the best ways to learn. Just see how others have done something, and adapt it to your own knowledge. I would imagine it is just how they made their progress bar image. It is most likely a .png that is solid on the far right, and fades into a translucent color on the left.

I could almost say with certainaty (altho, I have only ever made 2 bootskins for personal use) that is how it is done.

Good luck. If you can't get a good answer here, just download the skins and check out how they may have done it .
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks for the reply, Keikonium. I was excited when I first noticed that someone had changed the color. After downloading I went over the files but they're all .bmp so no transparent colors allowed.

I'm sure it has to do with the order of the colors in the pallet. One of them must be the "fill" color for the progress bar. The trick is gonna be in figuring out how to order the pallet the right way. I've tried editing the pallet manually but that messed up my image. The new color I selected was used in place of the old one. So if I reversed black for white that's exactly what I'd get. All my black becomes white and vice versa. Anywho, I'll keep looking.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Okay, now I see how it is done.



They just made the bar go from large on the right, to small on the left. Making it look like it trails. Then put in the background color behind that.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Strange that is not what I have found
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The progress bar isn't exactly the problem. When the bootskin starts and the progress bar moves from left to right it follows a track defined in bootskin.ini. Now when the bar starts to move a color is filled in behind it. The color I want is white so that it'll blend in with my bootskin image. But the track always shows up black for me because that was the first color in my pallet. But changing colors in my pallet messed up my image.

In the end the problem was pretty simple to solve. I made a color pallet with a custom order of colors. That messed up my image but I saved a copy of only the pallet. I then loaded that pallet into a fresh, already color reduced, version of my bootskin image and the colors in my bootskin didn't change, only the position of the colors on my pallet. I did the same thing with the progress bar and the change worked perfectly. The track for my progress bar stayed white and blended with my skin.

Any who, it's awesome that I'm not stuck with just black background anymore. It's kind of confusing to read but I hope it's clear enough for you to get what I mean.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Did you manage to make the prog bar "float" over the back ground without changing it? I want to make mine do the same, but I don't have only black or white under the progbar, i have my skin with design. My prog bar leaves a black trail covering the rest behind.
Thanx
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
When you create a bootskin, you create two images, the background image, and the progress bar image. As you may know. And these images should have the same palette - because when the bootskin is actually displayed during a reboot, only the Progress Bar image palette is loaded and used for both images.

Now, with that in mind, let's examine the palette. Many, if not the vast majority, of image editing applications ( MSPaint is the worst ) set up a sixteen color palette with Black in color slot-0 and white in color slot-1.

This sucks if your image isn't using black and white, because you just got robbed of two color slots, which matters when you only have sixteen to begin with.

OK, to the question at hand. During reboot, the prog bar image moves across the screen and behind it leaves a trail. This trail will be the color in slot-0 of your palette!

So, to blend in the trail with the background, you need to manipulate the palette and image so that the background is the color in slot-0.

My Bootskin Buddy gadget allows you to set the values for palette colors (but does not do actual image editing, per se ). You may find it useful. Also, thew demo bootskins included with that gadget demonstrate this non-black trail solution. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/30733603/
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You're off by one pixel on one of the sides, try making the box that the progress bar follows one pixel higher or lower depending on where it disappears. It happened to me before too.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sadly, I don't think there is a way to get the effect you want, beto666. You might have to choose the best color you can for your track or drop the progress bar if it doesn't fit your skin.