Skinning the game

[Intergalactic Mole]

What do you think?

I love it!

[rommager]

I imagine there's still work to be done with skinning.  I think the devs probably have just put some of the base coding and file structure in for full skin support, but it's probably not yet complete.  After all, there's lots still to be done in actual gameplay tuning, and developers can only work on so much at a time.

Have patience - from reading other posts, I'm sure the devs are on the same page.  I think the original intent is that they would have the ability to have skins to make the game look like the original Atari 800 and C64 versions for all of us nostalgists and purists out there.  =)

[Dave37]

I imagine there's still work to be done with skinning.  I think the devs probably have just put some of the base coding and file structure in for full skin support, but it's probably not yet complete.  After all, there's lots still to be done in actual gameplay tuning, and developers can only work on so much at a time.

Have patience - from reading other posts, I'm sure the devs are on the same page.  I think the original intent is that they would have the ability to have skins to make the game look like the original Atari 800 and C64 versions for all of us nostalgists and purists out there.  =)

I'm sure you're right, I'm just too impatient.

[rommager]

I'm sure you're right, I'm just too impatient.

It's all good!  Tinkering is at least fun - at least we'll be ready with plenty of new skins when the time comes for full skin support! 

[Tei]

Skining have other uses, like help colorblind people, people with black and gray monitors (?) or other vision problems.

We can even make a "island" theme for these  "Settlers of Catan" fans to feel at home :-)

[Dave37]

Skining have other uses, like help colorblind people, people with black and gray monitors (?) or other vision problems.

We can even make a "island" theme for these  "Settlers of Catan" fans to feel at home :-)

Great! Another good idea. 

[Cyclone]

I am waiting for skinning to be fully supported before I try :] I am very excited about it though.

[Chuckie Chuck]

Playing with this myself today, I'm getting some neat ideas, I like the rough draft on my first attempt (a little spin off the original green lush version created, and my crater features a crushed MULE in it.) 

Turned out pretty good, but first run on the server people trying to connect got skin errors, do you have to all have the same skin to run together?  Going to investigate this more, it appears that every1 has to run default, so I've moved the images out of the default skin folder in the jar folder and moved my custom skin into it to see how that works.  Will take a screen shot later.

I'm planning to make one that is almost real looking with actual photo art, replace mountains with tree covered peaks, plains covered with farm fields (obviously with 64 sq. pixel area it won't be to detailed, but could be neat and a river bed with actual water art, looking a little tricky, but we'll get there, lol)

I'll post that to, if it works out right.  Also have ideas for a game skin that kicks back to TRON. 

[Chuckie Chuck]

My test skin, it's not perfect, but a great fast draft.  Favorite feature is the damaged mule in the crater.  I will keep this feature in new skins.

[Clintone]

love it chuck, keep up the good work

[Chuckie Chuck]

A little more busy than I hoped, probably will change this some, but who knows....

[Dave37]

I've started working on a skin based on my fanart, but I've been on a rather large break. I really should get back to working on it as I would very much like to have it finished.

I'll post pictures of what I have so far when I get home.

[Chuckie Chuck]

Large bitmap experiment, using a 640x480 photo, just random for the test, ended up as a puzzle, but gives me ideas.

[Dave37]

Here's what I've done so far for my full art conversion. I plan on getting back to work on this very soon, as I still have a lot more to do.

The art I still need to replace is:
1) Characters (large and small versions)
2) Animations
3) Text
4) Special events (i.e. bugs)
5) other miscellaneous things...

[Rogue Cat]

Greetings, I'm not online often, just in case it takes a lot to get an answer. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is too used to the classic MULE icons and sometimes gets confused with those factory icons. So, I made a few changes to make a simple skin recovering the classic icons in a (more or less) modern style.

Keep in mind that this is a really simple skin: only factories, goods and energy shortage icons have been altered, the rest is the same. No changes in highlighted factories icons, water spots and other (unused?) graphics. However, plots like 4 energy or 3 food have been done.

Just unzip the directory into your MULE > DATA > SKINS directory. Next time you run the game you should see it in menu Settings > Visual : Map skin.