KnobMan/SkinMan Examples

[l0calh05t]

Urgh. So it basically delays the detected envelope? Or did I still get it wrong, and it's like a detection window control that will simply smooth the envelope a bit before the attacks and releases are shaped?

Uhm... no not really. It's basically a windowed maximum value. It should help reduce distortion on low frequency content when attack & release are short.

Is it some speciality control or like a normal control that a lot of compressors have and I've just missed them all?

Yes, it's an uncommon control.

Stubble is poor choice of words bad word; I've had a beard for a few years now so I don't know anything about that. The little bumps on the side of the knob is what I meant and yes the example is sort of what I was thinking, it would be up you of how its designed. Don't get me wrong, if you used those knobs without numbers I would have said cool knobs perhaps brighten the metal circle a touch .

Well, the use of numbers isn't really a stylistic choice, personally I'd prefer a text caption, but that didn't really work on the technical side... I agree on brightening the metal part (already did for the version with a circular base)

As for the switch I think a darker color might do the job, not to dark, but I don't know. I think the one you have are growing on me.


PS.
after looking at it agian this morning, perhaps you might try and add the shadowing on the knobs. Leave everything and add shadows to the knobs and switches. I think that is what is throwing me off visually.

Hmmm.. the knobs already have shadows... as do the switches... to subtle?

[Hlis93]

--

[mystran]

I decided to test Skinman quickly (and everyone should know by now that I'm graphically totally awful), and design a quick sketch for a purely hypothetical reverb plugin. Didn't bother making the knobs actually look useable (no direction indicators or anything, as one would like to animate those).

Purely skinman, didn't feel like trying to come up with my own textures so just used the default ones (hairline and sand mostly). Don't like the knob labels that much, there's something wrong with the colors, but got tired of trying to find a shading that would work.

Anyway what I came up with looks kinda like this:



I wonder if it'd be worth trying to make it a real plugin by adding an algorithm?

Anyway, I'm starting to kinda like the tool.

edit: oh.. and the only really annoying thing is that all shading angles seem to be dependant on the shape of the object, which means one has to adjust manually every object to get the highlights to align properly

[l0calh05t]

@mystran Not too bad for a first try, but I think the choice of colors is a bit odd (esp. for the labels).

Anyways, here's a new version of my skin (I think I'm gonna keep it this way, maybe add the colored rims again, maybe not)

[bvesco]

It is lookin pretty nice, but I still keep thinking stereo link and sidechain are controlled by knobs and wondering what the bottom row of switches do...

[grymmjack]

@mystran Not too bad for a first try, but I think the choice of colors is a bit odd (esp. for the labels).

Anyways, here's a new version of my skin (I think I'm gonna keep it this way, maybe add the colored rims again, maybe not)

hi guy.

you seem to want some crits?

#1 is scale. look at the size of the knobs and look at the size of the meter. the meter is enormous, the knobs are tiny. the best way i can quantify this is; if you had to use this with your fingers would you be comfortable doing it? to me those knobs are too small in relation to the meter. since this is mainly all we have to go on for comparison, you could simply resize the meter and give the perception of bigger more finger friendly knobs by doing so. i understand why the meter is larger, it's useful to have a large meter but i see only 5 tick marks on it, this leads me to believe that all of the value in between those is not really useful as i'm left to interpolate the visual value (unless there will be some facility to hover and a status read out or tooltip show the value) so it doesn't really justify it's size. if that meter had much denser tick marks (of course the range is a factor and i understand this sparseness) it would be a different story. i'd resize the meter in both horizontal and vertical dimensions - it's still useful when smaller as the ticks are still doing their job, and in fact it's a little easier to read the meter when it's smaller with less ticks because the eye has less guesswork to perform attempting to decipher the sum/difference and where the bar is filled to, etc.

#2 is lighting. the gradient is fine, background wise, but the knobs do not look like real knobs, they aren't coming out at us. i'd try adding a more clever use of shadow, and perhaps a little bit of lighting on the surface of the knob face itself.

#3 is negative space. the labels of your controls are good, legible, etc, but stereo link, sidechain, and brick wall labels should be moved closer in proximity to the switches themselves. adhering to an invisible grid is great practice, but usability wise it almost looked at first glance to me as if stereo link related to ratio, sidechain to gain, and brickwall to attenuation. moving these labels closer to their switch will eliminate this ambiguity.

#4 is variation. you have the right idea in terms of signal flow, the controls are laid out well, imo, i like the meter where it is, but all the knobs are the same size. what i would do to give it a bit more flair is simply increase the size of the mix knob and then play around with the idea of making threshold the same larger size and moving it closer to ratio and move the gain knob to where those switches are and the switches up to where the gain knob is. it's a nice touch just to take the extra mile and break from the grid to enhance usability. the bigger a click target is the easier it is to adjust, and so follows the larger a control is in relation to the others (scale again but useful in this regard) the more obvious it will be that the control will have more impact on the sound.

#5 is contrast. i would simply increase the brightness of the numbers in rotation around the ticks by a small percent - to make it blend more into the background - this will also help to add the illusion of "depth" to your surface as things farther away tend to be less contrast than those in front. also you might want to consider the same technique for the labels themselves "attenuation, gain" etc. for the same reason.
anyway, i think you're doing a good job

#6 is tactile immersion. i cannot tell from the screenshot, but if the knobs have ticks like that on the outside (a design i like myself too - anything visually tactile pleases me) make sure they are rotated when the knob spins, and dont just rotate the inside only. this will give the entire design more realism and keep the user immersed in your hardware type of feel.

these things i share with you for fun and feel free to ignore all of this. i've learned a lot though doing things wrong myself!

i think you are doing a great job so far. what's this compressor sound like? any demos?

[duncanparsons]

Just picking up on Grymm's point about the meter having 5 tick points.. It's not an aesthetic thing, but normally dB meters are graduated in units divisible 3, and doubling each time.. I would suggest +6,+3,0,-3,-6,-12,-24,-oo.

Just something to consider

ATB
DSP

[scottkane]

a litle gift from me: LCD selectors
use it wiuthout permision if you like

[Hlis93]

--

[Hlis93]

--

[jwatte]

As everyone else said: move down the labels for the switches!

Also, the knob indicator lines are way too subtle. Make them orange or something. Actually being able to read what the setting is is one of the more important parts of a GUI...

[grymmjack]

18 knobman panel elements. Many of the things I have made are on early versions of knobman and would require far to much work to get them prepared for an upload but I was able to sort these few out from the mess on my hardrive. I cant find half the .png that I toss in so many of the panel elements I have made in the past are totally lost. But these are nice and simple.
http://www.box.net/shared/04mxcp79fm

great work!

[Hlis93]

--

[Hlis93]

--

[grymmjack]

great work!

Thank you.

I feel they are a bit mediocre myself.[/quote]

you're too hard on yourself. we're always our worst critics. i didn't load them in knobman, but the screenie looks good.