Skin Update: DUNE Black Mk2

[ENV1]

It works for DUNE CM version aswell.

Oh good, thats great to hear!

I see you have the KB/FX switch visible there; does that mean CM has the FX active too?

I always thought its the same as BE where additionally the 2nd modmatrix is disabled.

(BTW, does the MODMATRIX 2 tab do something when you click it? Or is it just dead?)

Just curious.

[ENV1]

Labels are hard to read, I have to launch the Windows magnifying glass, and even then it's not easy. What else to expect from medium gray on dark gray...

Well they are certainly darker than the white keys but all in all i would still categorize them as pretty bright.

Have you tried giving your monitor a slight brightness boost?

Maybe you just have it set too dark.

[U-o]

It works for DUNE CM version aswell.

Oh good, thats great to hear!

I see you have the KB/FX switch visible there; does that mean CM has the FX active too?

I always thought its the same as BE where additionally the 2nd modmatrix is disabled.

(BTW, does the MODMATRIX 2 tab do something when you click it? Or is it just dead?)

Just curious.

When I switch to FX section, there's...

































... another KB!

[ENV1]

Strange, because thats the old KB from Mk1.

Is this the same KB that you get when the KB/FX switch is on KB?

Because if so then something isnt right, you should be getting the same KB thats shown on my screenshot in the OP.


EDIT: Your first screenshot has the switch set to KB and its the old one too. Apparently the DLL already had Mk1 installed, the question is only did you keep the old KB images in there on purpose?

[ZeePok]

Labels are hard to read, I have to launch the Windows magnifying glass, and even then it's not easy. What else to expect from medium gray on dark gray...

Well they are certainly darker than the white keys but all in all i would still categorize them as pretty bright.

Have you tried giving your monitor a slight brightness boost?

Maybe you just have it set too dark.

That worked for me, had to do only a slight brightness adjust and I could read everything perfectly!

[U-o]

Strange, because thats the old KB from Mk1.

Is this the same KB that you get when the KB/FX switch is on KB?

Because if so then something isnt right, you should be getting the same KB thats shown on my screenshot in the OP.


EDIT: Your first screenshot has the switch set to KB and its the old one too. Apparently the DLL already had Mk1 installed, the question is only did you keep the old KB images in there on purpose?

Yes, indeed.

[provoc]

Thanks! .. I liked MK1 but this one is even better

[Dasheesh]

love it thanx. will give it a try.

[ZeePok]

 
There's one thing:

I immediately missed the 'trail' around the knobs and found the full circle around them distracting; like they were all set at full value.

So I decided to preserve the original knobs (*) and now it's perfect!

(*) for those interested: PNG 112,113 & 134

[ENV1]

Yes, indeed.

Well that explains it then. For a minute there i thought that maybe i had made some mistake, which would have been odd since i had tested the importing of Images.res multiple times both on BE and the full version Demo. Glad to hear that theres no problem after all.

There's one thing:

I immediately missed the 'trail' around the knobs and found the full circle around them distracting; like they were all set at full value.

Theyre not actually full circles, just arcs to indicate the min/max range of the knobs. Originally those grey arcs were meant to be the backgrounds for red animations (you know, the usual) but ultimately i decided against that for several reasons.

The main reason is because some of the knobs are bipolar in function but are using the unipolar knob strip. The Pulse Width knob, the 3 Skew knobs, and also the OscMix knob, they all have neutral at their center position but are set up as unipolar. (Including readout.) So rather than showing nothing when centered they all show 50% engaged when animations are used, i.e. the left half of the arc is lit. Since this kinda bothered me and i have no way of fixing this here on my end i did the only thing i ultimately could do and scrapped the animations altogether so that none of the knobs can look wrong. (I had to make a similar decision with regard to the shadows on the keyboard keys because not all possible cases of simultaneous up/down combinations are considered but thats another story.)

Anyway, the reason why the grey arcs remained is because i had to put them directly on the background since the knob images themselves all have the rightmost pixelrow missing when displayed on the UI. (The knobs are 36x36 and 45x45 but on the UI they are only 35x36 and 44x45.) And i didnt like how that looked, so i made the arcs separate from the actual knob images. Then when i removed the animated arcs from the knob strips the background arcs were still on the main background, and since they look so much nicer than the fuzzy indicator lines the old knobs had (which also had to be very short so they wouldnt extend outside the section boundaries with some knobs) i decided to keep them because they made the whole UI look so much cleaner.

So thats the story behind the arcs. Its not my favorite solution either, i would have much preferred to use the animations, and if i had had access to all aspects of the UI i definitely would have made everything as perfect as possible. (Including fixing the various positioning issues because a lot of stuff isnt aligned properly.)

[ZeePok]

 
Thanks for explaining! My, that sounds like a lot of work!

Anyway, it looks much fresher than the original! I like your design!

[U-o]

Yes, indeed.

Well that explains it then. For a minute there i thought that maybe i had made some mistake, which would have been odd since i had tested the importing of Images.res multiple times both on BE and the full version Demo. Glad to hear that theres no problem after all.

Thank you for this skin. I mixed it with previous skin version to my taste and now looks (and works) great - also with DUNE CM = still great VSTi, even without FX section.

[Richard_Synapse]

Really nice skin, thanks for sharing!

Richard

[perfumer]

Really nice skin, thanks for sharing!

Richard

Dune 3 when?

[ENV1]

Really nice skin, thanks for sharing!

Hey Richard, good to see you. Glad you like it.

Youre probably busy enough with other things, but there are a few things i found that would be nice if they were fixed, so should you ever consider an update to DUNE (which is still as useful as ever regardless of the fact that more advanced options are available) here are 2 things that are not just item-positioning issues:

LFOs
Saw and Square of LFO 2 and LFO 3 have like a short lag at the start of every cycle. (Its the same effect that a lag-generator would produce.) The lag is relatively brief at fast rates/speed but still very noticable and enough to make LFO 2 and 3 unsuitable in situations where you need a clean straight ramping up or down. Check the attached audio to hear the effect. Note: This is not a problem with either Skew or Phase; these 2 parameters have no influence on the lag effect. Also the Sine might actually be affected too, but its hard to tell due to the nature of the waveform. The S&H generators do not seem to be affected; they always switch 'hard' (i.e. without any lag) with Skew on 0. LFO 1 works normally and does not exhibit this problem. Audio Demo.


Internal Preset Manager
Using DUNEs internal preset manager, presets and banks will not be saved unless an extension (.fxp or .fxb) is added manually after the name. So just typing 'Bass1' and then clicking Save will not work, (no file will be created then), one must write 'Bass1.fxp' to save the sound as a single preset or 'Bass1.fxb' to save the whole bank. This is regardless of the fact that the correct extensions are given in the 'Save as type' field, which normally auto-adds that extension to the name given to the file. Note: I can only speak to the BE version here since the full version Demo doesnt allow saving and i dont have CM. But chances are that all versions are affected since they all seem to be based on the same code.


I have a lot more related to item positioning and other UI related stuff but im sure you have more pressing things to take care of. Still should you ever consider a redo of DUNEs UI i will be happy to give you the details, in fact i would be more than happy to fix everything myself should you externalize the resources like you apparently did with DUNE2. (Important would be the definition file that holds the sizes and positions of stuff and what images are assigned to what controls etc.)


Cheers.