Hive 2.1 Izmo skin by Plugmon

[plugmon]

I am quite confused by some of the posts here, you would think it is like that time when Apple made everyone have a U2 album on their iTunes library, except this is just another skin choice to use; no one is forced to use it. Some people's feelings seem to be way too strong on the matter.

I understand why some people have got this much furious. With fairly high probability those who own Hive 2 loves its design -- The hexagon, the symmetric layout, the dark & cyber blue look, classic hardware-ish knobs and so on.

They get excited on hearing that a new skin is added, open it and alas, there shows up a totally opposite design from what they'd expected -- No hexagon, asymmetric, light and monochrome, flat look with perfect unfamiliar system. Not a scent of the original Hive is left and you have to learn the UI from almost zero. For some it could be a nightmare like someone said.

Izmo is literally the "2nd variation", but it is natural that some regard it as the "1st alternative" and hope it to be designed for them who've loved the original Hive. So I am thankful to the modifiers like Funkybot's Evil Twin, who will fulfill the needs for that kind.

Aside from color variation things, there could be a chance to adjust/improve minor points on script level e.g. Tabs for ARP/SEQ in the center, clearer waveform selection. So a specific feedback is still welcome.

[Hanz Meyzer]

What do folks think of this Izmo mod? I basically recreated big chunks of Izmo in Affinity Desinger to facilitate recoloring elements, or just tweaked things in Photo. Changes are:

1. Replaced the paper white with the same shade of gray used in the default Hive 2 skin.
2. Darker elements are a bit darker too for more contrast
3. Changed some of the sub labels
4. Put light text inside dark windows for things like the voice mode, oscillator waveform name, XY #'s, etc.
5. Made the "FXBypass" orange when FX are enabled, and gray when disabled. Animated the switch (left off, right is on).
6. Added the default skin color to the waveform displays and logo for a splash of color
7. Added color to the FX on/off indicators to really let you know the difference between on and off
8. Vibrato indicator now is blue to match mod color
9. Centered the word VOICE in the top-left
10. As I recreated most panes, there's none of the textured noise that exists in the original theme, so it's a bit flatter/cleaner

Well, I have the impression that you guys, including plugmon already worked way too long on this skin, so you guys lost the birds view on the problems, which might be look obvious for "newcomers" like me. Please make at least a week of pause on this topic, do other graphics stuff in the meanwhile.

This is what I see (and no doubt this is already great work and I am not critizing here any skills or the overall work):

- The contrast is way too low. The brightest color should be really white (255 255 255) and the darkest color should be really black (0 0 0). It might be ok, if the darkest black is some slight grey. This is the starting reference for contrast and brightness. e.g. why are the handles on the knobs not really white?

- Colored elements REALLY can have a high saturation. It will give a fresh look. Sometimes it might be look better if the brightness is a bit muted after the saturation was kicked in.

- Always use a modern super bright / eye-blinding LED 4k monitor as reference device. Or a mac screen.

- Black outline circle around black knob really is not a good choice. Also grey shadow on black element always will give it a blurry look. And you do not want blurry, you want very defined pixels. So I would reconcept some of the color choices here.

- Consider outlines always as a poor workaround for a not so well chosen color concept. Outlines will give it always a dated look. Also outlines will quickly become super thin hairlines on modern 4k screens, which makes it even worse in ergonomic.

-I would use shadows only with more more defined outlines, and not a blur. Then reduce the alpha instead.

- Free floating text on huge grey area is annoying for the eye. The eye needs always some structure to quickly understand the structure. Your contrast of the text boxes is so delicate, that it almost disappears.

EDIT: Didn't want to sound arrogant or so, that's just my two cents about what's important in UX design. I am no expert and surely couldn't make a skin like this.

[fgimian]

Are there any plans for a dark variant of the skin? I'm keen to try and use it but it's just not to my taste with the current brightness (I use dark skins on virtually everything).

[loungepanda]

Are there any plans for a dark variant of the skin? I'm keen to try and use it but it's just not to my taste with the current brightness (I use dark skins on virtually everything).

Not free, but Plugmon's Eclipse skin (now 2.1 compatible) might be better suited for those who wishing for darker tones and more colours:

https://plugmon.jp/product/eclipse/

[e-musician]

So a specific feedback is still welcome.

As I said before, I really love the overall layout, the black/white colour scheme, the icons and everything else. I absolutely appreciate the amount of work and the creativity that is behind the Izmo skin.

When I talked about "contrast", I meant that - without changing anything else - certain grey areas should be slightly darker, i. e. displays, knob background rings and the middle section (see my amateurish mock-up below).

Maybe an option could be that you might include these slightly darker or modified pictures as "Alternative Parts" (just like you do with your other commercial skins).

@Funkybot: Thanks for sharing your Gizmo Edit. (I haven't been able to try it yet, though).

[psynical]

why don't you crack open the files and make those changes yourself? IMO, most of what you're suggesting is a step in the wrong direction, but since you feel so strongly about that aesthetic, go for it!

[Hanz Meyzer]

Yeah sorry, sounded kind of arrogant by accident. I have no graphics skills, so I never could do a plugin skin.

[plugmon]

......
When I talked about "contrast", I meant that - without changing anything else - certain grey areas should be slightly darker, i. e. displays, knob background rings and the middle section (see my amateurish mock-up below).

Maybe an option could be that you might include these slightly darker or modified pictures as "Alternative Parts" (just like you do with your other commercial skins).

The basic concept is low-contrast so I don't feel like making it as dark as you suggest but yeah, there could be room for slightly more contrast with not eroding the concept. Or changing Gamma setting to "Dark" can make dark areas much darker while keeping light areas almost unchanged.

"Alternative Parts" system is this time difficult. The installer package gets fat, and without userguide it's hard to let users know of it

Yeah sorry, sounded kind of arrogant by accident. I have no graphics skills, so I never could do a plugin skin.

Don't be sorry, It feels to me that yours is much more polite than some aggressive reactions found in the thread so far
As to brightness range, however, lately it's not uncommon to restrain the usage of 100% black/white.
Have a look at relatively new designs like Zebra, RePro, XLN XO, Ozone9, Sugarbytes Factory, Softube Model72, bx_oberhausen, Massive X etc. and you hardly find (255 255 255) in these. Pure white is surely still the king but not using it is also one of the choice we certainly have nowadays.

[midi_transmission]

We don't need to talk about that the skin has a very good quality in most parts and that you're clearly very talented. That was the laudatory part.

But I agree that some elements like the inactive knobs and rings around knobs are indeed difficult to look at because of too similar grey tones. Especially the brighter ones. That's a reason I don't like to use the skin a longer time. I'm sorry to say this

I don't say more is always better. Too high contrast is also not great as a plugin skin (large pure black & pure white themes for example) but everything should be in a usable range, shouldn't it? Even when the concept is a lower contrast theme.

Massive X was mentioned. It's one of the best sounding synth, but has unfortunately one of the worst to use ui in the recent time. It's the whole look & feel of MX I dislike. The "look" part has a similar problem, but even stronger than Izmo skin, the too similar bright grey tones are unpleasant for the brain.

That being said, the feel part works well for me in Izmo skin. The layout is great. I like new FX section. And the darker parts like LFO/OSC/Filer in Izmo skin have less of a problem than the bright areas somehow.

Please don't understand this all a negative way!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Small Izmo bug...

On the X/Y details tabs, the one numeric label always says 1 regardless of which pane you're currently on.

Izmo XY Label Bug.png

[plugmon]

Small Izmo bug...

On the X/Y details tabs, the one numeric label always says 1 regardless of which pane you're currently on.

Izmo XY Label Bug.png

Thanks, a typical miscoding! I duplicated XY1 section to XY2~4, changing all numbers but this one overlooked.
Just for your information, if you want to fix it in your Gizmo skin right now, Please find following and change "labeltext" value.

LB XY2B No
LB XY3B No
LB XY4B No

[Hanz Meyzer]

Don't be sorry, It feels to me that yours is much more polite than some aggressive reactions found in the thread so far
As to brightness range, however, lately it's not uncommon to restrain the usage of 100% black/white.
Have a look at relatively new designs like Zebra, RePro, XLN XO, Ozone9, Sugarbytes Factory, Softube Model72, bx_oberhausen, Massive X etc. and you hardly find (255 255 255) in these. Pure white is surely still the king but not using it is also one of the choice we certainly have nowadays.

Thank you Yeah, I didn't express myself too precisely either Actually I did a bunch of webpage designs and also a few pretty crappy VST GUIs eons ago. Actually I would love to try to "finetune" your design a bit, which does not mean that I think I could do that better, but instead to show you what exactly I mean with my cryptic points. Is it possible that you would export your design in a static state to photoshop layers or so? Fiddling around with exported anim-pngs surely would completely overwhelm me... I also could install a demo/trial(?) of Affinity Designer, a good reason to learn that amazing software (hating Adobe stuff).

Keep up the good work!

[Kypresso]

I also could install a demo/trial(?) of Affinity Designer, a good reason to learn that amazing software (hating Adobe stuff).

Affinity are giving out free 90 day trials at the moment and also all their products are half price.

I just downloaded their designer, photo and publisher to have a play with.

[gentleclockdivider]

That's a gorgeous looking skin , if only it was for zebra hz

[TIMT]

Whilst that new Hive skin is pretty aesthetically pleasing, it's not at all a step up in terms of functionality. The original design concept for the UI of Hive is an acquired taste sure, but it's far easier to navigate than the Plugmon one IMO