Hive 2 - GUI ReDesign Project 2023 / 2024

[THE INTRANCER]

Very, very surprising skin...
Please don’t take any offense from it, as I truly respect your way of seeing things (you like what you like, I like what I like, let’s be friends and talk about it in peace), but, even if it has a lot of qualities concerning colours choices, harmony in design, for some reason it looks kiddish and unprofessional to me. I think it’s this kind of overcontrast and crazy brightness that remind me of tweaked cars with neons and things that pass by you at night with stupid music playing so loud it’s unscrewing the whole thing. You see ? I’m not buying the "concept"...

THE INTRANCER why all of your guis so dark? i have a gut feeling that you have not well calibrated display monitor, because the contrast and brightness is horrible on mobile phone, display monitor and my tv and only with your skins.

The current skin on page one is still in development as the new functional design elements are created as I outlined in my long post on page one in response to others. I've always tended to produce music at night and in the dark, so that's why I prefer dark skins so I'm not blinded by them as I open them. That said, not all my Hive skins have been entirely dark, Dune 3 as well as Rapid skins have had light versions of them.

[Ploki]

I prefer darker skins as well but there’s a really fine line between just right and practically unreadable

[Ploki]

that's plugmons.
I like his skins but never clicked with izmo either.
I made this one:
https://ploki.gumroad.com/l/swarm
it's also assymetric and no hexagon. but different approach.
Namely, i try to cram as much stuff into view as possible.

I've just come across your skin for ACE, which looks great. As someone whose head gets utterly befuddled by the presence of cables on softsynth GUIs, ths might fix ACE for me!

I generally dont brag about my work but the way i approached ace has completely changed my perspective of it. I made about 10 patches with ACID and if i switch to default it looks like a mess i’d never ever patch lol. I use it a lot more since i skinned it.

Swarm looks pretty but its not as fundamentally different as ACID is compared to the original.

[Septic Underground]

that's plugmons.
I like his skins but never clicked with izmo either.
I made this one:
https://ploki.gumroad.com/l/swarm
it's also assymetric and no hexagon. but different approach.
Namely, i try to cram as much stuff into view as possible.

I've just come across your skin for ACE, which looks great. As someone whose head gets utterly befuddled by the presence of cables on softsynth GUIs, ths might fix ACE for me!

I got this a while ago for ACE, it is awesome
https://plugmon.jp/product/monolith-for-ace/

Makes it more of a modular than the standard layout

[Lbdunequest]

Very, very surprising skin...
Please don’t take any offense from it, as I truly respect your way of seeing things (you like what you like, I like what I like, let’s be friends and talk about it in peace), but, even if it has a lot of qualities concerning colours choices, harmony in design, for some reason it looks kiddish and unprofessional to me. I think it’s this kind of overcontrast and crazy brightness that remind me of tweaked cars with neons and things that pass by you at night with stupid music playing so loud it’s unscrewing the whole thing. You see ? I’m not buying the "concept"...

THE INTRANCER why all of your guis so dark? i have a gut feeling that you have not well calibrated display monitor, because the contrast and brightness is horrible on mobile phone, display monitor and my tv and only with your skins.

The current skin on page one is still in development as the new functional design elements are created as I outlined in my long post on page one in response to others. I've always tended to produce music at night and in the dark, so that's why I prefer dark skins so I'm not blinded by them as I open them. That said, not all my Hive skins have been entirely dark, Dune 3 as well as Rapid skins have had light versions of them.

I prefer darker skins, but yours are dark in a wrong way. Thats why i suggested it must be that you have bad calibrated monitor. Your dark skins looks bad on 3 sources and only your and its not the design that is bad, but brightness/contrast.

[THE INTRANCER]

[quote=Lbdunequest post_id=8602879 time=1674484615

I prefer darker skins, but yours are dark in a wrong way. Thats why i suggested it must be that you have bad calibrated monitor. Your dark skins looks bad on 3 sources and only your and its not the design that is bad, but brightness/contrast.
[/quote]


I use a proper monitor for graphic design purposes and not for instance a TV/Monitor hybrid which will show an inferior fuzzy image and poor colour. I've run a wide range of tests over the years to ensure that the monitor is displaying everything from colours, contrast and brightness correctly and as it should be. My monitor is properly calibrated on Windows, and it passes all the tests as shown on this website and others, so I can see the darkest of shades to pure bright white. I also design GUIs and other graphic projects based on a value base of typically 100% black, white, light grey or pure 100% colour values so what I see is replicated to those using quality monitors. The darker GUIs I've created are in a way to be of high contrast. People using power-saving facilities on their computers and mobile devices which affect the brightness and/or contrast or that of normal consumer HDTV will not find using the GUIs I create to their liking in this respect. I have hundreds of people who download / test and use the interfaces I create without issues regarding, contrast and brightness. Hive has a gamma control option and I test both the brightest and darkest of these, both in the day and night periods, and don't have any issues.

I don't wear or need glasses and pass all colour vision tests I've tried, both my eyes are blue, but I don't think that makes much difference.

For the screen test I used this site.
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/conclusion.php

A black version of Hive is free to download vie this thread here.

[Fannon]

That's a typical situation Graphic designers having good and properly calibrated monitors, which can deal well with contrasts. Software Developers having high-end laptops where even slow software runs fine. Audio Engineers having top-end monitors and headphones, ...

Can you spot the problem? Almost all of the consumers don't have that And as creators we need to consider that, too.

Regarding the level of blackness: It seems to be highly subjective what you like / your eyes feel comfortable with. I also tend to like more contrast with dark themes than most people, but for me that skin would also have too much contrast in some places. If you're doing this for yourself and for free, then go with whatever suites you. If you want to reach many people, you might need to do some research into what common perceptions and preferences are and cater to that. Those also change a bit over time. But I also enjoy doing some things "my way" and try not too care to much if others have different preferences.

[THE INTRANCER]

Update 1:

It's been 3 days since the initial project posting, however, in those three days, there's been a lot of work in both the design of the skin and implementing features. The lower FX section was expanded with the inclusion of the sound mixing matrix on the left side, as well as a complete redesign of that panel section. This works fully, although the main displays remain lit regardless of the on/off status, which is ok. The original Hive V1 worked like this. Other sections have been altered in the design and adapted to the larger screen area which has been made in the center which could cause some glitching effects. I've managed to eliminate the main glitching issues, however. The skin has had a significant update in its design and layout, whilst minor positioning of the elements has been made.

The foundations have been pretty much laid down now, but there is still plenty to do yet when it comes to additional functionality which is required and alterations in other places as well as unique design changes in other areas.

I have to that making it look like the devil wasn't intentional.

Enlarge to fullscreen

[LFO8]

That's a typical situation Graphic designers having good and properly calibrated monitors, which can deal well with contrasts. Software Developers having high-end laptops where even slow software runs fine. Audio Engineers having top-end monitors and headphones, ...

Can you spot the problem? Almost all of the consumers don't have that And as creators we need to consider that, too.

That's not how that works.

The point of professional, well calibrated monitors, wether for audio or video/graphic is that the work you do on them translates well to 99% of other devices (provided you have your professional, well calibrated monitors placed in an environment where the environment does not interfere with the signal too much on on it's path from the source to your ears/eyes)

[Fannon]

That's a typical situation Graphic designers having good and properly calibrated monitors, which can deal well with contrasts. Software Developers having high-end laptops where even slow software runs fine. Audio Engineers having top-end monitors and headphones, ...

Can you spot the problem? Almost all of the consumers don't have that And as creators we need to consider that, too.

That's not how that works.

The point of professional, well calibrated monitors, wether for audio or video/graphic is that the work you do on them translates well to 99% of other devices (provided you have your professional, well calibrated monitors placed in an environment where the environment does not interfere with the signal too much on on it's path from the source to your ears/eyes)

That's only how it works if you are aware how much better your equipment is than the average consumer equipment. And if you factor how this translates in (that's where experience comes into play). It helps you to get thing "right at the source" as you can better see and judge quality on your own place. If you used a bad monitor yourself, you might optimize to compensate for its particular problems, which may not be the problems of other bad monitors.

[Urs]

No equipment can replace feedback from a team, or from clients/customers. None of that is worth anything to people who choose to ignore such feedback.

On the topic of skins presented here, the relation between background and foreground of controls, and in turn of foreground and background within those controls does not work. The contrast of "illuminated" value indicators to their background vastly exceeds the contrast of the visual boundaries of their respective control elements. Such that, for most people's perception, the value indicators relate to no context and thus become meaningless.

So these skins are actually a curious thing which uses contrast of colour for the function of layout and guidance, and contrast of brightness for the function of state indication. Contrast of colour is however vastly weaker than contrast of brightness, sucht that the one outdoes the other. It makes these skins both extremely high contrast on one hand and extremely low contrast on the other.

In short, apart from the contrast being over-strenuous to most people's eyes, additional strain is put on by the quest of "what parameter am I actually looking at?".

[Boy Wonder]

No equipment can replace feedback from a team, or from clients/customers. None of that is worth anything to people who choose to ignore such feedback.

On the topic of skins presented here, the relation between background and foreground of controls, and in turn of foreground and background within those controls does not work. The contrast of "illuminated" value indicators to their background vastly exceeds the contrast of the visual boundaries of their respective control elements. Such that, for most people's perception, the value indicators relate to no context and thus become meaningless.

So these skins are actually a curious thing which uses contrast of colour for the function of layout and guidance, and contrast of brightness for the function of state indication. Contrast of colour is however vastly weaker than contrast of brightness, sucht that the one outdoes the other. It makes these skins both extremely high contrast on one hand and extremely low contrast on the other.

In short, apart from the contrast being over-strenuous to most people's eyes, additional strain is put on by the quest of "what parameter am I actually looking at?".

I experiment with a few Hive 2 skins but, in the end, went back to the original because:
1. The original is fairly busy-looking as it is, but the others made it even more so.
2. I need to get more comfortable with the original anyway because it's pretty complex to me, and I figured if I understood the ins and outs of it, migrating to a different skin would be easier, especially since Hive 2 allows you to move modules around when reskinning.

[inkwarp]

jesus.

[Ploki]

That's a typical situation Graphic designers having good and properly calibrated monitors, which can deal well with contrasts. Software Developers having high-end laptops where even slow software runs fine. Audio Engineers having top-end monitors and headphones, ...

Can you spot the problem? Almost all of the consumers don't have that And as creators we need to consider that, too.

That's not how that works.

The point of professional, well calibrated monitors, wether for audio or video/graphic is that the work you do on them translates well to 99% of other devices (provided you have your professional, well calibrated monitors placed in an environment where the environment does not interfere with the signal too much on on it's path from the source to your ears/eyes)

That's only how it works if you are aware how much better your equipment is than the average consumer equipment. And if you factor how this translates in (that's where experience comes into play). It helps you to get thing "right at the source" as you can better see and judge quality on your own place. If you used a bad monitor yourself, you might optimize to compensate for its particular problems, which may not be the problems of other bad monitors.

The point of good monitoring is that you can hear (or see) everything so there’s nothing that might slip and cause problems.

Bad monitors by definition arent good

[Igro]

Some of these skins hurts eyes. Just like most of the Vital skins made by amateur designers under LSD. It is like those ear-crashing trap tunes that youtube reviewers put in the start of a video.