KVR Audio

Debutante · Post by **Debutante** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:23 am

I think so far it's looking excellent as well. The size is fine right now. In fact any larger and it starts taking up too much space. There are larger synths with less than half the controls Oatmeal has, and even at that size, grymmjack's made it look compact but not congested. I think what's been done so far lays it out very well indeed. It's AWESOME to have a synth tis configurable and not need to flip pages.

...just looking at it right now... grymmjack (and everyone else) what would you think of making the horizontally laid depth indicators into regular sliders with a pointer so they don't look so like the other ones? If they're thinner and different, it might jsut open up that section a little...

Shifrin · Post by **Shifrin** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:40 am

Grymm, you've done an excellent job in organising and taming the rather exhaustive GUI of Oatmeal - great work & I look forward to using it

Shif.

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:43 am

f**k me thats looking good!!!!!!!

i truly hope you do a XT2 skin

Subz

sinkmusic · Post by **sinkmusic** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:49 am

yes, it is truely very good.
The GUI is bigger, but not too big, everything is a lot more easy on the eye : congratulations, it is very inspiring !
The only thing i could ask for is a little bigger arp, as it seems it is the only thing that is not bigger, and may be very hard to read on my 1400x1200 laptop screen... !

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:00 pm

Debutante wrote:I think so far it's looking excellent as well. The size is fine right now. In fact any larger and it starts taking up too much space. There are larger synths with less than half the controls Oatmeal has, and even at that size, grymmjack's made it look compact but not congested. I think what's been done so far lays it out very well indeed. It's AWESOME to have a synth tis configurable and not need to flip pages.

...just looking at it right now... grymmjack (and everyone else) what would you think of making the horizontally laid depth indicators into regular sliders with a pointer so they don't look so like the other ones? If they're thinner and different, it might jsut open up that section a little...

do you mean actual fader knobs on them? i dont mind doing that but if i do it, it loses consistency. i've still got to draw out the midi and edit screens (i'm thinking that it will take up the entire bottom half of the ui covering over all effects and xy pad and master, since there is so much stuff on those pages, and a larger wave editor would be nice. or if i can fit it all in just cover up the master and xy pad sections with the editor/midi pages.

the reason the horizontal sliders look the same as the faders is to make it consistent, but i'm not opposed to breaking this consistency for any 'depth' parameter control, (there are 24 of these things on the midi page for the CC mapper

) so whatever we decide will be used through the entire UI.

i kind of like having the sliders and faders without knob handles (you click anywhere on the image to adjust it btw you dont just have to select the top most area, it will be the entire surface that is clickable). trying to step away from the hardware paradigm a bit with this one.

let me know your thoughts. going to get to work again

and for what it's worth i'm going with the less 'intense' colors, more have liked those than the other pixel.exciter version.

but! i have an idea to release this skin source PSD on designermonkey website. i'm asking you guys what you think of this idea. i know alot of you have expressed desires to learn how to do it or request adjustments to things, and if i give away the source PSD the skin life is longer but the chances of someone ugly versions based on the original exist (like what happened when gol opened fruity up long ago for skinning). i don't mind about this personally, the idea here is to help out as much as possible and i think it's much more generous and reusable if i give away the 'kitchen' and not just the 'meal'. however i know there will probably be mixed feelings about this as lots of devs may rip the controls for their projects. i personally don't mind since this is a situation without any coordination being done with the plugs author and there is nothing to stop someone from doing it with this skin type anyway (the skin is external entity and isn't even embedded into a dll like SE synths as an example).. so what do you guys think of that idea? you could then create your own versions and whatever without my assistance freeing me from the bondage of maintenance on-going.

also i can make the arp wider, is this something people would want? the LFO's are wasting about 20-30 pixels width in excess negative padding. i am not opposed to making the arp steps wider, if it will help people use the arp more. i can also increase the contrast of the icons on the steps if needed. i design on a display that's calibrated via adobe gamma (a tool ships with photoshop) and a nice 500:1 contrast dell 19" flat panel LCD, i know not everyone owns this kind of display and conditions like ambient light on laptops screens or older CRTs are sometimes used by people. that's another thing releasing the PSD would solve in the future, but for now if the contrast should be increased just let me know.

i'm going to try widening the arp steps a bit and making the LFOs less surrounded by negative space first to see how it looks.

i'm excited to work on this today

thanks for all of your help along the way. working democratically like this is the best way to work and achieve the best results making as many happy as possible. it's kind of neat to watch it grow too

anyway thanks. off i go.

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:41 pm

Maybe just a little more contrast on the arp icons - they are visible ok but need an extra effort to decipher (even on a spydered 600:1 tft).

The LFO sections look more spacious than the others, so maybe yes, they could make way for the arp.

Don't know about the ripping part if you choose to release the source .psds - in this case it's probably be just as easy to mock/trace the controls from the screen grab. I would probably examine the files just to see how you work, but would make my own skin from scratch anyway.

sinkmusic · Post by **sinkmusic** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:41 pm

Hi Jack
For me, yes, i would enjoy seeing a bigger arp. Not huge, of course, but at the moment the arp size seems more determinated by graphics taste (= same size as the lfo, to get similar sized blocks), but there are more (and more unusual) parameters to tweak in the arp than in the lfos.
So yes, i think that maybe 20-30 pix mwider could improve the readability of the whole thing (at least this section).

Watto · Post by **Watto** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:47 pm

grymmjack wrote:but! i have an idea to release this skin source PSD on designermonkey website.

That'd be much appreciated, mate - I'd be very interested in how it's put together.

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:58 pm

k. i grew the arp and shrunk the lfos down to normal size. i dont have any idea why i didn't do this to begin with. i think it's because i was trying to give each module equal 33% of width (3/100%) and it's carry over from web design bad practices

fixed.

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:08 pm

Great!

Just tell me to STFU the moment you've had enough of my "suggestions", but I find the knob shading a bit odd - the shadow is almost the same as the darker gray, and sort of disappears into it... making it look like some knobs are missing the shadow.

(And the Arp and LFO mode title texts are closer to the boxes than Mod env target title texts)

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:46 pm

@jon; ah on the pots sitting on the darker bg? yeah that's me being lazy. the final version will be animated using PNG and the shadow being semi transparent will adjust and darken to the bg color accordingly. i had to pixel in some shadows in parts (you can tell if you look close enough).

the titles are intentionally closer to associate the title above with the menu chooser below it.

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:48 pm

actually i'll have several versions of the knobs in the bitmap since it doesn't do png. i'll still animate with png and overlay over the background color in photoshop and then place it in the skin file like that. i can fake it that way

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 5:46 pm

the more i understand this synth the more i believe fuzpils designed it as a slot to fill "this is the only synth i'll ever need to make ever again".

Cygnus X-1 · Post by **Cygnus X-1** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:22 pm

Too late to join the party, but let me say it, this skin looks GORGEOUS!!! Awesome work grymmjack. Thanks a lot. Can't wait till it's finished.

grymmjack · Post by **grymmjack** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:35 pm

woot. all that's left is xy pad, master, midi page and editor page then for mockup stage.

i dont know if i can get all of it done today or not though. i have to go get ready for church and pick my fiance up from her work, then attend church, eat dinner, etc.

tommorow is chores day around here, and i dont have much time as it stands to do much more on the skin tommorow. it depends though on the weather

anyway, it's nice to be closer to done with the mockup.

thanks all.

"flavored" oatmeal skin, download more colors now (v37-4)