KnobMan/SkinMan Examples

[WOK]

i'd say _any_ plugin will load slowly with such big graphics
wtf? is this knob 300x300 or something?
the bigger your knob is - the more frames it needs (quite more than 100-200) to keep a smooth rotation, and the more frames it has - the worse
i won't use a plugin with 3 knobs that takes half of my screen, even if it really sounds "analogue" as written on the panel

I do like big knobs, and my reverbneeds 1.5 sec to load....

[Hlis93]

i'd say _any_ plugin will load slowly with such big graphics
wtf? is this knob 300x300 or something?
the bigger your knob is - the more frames it needs (quite more than 100-200) to keep a smooth rotation, and the more frames it has - the worse
i won't use a plugin with 3 knobs that takes half of my screen, even if it really sounds "analogue" as written on the panel

In defense of the poster, the toggle switches and a few of the knobs there are part of the open resource I had posted some time ago, pulled up the original .knob files and they are actaully 140x140px so the size has been reduced by the above person to fit what they intended, a few of them.

I'm not really saying if it's right or wrong, think its more subjective and dependant on context myself when to make things bigger or not, but I would tend to agree that a plug that only has 6-7 knobs and a few switches need not be 800x300px when 1/2 of that would be more then enough (a hardware look need not have a hardware size). But as with all things to each thier own, if the person enjoys that and that is what they want so be it, its just a gui.

But Antto is right that you might want to reconsider the size in the future for the amount of frames you have carry around. Always to try to optimize you're gui deisgn in every respect. Really cool layer FX's can be removed or replaced when the size is smaller and still achieve a stunningly vintage vibe with less. Dramatic textures are not always well suited to a gui and can be implied subtly well smaller. just my 2c.


Edit: Btw, I think the green one is very nice. But the shadows cover the text readout on the row of knobs there at the bottom which is not something i'd suggest, a good place to sacrifice some shadowing for functionality.

[techstar2000]

Thanks for the comments, being a graphic designer by day optimising imagery is my forte. Although the plugins may seem quite large (although they are no bigger than any other plugins on the market) they run very well. The file sizes of all the textures have been optimised so that they are as small as possible without any visual degradation. The knobs also work very smoothly. My plugins take just under 1.5 seconds to load.

[osiris]

Contackt(?) actually crashed VSTHost first time I tried to load it.
I'm speaking of Synthmaker plugs in general.
In every host I have, they take much longer to load than other plugins/

[Kriminal]

im sure i saw (or even had at one point) a red led numerical knob that someone put up here..to save me going thru 70 pages to find it, does anyone recal it?

[Kriminal]

bump

[WOK]

im sure i saw (or even had at one point) a red led numerical knob that someone put up here..to save me going thru 70 pages to find it, does anyone recal it?

Printable version
just scroll down.....

[mystran]

Regarding GUI size and loading times.. there are also plenty of tricks to reduce the amount of data you need to load without changing the graphics at all.

For example with WOKs reverb, the knobs are really grayscale with the exception of the orange indicator arc right? If the knobs right now are 32-bit ARGB, you could save about 50% just by storing 2-channel grayscale (alpha + gray) images and filling in the color algorithmically.. but then it also looks like the knobs are fairly symmetric, so you could also do what mr. chopper suggested a while (couple of years?) ago: store just enough frames to get endless rotation by looping 'em. Suddenly you are probably down to around 10% or less of the data.

Even if you decide to keep full images, you might be able to get away with less frames by interpolating between images or something similar. The end result might even be smoother. That said, I'm not sure where the supposed 1.5 seconds comes from, loads instantly for me (though it crashed on null-pointers withing a minute of launching, and the nag-screen seems to show about 90% of time, usually coming back about 1-2 seconds after hiding; just saying 'cos it makes it a bit hard to see how the knobs actually behave).

[WOK]

That said, I'm not sure where the supposed 1.5 seconds comes from, loads instantly for me (though it crashed on null-pointers withing a minute of launching, and the nag-screen seems to show about 90% of time, usually coming back about 1-2 seconds after hiding; just saying 'cos it makes it a bit hard to see how the knobs actually behave).

Could you explain the errors a bit further please (OS, Hardware..) - because it should run flawlessly, and the nag screen should disapear after 10 seconds and come back only after minutes.

[mystran]

That said, I'm not sure where the supposed 1.5 seconds comes from, loads instantly for me (though it crashed on null-pointers withing a minute of launching, and the nag-screen seems to show about 90% of time, usually coming back about 1-2 seconds after hiding; just saying 'cos it makes it a bit hard to see how the knobs actually behave).

Could you explain the errors a bit further please (OS, Hardware..) - because it should run flawlessly, and the nag screen should disapear after 10 seconds and come back only after minutes.

Core 2 Duo running w2k8r2 and FL 9.0.3.

edit: Could be just the age old inability of SE and FL to work together; I don't remember ever seeing a single SE plugin that didn't occasionally crash on me. Even the highly praised dlm stuff causes problems (which is sad, considering I might want to use some of that stuff).

[Kriminal]

im sure i saw (or even had at one point) a red led numerical knob that someone put up here..to save me going thru 70 pages to find it, does anyone recal it?

Printable version
just scroll down.....

thanks

[WOK]

edit: Could be just the age old inability of SE and FL to work together; I don't remember ever seeing a single SE plugin that didn't occasionally crash on me. Even the highly praised dlm stuff causes problems (which is sad, considering I might want to use some of that stuff).

Here is something I have read about that:
SynthEdit made plugins
Problem: Audio glitches and stuttering. Possible crashes.
Solution: Turn off "Allow threaded processing".

http://flstudio.image-line.com/help/htm ... insettings

[osiris]

There was also something about setting a value to zero. Sorry I can't be more specific. I don't use FL, but this may be latency. Whatever it was it fixed the person's SE/FL problems.

[WOK]

There was also something about setting a value to zero. Sorry I can't be more specific. I don't use FL, but this may be latency. Whatever it was it fixed the person's SE/FL problems.

Maybe something like "extra buffers" or so - anyway it's in the VST wrapper settings of the plugin in FL.

[Dark Alchemist]

Hlis93 is leaving us
http://styleyourui.com/

Thanks for your Knobman and skin samples - I learned a lot from them.

OMG, a sad day indeed as his work was so darn good.