My first Login theme.

[Fenris_rising]

Hi all

Well as I gradually learn all the fun bits of 'playing; with Ubuntu I have of course been tweaking my style and themes to suit my individuality :D

Obviously a lot of the tweaks involve mixing and matching other peoples work. My desktop is from a pencil sketch I found on the web many years ago I have no idea who the artist is but hats off to his skill.

The only 'touch' I added was to adjust the proportions so the image fitted my screen without distortion and added a red tint to the eyes. Now Having been on gnome-look and compiz for inspiration and themes to play with I find you can change your login window :D

Initially I downloaded a theme by a chap who calls himself Bitserker and his theme is Berserk armor. Now I got it up and working (It was easier than I thought) But Once I had had a look at the file itself I got the gist of how it was done.

So I collected and edited various images to create my own login screen. All I did was ensure I named everything the same and also kept the same file formats (png, jpg). Then I replaced the image files in the berseker folder with my own whilst keeping Bitserker's scripts.

Last job was to archive the folder as a tar.gz and install via the System>Administration>Login Window and hey presto I had my own login screen. I will study the xml file later as this seems to be where you perform the 'magic' that makes everything work :D

Next up try and get usplash to work......thats taking a little longer but hopefully once I get it figured out I can try tweaking it to my taste :D

regards

Fenris

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa97/Fenris_2007/screenshot-2.png

[Can+~]

Nice. But you could improve it by:

-Making the background a bit more interesting.
-Both the moon and the shapes on the edges look a bit pixeled, and actually, the colors don't add to the overall picture.
-The icons on the bottomleft don't symbolize anything, but anyway, they look awesome.

Seems you're really into norse mythology, I just named my computer asgard, but never themed it accordingly.

edit:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v517/CanXp/Diseno/odin2.png

[Fenris_rising]

Hi there

The corner pieces where enlarged which created the pixilation effect.
The moon was just to many layers of varying fillers. I am more of a paper and pastel artist. Electronic art creation I find fascinating but I will never get a grasp of it I fear. I like the pale band you have added and the hint of reflection..........how did you do that??

The background is likely to stay plain due to my refered to lack of ability. Unless I spot something I can chop and edit :D

Second to the visual element I looked at the sounds listed in the login window section. OK plenty to choose from but I downloaded a .wav file (as are the default sounds) it plays with mplayer so I moved it to the correct folder via terminal selected it for my succesful login sound but it wont play when tested or at login. So what gives?? By thew why it was a wolf howl :)

regards

Fenris

[Fenris_rising]

A few minutes lateral thinking, checking file types and getting Audacity so I can convert the files and I am away. My PC now Howls at boot and login, which, if your me is just great!......... Still can't sort out my splash screens though :(

regards

Fenris

[Fenris_rising]

Hi there

Ok a bit of tinkering later and I have changed it a bit more. Managed to work out how to 'fade' and 'reflect' so the tweaks Can+~ suggested have been kept. Thank you Can+~. My only addition is a hint of background landscape. Here is the current look.

regards

Fenris

PS Asgard is a damn fine name ;) . My eeePC is called Frekki :) There is a theme going on :D

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa97/Fenris_2007/berserk.jpg

[Ben Crisford]

Hi there

Ok a bit of tinkering later and I have changed it a bit more. Managed to work out how to 'fade' and 'reflect' so the tweaks Can+~ suggested have been kept. Thank you Can+~. My only addition is a hint of background landscape. Here is the current look.

regards

Fenris

PS Asgard is a damn fine name ;) . My eeePC is called Frekki :) There is a theme going on :D

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa97/Fenris_2007/berserk.jpg

Definately an improvement ;).

And how do you do the reflection btw.

Thats been bugging me for ages.

[Fenris_rising]

Hi there

thanks very much :D This is how I did the reflection, there may be better ways of doing it but I got there by tinkering :D

I used the rectangle select to grab one leg copied and pasted into a new window. Then from the right click menu >layer>transparency>colour to alpha.
in the window that pops up you click the colour box to open up the colour chart use the colour picker to pick the colour in the picture you want to make transparent then click OK in the colour to alpha window.

I did that bit like I did because the 'reflected' image was going to pass through an alternate background colour. If I hadn't there would have been a sharp 'edge' to the 'reflected' image.

Then go to Erase and look at it's settings. Adjust opacity in a downwards direction. when you erase it will 'fade' the image down to this setting.
100% will just wipe it out altogether. Now in the settings for the rubber look at the brush style. The first one in the list of squares is, if you look very carefully, the image of the selected piece your working on.

Select this and your rubber will take on the outline of the item so fit it over the item and click to fade down to your selected level. Last thing to do is 'flip' the item, copy and paste to your work and move into position.

There are probably better ways of doing this and ways with more finess (I think it is probably possible to have the fade effect taper away to nothing just to add to the depth effect.

hope that helps

regards

Fenris

[Can+~]

Sorry, I totally forgot about this post.

The last piece of artwork is great, and even if you did reflection the hard way, it looks beautiful.

As for the reflections, here's a image-strip on how I do it:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v517/CanXp/Diseno/reflecttut.png

I only use color fades and opacity to achieve reflection. When the reflected item (in this case, the text) can't be filled with a gradient, you can use a Mask.

[Fenris_rising]

Hi Can+~

I knew I was doing it the hard way :D :D
Thanks for the compliment though :)
Your strip admirably demonstrates the
steps. I will have to have a go as I can
see the end result has a much 'glossier'
look to it.

regards

Fenris

[w0lv3n]

I love the wold, where did you get it?

[Fenris_rising]

Hi there

Thanks very much. Googled! :D The original is black and white I added the grey.Here's the Wolf and here's another that is my desktop background a friend sent me the original about 5 years ago. They also found it on the net. Feel free to make use them if you wish. :)

Regards

Fenris

[ssdt]

This is a wonderful theme. Try to make it in blue the next time.

[w0lv3n]

Cheers for the pics mate. I have a fetish for wolves! lol