Steam skins

[OCybrManO]

The orange color was taken directly from the HEV itself... so the "yuck" should be directed at Valve.

EDIT: ... and to make more extensive modifications (like his redesign of the layout) you copy the files from the folders of the same name in the Steam base folder into one of the skin folders.

Copy the folders Steam\resources, Steam\servers, and Steam\Steam into Steam\skins\SkinName\FolderName... then you will have a lot more that you can customize compared to the Grey skin that came with Steam.

The files in the skin's folder are read before the files in the main folder.
If they aren't found in the skin's folder, Steam moves on to the main folder to search for them.

Though, I haven't had any time to get into heavy modifications.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
... can't edit posts more than 15 minutes old.
So, here is the HEV skin with a more appropriate font (included in HEV.zip):

neat

wish i could be that good..

 

[morpherex]

I see, thanks for the info.

 

[OCybrManO]

Well... instead of doing something productive I decided to go ahead and fool around with changing the layout of the menus.

I'll try to do some more advanced stuff tomorrow...

Anyway, here is a very basic edit that took around 5 minutes total:

 

[XtAkm4p]

awesome....what a great thread. keep it up, modders

 

[neoxphuse]

I was thinking of doing a Gordon Freeman skin. Maybe I'll consider it.

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

rofl

 

[OCybrManO]

Good News: That's was funny.

Bad News: Steam doesn't support animated gifs (I'm not even sure if it supports gifs at all)... and I've seen that picture too many times.

 

[morpherex]

DjBourgeoisie: You post that too many times. It's stupid and sick.

 

[OCybrManO]

... on a lighter note:

 

[OCybrManO]

... and the zip file:

 

[Fender357]

i dont get how to do this.....i've been changing all the tif. files but im not seeing any change. what do you have to do with the .res file?

and im not trying to do just one color, im trying for somthing a little more elaborate than that.

 

[A True Canadian]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
Well... instead of doing something productive I decided to go ahead and fool around with changing the layout of the menus.

I'll try to do some more advanced stuff tomorrow...

Anyway, here is a very basic edit that took around 5 minutes total:

Do you think you can create a link to the g-man/black skin, that's one of the best that I've seen yet.

Keep em coming!

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by Fender357
i dont get how to do this.....i've been changing all the tif. files but im not seeing any change. what do you have to do with the .res file?

and im not trying to do just one color, im trying for somthing a little more elaborate than that.

All images have to be tga files and either 24 or 32-bit.
I have also found that, for some reason, 32-bit (includes transparency) does not work when the tga is compressed but 24-bit does.

 

[OCybrManO]

Damn... forgot to add GMan.zip to that last post.

 

[Parasite]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
All images have to be tga files and either 24 or 32-bit.
I have also found that, for some reason, 32-bit (includes transparency) does not work when the tga is compressed but 24-bit does.

Doesnt work like how? Is not tranparent?
The first thing most any compression will do is throw out Alpha information. If steam doesnt support Alpha transparency, it has no reason to support more than 24 bits anyway. 8bits per color(RGB) and 8bits alpha.

 

[Sporky]

Wow! Those halflife2.net and gman skins are excellent work!
Nicely done!

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by Parasite
Doesnt work like how? Is not tranparent?
The first thing most any compression will do is throw out Alpha information. If steam doesnt support Alpha transparency, it has no reason to support more than 24 bits anyway. 8bits per color(RGB) and 8bits alpha.

When I tried to compress several 32-bit images they didn't show up at all.

 

[boblemoche0]

my new skin :

 

[Gunner]

Nice skins OCybrManO, I'll be using your HL2 skin thanks : )

 

[Quotidian---]

i'm start one soon, i'm handy with photoshop, considernig its whats gonna send me to college..

 

[Parasite]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
When I tried to compress several 32-bit images they didn't show up at all.

Yeah, it seems that Steam doesnt actually support 32 bit images, compressed or not. :/

 

[OCybrManO]

The HL2bullet.tga (in the top left corner) image on the HL2NET skin is 32-bit.

I made the pixel in each corner transparent so that I wouldn't have to go in and change the color of 4 pixels each time I altered the skin's color.

... but when I tried to compress it the image disappeared.

 

[MapE]

I made a little design of my own, don't know If I could acually make it though.

http://mape.pcr.nu/steam_design.jpg

 

[OCybrManO]

Some of it can't be done right now.

1) So far buttons can't be skinned... though, you could fake it on most of that menu by making white buttons on top of the places where the buttons are in the skin.
I don't know if you could do anything about the little circular buttons.

2) You can't drag the window around by the title bar if it is covered by an image.

3) I don't know if you can put an image behind a chat window or in the games menu and still have the text show up on it.

I would e-mail them about certain things needed for better skin support but I never get responses from anyone at Valve... though I see a lot of pointless e-mails answered all of the time.
I think I'm getting caught in a spam filter or something...

 

[OCybrManO]

Here's another quick main menu skin (one day I might actually do the rest of the menus... but I'm not going to promise anything) + color theme:

 

[OCybrManO]

... and, as usual, immediately following it is the zip file:

 

[Login_Here]

Could anyone tell me how to add pictures in the background? (wich means; what file to edit etc.).

Ant what size should the picture be for a normal size Steam window

 

[Quotidian---]

yeah i'm still not see'ing how to change teh main window?

every file just seems to be icons.. thats great n all, but i want to f witht eh main window..

 

[Quotidian---]

well i can't edit my post above...


but login i think i figured it out...

the valve_logo.tga make a new file in ps or whatever your using, and make it exactly how you want your steam to look.. minus the buttons and stuff you obviously know there are other files for...

then save it over your valve_logo.tga file.. then open steam up, select your skin.. the use the command CRT + ALT + SHIFT + B then select the logo.. and drag it over your steam window.. then adjust your steam window length and height to fit the pic you made.

i havn't tried it yet thou, since steam just went down and won't start up for me..

 

[FriScho]

can anyone help me making this picture the main steam skin?

http://fs.arke.de/temp1/mysteam.gif

You can take the credits for the skin if you want, I'm just too stoopid to get it working. Thank you.

 

[SubKamran]

Nuclear_Gerber, how can I add "Third Party Games" to the games list?

 

[OCybrManO]

You copy the 3rd party mod's folder into your new Steam Half-Life folder.

For example... if you were copying Natural Selection you would put it in "YourMainSteamFolder\SteamApps\[email protected]\Half-Life\ns"... then it will show up on the game list.

 

[Quotidian---]

okay well.. i am having no luck with the placement of these things...

i'm trying to make teh attached image my steam background..

and i have succeeded. accept you can't click on the upper right corner X to exit... and you can't move the steam box around anywhere.. so i dont' know what i did wrong???

EDIT: this was just a test image i created to get this all working.. but as you can see.. i can't get the politics of it worked out. so if someone would help me, i'll be on my way making cool skins

 

[OCybrManO]

You can't have the background cover the titlebar if you want to be able to move the window or click on the X... there is a way around it, but it is a pain in the ass.
You would have to break the background image into smaller rectangles that go around the areas of the titlebar that you want to use.

A demonstration of this is in the skin I just finished making for FriScho:

 

[OCybrManO]

... and the download:

 

[Quotidian---]

but your image is covering up your title bar...

 

[OCybrManO]

From just looking at the skin it may seem like it covers the X but the background is broken into 4 images to fill around the X without overlapping it.

I also kept the top left area (around "Steam") uncovered so that you can drag the window around.

EDIT: In my experience, the only things on the titlebar that still work when you cover the title bar are the minimize button and the drop-down menu in the top left corner... so you don't have to bother working around those.

 

[FriScho]

Thank you very much OCybrManO. Nice work! One little complain, can you check the Monitor Screen? Seems the dark orange is used twice for background and graph...

 

[|\/|oDdiC(_)$]

this is confuusing, im trying to make my own skin, but find it really hard, but i already have the pic for the front ready that i made myself on photoshop. Anyone know of any good tutorials? (no ofense, but the tutorial here is really hard to follow without some pics).