Completely Transparent Skin - Possible?

[Aodrel]

Would just like to know if I could choose to either:

1) Not to have a skin at all and change the drawing of the screen to draw to the entire screen (if by chance youdon't know what I'm refering to: mazzleui does not render graphics below the beginning of the ui skin.)

2) Or make a transparent skin. I would just need a quick instruction on where to included it so mazzleui could find it. Plus I would still need to know how to change how the screen is rendered (hopefully I am using the right terms for this).

This is just an experiment I would like to try, if somehow this would be extremely complicated, forget it, but I doubt that would be the case.

What do you think?

[Legoranz]

this would actually be a pretty cool idea. have the same layouts, etc., but kill the viewport and just make the skin for the bottom transparent.

[Mazzlefizz]

The creation of the viewport is hard-coded in the lua files based on the aspect ratio. You'd have to change that.

If I did make another version, that would be one of the first things you could change in the new skin format.

[Aodrel]

If you would be so kind as to show me which lines to change or comment out or whatever in whichever .lua files to change the viewport I would be happy to test the feature and report my findings

I personally think it would be a really rad option, no offense to any of the skin creators

...please?

[Aodrel]

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...6-ZomgBox.html

That addon displays pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. Could I succesfully integrate that addon into mazzle, or would it just interfere with the ui skin?

[airdragon]

well if you edit one of the existing mods to have all the art be .tga filled with transparent mode... it would be one line of code away from happening.

[Aodrel]

That's what I want to hear!

I don't mean to take up too much of your time but would you mind being a little more specific so that I can do this right the first time?

That is to say, art files where? In which folder?
What would be that one line of lua code? In which file would it go and where in the code?

You said "filled with transparent mode" and I'm not sure I understand, but I figure I can make similar images files that are the same dimensions but transparent and replace them, is that what you meant?

[airdragon]

Well the art for each skin is in the folders named MazzleUI_Skin_(skinname). Each one of those is a piece of art for the MazzleUI layout.

As to where is the ViewPort line of code in MazzleUI...... no idea. I know its in there and its modifiable, I just don't know exacts.

As to how to edit the art files located in the skin packages, the first thing you will have to do is get a .blp to .tga converter. Then after that you will have to get a program that can edit .tga (Photoshop, etc). Next since all you want is transparent areas on your screen you will have to fill in that image with the color that the Blizzard UI code interprets as Transparent. I don't know the color off the top of my head but its there.

Then save and replace all/some of the art files in one of the default skins (once again I'm pretty certain you want to replace all of them but seeing as how I know very little on the specifics I'd still be careful) and load up MazzleUI with that skin selected as the skin choice and poof transparent!

Hope thats a bit more descriptive.

[Aodrel]

Originally Posted by airdragon Hope thats a bit more descriptive.

It is, and thanks. I didn't know the Blizzard UI interpreted a certain color as transparent, I'll have to look into that.

But without knowing where the viewport code is, there isn't much point in going forward with this...

Are you there Mazzle??

[airdragon]

Well all you have to do is find the spot where the viewport is modified. Basically the whole game is one frame just like all of its little frame children. Because of this you can tell the frame how big it can be. This is the same behavior for all frames. You tell it how big to make itself and it makes itself that big.

But since I'm in such a giving mood... here you go...

This is the line in MazzleUI_Core.lua thats sets the bottom spot to where it is (just search for it in wordpad you'll find it).

CreateViewport(147)

And the actual definition of the function is set in MazzleUI_Frames.lua (once again search for CreateViewPort and you'll find it). I did not take a very long look into how it works but the 147 is somehow related to where it draws the bottom line of the viewport at. I leave the rest to others who wish to enamor themselves of such things.

[Aodrel]

awesome, and thank you . I'm getting much closer to feeling comfortable messing around with the mazzleui code thanks to your suggestions.

I was going to ask if the addon CT_Viewport would overwrite the hard-coded viewport code but now I'll try out everything you suggested.

Now to find something to convert .blp to .tga

[Rhothran]

blp to tga
http://xnview.com/

[Aodrel]

Originally Posted by Rhothran blp to tga http://xnview.com/

Thanks , but I found some art tools from a Warcraft III community modding site that are for mac (which is what I'm using).

I'll have the time tommorow to work on this, and then I'll post some screen shots.

EDIT: Turns out there is a mac version. Downloaded it.

[Aodrel]

Alright, so far I have changed all the image files that are part of the black slate skin available for MazzleUI so that they are translucent looking, but for some reason only the top part of the skin actual looks that way in the game. Here is a link to a screenie to demonstrate what I mean:

Picture Link

Anyone have any ideas? Also, what do you think? Looking good or bad?

[airdragon]

That is because of the viewport. The viewport code makes the bottom of th screen black, thusly a translucent image over black will, give you exactly what you have

And I tried CT_ViewPort... don't do it. Mazzle will randomly override it when you enter an instance etc.

[Aodrel]

Originally Posted by airdragon That is because of the viewport. The viewport code makes the bottom of th screen black, thusly a translucent image over black will, give you exactly what you have And I tried CT_ViewPort... don't do it. Mazzle will randomly override it when you enter an instance etc.

I know that viewport code makes the bottom of the screen black, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that my translucent skin laid over the black would look just like the original skin, lol. I fooled myself.

So you tried CT_ViewPort and it doesn't work...good to know...but you didn't try changing the hard-coded viewport value did you? I don't know what number to change it too (zero?)

[airdragon]

No i have not changed the hard coded viewport number as of yet. My best guess would be zero to make it not appear on the screen anymore. You could just try commenting that line out. I forget how to comment in lua, but there is a commented out section at the top of .lua file that you could use the first symbol to do it. Though I have no idea if it would cascade out to other layouts etc. I'd backup your interface and wtf folder before messing if you asked me.

[Guldburkan]

Thanks for a good post first and foremost.

I tried downloading the converter that you poster above, to convert .blp to .tga.
When I run the application I get the following message and nothing else in my terminal (yes, I'm on a mac aswell)

"Last login: Sat Nov 3 02:49:13 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
gosta-kamps-computer:~ Grullis$ /Users/Grullis/Desktop/NConvert.package/nconvert; exit
** NCONVERT v4.81 (c) 1991-2007 Pierre-E Gougelet (Aug 13 2007/15:53:38) **
Version for MacOS X (All rights reserved)
** This is a freeware software (for non commercial use)

Usage : nconvert [options ...] file ...
Type nconvert -help, for more information
logout
[Process completed]"

Any ideas how to actually make the converter work (yes I know I'm not too good with computers, but I try anyway ;D (or any converter for that matter, I just need to convert blp to tga))

Thanks

[lachian]

Rabscuttle's MazzleUI Translucent Skin
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ucentSkin.html