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 Post subject: Dirty Windows [7 style]
PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 7:14 pm 
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Dirty Windows 7 style for CSM 4.3.1

Way back last year I was trying to recreate the noise in Windows 10 programs into a menu skin.
I never figured it out. Gave up, put on back burner.
Theirs is a lot more even looking. Maybe they put the noise on the rgb channel, or glass color mask?
All I got was dirty noise.

The reason I'm releasing it now, instead of putting in the recycling bin, is this skin can have 7
different sizes of user picture inside the menu, copying the frameless type look in the Metro skin.

It might be of use to people with HIDPI displays. :)

The noise can be turned off so it looks clean.


EDIT: Added noisy taskbar images for older Win 10

Black glass matching only


EDIT: Hey ho
In case anybody is interested, there's a similar test skin at the very end of this post. Called "Metro Noise Test.skin7"
Not as dynamic black as the first skin, just plain grey. Not the final skin for there is no way to perfect the noise effect.
Instead of the noise on the alpha channel, it has the noise on the RGB channels instead, like one of meetHG's.
To me, the noise looks about the same as first, just the noise disappears with white backgrounds.
We can not duplicate the smooth looking Win 10 acrylic. They basically have an image editor for the desktop on all the time.
Besides the saturating color of the background and larger blur radius on the Win 10 1903 menu,
the exclusion layer blocks any white or black background from showing, and the accent tint is disabled.

I saw on the internet a registry fix to turn on fluent design effects for VirtualBox,
hoping that maybe it can also turn on Classic /Open Shell, like how Big muscle turns on glass for Win8.
I Merged the reg file, restarted.
Tried glass setting, disabled glass setting, alpha setting - nope, nothing, diddly squat.

In time, coders over on GitHub will probably figure out how to put as an option setting along with the new code?
Someone requested it on GitHub a while ago.
I see that Startisback and Stardock menus have acrylic blur option settings now.

See ya :)


Attachments:
Black Noise taskbar images.zip [15.22 KiB]
Downloaded 2542 times
Dirty Windows .skin7 [684 KiB]
Downloaded 3375 times
Noisy menu.png
Noisy menu.png [ 208.2 KiB | Viewed 58183 times ]


Last edited by juniper7 on Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:09 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:16 am 
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Looking at how Windows 10 acrylic works:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... le/acrylic

Is a little bit more complicated than just adding noise layer.
I could have done the noise to be more consistent using tiled feature in Classic Shell Menu skinning,
but I already had a large image to use for stretching submenu.
Trying to use big muscle Aero glass to get larger blur radius does not even work anymore. Too bad.


Attachments:
Win 10 acrylic.png
Win 10 acrylic.png [ 150.83 KiB | Viewed 58159 times ]
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:22 am 
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Extra note

If you don't like the lightish edge lines on user picture, drawn apparently by Windows,
use Ivo's alternate internal "User picture" option in the "General Behavior" tab.
Only .png, png transparent,.bmp can be used though.


Attachments:
Lines begone.png
Lines begone.png [ 36.3 KiB | Viewed 58064 times ]
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 8:10 am 
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Hi jp. How are you?

So I was free and trying to make heavy blur skin, but it didn't quite stood up to my beauty expectations. Thereafter I was browsing forums, only to stumble into your creations. I tried Dirty Windows Skin. It's looks good and got me interested into this noise concept.

So, I tried to add noise layer to the not so good looking Blur Skin. It looked better. After few hours of work, I get bored, but this is what I have got.
Few things are not right like Arrow And Shutdown Selection etc. but everything is working Ok, atleast on my PC.
It also requires clean up of unused bitmaps etc.


Submenu Noise is yet to be added.

Leaving skin here incase anybody is interested in noisy CS Skin.

I might post any updates of mine if I continued to work.

Few Notes on using it:-

1] Changing glass In CS Settings will change glass intensity. Turning off glass will makes things ugly.

2] Set Glass Color in CS Settings White. Glass color will bleed in to whole menu as usual and setting it white will makes things normal. If you are not getting this, try experimenting with glass color at glass intensities > 0 (Effect will be more pronounced at higher intensity like 70 etc.).

3] As Default Glass color is set to white (read 2), you can set custom color in skin options.


Attachments:
Screenshot (103).png
Screenshot (103).png [ 1.09 MiB | Viewed 56238 times ]
Screenshot (102).png
Screenshot (102).png [ 548.81 KiB | Viewed 56238 times ]
Screenshot (99).png
Screenshot (99).png [ 534.97 KiB | Viewed 56238 times ]
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 8:11 am 
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Here's the skin.

[EDIT]
Yes, you can change the noise color.


Attachments:
Noise.skin7 [1.95 MiB]
Downloaded 2540 times
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 12:44 pm 
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Hi meetHG.

I'm not doing much of anything now.
Maybe only one or two months before this forum gets taken down by Ivo. :(
Glad you are still experimenting.

As you have done the most playing around with noise added to skins in the past, you know more about it than me.
I see using different intensities of noise peaks(white), and dips(black), along with a grey level can get different effects like splatter, salt n pepper look.
For myself, I tried to get that smooth noisy look of the Win 10 "Personalize" window but just can't get it smooth enough.
I know they boost the saturation color of the desktop background just behind, have different blur radius,
but it must be that "Exclusion blend" that makes the noise look smoother than what I can achieve.
Maybe not possible in CSM.
By modifying your noise bitmap a little, I got a little closer to the look I want, only good for certain situations though.

That's interesting that you got the noise to show up as RGB glass color layer.

Bye MHG.


Attachments:
Noise mod.png
Noise mod.png [ 553.05 KiB | Viewed 56226 times ]
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:28 am 
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Yeah It's sad about Forum being shut off.
And that Fluent Design Stuff is too advanced to replicate in our situation, IMO.

Also, If anyone like to add noise to taskbar, you can do that in Taskbar Section of CS Settings.
1] Add following attachment as texture.
2] Change color to your liking. More Prominent on Lighter colors (eg. White).
3] Set Glass Transparency to 50.


Attachments:
Screenshot (104).png
Screenshot (104).png [ 1.67 MiB | Viewed 56192 times ]
Pattern1.bmp
Pattern1.bmp [ 1.84 MiB | Viewed 56192 times ]
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:26 am 
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Hey, you know what? I didn't even think about noise on the taskbar,
for I was using Win 10 default taskbar with noise built in.
I want to play with the taskbar image now too, but later today.

Your taskbar image looks better on my computer with taskbar settings on tile, instead of stretching.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 12:09 pm 
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I put the black matching noise taskbar image at top of the post.

The only other experiment I did was have some noise on the taskbar for regular color.

Taskbar image below. Similar to yours, but instead of white rgb, I used grey RGB


Taskbar tab
-127rgb 16alpha 4noise level image
-Horizontal: Tile
-Vertical: Tile
-Taskbar color: default
-Taskbar opacity: 85

Can be overdone quite easily with white RGB and high noise level 20 at near black alpha channel to get snow blizzard/ stars. :lol:
Will leave it there.
Bye.


Attachments:
File comment: Greyer menu, not as black.
Metro Noise Test.skin7 [1.99 MiB]
Downloaded 1959 times
Compare.png
Compare.png [ 48.52 KiB | Viewed 56104 times ]
File comment: Taskbar image is here
Make sure to set to tile

127rgb 16alpha 4noise level.png
127rgb 16alpha 4noise level.png [ 6.03 KiB | Viewed 56104 times ]
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