Worklog Aesthetic Vaporwavey Theme

MikaMaslak

PrankMaster 2022
.
Joined
Jan 31, 2018
Messages
23
Likes
36
Location
Silicon Valley
Portables
1
I am starting a worklog for a portablize me (pm) theme I've been working on. A very minimum incomplete version was deployed on my first portable build to go along with it, (mostly to distract people from its horrible exterior) My goal is to refine it to a point where it is nice enough to publicly share it or if the PM team wants to add it to the PM deployment.

Generally it will look, sound and feel like a vaporwave theme with rich teals, pinks and sunsets, and prompt boxes and icons that will make you think your wii is running windows95 with that perspective art 3D icon look.

This is the checklist of things to be done/ completed with + being a completed task - being not:

+ custom .thp start up \\ Windows95 startup screen and sound. I think this is what I'm keeping
+ custom .thp backdrops \\ Done 3 options: wavy palm trees (below), 8-bit car driving, mario waterfall
+ background audio \\ Lo-fi Hiphop beats, only 1 track, 12 sec long that loops
- background icons, loading images
+ custom cursor \\ computer mouse cursor icon
+/- still backdrops \\the ones I have needs redone in Photoshop
- proper PM branding, but still discrete
- Misc. and debug

Right now this is the only sample pic I got my next update to this I'll use screen-capping to showcase.

upload_2019-2-11_0-34-42.png
 
Joined
Jan 9, 2019
Messages
6
Likes
3
i am REALLY looking forward to development in this project. I would love having a good vaporwave theme on future portables. Keep it up!
 

MikaMaslak

PrankMaster 2022
.
Joined
Jan 31, 2018
Messages
23
Likes
36
Location
Silicon Valley
Portables
1
Finally being on break from classes has given me a chance to Continue working on this theme and I finally have updates! So from the pictures you can probably see it coming together, along with the very obvious bugs. Before I fix them I was really hoping Someone on the Portablize Mii Design Specifically @ShockSlayer Could tell me a best approach, because he's listed as the designer in the credits. (btw I love your themes but I just wanted to make a special one!)

These bugs right now included...
  • Collisions... so many collisions between boxes, text and icons. --- I intend to reshape some of the safe spaces on the outside of the boxes to better accommodate when this occurs, but I'm curious if padding the .jpg with transparency will work, if the boxes can just be resized, or if all .jpg must fit a certain area between all themes?
  • White Text on White Background --- Can I change the text from white to like gray or something? does Anyone know this?
  • Text Extruding --- This one's on me I didn't know how exactly the boxes got expanded. like when you see Windo W S. Can I Expand the safe zone before the extrusion occurs or should I just resize the affected icons and text so its like not effected?
  • Buttons, highlighting and blue text background. --- I didn't mess with these because I didn't understand them or how they would react but I think just making them a dark blue box to simulate a cursor hover is the way to go.
  • Not Sure/ WTF moments --- I don't know how to fix these...
    • The cursor moves slower with a gamecube controller than on normal themes (Not really a problem?)
    • Only the PalmTreeVHS motion background is ever loaded but I made 3 other really cool ones that work but just aren't selected on startup(More of a personal issue)
    • Switch between this theme and a different one takes A significantly longer time (5 mins) when using the onboard theme manager (I use a computer to switch themes anyways but like it kinda breaks a Potmii feature)
  • Missing pictures and icons --- Ok so like basically all the photoshopped icons I needed to make are done except the "missing" ones and idk yet if it will also be worth trying to make customs for the common things like prii/Post loader, nintendon't etc.
Alright well enough about my problems, I would love for this community to give me feedback on the style and icons used along with recommended changes as I continue to work on this. I also did some other cool icon things that you can't see like the original hourglass, on wait and a 95 startup screen not shown. But I'll use a ADC screen recorder to make a vid in the next update.

(this one was an important one but it wouldn't load)


IMG_20190514_225553.jpg
IMG_20190514_230554.jpg
IMG_20190514_225751.jpg
IMG_20190514_225839.jpg
IMG_20190514_230432.jpg
MVIMG_20190514_230347.jpg
MVIMG_20190514_225934.jpg
 
Last edited:

cheese

the tallest memer in town
Staff member
.
.
.
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
2,758
Likes
2,422
Location
Florida
Yeah OOF there's a few issues with the current theme system... Most of it is due to how PL handles themes and it makes it difficult to fix/change.

Collisions... so many collisions between boxes, text and icons. --- I intend to reshape some of the safe spaces on the outside of the boxes to better accommodate when this occurs, but I'm curious if padding the .jpg with transparency will work, if the boxes can just be resized, or if all .jpg must fit a certain area between all themes?
Not entirely sure what you mean on that one, got a picture as an example?

White Text on White Background --- Can I change the text from white to like gray or something? does Anyone know this?
As it is, unfortunately no

or should I just resize the affected icons and text so its like not effected?
I'd suggest avoiding putting text on parts that stretch, that's part of how it draws everything to the screen, and we can't easily change it.

Only the PalmTreeVHS motion background is ever loaded but I made 3 other really cool ones that work but just aren't selected on startup(More of a personal issue)
Have you tried moving/deleting this background to ensure it sees the other ones?

We're hoping to fix many of these issues in the new loader/theme system, which we are working on this summer.
 

MikaMaslak

PrankMaster 2022
.
Joined
Jan 31, 2018
Messages
23
Likes
36
Location
Silicon Valley
Portables
1
@cheese Thanks for the insite, I'll have to work around this as best as possible but I'm extremely looking forward to the new loader/theme system giving portables software themes that match their cool hardware themes.

Hearing about the White text being a forced policy a bummer but at least I know I won't spend hours trying to figure it out lol. I'll probably solve that one by tintin everything with an orange or blue accent.

Have you tried moving/deleting this background to ensure it sees the other ones?

We're hoping to fix many of these issues in the new loader/theme system, which we are working on this summer.
For the Motion background problem I think PL selects the alphabetical first, the other 2 will never show up no matter how many times I reboot but If i'm not mistaken the default theme has a couple of variations that seem to change between boots.

As for the part about collisions. I was referring to any place where a border or edge didn't properly align with an object inside it something that I noticed in the theme as I was rebuilding over each objects .jpg was a lot of transparent space of varying size. I'm not sure how this affected when the images are laid on top of each other like if I were to make this area bigger/smaller would it shift that layer down or would it just be scaled over the same area regardless of the images dimensions. This will probably take some experimenting to figure out. Also if I used some confusion word choice safe spaces and safe zones and the parts of an image were they can get accidently covered, trimmed etc yet would look fine. And when I said padding with transparency I ment alter the .jpg dimensions without altering the actual images dimensions, hope this pic better explained that. My bad if that was confusing
upload_2019-5-15_2-27-9.png
 

cheese

the tallest memer in town
Staff member
.
.
.
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
2,758
Likes
2,422
Location
Florida
For the Motion background problem I think PL selects the alphabetical first, the other 2 will never show up no matter how many times I reboot but If i'm not mistaken the default theme has a couple of variations that seem to change between boots.
So you didn't try my suggestion

'm not sure how this affected when the images are laid on top of each other like if I were to make this area bigger/smaller would it shift that layer down or would it just be scaled over the same area regardless of the images dimensions.
The images are not scaled, these are the actual sizes. Changing them would mess with the layout (and IIRC it won't load them if they are the wrong size). Also it looks like you're using mspaint to open that image? mspaint gets rid of all transparency in images, since they didn't feel like implementing it. I'd suggest using something like paint.net (if you're not already using something else) Still kinda lost on the rest of it, there should be no harm in trying whatever and seeing what happens
 
Top