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Frogboy
Frogboy
Join Date 03/2001
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AI Skinning?

April 11, 2025 10:50:00 PM from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

This UI was made by AI.  

So was this:

 

We are not quite at the point where AI can make the actual WindowBlinds skins themselves. Certainly not in real time. But I think we are getting close to where skinners will be able to make skins much more easily.



os customization
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sexyyonan
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Frogboy
Frogboy
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Reply #1 April 11, 2025 10:50:44 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Here's another:

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Frogboy
Frogboy
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Reply #2 April 11, 2025 10:53:06 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

And another:

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Frogboy
Jafo
Join Date 03/2001
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Reply #3 April 12, 2025 12:45:30 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Brad...I'm only seeing place holders... no images ...

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Frogboy
DaveRI
Join Date 09/2003
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Reply #4 April 12, 2025 8:41:47 AM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Quoting Jafo,
reply 3

Brad...I'm only seeing place holders... no images ...

In case it matters re: site function, they were there for a little while, I happened to see them last night about a half hour after they were posted...

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
Join Date 04/2002
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Reply #5 April 12, 2025 9:06:55 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Brad...the images are gone, altogether.

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Frogboy
Frogboy
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Reply #6 April 14, 2025 1:43:03 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

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Frogboy
Frogboy
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Reply #7 April 14, 2025 1:43:21 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Fixed the images.

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Frogboy
teddybearcholla
Join Date 12/2002
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Reply #8 April 14, 2025 2:11:54 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

I like the first one.

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Frogboy
Chasbo
Join Date 01/2005
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Reply #9 April 14, 2025 3:34:40 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

They all look good  

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
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Reply #10 April 14, 2025 3:48:11 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting Chasbo,
reply 9

They all look good  

I agree. You could create an algorithm (predetermined prompts) powered by AI (in addition to SKS) which could adapt to whatever MS's build du jour might change, and add an Adobe like color picker and *poof* you've got a skin.

Folks would might buy that.

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Frogboy
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Reply #11 April 14, 2025 8:08:47 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

I think it will be possible, relatively soon, to have a tool that makes it easy for skinners to create new skins.

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Frogboy
Jafo
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Reply #12 April 14, 2025 8:34:02 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Quoting Frogboy,
reply 11

I think it will be possible, relatively soon, to have a tool that makes it easy for skinners to create new skins.

Reminds me of the time when I was manually coding every transparent pixel in Magic pink for Winamp by hand...took one hell of a long time to do... then Maxim saw my methodology and wrote a program to do it at 1 click of a button.

I didn't know whether to kiss him or thump him...

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
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Reply #13 April 15, 2025 4:45:44 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting Frogboy,
reply 11

I think it will be possible, relatively soon, to have a tool that makes it easy for skinners to create new skins.

That would be really, really good...provided MS doesn't make parts of its OS and other programs unskinnable by hard coding them.

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Frogboy
PhoenixRising1
Join Date 04/2025
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Reply #14 April 16, 2025 2:24:33 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

If there is one piece of Stardock software that frustrates me it is definitely skin studio (props to all the skinners that have mastered it)... Sign me up for having AI do it for me. I bet that would increase the amount of new skins for Windowblinds by a lot!

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
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Reply #15 April 16, 2025 3:10:11 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting PhoenixRising1,
reply 14

I bet that would increase the amount of new skins for Windowblinds by a lot!

It certainly increased the amount of wallpapers.  

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Frogboy
AeroPurple
Join Date 04/2025
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Reply #16 April 16, 2025 10:29:59 PM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Quoting PhoenixRising1,
reply 14

I bet that would increase the amount of new skins for Windowblinds by a lot!


Why in the world would you want that to happen?

This is just going to replace the skillfully created skins with mass-produced fast food-like material that's mediocre at best. Also, when you generate skins so quickly, the website becomes oversaturated, and none of the skins you make will be memorable enough to last more than a week.

If you want to mess around and have fun, fine. But keep in mind that AI-generated skins require no effort or skill to produce, so you can't claim them as your own.

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
Join Date 04/2002
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Reply #17 April 16, 2025 11:07:51 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting AeroPurple,
reply 16

This is just going to replace the skillfully created skins with mass-produced fast food-like material that's mediocre at best. Also, when you generate skins so quickly, the website becomes oversaturated, and none of the skins you make will be memorable enough to last more than a week.

If you want to mess around and have fun, fine. But keep in mind that AI-generated skins require no effort or skill to produce, so you can't claim them as your own.

Not necessarily, AeroPurple. Don't forget, they'll be moderated and rated by the members, too.

Quoting AeroPurple,
reply 16

Why in the world would you want that to happen?

Perhaps to get more people into skinning? To bring more folks to WC who'll buy subscriptions and be exposed to the work of Master skinners and others and improve their prompting as well as other SD software? Who knows what might grow from it...perhaps AI Winstep skinning, too?

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Frogboy
Jafo
Join Date 03/2001
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Reply #18 April 17, 2025 12:21:58 AM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Quoting AeroPurple,
reply 16

Why in the world would you want that to happen?

Skinning has been around for over 30 years.  A few people who were there at the beginning of skinning are still here today.  For them it's quite straight-forward to create another new skin design.

For others just now wanting to get into skinning have a steep learning curve in front of them.  More often than not they simply give up and make do with whatever they can find out there already.

Any 'tool' that can ease some of the pain of skinning's complexity is desirable...

 

 

 

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
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Reply #19 April 17, 2025 12:25:02 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting Jafo,
reply 18

Any 'tool' that can ease some of the pain of skinning's complexity is desirable...

 

Hear, hear!   

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Frogboy
AeroPurple
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Reply #20 April 17, 2025 12:31:32 AM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Okay, fair. Honestly, I think AI can be used as a good stepping stone when you don't know when to start or are lost. I just used it today to look up a simple question regarding Android notifications, and it helped a lot.

However, I believe that AI generated content should not be used as a final result of your work. Even though AI has advanced significantly over the past three years, it's still quite inconsistent at what it does. Messy lines, typos, over-generalization, all that jazz. When it's used as a tool, it works really well - improving photo quality, removing backgrounds, etc - all manual and monotone tasks - which is what it should primarily be used for.

And, of course, I'm not your mom - I can't stop any one of you from uploading anything, but I just want you to keep all of the ramifications of AI generation in mind.

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Frogboy
Jafo
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Reply #21 April 17, 2025 1:44:44 AM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

An example of how it used to be.

August, 2004, so 21 years ago.

The 'bar' at the top is a rolled up Windowblind, Treetog's "Antares".

The rest was done working directly from Treetog's skin - manually reworked to become a LiteSTEP theme [with animations] as well as a WinAMP 2.x skin.

The learning curve for this was pretty extreme and almost entirely per-pixel graphic manipulation.

I think I'd have a second learning curve if I ever wanted to do it again.

The entire works on my part were in PSP6 [Renato probably did the WB in PS].

Back in the day we had "Community Skins" where someone would post a set of graphics and people would volunteer to create various 'skinnables' using them so they became an integrated set.

These days most of those 'skinnables' are at best 'retired'.  Microsoft has since made it hard enough just to do 'some' GUI modding at all, so getting a current functioning Windowblinds skin is achievement enough...

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Frogboy
pelaird
Join Date 12/2018
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Reply #22 April 17, 2025 7:02:39 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

In my opinion, AI skins would be a positive. Isn't the whole idea of skins to allow a user to customize their screen to create an emotional attachment to their environment. If you can create using AI, and keep prompting until you get something you enjoy, that's a good thing.

I personally don't like a bunch of stuff on my screen, because I like to display art. My screen is a 40" 4K monitor and I really like displaying the art from WinCustomize. I had gone back through all the Wallpapers on WinCustomize from the beginning, and in my opinion, some of the newer AI generated wallpapers are very good. The few who actually post on WC have gotten really good at it.

When (you notice I didn't say IF) AI skins become a thing, it will provide more options for the user to customize. Isn't that a good thing?   

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Frogboy
Jafo
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Reply #23 April 17, 2025 9:31:56 AM
from WinCustomize ForumsWinCustomize Forums

Quoting pelaird,
reply 22

some of the newer AI generated wallpapers are very good.

AI still hasn't got a clue about perspective.  To someone who can generate it correctly it's often painfully obvious ...

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Frogboy
DrJBHL
Join Date 04/2002
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Reply #24 April 17, 2025 9:54:38 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

It's really not hard to get perspective correct in Ps and other apps. Ps even has perspective warp...which is really easy to use:

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Frogboy
pelaird
Join Date 12/2018
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Reply #25 April 17, 2025 10:17:50 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting Jafo,
reply 23


Quoting pelaird,
reply 22

some of the newer AI generated wallpapers are very good.



AI still hasn't got a clue about perspective.  To someone who can generate it correctly it's often painfully obvious ...

You are correct about that. Not enough time is spent on post work, and human hands are still wrong most of the time. However, they have gotten better over the past months. 

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