XBMC Skins in a Nutshell
As promised in my previous post, TheUni and myself are trying to keep you informed about developments from within the XBMC community. To kick it off I’ve decided to pick one of XBMC’s most admired feature – it’s skinning engine.
Thanks to the great work of many, foremost jmarshall, XBMC has the most flexible skinning engine you’ll probably find in any open or closed source project. Skins basically control the GUI i.e. the overall look and, for a large part, feel of XBMC. Skins control everything you see in XBMC, from images, the sizes and positions of all controls, colours, fonts, and text, through to altering navigation.
XBMC ships with PM3.HD, created by Jezz_X, which is a revamped HD version of Project Mayhem III, designed by Chokemaniac. However, many user created skins can be found on our forums – for you to download – many which will completely change your XBMC experience. Additionally, one of our forum users (juju0) has created “XBMC Skin Manager” which makes it easier to download the latest versions of many skins.
If you are not familiar with any of the custom skins I’d highly recommend checking them out!
DonJ
Related XBMC wiki reading:
- Installing Skins
- Skin Development
are these compatible with the xobx version?
Yeah, most of them are supported although it’s slower
Try searching for “xbox version” in the forum of the skin of your choice
The xbox lite version of the skin featured in the picture can be found here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=42419
PM3.HD look sweet on XBOX original with component leads 720p or 1080i. Not so sweet at PAL or NTSC.
Yes they are compatible with the Xbox version but be careful to check the aspect ratio, most of the skins were made for widescreen televisions.
You will have to ftp the skin files to your Xbox to be able to use them.
Please note that FanArt (and Backdrops) do not generally work well on the Xbox out-of-the-box, due to the Xbox slow processor and memory limitations, so either do not use FanArt if you use XBMC for Xbox or alternatively manually resize all your FanArt/Backdrop images to a much lower resolution, like for example 720×480.
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=FanArt
Still in love with Project Mayhem III on 720p on Xbox – I like simplicity, all you need in the main screen.
It would be great if you guys could build and put more skins in the SVN Repo Installer, most people don’t know where to get them from or how to install them.