View Full Version : The Summer of AEON: Update thread (56k beware)
To celebrate its increased popularity and sustain its current momentum, the next few months will see the rather naffly-titled Summer of Aeon. Ending with the release of a feature-complete beta version, every weekend will see at least one significant update, be it to the website, backdrop library or the skin itself.
This thread is intended to replace the old backdrops one, not the main Aeon thread. In an effort to keep that thread as coherent as possible, please post anything web or backdrop related here.
To get things underway, the first update will see the Mods page of the website go online later today, with links to fan backdrop packs and ports of Aeon to other platforms. And in case you're wondering what happens next...
http://www.aeoncentral.com/downloads/misc/aeonsummer_fri13.jpg
http://www.aeoncentral.com/downloads/misc/aeonsummer_sat14.jpg
http://www.aeoncentral.com/downloads/misc/aeonsummer_sun15.jpg
Rand Al Thor
2008-06-09, 02:57
Very nice djh. Great to see you are still hard at work polishing the best skin XBMC has to offer!
QuietTime
2008-06-09, 03:34
wha...wha....wha...? Is that a backdrop of Snake-Eyes? Good to see this will be a good summer.
Great news.
How will the new backdrops be listed on the site?
DreamStatic
2008-06-09, 08:44
Sweet News! Look forward toward it. Thanks to everyone for the beautiful backdrops. :)
deezee69
2008-06-11, 16:41
any non torrent links or maybe ed2k . thanks and great backdrops
davewozere05
2008-06-13, 14:02
Unofficial Summer of Aeon: Icon Packs
I will release a selection of Icon Packs over this Summer of Aeon period to see if anyone likes them so you can have matching and proffesional looking collections on XBMC.
Street Fighter IV pack is up. Bit of a muted affair as I haven't got round to ordering the backdrops by date yet.
100 new 1080p backdrops just went up. Still haven't sorted out the ordering yet, though, so have fun finding them. :rolleyes:
DreamStatic
2008-06-14, 07:10
Thanks djh, with my firefox/greasemonkey script it is super simple to find them. :)
bionic1234
2008-06-14, 13:12
The new pics are awesome - thanks djh
{especially like your choices in classic movies}
bionic1234
2008-06-14, 14:58
djh in the past (AEON backpack thread) you had mentioned that you might share your AEON photoshop background template, but I have not been able to find a link to this in the thread or on your website?
There was one, then it was taken down because Aeon's textures were entirely redone for 1080p. Any work based on those old textures would have been immediately incompatible. A new pack will go up just as soon as I can put it together.
I'll put them on the website in a sec. Cheers.
DreamStatic
2008-06-14, 20:17
In the Aeon Background folder settings, I am not seeing a place to edit Comics Background folder. Am I missing it, or is it not there yet? Thanks.
bionic1234.. not to threadjack, but could you PM me how you do your comics? I'd love to get them set up, but never looked into what format they should be in or anything. :)
deezee69
2008-06-16, 14:44
found alot of backgrounds here great stuff
http://www.meedios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2454
bionic1234.. not to threadjack, but could you PM me how you do your comics? I'd love to get them set up, but never looked into what format they should be in or anything. :)
Me too please?
I'd love to chip in here but I know next-to-nothing about XBMC's comic support, only that it exists. The Comics section is really little more than a placeholder at the moment. That said, I'd imagine the support consists of reading .cbr or .cbz archives full of images (they're just renamed zip files).
So we can end the threadjack: :)
I just put the cbr files in a network shared folder and that is my Comics directory
If you download comics (ie; Heroes - find the "Download Printable version")
http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/novels/
It will download as a pdf, then you can use pdf2cbr to convert
http://www.geocities.com/pdf2cbr/
on XBMC:
Set up a new Picture share folder for your Comics directory
then just go into the Comic directory and you will see your comics to view
Open one of them, and from there you can zoom in/out, scroll up/down, page advance/back using the XBOX remote control
it's pretty cool actually because it is treated just like a pictures folder, so before you go to read a comic, you could actually start a music playlist (to play in the background while you read)
Cheers,
I decided to post my collection of AEON 720p backdrops (BMP format). It includes all the old Xephyr backdrops as well as those from Hitchers torrent (http://www.mediafire.com/?uztlpsz14wr).
Enjoy
http://rapidshare.com/files/121373738/Default.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/121377956/Games.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/123065148/movies.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/121662262/movies.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/121636733/Music.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/123071035/Pictures.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/121641354/Pictures.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/123079223/tvshows.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/121440021/Weather.rar
sandman4sure
2008-06-18, 15:59
djh, on your site under mods, the links for misc and pictures don't work (user backdrops)
It's because there aren't any pictures in there yet. I'll sort it out.
100 new backdrops are going up now.
WAR:
http://c.imagehost.org/0528/WAR.jpg (http://c.imagehost.org/download/0528/WAR.bmp)
One More
The Forbidden Kingdom:
http://c.imagehost.org/t/0501/The_Forbidden_Kingdom.jpg (http://c.imagehost.org/download/0501/The_Forbidden_Kingdom.bmp)
this was posted in the backdrop thread but I was hoping it might catch your attention in this thread..
do you have a list of the filters/techniques you use when making backdrops? The images on your files seem to really have that extra pop to them and it would be great to achieve that same appeal with custom images we produce.. any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
this was posted in the backdrop thread but I was hoping it might catch your attention in this thread..
do you have a list of the filters/techniques you use when making backdrops? The images on your files seem to really have that extra pop to them and it would be great to achieve that same appeal with custom images we produce.. any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
I'm glad you posted this as it highlights something I've been meaning to address for a while: the arrangement of backdrops in relation to Aeon's interface. The thing I've always tried to do with my backdrops is ensure that nothing significant is obscured by the horizontal menu. Faces, in other words, or other objects of interest. You mightn't think it to look at them, but some of the backdrops on the site took over an hour to pull apart and recompose, just because someone or something was standing in the wrong place. The Transformers one is a perfect example, the Battlestar Galactica one another.
I've always meant to do a Photoshop template to help with this, with guides indicating the positions of the various interface objects. You've just inspired me to actually do it, and go one further by providing some handy hints. Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to sound condescending. But there are a few simple things that it's easy to overlook.
- don't go with faces that occupy the entire wallpaper - you'll end up with the menu running right through their nose or, even worse, giving them a glass moustache. I broke this rule myself with a recent wallpaper, but only because there were several other full-length characters in the frame and it seemed a shame to waste a good image.
- if you're using full-length portraits of people, try and crop them so there's a little variation in width. So if they're carrying something or wearing irregularly-shaped clothes, try and get as much of that in without losing their face off the screen. Otherwise, what you essentially get is a straight line running up the screen - not too interesting to look at.
- be wary of the time panel on the top right of the screen. If all the action in a wallpaper's on the right hand side, I tend to flip the image in Photoshop so it's on the left. The caveat, of course, is that you can't do this when there's text in the image - it'll be reversed. I've made that mistake a few times.
- a little noise is better than none, or a lot. Many of the press promos and such that come my way can be quite noisy, or otherwise badly compressed. I tend to go at these with a really aggressive noise reduction filter in Photoshop, followed by further, localised filters on flat areas, where irregularities are most obvious. Then I'll use a really slight noise filter on the overall image, giving the impression of sharpness after everything's been smoothed out.
- never upscale, or do it cleverly. Sometimes, when I just can't crop an image how I'd like without it being too thin, I'll artificially widen it. But I always try and avoid stretching, usually through extensive use of cut, paste, low-intensity erasure and Photoshop's miraculous Patch tool. And I always keep this to background areas and flat surfaces - never to detail areas such as people or foreground objects. Done right, you'd never notice the difference. If you look at the Kill Bill and recent Underworld wallpaper on the site, both of these were extensively fudged to make them 16:9.
- on a side note, the vignetting (darkening) of the screen corners in Aeon does a great job of focusing and framing whatever backdrops you use, especially if there's a surplus of empty space involved. So don't immediately think a wallpaper looks flat or uninteresting - you'd be surprised.
Hope that's of help to someone. Starbucks made my coffee particularly spicy today so I'm typing like a mad person - sorry if it's a bit verbose.
:rolleyes:
digitalhigh
2008-08-04, 17:11
djh-
You're welcome to include the 200+ movie backdrops I created. After all, the majority of them are designed with Aeon in mind. ;)