The art of making a Boot Screen

Followed the instructions carefully, but when I restarted my computer it went crazy. Eventually I had to go into safe mode, delete the new bootskin I'd created and apply an existing one instead. Evidently there is some vital information missing from the tutorial.

...or it may be possible a vital part of the tutorial wasn't done exactly as needed.

Brimo, what resolution and how many colors were in there?

Odds are you either had a bitmpa that wasn't 640x480 or you had more than 16 colors.

This is a welcomed Tut because most of the BootScreen I see are modified Wallpapers.

Installed it, tried a 'boot screen' I downloaded (from HERE) and, like Brimo, safe mode and FINALLY got it fixed!

When booting, it'd sit at the new boot screen for maybe 2 minutes and do another restart, again and again and again. I let it go something like 6 times before I decided on the Safe Mode route.

Never again! I'll stick with ugly ole XP's for another (Bootskin) version or 2.

I followed the tut made sure (which wasn't easy) that the image was bmg 640x480 4 bits and made sure the ini file had all the right words etc.. and what happend was that at first load it looked good then the pic turned real ugly as if the colors inverted (something like that). I didn't have any trouble booting up or am=nything like that but the image just turned sour. I used a progress bar from another bootskin which was about the the right color. Any way, anybody got any suggestions?

'about the right colour' is where you got it wrong.....the two imabes are required to have the same identical palette.

Did I mention 'identical' as in exact...equal....same....?....

imabes = images....

imabes

cool software ,but it prevents my dell inspiron from booting.instead I take the bootskin I like(jpg from prewiev)convert it to bmp , then in xteq setup I choose this bmp as a wallpaper before login,Then the picture stays longer during boot than it would have done if I had managed to get bootskin to work, So make bootskin change pre login picture instead of boot picture

The trouble people have with a ridiculously easy task as this is amazing.

When BootSkin first came out, it took me less than five minutes to get one done. Without reading the documentation. And most of that time was searching for a suitable pic on my drive.

Now, am I living in the land of the fortunate, where all goes well, or is something seriously wrong with the picture here?

Anyhow, good stuff, Martin.

Crae....yes, but remember some of us have been 'at it' longer than others and we grow complacent through familiarity.

Others are attempting 'skinning' for their first time...

Many thanks for the helpful advice. The screen bitmap I created wasn't 640 x 480, so I imagine that's the reason for the major bootup problem. Now I've got the messed-up colours problem, so I guess I have to learn more about matching the palettes of the screen bitmap and the progress bitmap. I'm fairly experienced at working with image files, and with software generally, so the remarks by craeonics would be a bit insulting if I were the sort of person who easily feels insulted!

If you use Photoshop, try exporting the palette of your background and importing it into all the other imagery to get the colours straight.

Or manually edit your palette so all colours match up.

Or create both the scrollbar and the background from one and the same image, which you save with 16 colours and then cut up.

OK, I've got the hang of it now, although as yet I can only create very simple designs. I use Paint Shop Pro, by the way. Many thanks once again.

/me thinks either 32-bit image support or the ability to import 32-bit images would be a good addition for a future version of BootSkin. Would save people a lot of hassle.

Trouble with 16 colours is that you have to think out your designs, else it will just look bad. That means either simple colour schemes, or playing around with your image editor until you've got your gradients and nuances back somewhat in their 16 colour incarnation.

This is only a short term solution - yet as good as MS gives us. Later full color will be there.

i still cant do it... what program do you make the bootscreen with???

'know what? i consider myself knowlegeable in what this process would involve, but i'm not gonna bother touching it looks like too much trouble for such a simple thing. 'sides, if i get something wrong i don't wunna sit there and kick the computer over it. when they have a program that swaps the colors and resizes for me, my lazy bum will take a look at it

It basically boils down to taking a picture and converting it to 16 colors (4bit). Pow you're done. If you want a progress bar, you have to make sure it has the same palette.

Probably for beginners you would start withOUT a progress bar.

i liek milk

Hey i also posted a BootSkin Tutorial Before Martin
It Never Apeared here.