[ultrabrutal]

Your friends can have the same for like $100. Help them! Spread XBMC like a drug!

[Competes2win]

Anyone happen to have a Veronica Mars backdrop?

[obtender]

thanks cat0 metal for ever!!!

[djh_]

Once I have some time I'm going to pop these user backpacks in the Aeon website mods section. This evening, maybe.

[Rand Al Thor]

Thanks cat0!! I <3 SLAYER!!!

[obtender]

yes more slayer !!!

[cat0]

Once I have some time I'm going to pop these user backpacks in the Aeon website mods section. This evening, maybe.

Sounds good to me. You can just use a direct link to the files on my server if you want, I've got lots of bandwith to spare.

I'll se about making more Slayer ones as well, I'll see if I find more good pictures.

[agathorn]

Wasn't sure how to go about submitting backs for the new Aeon page, but here is one I worked up today. I needed a break and wanted to do some painting

Image here is PNG for loading speed, but if you click the link below it'll download a BMP



Download high res BMP

[djh_]

Wasn't sure how to go about submitting backs for the new Aeon page, but here is one I worked up today.

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.

[agathorn]

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.

I never even thought about that when I did the background. I should have. My excuse if I use your Backdrops in my own Fusion skin which doesn't have anything obscuring the image. A photoshop template would indeed be great so those of us that don't run your skin can still take those things into consideration.

[Bram77]

I love them, but how do I install these?

[Hitcher]

Just stick them in a folder anywhere you want on the Xbox and then in the Aeon options you can point to the folder.

[djh_]

Check the aeonismine.com website in an hour or so... there'll be full instructions. Or just bung the images in some folders on your HTPC, go to the Aeon settings in the XBMC menu and target them from there.

[Cr8oR]

Is it someway i can upload Backdrops to the aeonismine.com website or should i just post them here?

[djh_]

Just post 'em here and I'll do the rest.