T3D 2.0 GUI Customisation - Help Wanted

#1 You pretty much need to almost replace all the images for skins/themes in game/core/art/gui/images/ directory. You're most likely interested in: breadcrumbs.png, group-border.png, htoolbar-window.png, inactive-overlay.png, loadingbar.png, menubar.png, menubar-window.png, radioButton.png, scrollBar.png, window.png, and windowPattern.png images.

I might have missed some, so you'll have to look through them all to see if any doesn't match your style. Be sure to use GIMP or other image editors that give you the ability to view the alpha checkerboard background as the alpha layer in addition to the actual image. Because viewers like Windows Picture viewer don't do that and default to a white background of which can be deceiving as to what the actual image looks like as majority, if not all, of the images in that directory are using an alpha layer.

Note that if the profiles are setup right, by not specifying the file extension, then you can use any supported image file format you like. Although the common preference is to use PNG for logos and GUI elements as it produces a clean image drawn result when resizing them for various elements, such as window borders and title bar areas.

#2 You'll have to find all of the image assets the various GuiProfiles that the specific GuiControls use. But keep in mind that there is no separation of profiles between "game" guis or "tools" guis within default Torque. What this means is that if you use the stock controls/profiles and modify them you end up changing one and the other at the same time. This is why the "dark" themed editor from the T3D CE was never ported over - it interfered with too many game guis and vice-versa.

#3 Well, you have to have profiles with names like EditorDropdownProfile and use this only in your editors - use naming to keep them separated. It does mean you have to maintain twice as many of them, but it also means your profiles don't overlap.

#4 @Richard: yep, nothing really difficult to solve - just tedious.

#5 I find it funny that developers of all people these days are calling that extremely convenient feature 'tedious' when the skinning subsystem was implemented specifically to make themes/styles easier for everybody. All you have to do is create separate profiles for each different theme you want, set the image paths to the other theme/style, and assign the profile to the controls you want to have a different visual appearance. People are just plain lazy these days. :p

After all the alternative is having to change the C++ engine code each time you change your mind. Doesn't seem so tedious once you think about does it? And some on here say that Torque's GUI subsystem is too 'complicated' for games, of which I completely disagree with. :)

#6 Heh, I've actually done all of the work for separated tools and game gui profiles -- just haven't presented it yet. Tedious in this case was rectifying something that GG should've kept in mind when assembling the T3D tools ;)

#7 Thanks guys. That's plenty of info. Actually, the idea of changing it at a c++ level sounds appealing.

#8 @Nathan, your response makes me think we will never get a "make my game for me" button. ;)

#9 "Heh, I've actually done all of the work for separated tools and game gui profiles -- just haven't presented it yet. "

@michael,
are u talking about CE's dark theme?

any luck with the theme selection system?

#10 @ahsan: no, I was talking about the separation of game and tools gui GuiProfiles. The CE's themed tools was actually unfinished... Now that the game and tools profiles are separate we could certainly have a more elegant solution for theme support and selection, which was one of the eventual benefits of the separation of the two.