Cowboy Bebop / Spike Graphic theme, with tutorial.
Same tutorial can be read
here, with currect background color.
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Sigx is a dynamic signature that reads off your PC stats.
This is the customized Sigx that I am using right now.
First ::
You have to get the client from the website, sigx.yuriy.net,
here
Second ::
You have to have a domain and server to load the remote .php
So your server has to support .php and GD.
If you don't know whether or not your server supports either .php or GD, download the remote and try it anyways.
Here is the Remote ::
http://sigx.yuriy.net/remote/sigx.zip
Third ::
You have to have a registered account, since even though it's on your server, the PC stats are still reverted to that site. If you are better at .php than I am, you can possibly kill the middle man and display your PC stats some-how. I don't know how to do that, but here is the register page.
http://sigx.yuriy.net/register.php
Forth ::
After you register, open the account, open the client, and try the .php and is successful in both displaying the image and seeing your own PC stats, find out the area in which your pc-stats are displayed.
The best way is to open a Image editor of your choice and figuring out how much area you will need in the text area of your box, like :
Taking the example they give you at the site,
I will take this and choose areas in which I will customize the signature with.
I open it in my image editor, and I choose the area in which my stats will be laid.
I mark it by enclosing the area which I am comfortable with a black box.
You can choose how much cell padding you want, I just did it by eye, but for the perfect look you can do it by pixels. A 3x3 pixel padding might look good, but still give your text enough room to be noticeable.
Now, I take both boxes and make it un-mistaken-ably different from each other.
Now you can take a theme, or make it your own art-work, nobody will really care either way. I choused a Shirow Masamune theme for the dynamic signature I am using now because of the rich color, and the perverted shading and lighting of the female anatomy in which both Satoshi Urushihara and Shirow Masamune are both known for.
But for this tutorial purposes, I will do a Cowboy Bebop theme, or something.
I will be using this image [
Wallpaper].
I take it, I resize it to fit the size in which the signature asks for.
Since I am using a horribly larger picture than the signature, the quality should be good, since sizing down images make them look sharper, and visa versa when enlarging.
After I resize it and fit it, I will rotate it since I want spike to be on the left side looking the other way. I paste it as a new layer, put it where I want it and then I give it some opacity to show where the text box is. I cut out the text area, put opacity back to full and this is what I have so far
Since the Sigx does not allow for transparent unless you take off true-color (which will make it look uglah), I will be just making the background match exactly with the signature post-bit background color of this forum. That color is #4C4D65 in Hex code.
Which this color selected in my pallet, I will cut it out to make it have a boxed transparent look, which is basically my style. The cell padding between the spike graphics and the text box will be 3x3 pixels. After I make some cell padding, I like to enclose the box with a 1pixle line, which o'course I will make black. After this process, this is what I have.
This is too big, so I am going to kill off all the dead weight, and give my spike graphic a little less hold, so it will look like the text box is the main area, and spike graphic is just a buffer zone, or some kind of technical mumbo-jumbo.
Which also makes it more forum friendly, and giving spike a little less hold gives it balance, since the right side, the side that is over the text box has less hold than the left side.
Now, just having a black box is boring for a text area. And this has potential for a graphics area, given that the graphics doesn't give off too much static which will make it harder to read the text.
To do this, I just will use the same wallpaper, just at a different size and a different part of the wallpaper. Cut out the area that you need (in this case, 380x69 pixels) and paste as new layer, hit the opacity down to blend with the black (or what-ever color you choose) to where the text will still be noticeable. Enclose it with a 1pixle line, if you choose, something that is not the color of the box next to it, if you choose. Thus I will choose white.
Do some other cosmetic things that you choose, upload it on your server, change the variable in the sigx.php to go to the signature you made, or you could just save it as sigxmonster2.png and allow it to find it itself (like I have done).
Since you are hosting your own signature, you can edit the .php to the point of choosing your own font (As long as you have the truefont file on you server), text size, where the text is displayed, yada yada. Lets just say a lot of things.
The outcome ::
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