Endless Paradigm

Here is a tutorial on how to make glow icon's for the submenu icons...

What you need:

• Rcoedit114b
  
• Photoshop

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1. Extracting the icons from topmenu.
   
2. Making a glow icon out of the original icon
   
3. How to add the glow icon into the  topmenu_plugin.rco
   
4. Some icon's are not in place

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Lets start,..

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First:Extracting the icons from topmenu.

• PowerUp rcoedit114b
  
• Load your topmenu_plugin.rco
  
• Press extract all and create a folder where to save all files
  
• Now go into the folder and select Folder view » details and Sort by type
  
  You can now delete all files that are not BMPs and delete all 8bit BMPs
  Also the main menu icons (32bit) do not have glow so you can delete these 6 too.
  Does leaving you with all custom icon's 32bit,.. except the main icon's

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Second: Making a glow icon out of the original icon

• Now PowerUp Photoshop
  
• I am gonna use the game sharing icon(tex_sharing.32bit.bmp) in this tutoriol.
  
• Load the icon you want to add glow icon too,.
  
• Select in the taskbar >>window>> "channels"
  
• Go into the "channels tab" and select the alpha1 channel by clicking on the name
  
• Hold "crtl" and press the Aplha1 channel tumbnail,.. the icon is now selected
  Press for very Helpfull picture,.. :mdr:
  
• Now select select the RGB channel by clicking on the name "RGB" then go into the "Layers tab"
  
• In the layers tab click the add layer button,. see helpfull picture below
  
• Select the brush tool and make the brush tool size 100 also hardness 100
  
• Set your brush over the selected area and click twice
  Press for very Helpfull picture,.. :mdr:
  
• Now click the background layer and press " ctrl + d " on your keyboard
  
• Paint the whole background layer white with brush tool,Or the color you want the glow icon to be.(<<<mc cabe)
  
• Then click "layer1" again and press "ctrl + a "
  
• Select in the taskbar >>Filter>>Blur>>Gaussian Blur a window pops up
  
• Set the "Radius" to 3.5 pixels >>click ok(you see nothing changing that's okee just continue)
  
• In the taskbar go to >>Edit>>cut (<<<mc cabe this was copy is now cut)
  
• Go into the "channels tab" and right click the Alpha1 channel and delete the channel
  
• Now create new channel by clicking the small thingy below,..(sorry no picture, same way as creating a new layer in the rgb layer's tab)
  
• Taskbar >>Edit>> Paste into
  
• Press "crtl + d "
  
• In the taskbar >>Image>>Mode>>Indexed Color
  Flatten layes >> "yes"
  in the window it should say exact and colors 0 >>press ok
  
• In the taskbar >>Image>>Mode>>RGB Color
  
• In the taskbar >>File>>Save As..>>i used "tex_sharing.32bitGLOW.bmp"
  for my icon

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Third: How to add the glow icon into the topmenu_plugin.rco

• PowerUp RCOedit again and load the topmenu_plugin.rco  you want to add the  glow icon to..
  
• For the icon i used i look for the name "[mig]tex_fcs_sharing"
  
• Now select that name and press "replace" load your custom glow icon...

Put the topmenu_plugin.rco into flash0\vsh\resource

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Fourth: Some icon's are not in place

If you make all icon's and added them to topmenu and flashed the topmenu_plugin.rco to flash0:\vsh\resource etc etc,..
You will see that some glow icon's do not have the right position,.
For me the icon's were: Network update
                                 Camera
                                 Online instruction manuals
                                 Location free player
                                 Remote play
                                 RSS channel
But this is different with different topmenu_icon's. :mdr:
Anyway,. if your glow icon is out of place, say slightly to the right and above

• Powerup Photoshop
  
• Load your icon you want to reposition
  
• Select in the taskbar >>window>> "channels"
  
• Go into the "channels tab" and select the alpha1 channel by clicking on the name
  
• Press " ctrl + a " the picture is selected
  
• Now right click on the picture and select "Free Transform"
  
• Now use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge,.
  
• Push 2 times down arrow and 2 times right arrow you will see 1 movement, or you should push untill you see 1 movement down and 1 movement right,.. with my icon i moved 2 movements down and 2 right
  
• After the free transform right click the picture and select "select inverse" now paint the selected area black
  Could very well be the icon is still a bit to high and to the left so
  you could repeat the Free Transform untill its in the right place.

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The icon i used in this tutoriol looks now like this,..

wow coooooool!!

Nice work V! im gonna put this to good use thanks:)

Thanks V for sharing this with us.

cheers

NICE!

Nice, im gonna try this. Thanks V.

That's pretty cool. To bad I don't do custom stuff on my psportable. :P

-J0kR- Wrote:Thankx for the tutorial. Now I can have a better idea to customizing my own sets with custom glows & even colored ones.

Yes when you get to the point to color the background picture white in the layers tab,  
you can use any color to do that, only you could try many colors but then you have the change that the glow icon is over 256 colors,..
Its like this: the picture counts the grey tones in the alpha channel as colors so when you make the background picture 1 color instead of the white color you should be oke,..
Should you use many colors you will go over 256 colors really fast,..

• You want to use more colors then after coloring the background go to image>>mode>>indexed color and fill in like 100,.. press oke
  
• Then go into image>>mode>>rgb
  
• Save the picture and try to load into rco edit
  
• Does the picture load into RCOedit that's okee, if it says you have to many colors, then go back into history of photshop before indexed color and redo from there using a lower color count then 100..
  
• I can tell you that you end up very lower color because of all the grey in the alpha channel,....
  

That's an awesome tut, V!  Thanks bro!