What's Your Backdrop Preference?

Message

#1 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Mon 19 Sep 2005, 00:10

I'm just curious, because I'm in the process of planning out 1.0.5: Pizzapup Edition. For the most part, I'm going with my own preferences, because that is what gives it the "Pizza" aspect. However, I use all types of backdrops. Seriously, I make at least five trips to devientart.com per week. I have 153 megabytes (and counting) of wallpapers saved on my harddrive. So I figured I'd try to cater towards the majority, since I have no solid opinion on the matter.

Light/dark
busy/calm
high contrast/low contrast
Sonic/Knuckles (just kidding)
etc.

BarryK · #2 Post by **BarryK** » Mon 19 Sep 2005, 00:43

Is there any site that has line-art gif images for backdrops?
reason is, they may be quite small.
if they are very small, could have a selection of them on the live-cd.

Lobster · #3 Post by **Lobster** » Mon 19 Sep 2005, 01:59

Pizzasgood wrote:I'm just curious, because I'm in the process of planning out 1.0.5: Pizzapup Edition. For the most part, I'm going with my own preferences, because that is what gives it the "Pizza" aspect. However, I use all types of backdrops. Seriously, I make at least five trips to devientart.com per week. I have 153 megabytes (and counting) of wallpapers saved on my harddrive. So I figured I'd try to cater towards the majority, since I have no solid opinion on the matter.

Light/dark
busy/calm
high contrast/low contrast
Sonic/Knuckles (just kidding)
etc.

Well I usually end up just using a white background - most readable. I tend to rather like nature backdrops. If you look at some of the icewm and jwm themes - you will find the majority of the initial impact is from the image. This is the largest component and the easiest to change.
I also find that images that have soft, chaotic forms (hence nature works well) contrast well without getting confused into the straight lines of computer components. So for example impressionist paintings would work better than Mondrian type images.

To answer Barrys question . . . now there is a fun task . . . I think I would start with creative commons or maybe the images search in one of the major search engines - in fact I would probably just put the question straight into brainboost.com

Hope that is of some help

LittleSpooky · #4 Post by **LittleSpooky** » Mon 19 Sep 2005, 02:53

Sonic / Knuckles

And I am SERIOUS

puppian · #5 Post by **puppian** » Mon 19 Sep 2005, 19:30

Hey I have started some pages on wallpaper just before reading this post!

http://pup.memebot.com/Wallpaper

#6 Post by **Flash** » Tue 20 Sep 2005, 03:47

I'm not sure I know the difference between backdrop, wallpaper and background. Anyway, I prefer plain white.

#7 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Tue 20 Sep 2005, 22:05

They are all the same thing. I say backdrop, because that's what Rox says, and my computer is neither a desk nor a wall, so background is the only other logical option.

rarsa · #8 Post by **rarsa** » Wed 21 Sep 2005, 02:50

Actually an abstract background is better for a generic theme. Cars and lanscapes and flowers may alienate some people (Of course I realize that in this case is YOUR remaster).

For puppy Dark colors are better if you are using vesa as the filcker of the refresh rate is less noticeable there.

- I particuarly don't like the Brown 'Ubuntu' color, although I thik it was a good choice.
- Dark blue fedora is quite neutral and easy on the eye.
- Light blue mandrake is kind of timid, weak and too neutral. They went overboard in neutrality. (the same for the default KDE)
- Knoppix 4.01 is awsome... the first time you boot, then it is quite distracting.
- DSL is too cluttered with animal shadows and plain ugly.
- Linspire is the nicest of the bunch, bright strong colors but not distracting.

My guidelines for a good -generic- background:
- It should not have a focal poing that distracts the attention from the desktop icons,
- It should not have contrasting colors as the icon captions become unreadable.
- It should resize nicely.

I find that with the exception of the fruit (sushi?) table, all your selections fall in the 'good background' category.

#9 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Wed 21 Sep 2005, 21:47

Actually an abstract background is better for a generic theme. Cars and lanscapes and flowers may alienate some people (Of course I realize that in this case is YOUR remaster).

Yep. I tend to lean towards abstract/funky/weird type stuff, usually drawn/painted/whatever rather than photos. That way I can admire other people's art. Not that photography isn't art. I'm just not into it.

I'm mostly just looking for preferences as to lightness, color, complexity, and such. I don't want to pick a light one to find out that I'm the only one who likes light, or a multicolor only to find out it is giving people seizures.

So far I'm leaning towards a non-partisan, darker, curvey type image. Probably red, green, or blue, but definately not peach

gliezl · #10 Post by **gliezl** » Thu 22 Sep 2005, 00:52

i like blue or green. it depends upon how you combind the two. well it's your art.

looking forward to pizzapup edition...

dewdrop · #11 Post by **dewdrop** » Thu 22 Sep 2005, 21:51

Hi,

I haven't looked at your page of backdrops yet, but I go to this page on a daily basis -

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

They have some really outstanding images from space that might be useful as a takeoff point for someone handy with a paintbrush.

Now to go have a "look-see" at your efforts so far.

EDIT: I just tried to access the page of backdrops, and it was not available....darn!!!!!

http://pup.memebot.com/Wallpaper (puppians page)

#12 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Fri 23 Sep 2005, 00:10

Kool!

Puppian's page was pretty cool too. Anything with kittens, fighter jets, and food is good in my book.

#13 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Fri 23 Sep 2005, 01:33

I love Gimp. I was just messing around in it, and I duplicated a layer I was using "difference" on, and Poof! I made a backdrop! I like it so much that I decided to use it for Pizzapup. I have two versions, one less, ...uh...spikey? You'll see. Of course, you'll have to wait until Pizzapup comes out first, and as usual I'll use random backdrops for the RC's. Thanks for the guidence

FYI, it's on the dark end of the scale, and somewhat curvey. It pretty much has the entire spectrum of colors, but they are fairly unified and not too crazy.

#14 Post by MU » Tue 27 Sep 2005, 20:01

Just found a site with very beautiful artificial landscapes created using terragen.

To use them as background on higher resolution, I suggest to scale them with gimp.

http://www.dream-version.de/html/terragen_galerie.html

Greets, Mark

Guest · #15 Post by **Guest** » Tue 27 Sep 2005, 20:01

rarsa wrote:I find that with the exception of the fruit (sushi?) table, all your selections fall in the 'good background' category.

Oh yes, it's sashimi (A Japanese dish consisting of very thin bite-size slices of fresh raw fish, traditionally served with soy sauce and wasabi)

It's not a 'good background' as it has constrasting colors... the main reason I put it there is that I think lobsters will like it! Raw fish = delicious

Wait... people use lobster to make sashimi too!! LOL..

dewdrop wrote: I just tried to access the page of backdrops, and it was not available....darn!!!!! Smile http://pup.memebot.com/Wallpaper (puppians page)

The free webhost is very unstable. Their server was down at least twice in just two weeks

but it's up now anyway. So http://pup.memebot.com/Wallpaper is accessible now.

As it's so unstable, I have set up another site here: http://wiki.says.it and has added some more new stuff too

Pizzasgood wrote:I made a backdrop! I like it so much that I decided to use it for Pizzapup. I have two versions, one less, ...uh...spikey? You'll see. Of course, you'll have to wait until Pizzapup comes out first, and as usual I'll use random backdrops for the RC's. Thanks for the guidence

FYI, it's on the dark end of the scale, and somewhat curvey. It pretty much has the entire spectrum of colors, but they are fairly unified and not too crazy.

It sounds cool! Will there be a screenshot?

puppian · #16 Post by **puppian** » Tue 27 Sep 2005, 20:02

me above

Edit: I just noticed that my new homepage http://wiki.says.it can't be accessed...They said they are re-installing the OS which will cause a downtime of about 12 hours...

#17 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Tue 27 Sep 2005, 21:44

Well, I've been thinking about mine, and I think it is a little on the menacing side. It doesn't really capture the personality that I wanted. However, today I found a very nice backdrop that would work perfectly. It's green and orange and medium-lightish, but very flat with just simple gradients to slightly darker values. The icons stand out much better on it than they do in mine. It's dark enough that I don't need my sunglasses, but bright enough to be happy. So unless orange and green offends somebody, I'm using this one. When I get some time, I might put the two that I made on my website. Right now I need to get back to work on my essay. I probably shouldn't have come here, but I needed to use thesaurus.com, so I figured as long as I was in the vicenity, I'd take a quick break.

EDIT: Okay, essay is done, website updated, and proceeding to come up with creative ways to tell my lit class about Franklin and his story from Canterbury Tales. YOL (yawn out loud).

moritzes · #18 Post by **moritzes** » Wed 28 Sep 2005, 01:37

For puppy I've been using an image that I probably scanned sometime around 1998 from a magazine (Harpers?) It's a really great piece of a Japanese scroll, I think, with the most happy, satisfied minimalist frog that you could imagine. I forgot about it for years, but found it when I dug out an old Thinkpad to try out a few distros. It has a nice brownish background that doesn't distract, and just makes me smile every time I boot puppy

-- how appropriate! I attached the image for anyone interested. I call it "Zen Frog."

Lobster · #19 Post by **Lobster** » Wed 28 Sep 2005, 02:12

Reminds me of a Zen master who came to one of our classes, teaching a form of dynamic yoga called Oki-Yoga

Here is the backdrop for my version of Puppy (earliest public release date 2008)

http://peace.wikicities.com/images/c/c0/Tmxc.jpg

You will notice the white band at the base
- that is where I usually place icons

Ted Dog · #20 Post by **Ted Dog** » Wed 28 Sep 2005, 02:26

my eyes ahhh my eyes

Lobsters pic causes temporay blindness be worned

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