The Skaia Desktop Orbiter - Fully Revamped!

[jumpjet2k]

Fully Revamped!

Skaia Desktop Orbiter for Rainmeter!

What is it?


Pictured: the large "Hybrid" version. The real version will, of course, keep going. Two smaller sizes are available, as well.

This program uses the application Rainmeter to make a little orbiter, or a mobile if you will, of the Incipisphere in Homestuck. Prospit, Derse, the four Planets, and the Veil all orbit around a rotating and glowing Skaia in real time on your desktop!

I've made significant improvements to the appearance of almost everything. This includes a newer LOHAC image from the comic, a fully re-drawn LOLAR, and better-processed images for the other planets and the gates. Oh, and I turned LOFAF the right direction (oops)... Anyways, the whole thing now looks much nicer on all desktop colors.


Installation Instructions

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1. Rainmeter is required for this orbiter. If you've never used Rainmeter before, you'll need to install it first. Visit www.rainmeter.net and download and install Rainmeter 1.2. I recommend trying out some its other skins, too - there are some really neat things you can do with it!

2. Once you've got Rainmeter installed, move the Skaia folder from the zip file to C:\Documents and Settings\<YourName>\My Documents\Rainmeter\Skins [Windows XP] or C:\Users\<YourName>\My Documents\Rainmeter\Skins [Windows Vista/7]. Currently Rainmeter only supports Windows, so if you've got something else, unfortunately, you're out of luck...

3. Refresh your Rainmeter skins by right-clicking one of them and hitting Refresh All. Then right-click a Rainmeter skin again and navigate to Configs -> Skaia -> Skaia_<size> -> _____.ini. There are 9 options:

Skaia Large (~650x650 pixels) with glowing light around Skaia
Skaia Large without glowing light around Skaia
Skaia Large with glowing light, stationary Skaia, and independent Veil and Derse
New - Skaia Large hybrid with glow, stationary Skaia, and synced Veil and Derse. Probably the best bang for your (processor) buck.
Skaia Medium (~500x500) with glowing light around Skaia
Skaia Medium without glowing light around Skaia
Skaia Medium with glowing light, stationary Skaia, and independent Veil and Derse
Skaia Small (~400x400) with glowing light around Skaia
Skaia Small without glowing light around Skaia
Skaia Small with glowing light, stationary Skaia, and independent Veil and Derse

Note that only one instance of each size can be running at once. For example, you could run both Skaia_large and Skaia_small at once, but you can't run Skaia_large and Skaia_large_noglow simultaneously. I can't imagine why you'd ever want/need to run more than one of these at at time, but hey, it's your desktop, not mine.

Development Notes

Jade's and Rose's planets were created by hand based on the images in their intro flashes. Neither are official images, but I think they look pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I thought about trying to individually animate Derse and Prospit so they rotate around their own centers while orbiting Skaia. I still haven't figured out a way to make them do this, though.

A Hivebent version would be fun to try, but I don't have any graphics to use. If you want to be ambitious, draw up some planets in a similar manner to those shown here and I'll be happy to make them into another orbiter.

Skaia Large uses more processer power than Skaia Medium, and Medium more than Small. Also, the glowing versions use a bit more processor power than the noglow ones, but it's not quite as significant a change.

The skin currently updates every 1/3 of a second. This value was chosen to be aesthetically pleasing (i.e. not too choppy) while still not too torturous on your processor. It's possible to change, but it'll directly affect the speed of the glow animation - if you doubled the update rate, the glow animation would move twice as fast, which might look weird. Also, any speed increases will take up more processor power. Nevertheless, if you want to do so, reply or shoot me a PM and I can provide instructions.

One known issue is that Derse sometimes disappears at the right and bottom sides. I haven't been able to solve this problem just yet...

Please let me know if you encounter any other problems with the skins - I'll do my best to fix them!


What's New?

Version 1.1 - New option of a stationary Skaia and independent Derse and Veil for each size. Also, the graphics were cleaned up a bit and the .ini files organized a little more intuitively.

Version 1.2 - All images were cropped to significantly reduce processor demand. For example, Skaia_large_StationarySkaia went from ~40% CPU to ~15% CPU on my computer.

Version 1.3 - Added LOFAF after it was revealed.

Version 1.4 - Changed the orientation of LOFAF (the volcano now points to Skaia as it should). Replaced all the planet and gate images with better-processed versions. Everything should look better, especially on non-black backgrounds.


Enough talk. Where can I get it?

CLICK HERE!


Credits

I created the LOFAF and LOLAR images. LOwAS, LOHAC, the gates, Prospit, Derse, and Skaia are all from the comic. The Veil image was created by Tenebrais. He provided the inspiration and layout wth his Incipisphere map, as well - big thanks to him! The original image that I adapted for the skin is this one.
Thanks to Androx Hussert for making Homestuck in the first place. I can't even imagine the number of hours I've spent on MSPA...
Thanks to Chewtoy on the Rainmeter boards for technical help.
And thanks to you for checking this out!

[AAAAAAAAAA42]

as soon as i saw this i thought "man itd be cool if they spun and stuff"

and then bam my brain is all splattered on the wall

[elitehakor]

Just when i decide to uninstall rainmeter

[jumpjet2k]

Just when i decide to uninstall rainmeter

...you subsequently decided it'd be a good time to reinstall it?

[elitehakor]

...you subsequently decided it'd be a good time to reinstall it?

I don't know. You tell me.

[Ledundead]

So cool.

[weirdguy]

Any plans to have a "blow up Prospit, sending the moon crashing into Skaia" option?

[Ledundead]

In addition, do you have any plans to release a version with Skaia not spinning? I always sort of imagined it staying still with only the clouds moving, and it just seems... odd, having Prospit moving at the same rate. The same goes for Derse and the veil, I feel Derse should go much faster than the veil. So, I'm just asking for a faster Derse, if that's not too much trouble. Oh! And the kid's gates aren't colored!
I love this thing, by the way. I'm just being nitpicky.

[jumpjet2k]

Any plans to have a "blow up Prospit, sending the moon crashing into Skaia" option?

Are we talking about a post-splosion Skaia with a big crater, Prospit with no moon, or actually animating the falling moon and splosion? The former is definitely possible, the latter isn't, or, at least, it'd be hugely difficult to figure out.

In addition, do you have any plans to release a version with Skaia not spinning? I always sort of imagined it staying still with only the clouds moving, and it just seems... odd, having Prospit moving at the same rate. The same goes for Derse and the veil, I feel Derse should go much faster than the veil. So, I'm just asking for a faster Derse, if that's not too much trouble. Oh! And the kid's gates aren't colored!
I love this thing, by the way. I'm just being nitpicky.

It wouldn't be that hard to make a stationary Skaia. Right now it's tied to the motion of Prospit, but I'd be happy to make a stationary version.

As for Derse and the Veil, technically they should be moving pretty close to the same rate because they're close to the same distance from Skaia. I can separate them, but it'll take up more processor capacity.

As for the gate coloring... I made this to be a pretty basic version of the Incipisphere. If I start coloring gates, we'd then have to remove one of Rose's (since she blew it up and all), add portals and meteors around Skaia, etc... Basically, make it look like this:

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I could do that, but the meteors would still be stationary relative to Skaia. Plus, who knows what the system'll look like when Jade's planet is added? I'd rather keep things a bit simpler and just include the planets and plain-color gates.

I'll work on a version with a stationary Skaia and with Derse moving a little faster than the Veil. Once I've got the basic code written, it won't be hard for you to adjust the movement rates to your preference - I'll write up a post later on how to change that.

Edit: Is anybody using this right now without the glow? I might just remove the no-glow option for later versions if everybody likes it as is.

[Ledundead]

Yay! Thanks, jumpjet!

[Kaz]

Need to make a new version with all of the troll planets, once they're all revealed of course...

[jumpjet2k]

Alright, Version 1.1 is now good to go. I've added a new version for each of the three sizes - Skaia is stationary, and the Veil and Derse can now be adjusted to different speeds from each other. This version's definitely the most taxing one on the processor now, though - the Large version used over 30% of my available processor power on a fairly new and fairly powerful laptop. Ledundead, I think you were right - Skaia does look better stationary.

I've also done some cleanup on the graphics, so they should look better on non-black backgrounds now. I organized the .ini config files to make them a bit more intuitive, too.

Get the new version here!

Below the spoiler, I've explained how you can change the speeds to your own preference.

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Copy the .ini file of whichever version you're wanting to update. Rename the copied .ini to whatever you want and open it.

The first thing I'll point out is the third line: "Update=333". This value is the number of milliseconds in each update period, so the default is 0.333 seconds. As I mentioned in the first post, you could reduce this value to make things move more smoothly, but it would take more processor power and the glow animation will move more quickly as well. For example, if you changed it to 250ms, the glow will be 33% faster, and the amount of processor power used will increase by 33%. Actually, that's probably not exactly true, because I doubt the processor cycles scale exactly linearly, but you get the point.

The model is split into several elements: Skaia (and Prospit), the Veil (and Derse), and the Planets. Each of these are an individual image. In the new version, you'll have five separate images and sections in the .ini (Skaia, Prospit, Derse, Veil, Planets). So let's say you wanted to make the Planets rotate more quickly.

In the .ini you'll find two important sections regarding the Planets: [CounterPlanets] and [MeterPlanets]. By default, the Planets are set to complete one full rotation every 1500 updates, or every 500 seconds. Say you wanted to up the speed to one rotation every 400 seconds. You'll need to change two lines:

Inside of [CounterPlanets]:
"Formula=Counter %1500" becomes "Formula=Counter %1200"

Inside of [MeterPlanets]:
"ValueReminder=1500" becomes "ValueReminder=1200"

Also, keep in mind that if you changed the Update rate for the whole skin, it would affect the rotation rate of the Planets. You'll need to readjust these values respectively.

Need to make a new version with all of the troll planets, once they're all revealed of course...

Yep, I'd love to do that. As I mentioned in the first post, I'll have to wait and see if Andrew gives us some good small-size art of their planets, or otherwise I'll see if somebody else can draw up some little planets to use. The nice thing is that it'll only require changing out the "Planets.png" image for each of the three sizes.

[Ledundead]

You are the star. It's you.
This is so awesome! Thanks!

[Rafira]

It's definitely pointless, but also fun! i'm staring and poking. hours of fun for the whole family! thanks for making it.

[kizzycocoa]

does this work with Vista?

edit:it does. but it's laggy x.x any way to make it not-laggy?

edit the second: found out. did some ini editing. it's very RAM intensive though :S like, 30% of it is gone.

[jumpjet2k]

does this work with Vista?

edit:it does. but it's laggy x.x any way to make it not-laggy?

edit the second: found out. did some ini editing. it's very RAM intensive though :S like, 30% of it is gone.

The sluggishness is just kinda a consequence of the way Rainmeter works. Running the Large with split Skaia/Prospit and glow (i.e. 3 moving parts, 1 stationary, and one animation) takes up about 30% processor power for me. However, I've never seen Rainmeter using a lot of RAM - even with 3 other skins running simultaneously, I'm still only at about 10MB ram usage, far less than something like a browser or real program.

You might want to consider trying out one of the simpler versions. In addition, the Small and Medium sizes definitely require less power than the Large.

I'd be curious to hear more about your system configuration, and some numbers on how much RAM & CPU % it uses. Maybe it's something I could help with.

[kizzycocoa]

The sluggishness is just kinda a consequence of the way Rainmeter works. Running the Large with split Skaia/Prospit and glow (i.e. 3 moving parts, 1 stationary, and one animation) takes up about 30% processor power for me. However, I've never seen Rainmeter using a lot of RAM - even with 3 other skins running simultaneously, I'm still only at about 10MB ram usage, far less than something like a browser or real program.

You might want to consider trying out one of the simpler versions. In addition, the Small and Medium sizes definitely require less power than the Large.

I'd be curious to hear more about your system configuration, and some numbers on how much RAM & CPU % it uses. Maybe it's something I could help with.

I have a laptop. so, yeah

I have located a potential optimisation problem which may be relevant.

the size of the pictures are HUGE.

seriously, skaia's is the same size as the veil. surely that could be cut down? it's transparent, but it still needs to be "rendered". I'm sure it would help with performance by a good 10% :3

[jumpjet2k]

I have a laptop. so, yeah

I have located a potential optimisation problem which may be relevant.

the size of the pictures are HUGE.

seriously, skaia's is the same size as the veil. surely that could be cut down? it's transparent, but it still needs to be "rendered". I'm sure it would help with performance by a good 10% :3

Yeah, that's something I've thought about. I don't necessarily know that it'll make a big difference; I guess it depends on how Rainmeter treats pngs. Or how pngs are treated as a whole, anyways, which is something I'm not an expert about. Once I get a chance I'm gonna sit down and work on shrinking them and see how much of a difference that makes.

Edit: WHOA. Alright, you were definitely right. Shrinking the image sizes reduces the CPU load by as much as half. I'll have version 1.2 out later today, probably.

[kizzycocoa]

ah, good! ^^
if you were to shrink all images, and change their origins (rotation centre co-ordinates), you may very well cut down on SO much more CPU. and only the veil would need a big picture.

hope I've helped :3

edit:also, I'm using this for my own fake Sburb session. you may want to make a blank version (EG, one with no planets, but circles in their place to show where to put the custom planets) :3

[jumpjet2k]

ah, good! ^^
if you were to shrink all images, and change their origins (rotation centre co-ordinates), you may very well cut down on SO much more CPU. and only the veil would need a big picture.

hope I've helped :3

edit:also, I'm using this for my own fake Sburb session. you may want to make a blank version (EG, one with no planets, but circles in their place to show where to put the custom planets) :3

Actually, that's exactly what I've been working on for the past hour or two. Skaia_large_StationarySkaia now runs at 15% CPU instead of 42%. I'd call that a big change... And Skaia_small_StationarySkaia takes only 5% now. I think that's about as minimal as they'll get.

V1.2 will be linked very shortly, once I get it uploaded...

As for a template for custom versions, I could do that, but it shouldn't be all that difficult, actually: Open Planets.png (for whichever size you want) and just delete or draw over the kids' planets and put your own there. You could even just leave the gates where they are. Editing that one image will change all three versions of the orbiter for that size. If you're wanting a 4th planet, you could just copy or mirror the gates across the middle. Make sure you use GIMP or Photoshop or something else that supports transparency, though.

In addition, if you changed Planets.png for the Large size, you could use that same image without modification for Small and Medium, since Rainmeter automatically resizes them. However, it wouldn't be optimal since you'd be loading a larger image than you technically need.

Edit: Here's V1.2!

[kizzycocoa]

Actually, that's exactly what I've been working on for the past hour or two. Skaia_large_StationarySkaia now runs at 15% CPU instead of 42%. I'd call that a big change... And Skaia_small_StationarySkaia takes only 5% now. I think that's about as minimal as they'll get.

V1.2 will be linked very shortly, once I get it uploaded...

As for a template for custom versions, I could do that, but it shouldn't be all that difficult, actually: Open Planets.png (for whichever size you want) and just delete or draw over the kids' planets and put your own there. You could even just leave the gates where they are. Editing that one image will change all three versions of the orbiter for that size. If you're wanting a 4th planet, you could just copy or mirror the gates across the middle. Make sure you use GIMP or Photoshop or something else that supports transparency, though.

In addition, if you changed Planets.png for the Large size, you could use that same image without modification for Small and Medium, since Rainmeter automatically resizes them. However, it wouldn't be optimal since you'd be loading a larger image than you technically need.

Edit: Here's V1.2!

cool! =D
I'd think, optimally, the planets would be seperate png's, and have their rotation origins at skaia. but, that could be an attempt for 1.3 :3
anyway, great desktop thing! =D I'll be using it for months :P if only I could make it act like a picture. it seems dragging icons is impossible when a planet is in it's space, as it treats it as a window.

an oddly shaped fragmented window

[kizzycocoa]

oh god, actually, there's a small bug. derse dissappears at the right and the bottom of it's cycle. is that hard to fix? :S

[jumpjet2k]

cool! =D
I'd think, optimally, the planets would be seperate png's, and have their rotation origins at skaia. but, that could be an attempt for 1.3 :3

The problem is that then they would all have to be programmed as separate objects in Rainmeter, and from what I've seen that's a lot more demanding than using just one somewhat larger image. Plus, then I'd have to program all the gates in separately, too, which would be another hassle and a half.

oh god, actually, there's a small bug. derse dissappears at the right and the bottom of it's cycle. is that hard to fix? :S

I've seen that happen before. Which particular size and configuration are you using? I'll check it out and see if I can replicate the issue.

[kizzycocoa]

The problem is that then they would all have to be programmed as separate objects in Rainmeter, and from what I've seen that's a lot more demanding than using just one somewhat larger image. Plus, then I'd have to program all the gates in separately, too, which would be another hassle and a half.

ah, ok. though, to cut down on loads of memory use, they could be horizontal/vertical strips? not good for more than 4 custom planets, but then, the full image version is a lot better for those custom ones then.

I've seen that happen before. Which particular size and configuration are you using? I'll check it out and see if I can replicate the issue.

large, and as much in the centre as I could get it.

[jumpjet2k]

ah, ok. though, to cut down on loads of memory use, they could be horizontal/vertical strips? not good for more than 4 custom planets, but then, the full image version is a lot better for those custom ones then.

Yeah, I suppose that could work, but I don't imagine the savings would really be that great. I'll try it out and see what happens.

large, and as much in the centre as I could get it.

I see what's happening there. Rainmeter does some weird things with rotating images - the image is 600x600, and since that's the largest one, Rainmeter doesn't display anything outside of that range. The solution would be to revert to the Skaia V1.1 or V1.0 VeilDerse.png, and replace that part of the config with the following:

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[MeterVeil]
Meter=ROTATOR
Measurename=CounterVeil
ImageName=VeilDerse.png
X=0
Y=0
OffsetX=375
OffsetY=375
W=750
H=750
StartAngle=0
RotationAngle=6.2831853
ValueReminder=5000
DynamicVariables=1

Sorry about the issue. FYI, the StationarySkaia version doesn't have this issue, since Derse is rendered separately from the Veil.