Quote:
It seems that you don't actually have to copy everything inside the PanelFile
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I confirm, however, depending the original panel code it's sometimes a tedious process to manually remove the unnecessary <elements> while keeping intact the tree structure.
Just a single error on one hundred <elements> removed then
your whole skin won't load at all in lotro !
example :
<!-- Store buttons removal in character panel -->
<PanelFile ID="ID_UISkin_Journal_Window">
<Element ID="Journal_Window" X="0" Y="63" Width="713" Height="648">
<Element ID="Journal_Panel" X="6" Y="34" Width="704" Height="606">
<Element ID="Equipment_Page" X="8" Y="22" Width="681" Height="585">
<Element ID="RealPaperdollField_Player" X="0" Y="0" Width="700" Height="585">
<Element ID="CharacterEquipmentPage_Player_EnhanceCharacter _Button" X="0" Y="0" Width="1" Height="1"></Element>
<Element ID="CharacterStats" X="447" Y="2" Width="229" Height="510">
<Element ID="StatTree_ScrollBar" X="219" Y="20" Width="10" Height="482">
<Element ID="scroll_bottom_field" X="0" Y="472" Width="10" Height="10"> </Element>
<Element ID="UpButton" X="0" Y="472" Width="10" Height="10"> </Element>
<Element ID="DownButton" X="0" Y="0" Width="10" Height="10"> </Element>
<Element ID="scroll_top_field" X="0" Y="0" Width="10" Height="10"> </Element>
</Element>
</Element>
</Element>
</Element>
<Element ID="Appearance_Page" X="8" Y="22" Width="681" Height="585">
<Element ID="RealPaperdollField_Player" X="0" Y="0" Width="700" Height="568">
<Element ID="CharacterAppearancePage_BuyCosmeticClothing_Bu tton" X="0" Y="0" Width="1" Height="1"> </Element>
<Element ID="CharacterAppearancePage_BuyCosmeticClothing_Fl yout_Field" X="0" Y="0" Width="1" Height="1"></Element>
</Element>
</Element>
</Element>
</Element>
</PanelFile>
If you remove one </Element> your skin won't even be featured in the list of available skins ingame.
Another point, but not the least, the skinning pack provides by default uncompressed TGA, but the Lotro client accepts compressed TGA and even JPG files (when you don't need transparency).
This allows to save a huge amount of space in your zip file for Lotrointerface (SSD owners will thank you too ^^). (keeping in mind that theorically Lotrointerface doesn't accept files beyond 40 mo).
I have compressed every significant TGA file in JRR skins and used as much JPG background files as I could, without this, the pack would probably be 4 or 5 times heavier !
Examples :
theater_top_bottom.tga as provided : 3 mo / compressed : 984 ko
box_relicreforge_background.tga as provided : 1 mo / compressed : 14 ko
itemAdvancement_relicforge_background.tga 1 mo / converted in JPG : 98 ko
If you wanna convert/compress/apply effects on many files in a row,
Xnview can do it. I mean you can compress every TGA files from the skinning pack in just one process !
My setting in Xnview for "save as" --> "JPG file type' --> "options" : I've set quality on 95.
If you want to take screenshots ingame to use it later in a skin, I strongly recommend you to use a third party program (and BMP file type) instead of the lossy JPG captions from Lotro.