MacThemes: Sounds like what a lot of people would claim to be doing. Why do you think your stuff stands out?

BBX: Like I said, I’m not too fond of my older stuff, but I myself tend to find most interfaces look hobbyish and poorly rendered - even those pumped out by the companies you’d think would be able to do much better, especially considering their resources. After doing this stuff commercially for a while now (and having been exposed to a vast amount of work on both platforms) I’d have to say that truly decent interface artists seem to be few and far-between. I guess the reason my stuff looks different is because there just aren’t too many freakish hybrids like myself running around - people who for some bizarre reason decided to apply the skills they use to design other funky things to designing funky interfaces… I create virtual photorealistic surfaces for a living, so applying that to interface designs is a no-brainer for me. I’m also a perfectionist to a fault with this stuff – I’ll spend countless (we’re talking hundreds if not thousands) of hours tweaking it up just so, making discoveries and then going back and rejigging as a result when these discoveries necessitate changes that cascade through the design. As a result, the attention to detail shows I guess - but it also means this stuff can take forever to create. I’ve also had a lot of experience in creating branding and identity work for high-profile properties, so my stuff is always packaged up like it’s near commercial-quality… That first impression and presentation are every bit as important to me as the actual pixels making up the interface. I guess that’s my edge. My new stuff is really going to push this to the next level though.

MacThemes: Now about the new stuff. BBX OMEGA™ - it’s the most anticipated OSX theme release to date. What is it?

BBX: It’s the first of the next-generation in BBX GUI Overlay Kits. It started out as a simple theme I was going to release simultaneously with Unsanity’s ShapeShifter, but plans have changed somewhat since then. Number one, because it wasn’t possible to incorporate many of the features it requires into the 1.0 ShapeShifter release. Number two, the design started becoming so cool that it demanded to be released as more than just a simple theme – now it’s going to be a full-blown kit.

MacThemes: Do you see Omega as being the last of an old generation of OS X themes, or the start of a new one? It’s been said that ShapeShifter’s GUIKit format does, and will continue to push the boundaries of themes.

BBX: It’s definitely something new… and despite not wanting to come across as an evil arrogant bastard (although I’ll probably fail miserably), I think it’s going to raise the bar on both platforms. Not only does it utilize advanced ShapeShifter features that will push themes way beyond anything that’s been possible to date (and I’d just like to mention that Jason Harris is my hero), it’s going to be something we’ve never seen before – an extensive pro-quality kit released simultaneously for both the OSX and Windows. Each will have it’s own extras like unique media player skins and platform-specific bits and pieces… But they’ll be derived from the same base elements and ‘seeds’ - so side-by-side they’ll look like they exist in the same world. Lighting, surfaces, scale – it will be the same throughout.

MacThemes: Sounds intriguing. What does it look like?

BBX: It’s a bit hard to describe. I’ve often said I’d love to release screenshots, but due to the unscrupulous nature of certain individuals out there (and based on my past experience with these things), I’m convinced
that unauthorized ports would pop up before the official kit was actually
released – so no screenies unfortunately. I can tell you that it’s the coolest dark theme I myself have seen (and of course, that’s based on my own personal taste)… It’s comprised of shells of a material not unlike the black polycarbon-plastic of Darth Vader’s body armor, inset with Xray-violet LEDs. In fact, the LEDs are state-dependant and interactive – so in inactive windows and applications all of the LEDs are dim, but when you activate a window or application by selecting it, all of the LEDs within its controls and frame elements will light up. There’s also some frame-by-frame sequencing throughout, so things like scrollbars and progress bars run through blinking LED sequences (and not just fade-in fade-out stuff, but sequenced pops, strobes and flashes with afterglows). It’s pretty cool.

The black surfaces themselves are pretty complex to create – they require multiple passes rendered with a 3D raytracer to pull off… One is the standard diffuse and soft shadow render, the second is a reflection pass – these are then composited in Photoshop. The reflection effect isn’t done with your standard environment map, but rather a single light source shining onto a different material with a fat specular highlight. This means I have to have 2 sets of geometry with 2 separate materials and 2 lighting setups for each and every element. There are also no fewer than 3 different 3D-modelled media players, each requiring post-render LED compositing and sequencing and 2 of which are fully animated, with plates that spin open like irises etc. Of course, each animation sequence must be rendered twice for the diffuse and reflection passes, these passes must be composited in Photoshop, then come the LEDs rendered out in masks and then built into states and sequences. As you can imagine, it’s a very time consuming process. The theme logo on this one is even animated, but because it won’t require being cut up and coded I’m able to sequence and composite it in After Effects, which saves some time.

MacThemes: Wow.

BBX: I know – It sounds like a lot of work for a theme… But I figure that unless I’m challenging myself and creating something mind-blowingly cool that will keep BBX fans happy for the year it’ll probably take me to finally spit out the next one, why bother? Well you’ve seen it (parts of it anyways) – what do you think.

MacThemes: I don’t want to gush, so let me try to tone it down a little. Your hard work shows, and your fans aren’t going to be disappointed. If anything, Omega is at least “mind-blowingly cool”.

BBX: See? I think it will be worth the effort.

MacThemes: I notice that you’re also using some Japanese in the logos and stuff I’ve seen.

BBX: The logos you’ve seen are just preliminary (the new ones rock hard), but yeah I’m using some Japanese… The Japanese name for Omega is Kuroiteku – which translates roughly into ‘blacktech’ (Omega is a Greek word of course, so there’s no real Japanese equivalent). I love the look of Japanese characters and like a lot of sci-fi noir geeks I’m a huge Bladerunner and neuromancer fan – so I guess that explains it. All of my theme kits from now on will have both Japanese and English identity married throughout.

MacThemes: So when will it actually be released? You’ve been accused of pushing the release date back and hyping a theme you haven’t delivered on.

BBX: When people cite this alleged hype, they’re talking about a single thread in an obscure forum. When I first started the theme for the original target ShapeShifter release, I decided I’d post a little teaser in the MacNN GUI forum with the intention of giving a little heads up to what I believed to be a small and tight-knit community of fellow themers and enthusiasts. How was I to know it would become a beacon for BBX fans and detractors from around the world? My original estimates for release were also totally based on what I believed to be fairly accurate delivery dates for a ShapeShifter build capable of running Omega – and as we know this has yet to happen.

In my defense I can only say that first off, what’s being done to ShapeShifter presently is very complex and the coding is extremely involved (did I mention that Jason Harris is a god?) - and any guesstimate I gave on delivery was based on estimated release dates I myself was given for a ShapeShifter update capable of running Omega. Secondly, the intention with the thread wasn’t to generate hype so much as a simple heads up to the MacNN GUI community. When you start seeing banner ads on the customization sites and the movie-style teaser trailer and website go up, then you’ll know the real hype has begun. Only when the release date has been flashing in front of your eyes and it doesn’t come to pass can I be accused of not delivering.

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