Edit form theme

[Dawntide]

Hey,

I have seen several games with completely edited gui and window theme, so there are no windows forms anymore, it is just everything custom. The HP Bars are graphical and much more. How to hardcore edit the whole windows?

I know in vb.net there is a way with importing modules which contain the new custom look, is it possible in vb6 too? Can i use vb.net themes then?

How to use graphical HP Bars, like in any good game?

What is the diffrence between onscreen GUI and offscreen gui, is there any advantage with an onscreen Gui?

thanks in advance!

[Joyce]

I'm not sure if Windows skins are possibe inside VB6 itself, but there are ways to force it on to a program.. Not quite recommended though. Anyway, to edit your game screen and whatnot to be graphical an fancy, a lot of the stuff needs to be replaced with custom graphics and your own GDI(+)/DD7/D3D8 code accordingly based on your version. It's quite a bit of work, as you need to have your layout planned out and have a basic understanding of VB6 as well as the engine itself and the rendering library in question.

As for the difference, there's not much. On-Screen can just look like a clusterfuck very easily and cover too much of the screen if you're not careful, whereas off-screen ones are generally less fancy and a little more boring.