More pirates...

Work continues on the Pirate Theme... here is the scene for the Partly Cloudy Sunset weather condition:

 

So what's new? First off the foreground is finished, and tweaked so that the forecast animations are clearly visible in front of the table and its contents.

 

Then there is a brand new lantern style on the top left, and at night and sunset times it has a flickering candle, which in turns cast a flickering light on the left corner of the cabin. And of course the lantern still swings as the ship pitches and rolls.

 

In the sea, the pirate ship in the distance now has a smoothly animated wake, matching the white tops colour of the current sea.

 

I can't do a great deal more with the animations, there is already so much going on and so many layers required to create these special effects that its pushing even my trusty Samsung S5.

 

I may consider an island in the distance, but that was pretty hard to get looking nice at first so I temporarily abandoned it.

 

Anyway, still enjoying this, and probably the best looking and most dramatic widget theme yet.

 

 



Pirate style

Ideas are coming on well for the Pirate Theme:

New version 3.7 released!

So the new version 3.7 of cliMate Animated Weather Widget was released on Monday 29th.

What's new?

First fixed a problem with the fonts on the forecast part of the widget, this only occurred when using Next 3D Launcher, due to a bug in that launcher. I finally developed a work around, and the fonts are perfect now.

 

Then there were a few issues when using the Weather Only setting, the idea here being that no text at all is shown. There were two problems, the Refreshing icon was still showing, and the there was a grey background in the forecast area showing for some weather conditions, as it was expecting to use that to make the forecast details show up better. As there is no need for either of those during Weather Only, they are now hidden.

 

The Font on the wind speed units was not scaling correctly to the screen size, that is now fixed.

Then I improved the Rain Shower and and Snow Shower forecast thumbnails, made the falling rain and snow bigger and easier to see, and the sun and clouds more clear.

And finally, there is a brand new Town House theme. This is actually based on the view from my parent's house in England. It features the usual weather conditions, birds and plane in the background, but in the foreground we have an Audi driving up the driveway, cars driving past on the High Street in the distance, and the flag of your current country waving from the top of the tower behind the trees. The cars have headlights at night. Finally, there is a little solar powered flower toy that moves its leaves based on the amount of sunlight available.

This theme was a labour of love and originally just going to be for my parents and nieces, but I decided to share it with everyone as its a lot of fun!

 

 

So now started work on something completely different, a pirate theme!

 

This simulates the view from a porthole on a pirate ship. The whole view outside the window moves and rotates as if the ship is moving in the sea, looks super realistic. There will be islands and ships moving past, seagulls, maybe dolphins or sharks or a whale, and inside the cabin will be lots of piratical stuff, like chests of gold, treasure maps and cutlasses. The below is a sneak peak of a proof of concept to see how the movement worked. Will start in earnest on that next week.

Chinese Oil Painting

A tweak to the last post, its clear that the style I have produced is more like an oil painting than a water colour, in fact the graphics effect I was using was named Oil Painting, not sure why I was thinking it was a water colour.

I was then able to apply the same effects to the animated forecast thumbnails; see below for a full screen version of the theme.

 

Now going to experiment with tweaking the red sun a bit to make it look more like a painting, and then will start on the other weather conditions.

More Chinese Theme..

Been doing more work on the Chinese Painting theme showing a misty mountain lake, see below:

First off, blending the edges so they fade into white, to give more of a paper or canvas feel.
Then added a bridge and gatehouse in the foreground, with a new animation of a galloping horse and rider that runs across the curve of the bridge.

The fishing boat now drifts slowly behind the bridge.

The waterfall animation is improved at larger resolutions, and the flying birds are faded out a bit so that they don't appear so high contrast.

The tree branches on the right still wave in the breeze, and drop flower petals at random intervals.

The pink water lilies at the front drift across the lake.

Still to do:

• Improve the lily animation and add more flowers to the lake foreground.
• Redo the far mountains behind the temple

Then will start work on the weather animations, and changing the colours of the forecast thumbnails so that they work with the white background.

I have decided to keep this a more stylized theme based on a single painting which is set during the day, so there will be no sunset or night versions. That will also mean its quicker to finish!

After that I need to investigate a city theme, but I had a nice idea for a African Savannah theme, with Kilimanjaro rising in the background, waving yellow grasses in the foreground, some nice baobab trees that would look great in silhouette at night and during sunset, and of course some nice animated animals, perhaps giraffes. And maybe a landrover crossing the screen..

New Chinese Painting Theme sneak peak..

So I have been working on a new theme, and here is a sneak peak; the concept is an animated painting of a misty mountain lake in Japan or China. It is based on Chinese ink paintings, so its quite monotone, with just splashes of colour.

Still work in progress, but has some nice and different animations. I have included a waterfall for the first time, which I am very happy with; I am sure that will be reused in themes to come. Then there is a fishing boat that drifts out of the mist, the usual flying birds, some floating water lilies, and flower petals that drop from the waving tree branches. And as there is a lake, it shows water ripples as the raindrops splash down during rain scenes.

All the usual Weather conditions will be present, but maybe a bit more stylized than the other themes. I haven't decided yet whether to include sunset and night variations, or just stick with the idea of an animated painting.

And I cant quite decide whether it should be Chinese or Japanese, the gate type structure is only found in Japan, but the mountains and the temple in the background are more Chinese. So I'm also toying with the idea of replacing that with a bridge of some kind, maybe joining the left and right sides.

Anyway, here is a quick screenshot:

CliMate Weather Widget Video Preview!

The new App from Dusk Jockeys, CliMate Weather Widget is almost complete and ready for release! 

Take a look here for a preview video of the only fully animated Weather Widget on Google Play, that works on all Android devices and Home Screen launchers:

Animated Weather Widget almost done #2

Updated main screen now, with drop own chooser when the user has weather for multiple cities, now showing a country flag for each location. 

Swipe back and forth between cities. 

Moved the Settings and Refresh into an Action Bar rather than on the main screen.

Location settings now streamlined and easier to use, including city text search facility:

Sorted out all Landscape/Portrait issues. 

Linked main screen to launcher icon. 

Final screen needed when user hits Launcher icon but has not yet added widgets for any location, need to show an example of drag and dropping widgets so they get the idea of what is required. 

Then lots of testing...

Weather Widget getting close to finishing..

Finally finished all the weather conditions for both Portrait and Landscape mode, in all three themes; Countryside, Skyscape and Black Glass.

The main screen with the forecast is now done, with lots of beautiful animations:

The final step is a screen to pick your location for the weather, then lots of testing and debugging. I am hoping another month or so.

More Weather..

More work on the weather widget. Updated the Widget layout so that it will better tie into the main screen:

Removed the Wind and Humidity from the widget to make it less cluttered and more clear. Moved the Condition to below the temperatures, and moved the Date down to above the Location.

Removed a lot of distracting options from the settings screen.

Finally started work on the main screen which appears when you tap on the widget, showing a large version of the condition and nicely animated 5 day forecast. Going to change this soon to match the Widget layout more, and to add the wind and humidity to this screen which has more real estate.

Work progressing well on the Weather Widget with its secret sauce..

Now added wind speed and humidity metrics, with adjustable appearance based on how windy it is.

Had a few issues recently with the widget freezing and failing to update the clock, trying to get to the bottom of that now.

Also started new Skyscape style, for those who dont want to see the countryside but just concentrate on the weather itself.

Weather Redux..

So finally happy to report I found a free weather provider, OpenWeatherMap.org, so I have at last got the new in-development Weather Widget working and starting to iron out the bugs and make all the settings user definable. .

Here is a nice detailed shot. Note that New York is showing temperatures in Fahrenheit, Bangkok in Celsius. There are different clock types, and the time and date can be switched on and off.

 

Other features... on the night scene, note the drifting clouds, the correct phase of the moon, the shooting stars, the spinning windmill, and the flying birds. The bush to the right slowly waves back and forth.

On the Cloud day scene, we again have nice moving cloud layers, flying birds, a spinning windmill, bush gently waving in the breeze, and a plane towing a user defined message through the clouds.

A lot more to do to pretty up the user interface for the settings and make it foolproof, particularly the selection of weather location. Then I need to work out the correct sunrise and sunset time so that scene style can be automatically shown, and then also work out the local time zone for that location.

It just shows the current weather only, so perhaps that is enough for the first release, or maybe will need to add a forecast screen also.

Anyway, good news, happy to report it is all working well so far..

Time off

Have had a little break from working on my apps, was nice to concentrate on my life outside of IT for a while. A few other improvements to my Google accounts means it will be easier to sell and get paid for selling my apps, so I am free to spend a bit more time on them now.

Coming up, I need to work out a solid business model for my in-development Weather Widget, to ensure I can provide viable accurate weather information on an ongoing basis. Now Google's Weather API is defunct, I can no longer get weather data  for free, so have to use a paid service, the cost of which depends on the number of users and requests for weather information.

However, the charges from the weather providers are not one off costs, but an ongoing monthly cost. Hence a user who will be charged say 99c for my weather app, will expect to be supported with weather information for the lifetime of the usage of that app, probably over several years. I have to make sure I can cover that reasonably, or perhaps start some kind of in-app billing to cover the costs.

Before that I would like to add some new styles to Photo Cube, I think an update of the available frames is long overdue, and I have a few new ideas I would like to try out.

Also if anyone has any other ideas for new Photo Cube features, let me know, now is the time for me to think about implementing them!

Another sneak peak of the Weather Widget, to wet your appetites...

Sneak peak..

...as they say, of my forthcoming new app. Still in the early stages yet.  But very happy with the progress...

Yes, its weather. Yes, its a widget. But does it have a killer feature?

Oh yes. Yes, indeed it does.