iPhone Bite SMS Circul8 icon - how is the 'bite' done?

[DigitL]

Just curious how this effect is achieved as I am planning on making some semi-transparent icons, or icons with different shapes. When I try to erase a corner of an icon in GIMP, I only get black in the background and not transparency. See here (iPad):



See what I mean? The bite part of the circle is transparent, and I tried something similar with the Google Chrome icon, but it just shows black in the background.

On my iPhone, I used these icons....



...but I had to delete the layer mask and a few other png's. This worked for that but it made a lot of the icons square and I had to theme those ones. It seems the BiteSMS Circul8 icon achieves this effect without having to alter any of those files...Anybody know how this is done?

 

[darricksailo]

Just curious how this effect is achieved as I am planning on making some semi-transparent icons, or icons with different shapes. When I try to erase a corner of an icon in GIMP, I only get black in the background and not transparency. See here (iPad):

View attachment 407419

See what I mean? The bite part of the circle is transparent, and I tried something similar with the Google Chrome icon, but it just shows black in the background.

On my iPhone, I used these icons....

View attachment 407420

...but I had to delete the layer mask and a few other png's. This worked for that but it made a lot of the icons square and I had to theme those ones. It seems the BiteSMS Circul8 icon achieves this effect without having to alter any of those files...Anybody know how this is done?

are the circul8 icons from a theme with winterboard? i think it has something to do with...urrr, sorry, i can't seem to recall what that file that affects the background is

 

[DigitL]

Yes they are....if the transparency effect is working for the bitesms icon, it should work for others, in theory, but it doesn't. I'm thinking it may have to do with the way the icon was designed in Photoshop.

 

[roxxette]

You can try removing the background and save as .png, only .png will get you the transparent.

 

[DigitL]

You can try removing the background and save as .png, only .png will get you the transparent.

It already is a png file and has a transparent background in GIMP/Photoshop. Still doesn't work.

 

[ProudLoz]

It already is a png file and has a transparent background in GIMP/Photoshop. Still doesn't work.

The reason it works is that the biteSMS icon is treated like an official Apple App and so it doesn't go through the normal masking the other apps from the App Store go through. Hence, why you can see the transparency.

The only way to do that with the Chrome icon is to, like you mentioned, deleted the masked icon template and then theme every single icon from there on out so you won't see the square icon.