Shoutbox

On my main page (where contacts are displayed, etc) my scene appears stretched out. I'm using the blue one with a little girl and cat, so it came with messenger but all i can see is half of the girl and the cat. It's very pixel-y so it's obvious it's stretched out. All of the other scenes appear pixel-y as well. Anyone know how to fix it? Oh, and i've tried signing in/out, closing messenger completely, it's always the same.

Do you have your messenger window maximised to cover the full screen?

Scenes are only intended to be displayed at the default width of messenger, so if you have it full screen then they will become stretched and pixelated

That sounds really lame to let the scenes all be really blurry and pixelated. :/

yes, the window is maximized. but i am on a completely different computer now that does not even have plus but it is still all stretched out

It has nothing to do with Messenger Plus! scenes will turn out pixelated no matter what you do if you stretch the conversation window over the default size.

ohhh, i see. that seems silly not to let the window be full sized.
thanks so much for your help though!

It's not that sillly imho...
In fact, it is very logical that they must be stretched.

Scenes are shared and shown to your contacts. But this means that they need to work on all screen resolutions going from 640x480 to 2000x2000 (or whatever hi-def screen size someone has). Also, everybody has different conversation window sizes; some have the convo window very narrow, some have them maximized over their entire desktop area.

To accomodate all this you have 2 options: either allow for a limited maximum size of the background and stretch it to fit all resolutions, or always send a 2000x800 big photograph (which would be many many megabytes big!!!!) to all of your contacts.

But ofcourse sending a massive big photograph is no option at all. It is impossible to send tens of megabytes to all your contacts each time. It would simply be way too slow and thus not work for an IM program.

Hence the (logical choice of) stretching.

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Scenes can be made nice if you put some thought in it and hence I find them not restricting at all.

Don't look at it as pictures which need to be pixel-perfect! Simply make images which wont look bad when they are streched.

As with many 'restrictions': use your fantasy and imagination instead, aka be creative.

So, restrictions like this don't need to be that limitating at all if you put some thought in it. On the contrary, although it might seem silly and annoying at first, they actually force you to be more creative and original. Make (or copy) some nice color gradients or whatever art you fancy instead of trying to put some pixel-perfect object in the scene.

But I fancy pixel-perfect objects. <_<
If I'm not able to draw out my scene and have it to look like what I want it to look like, I really don't fancy this scene idea. I would much rather be able to create my own backgrounds for myself like we have earlier. But I guess I'll just have to manage with some celestial thing..

quote:

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Originally posted by Karen606
But I fancy pixel-perfect objects. <_<
If I'm not able to draw out my scene and have it to look like what I want it to look like, I really don't fancy this scene idea. I would much rather be able to create my own backgrounds for myself like we have earlier. But I guess I'll just have to manage with some celestial thing..

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If you want them to look non-pixelated, then leave your messenger window at the default size rather than full-screen

quote:

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Originally posted by Karen606
If I'm not able to draw out my scene and have it to look like what I want it to look like, I really don't fancy this scene idea.

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As said, scenes are shared to your contacts and since you can not control the size of the conversation windows of your contacts, they are not meant to have pixel perfect objects. So if you don't fancy them and don't want your contacts to see your own created scene misformed and stretched then simply don't use a scene (use the default scene instead).

You can also turn the viewing of your contact's scenes off: Go to a conversation window and select the top menu Extra > Use standard scene.
Or right click in the me-area of your contact in a conversation window and choose 'Use standard scene'. This will override the scene which your contact is using and thus what you see in the conversation window. But note that scenes are always shared, you can't turn it completely off. So even if you turn on the option to override your contacts' scenes in such a way that you wont be bothered by crappy looking scenes of your contacts, your contacts will still be able to see your scene (most likely with streched objects).

quote:

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Originally posted by Karen606
I would much rather be able to create my own backgrounds for myself like we have earlier.

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Which is also still possible. Again open a conversation, and go to the menu Extra > Backgrounds. But they are also stretched if the talk-area of the conversation window is wider or taller than the backgound image (just like they were also stretched in previous versions! Nothing has changed regarding that).

And you can still use the lvback.gif background in the contact list window (which is only streched if it is bigger than the current contact list size; again just like it was with all previous versions).

If you want more fancy things or change (background) stuff which isn't supported by default in Windows Live Messenger, then you need to create a Messenger Plus! skin.