How to install osu skins

Skinning FAQ

This article is about frequently answered skinning questions.

Getting started

What is skinning?

Skinning is a simple image changing mechanism that osu! will load upon selecting a skin in the options. Putting a skin together is easy, but creating the assets for it is a little more difficult to achieve.

Can someone make this skin from that show/game?

If you have gone through the entire skinning forums and you are certain that you cannot find that skin, then congrats, osu! doesn’t have it yet. With this in mind, you can take this initiative to create the skin you dream of and make it something that everyone else may want!

Nevertheless, please, never request for a skin anywhere in the forums. Failing to follow this rule will result in your thread being moved to the wastelands.

Where can I get this skin that I saw someone play with?

First off, do not ask this in the forums; otherwise, your thread will most likely be thrown into the wastelands. Secondly, you’re better off asking that person for the skin they’re using. They may give it to you, but that may not always be the case.

Can I use a skinned element from someone else’s skin?

Yes, you can use skinning elements from other skins. These are called «mixed skins» or «skin mashups». However, you are not allowed post these on the skinning subforum with or without permission! You could, however, post them in your signature or me! userpage.

The only exception to this are sounds, as they are typically harder to make. These can be used from other skins, even without explicit permission from the original skinner. It would, however, be nice of you to credit the original skinner.

What should my skin folder contain?

When releasing your skin, however, you should remove such files to keep the file size down. If you happen to be using the template skin, delete the elements that are not modified because osu! will handle the missing elements automatically.

Do note, however, the folder called taiko (case-insensitive) is reserved for osu!taiko skins which will override all of the osu!taiko elements (and some interface elements when playing an osu!taiko beatmap).

How do I reload my skin in osu!?

You can also exit and reopen osu! or start the updater to reload the skin, but it usually is much quicker to use the four-keystroke combination to reload the skin in osu!

What are skinning sets?

In osu!, there are over 200 skinnable elements (not including the individual animated frames). However, you are not required to skin all of them. Instead, you can simply remove them as osu! will use the default images for the ones you don’t include.

That being said, a skinning set (defined by the Ranking Criteria) basically states which elements must be skinned if one of them in the set were skinned. For example, the player using your skin may not like it if you had only skinned only half of the default numbers and left the others as to use their defaults. However, this only strictly applies to beatmap skinning but you may want to take this into account for you own skin.

Is an edited skin a mixed skin?

Edited skins are considered mixed. Thus, they cannot be posted in any subforums.

Can I remake a skin that someone else made?

Yes, you can have a similar skin theme as someone else who might have done it before you. However, you must make the assets yourself and, obviously, don’t copy the assets from the other skin you are trying to remake.

Why isn’t there a database for skins, like beatmaps?

Sharing

How do I share my skin?

Can I post a mixed skin in the skinning subforums?

No, you are not allowed to post a mixed skin in any subforums. The same thing applies for edited skins as well.

Where can I post my mixed skin?

You can use your me! userpage, your signature, the /r/osuskins subreddit, or anywhere else outside of the osu! forums.

Can I post a skin remake?

Yes, skin remakes are not considered to be mixed. So you can post these, as long as none of the assets were copied or duplicated from another skin (in which, it would be considered mixed).

Can I post R15 skins in the skinning subforums?

Yes, and if you do, you must add warning on your forum post. R15 skins may include but not limited to:

To add this warning, simply prefix [R15] to your thread post title and write a notice at the top of the post itself.

Can I post R18 skins in the skinning subforums?

No, you are never allowed to post skins that contains any R18 content anywhere in osu! Period.

If you post your R18 skin anywhere in the osu! community, be aware that you will be punished for that. On the other hand, if you release it outside the osu! community walls, nobody will hunt you down. R18 skins may include but not limited to:

Post template

If you don’t know how to make friendly looking thread, you can use this template.

It is really important to include various screenshots of gameplay and the song selection, etc. A lot of people will want to see your skin looks like before carelessly downloading it! You can use upppy or imgur to upload them.

skin.ini

What is skin.ini?

What is v1.0 and v2.0+?

Skin v1.0 was the old skinning style that was used from the game’s skinning support launch until March 2013. After that point in time, skin v2.0 was released along side a brand new set of skinning elements with some changes. To see a changelog of skinning updates, see the Versions section in the skin.ini article.

It may not seem important to denote which version to use, but understand that some older features may not be available in the latest version of skinning and vice versa.

Audio

Sound format hierarchy

The hierarchy of the sound formats that osu! will use is as follows:

Images

What format should the images be in?

What are overlays?

What window resolution should I skin?

Since osu! can be played using different window resolutions, some skinning elements may either overlap or be placed farther apart than anticipated. This means that not all elements will stretch or scale themselves to fit the game window resolution.

It is best to keep the following resolutions in mind while skinning.

Images will be adjusted by the game itself to fit resolutions derivating from the ones mentioned above. Most of them will be rescaled to fit the playfield or repositioned on different aspect ratios.

HD images

Every sprite has an HD counterpart, even all frames in an animation can have HD counterparts. As a result, the filesize of the folder or archive will increase due to having more images than normal.

All HD images may also be bigger in filesize due to the fact that the canvas size used is four times bigger compared to the normal sprite. There are essentially two resolution modes osu! is using. Each of them prefers one set of images. The first mode is LowResolution while the second mode is HighResolution.

Ranking screen hit score hierarchy

The ranking screen preferences the static version of skinning elements over the animationed ones. That is, if an animation and a static version of an element is included, the hierarchy is as follows:

However, the osu!mania ranking screen is an exception to this. That is, if an animation and a static version of an element is included, the hierarchy is as follows:

Notice: In osu!mania, osu! ignores the specified path from the skin.ini file and will only use the image from the root directory (the folder where the skin elements are loaded).

Animations

How do I animate an element?

The animation frame rates for each element are inconsistent. Some use a value defined in the skin.ini file, some use the client’s defined value, while others are based on the BPM (beats per minute) of the beatmap. Due to this, animating skinning elements is trial-and-error (see the next section for methods on solving this).

My animation is playing too fast/slow, how do I fix it?

If your animation is too fast/slow, you have two ways to fix it:

Skinning

How do I make a long cursortrail?

You will need the cursormiddle.png element to be present in your skin. If you do not want it, use a transparent image.

I deleted an element, but it’s still there! How do I remove it?

If you want to remove an element, you must use a transparent image in place of the element you want removed. Then reload your skin.

How do I delete the lighting after tapping on an object?

There are two ways to do this:

I meant the particles after clicking!

How do I remove the slider end circle?

Add a transparent file called sliderendcircle.png to your skin.

How do I hide the 300 hit scores?

Add a transparent file for these filenames:

How do I add a background in main menu?

What does the @2x do?

My taiko drums are in the wrong position!

Open the skin.ini file and change the Version to 2.1 or higher.

How do I change the combo colours?

How do I disable one or more hitsounds?

To disable them, find the ones you do not like and replace it with another sound.

I use dots instead of numbers, but when I get to the 10th combo, two dots appear!

To fix this, you need to change the HitCircleOverlap value to the width of the image used for the default numbers. For example, if your the skinned element size is 60×70 pixels (width by height), the value should be 60.

skin.ini

The skin.ini is an initialization file that is found in almost every skin folder.
This file will define how osu! will display certain skin elements.

Caution: skin.ini commands are case sensitive, make sure you follow the proper spelling and are using the correct capitalisation!

Versions

Below is the skinning changelog.
The version number, seen in the headings, is what will be used in the Version command for the skin.ini file.

UI: positioning changes / osu!: visibility update (reduced clutter).

osu!taiko positioning changes

interface/UI changes

osu!catch changes

osu!mania stage scaling adjustments

osu!mania column and upscroll adjustments

Allow per-type skinning of arrows

osu!mania specific combobursts

latest

Always the newest version

If your skin folder does not contain a skin.ini file, it will default to this version.

Not a version, but always force latest

Notes

Before viewing the skin.ini commands below, here are some notes.

1’s and 0’s

tl;dr 0 = no and 1 = yes

Here is a classic example:

Note that Reisen, the sliderball, does not flip when 0 is used. However, Reisen does flip when a 1 is used. Depending on what sprite is used, you will either get a moonwalking sliderball, or one that turns around.

Numbers and Integers

The tables below may list either a number, an integer or a positive integer.

When viewing these tables:

RGB and RGB(a)

A few commands may ask for a colour in the RGB or RGB(a) format.

Skinning tutorial (+ skinning support)

Нет аккаунта?

Skinning tutorial (+ skinning support)

[1.] Introduction : “I want to make a skin!“

[2.] Skinning Basics :

What is skinning? I need some magical powers to do a skin?

Skinning is a simple picture changing mechanism that osu will load upon selecting certain skin.
Creating skins is easy (creating elements is a little more difficult thing to achieve). First you need to find your “Skins” folder that must be inside your osu! directory. To start creating new skin, install template (download it and just open, osu! will do the rest) rename template folder to your skin name and start editing it. (or copy template skin if you will need it for something).

Together there will more than 200 elements to edit (without animations).
But don’t be scared with the amount of files. You are not forced to change everything.

What skin should contain?

You are free to add different folders with alternative parts into your skin, osu! won’t care if they are there or not.

What is new and old style skinning :

Old style skinning is a style that was used by old default skin (before March 2013).
With “March 2013 update” peppy introduced new default skin and it’s new behaviours and parts.
There were few important changes like new spinner, countdown, hitbursts, ranking-panel behaviour. More about these parts you can read about later.

To active new skin behaviour select this in skin options :

or add to skin.ini «Version:1» to force old behaviour, «Version:2′ to force new behaviour.

Using elements from other skins :

Never post a skin with another user’s skinning element(s) with or without permission!

You are not allowed to post skins that contain parts from other skins, even if you have the permission from the original author.

The only exception to this are sounds. They can be used from other skins, even without explicit permission from the skinner. It would, however, be respectful of you to credit the original skinner.

You can make skin mashups (a skin with elements from other skins), but keep them to yourself. You are not allowed to post skin mashups, mixed skins, edits, etc. on the forums.

If you want to share them, put them in your user signature or userpage (this requires osu!supporter).

Parts that can be animated

List of files that can be animated :

Important information about game mode skins :

osu! standard

Catch the beat

For CtB skins is important to keep droplets large (but not huge) and visible. These are small and is easy to miss.

For catcher you must be careful with plate size. If you make it too short, player won’t be able to play correctly with it since “catching” area is wider. In other hand making it too wide will mislead player and will often miss since catching area is shorter than plate.

Taiko

osu!mania

R-15 and R-18 content in skins :

You are NOT allowed to post skins that contains any R-18 (nudity,pornography etc.) in skinning subforum. If you post somewhere else in osu! community be aware that you might be punished for that. (But if you release it outside osu! community nobody will hunt you).

[3]. What is a skin.ini?

[General]

— Sliderb with turned off flip [0]

— Sliderb with turned on flip [1]

Slider style: 2

Slider style: 3 (Right now this one is disabled)

[Colours]

Changed colour with skin.ini (StarBreakAdditive: 0,255,0) :

[Fonts]

4. Standard skin elements.

The main point of skinning. It’s good to keep the image sizes the same as on the originals, but this is not a rule. I will present and explain every part of standard skin elements.

Approach circle is important part of gameplay. It is a circle that tells you when you need to hit a circle. Approach circle uses same colours as hitcircle so try to make it grey-scaled or preferably, white. While using «Hidden» mod approach circle is. well. hidden.

It’s recommended to keep shape of circle or something similar to it, since player may get confused.

This is skin part for buttons that you can find in several places in osu!, like mods selection menu, beatmap options, multiplayer/match buttons etc.
As you can see, every button is made of 3 parts. Left, middle and right. You need to be careful to made them at same height. To have correctly aligned parts remember that button-left must be connected to the right side of picture workspace and button-right to the left.

While adding any pattern/objects to it, remember that in some places button is resized. it can look a little ugly.

Combobursts are characters that appears at specific combo from left or right side of screen. Recommended size is 768x500px but you can do it wider. Remember to make the comboburst characters (or whatever it is) appearing from left side while in the folder. Also adding any text to combobursts does not work well as osu! mirrors the images when they appear from the right side. To add several combobursts follow this naming rule : comboburst-0, combourst-1, combobursts-2, etc.

I have noticed one thing, many people simply don’t know how to correctly crop a character out of picture and they are just using magic wand tool and delete selected area. please don’t do that! It often leave many white parts or even removes something from your character. If you don’t know how to cut your character out of picture, please check these 2 small tutorials:

Few examples of combobursts :

Countdown is a part of some maps. It’s give warning to prepare for playing map.

After last wide-screen update creating countdown should be a lot easier.
You are not restricted by width of count pictures but height should always be 768px.
How positioning of counts works :

So, with this you are able to create many different countdowns. But you need to remember about how they are layered. Count 3 is always on top, count 2 is behind and count 1 is covered by them. So it’s kinda impossible to make stacked countdown (you know numbers that appears on previous one).

Examples : (to be added)

You are not restricted by size so you can try to make something different than default «Go» and «Are you ready?».

Example of different go.png :

Cursor is most important part of standard mode skinning.
Every player have their own opinion about cursors and what kind is the best.

While making one you should do it in kinda different colour than skin uses, to make it visible as possible. Cursor-trail can help increase visibility of cursor
By turning off skin.ini option «Cursor Centre» you gain possibility to make cursors that acts as your Windows cursor.

Examples of cursor : (more to be added)

When you are using widescreen resolution, don’t forget about people that plays on 4:3 aspect ratio. You can easily make numbers a little larger and lifebar will start to cover them.

You can fix that by editing Score Prefix in skin.ini

Examples of numbers :

As you know from «Basics» section, people have different preferences. Making small or blank hitbursts it’s kinda easy but making something creative but still not that distractive might be a little harder. I will show few examples :

Hitcircle and Hitcircleoverlay are another key parts of standard skinning. Together with default-numbers creates standard hit note :

While making hitcircle remember about combo colours. Avoid using too much black colour since can make it unreadable.
Some people likes when hitcircle it’s semi-transaprent, it helps them read streams etc.

Few examples of hit notes :

Lighting is part of hitcircle. It appears behind hitcircle after hitting it. You can also see it behind circle when beatmap have kiai time.
Please, try to avoid making it very large, since it’s expanded after appearing. If you want it to be visible behind hitcircle in kiai time, simply make it a little larger than hitcircle.
In default skin it’s just a glow :

Lighting is also visible in kiai time while playing CtB

Examples of lighting :

Button that appears in any menu (options, osu!direct, special mode select, song select). This is one of few parts that have size restricted. If you make it any larger than template, part of it will be outside screen. You can also animate it.
Examples :

This part appears in few places, but main usage is in song selection screen as background for beatmaps info.

Another parts are pause-continue, pause-retry, pause-back (fail screen only have retry and back). These aren’t restricted by size and clickable area is resolution of picture.

Examples of pause :

Examples of fail :

Playfield as the name says it’s a background of our playfield. Actually it appears really rarely, only on old maps that doesn’t have their backgrounds. But it also serve a purpose of ranking-panel background. But I will tell more about this in ranking-panel section.
Playfield is widescreen compatible, you can use any aspect ratio since osu! resizes 4:3 pictures to fit screen on widescreen, and while using widescreen bg on 4:3 it’s adding black bars from upper and bottom panels.

Similar part to menu-back with one exception, is not restricted by size. Used to skip beginning of some beatmaps. This part can be animated.
Default :

Ranking panel uses many skin which you can create pretty nice thing.
Default ranking panel :

Examples of ranking :

This is troubling for most of the skinners if they want to make lifebar different than the original. That’s because scorebar-colour has different anchor position than scorebar-background.

Blue lines show the anchor position for scorebar-colour and if you want to fit them in the same place, try moving the scorebar-background. Also you don’t need to keep length of the lifebar, you can make it shorter or longer (for widescreen). Scorebar-colour can be animated.
Default lifebar :

Interesting thing about scorebar-background is lack of size restriction with you can use to make some kind of border for combo or score. I will provide example, so this should be easier to understand :

This is more like option for personal use, since you need to make it in your aspect ratio size. For this example was 1311×768, for 16:9 will be 1366×768 etc.
Some people might like this option since someone would like to cover score or something. Be aware that scorebar-background is a highest layer of gameplay which means it will cover any other aspect of screen.

Examples of lifebar :

Pictures that appears in longer breaks. You can gain section pass for having more than 50% of life before break. Section Fail appears while having less than 50% of life. Nothing special about these, they don’t have size restrictions so fell free to make them larger.
Default :

And of course examples :
Pass:

Examples :

And examples of slider :

Examples of spinner:

5. Catch the Beat Elements

6. Taiko Elements

7. osu!mania elements (In progress, please wait)

8. Sounds :

10. Uploading screenshots / creating video preview of your skin :

11. Uploading your skin and creating thread for it :

[General]
Skin Name: Your skin name will go here.
Creator: Name(s) of who made it.
Theme: Tell us what theme your skin is based at.
Version: Self-explanatory
Tags: This can make finding your skin easier.
Download: Put download link here.

[Misc]
Creator’s comment: Self-explanatory.
Updates: Leave your updates here (Again, a spoilerbox could be very usefull here)
Requests: Since no one is perfect, you can use this to request help to your skin

Don’t forget about screenshots. (people wants to see your skin before downloading).
You can use upppy to upload them.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Of course the information listed here only shows how things work and what is important. The rest depends on your photoediting skills.
And geez. don’t be shy if you don’t know how to make something. Feel free to ask me or other people who can help you.

Как скачать скины Osu

➡️ БЫСТРАЯ НАВИГАЦИЯ ПО МАТЕРИАЛУ

Osu позволяет скачивать и импортировать скины.

Эта функция также известна как снятие шкур.

Скиннинг позволяет игрокам создавать свои собственные скины, используя оригинальные элементы скинов.

Скины могут быть веселыми, профессиональными или с ними практически невозможно играть.

Однако создать активы для скина Osu сложно.

Для начала необходимо ознакомиться с программой, поддерживающей прозрачность.

Сюда входят Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET и другие.

Следовательно, легче загрузить созданный пользователем скин Osu, чем создать его.

В этом руководстве вы узнаете, как импортировать и скачивать скины Osu с форумов или веб-сайтов.

Как скачать скины Осу

Чтобы скачать скины Osu, вам нужно найти и загрузить понравившийся скин на форуме или с сайта.

Самый популярный сайт для скинов Osu — это osuskins.net.

Вы также можете посетить форум по снятию шкур с сайта Osu.

После того, как вы скачали скин, вам нужно дважды щелкнуть по нему.

В противном случае двойной щелчок по скину не откроет Osu.

Если это так, вам необходимо извлечь папку скинов в каталог Skins на пути установки Osu.

Но перед тем, как распаковать папку со скинами, нужно закрыть Osu.

Вот как скачать скины Осу:

1. Скачайте скин с osuskins.net

Для начала вам необходимо найти и скачать скин Osu что тебе нравится.

Есть пара мест, где можно найти скины Осу.

На веб-сайте osuskins.net вы можете легко найти скин, который вам нужен.

Вы можете сделать это, используя расширенные параметры фильтрации.

Однако osuskins.net не связан с «osu!» или «ppy».

С другой стороны, форум по снятию шкур является официальным форумом Осу.

Вот как скачать скин Osu с osuskins.net:

2. Дважды щелкните обложку.

После того, как вы скачали скин Osu, вам нужно открыть его.

После того, как вы нажали «Свойства», нажмите «Открывается с помощью», нажмите «Изменить» и измените его на «osu!».

Но прежде чем вы это сделаете, вам нужно закрыть Осу.

Если Osu запущен, вам нужно нажать Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S на клавиатуре, чтобы скин появился в списке.

3. Нажмите «Параметры».

После того, как вы дважды щелкните только что загруженный скин Osu, откроется Osu.

Теперь скин будет автоматически импортирован в Osu.

Когда вы войдете в Osu, вы увидите несколько кнопок.

Сюда входят «Воспроизведение», «Редактирование», «Параметры» и «Выход».

Это потому, что вам нужно проверить, успешно ли импортирован скин в Osu.

Если это так, вы сможете выбрать и использовать его.

4. Щелкните значок кисти.

После того, как вы нажали «Параметры», откроется меню параметров.

В меню параметров вы увидите несколько значков.

Это включает в себя значок шестеренки, значок монитора, значок кисти и многое другое.

По умолчанию будет выбран значок шестеренки.

Чтобы сменить скин Osu, вам нужно перейти к опции «Скин».

Для этого щелкните значок кисти.

5. Выберите обложку, на которую хотите изменить.

После того, как вы нажмете на значок кисти, вы попадете в параметры «Кожа».

Теперь вы сможете увидеть свой текущий скин.

Во-первых, щелкните раскрывающийся список «Текущая оболочка».

После того, как вы нажмете на раскрывающийся список, вы увидите список скинов Osu, которые вы скачали.

Теперь вам нужно выберите скин Osu, который вы только что скачали.

Например, если вы только что скачали скин «Игрушка 2017-08-15», выберите «Игрушка 15.08.2017».

Вы также можете предварительно просмотреть скин, нажав «Предварительный просмотр игрового процесса», а затем «Давай сделаем это!».

Вы успешно научились скачивать скины Осу!

Вывод

В этом случае вам необходимо экспортировать файл в каталог Skins на пути установки Osu.

Вы можете сделать это, щелкнув правой кнопкой мыши приложение Osu и выбрав «Открыть расположение файла».

Если вам нужна дополнительная помощь, официальный Осу вики содержит множество полезных ресурсов, которые помогут вам установить скины.

Top Osu Skins 2017 and How to Download and Install Osu Skins and Why (Opinion)

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Комментарии • 370

Nice skin recommendations, skinwithnoname and yugen have to be within my top 10 osu! Skins.
Also, nice editing!

I personally use the Kujo skin I literally love it tho with the star it’s kinda confusing but still I love it lol

Very helpful video and probably a video I won’t say that I disagree with the skins (besides maybe 2), since I use these skins myself or will use them after this video.
Thanks Ace 🙂

A good video always deserves appreciation 🙂

Senntio Thanks for the comment!

In my opinion I like the skins that are one color or close to the same color because difirent colors distract my eyes and I loose track of the circles

This is the most helpful osu vid ive ever seen in my life
Thanks

AceDesu not sarcasm bro i really like it

Lol thanks haha
hopefully not sarcasm ;w;

ty! this was very helpful! i dropped a like too 👍

it didnt work for me but i just dragged the skin folder onto the game when its opened and it automatically changed

i saw ur comment cause same thing happened to me and it helped so ty lol.

Thank you so much for making this video.

You’re welcome! glad it was helpful

when i get a skin, the icon is a white paper, and double-clicking gets a pop up saying I need an application to open the file, and even when I just put the file in the folder manually, it doesn’t appear. when I go to skins it says «default» and «user».

Does the skin support osu!mania? some skins don’t change mania and usually stick to the default. If thats the case you’ll have to find a osu!mania skin, the skin I use is minimal weeb noel which is in this video and it comes with a mania skin, dunno if you’re a fan of the design but its certainly better then default imo 🙂