Damir "d980" Sijakovic Interview

Hello Damir, could you tell us about yourself and how you eventually came to be involved with AROS?
I was bored with Amiga emulation and it was challenging for me to setup a Linux box for AROS hosted. I was a total Linux newbie at that time :)

How did you become involved with the new theme engine, Decorations for AROS?
On one saturday I get an e-mail from Darius about improved WinDecor and basic skin.

I like the new ICE theme, available with the recently released Decorations in AROS. What did you use to create this theme?
Inkscape 'n' Gimp. Sometimes I use PSP instead of Gimp for raster stuff.
More about Decorations and Ice theme

Are you currently creating any other themes for Decorations?
Yes, there are some unfinished themes waiting for a final touch. Also, I was thinkin' to "remake" some of Amiga OS4 & MOS skins. But I'm not sure if people would like that?

I know you have worked with AROS Developer Darius Brewka on Decorations. Have you worked with him on any other projects?
On AmiStart of course.

Do you guys have any other plans to teamup on a project?
We were exchanging some words about Zune. I'm hope that bringing Zune from the 90's to todays "look&feel" standards will be the next project. But it's not up to me.

I noticed you created a wide-screen background for the AROS Wall-Paper competition. Do you plan to design any others before the deadline on May 31st?
Yes, I was thinking to design something vector this time.
Here is the wide-screen background.

I know your working on a new skin for AROSAmp. What is the current status on it?
(AROSAmp was developed by Mithrandir)
Tom got it just a few days ago. There are some small parts left to be added on the skin. By the way, the skin will be a part of AROSAmp.

Do you have any other AROS specific projects you are planning or currently working on?
For now, no.

I know you have designed numerous AROS backgrounds in the past. What is your favorite one?
That would be Cat_i, which seems to be very popular these days. ;)

I am a big fan of the icons you have created for AROS. What is the name of this icon set? Where did the idea for this set come from?
Name is Aeon. I have borowed some ideas from Next, MacOSX, and Vista. Anyway, I have made this set out of fun. Release is coming soon.

Do you plan to work on another icon set for AROS in the future?
Nope. Only improving Aeon.

Have you used the AROS paint application, Lunapaint for anything yet?
(Lunapaint was developed by m0ns00n)
I did play with it a bit. I'm into vector stuff so there isn't much that I could do with LunaPaint.

Do you currently have a web site where we can check out all of your work? If not, are you planning one soon?
I don't have much time for that. Who knows maybe one day.

What other operating systems do you create graphics for besides AROS?
Mostly Amiga stuff, like Feelin logo and themes.

Feelin screen1
Feelin screen2
Feelin screen3
Feelin screen4
Feelin screen5

What are the main tools you use for your work?
Inkscape, Gimp and PaintShopPro for more advanced stuff. I'm also good in Photoshop but I avoid it because it's nightmare slow.

Do you have any advice for beginners interested in creating icons or graphics of any kind?
Hang around art sites like deviantART. You can learn a lot from these guys.

Do you currently own any Amiga's?
No, I sold my A1200 long time ago.

Do you use Amiga OS4 or MorphOS at all?
That would be too expensive for me :)

What features or applications would you like to see added to AROS?
A Zune Calculator would rock. Console, ASL, Editor and some Prefs apps rewritten in Zune would also.
And... I would kill for SVG datatype.

Is there anything at all you would like to add?
Just, have fun with AROS.

Damir has really contributed many things to AROS. I wanted to mention his graphics work on the AROS Archives web site.
Plus, I posted a screen shot of a retro style theme for AROS Damir created a few weeks ago. Damir has now released it!
He was even nice enough to design a little AROS Show button for me which is displayed in the right navigation section.

Thank you very much for everything Damir!
We really appreciate all of your work.

Thank you very much.

To continue my theme news from last night, Mithrandir has now uploaded even more themes to AROS Archives. I haven't had time to try these yet, but I have seen screen shots and they look really nice. We are lucky to have this many quality themes available already! I can't wait to see more in the future!

Damir "d980" Sijakovic has uploaded a theme manager and new themes to the AROS Archives. I tested this myself and it works beautifully! After downloading I made copies of the three folders it will replace. They are Prefs, S, and System. Then I copied the three folders and overwrote them. You will find the Theme manager icon inside the Prefs folder. You open it to find a list of themes you can choose from. The three themes in this pack are named retrowhite, retroblue and OS8. Here are my screen shots of retrowhite and OS8, enjoy! The retro themes are retro/future Amiga style. Very cool! The OS8 theme is Mac OS8 style. Damir did a very nice job with it. Once you select the one you want, click the Save & Restart button. Since I was running AROS hosted, I just closed AROS and started it back up from the Linux shell. The theme you picked should now be active. That is all there is to it.
I love eye candy! Hopefully Damir will continue to bring us sweet themes. Stay tuned for an interview with Damir coming to The AROS Show very soon!

The big news lately is a new web site for the official AROS.org by Mithrandir. The same Mithrandir who developed AROSAmp, has been working extremely hard on a total revamp of the offcial site. I really like the overall content placement he has come up with. I think the new site will be mighty nice. I think it was time to change the current site. Although I don't hate the current site, it is just outdated, plain and simple.

I was really blown away this week by Breakpoint, the largest demoscene party still running. I really liked the Commodore 64 demos and I still can't believe the demoscene on the c64 is going strong! Check out this list of releases at The C-64 Scene Database. I have been downloading demos like crazy! The music has really inspired me to make my own tracks. I am a drummer and I have toyed around before. I did make some music for a never released Amiga Anywhere boxing game, called G-Boxing. The coder is a really good friend, so I have already talked to him about maybe releasing the game on AROS one of these days.
Anyway, the entire time I have been checking this stuff out, I have been thinking how cool it would be to have a demoscene for AROS. We definitely need the SB16 driver working for this. I think AROS would make a great platform for a demoscene. It would make a nice home for a retro/future like demoscene. The other items to consider, would be Assembly language. I don't know why the coding couldn't be written in C. The old scene was usually done with Assembler though. Anyone have any other ideas on this? Maybe NASM Assembler, a 80x86 assembler could be used? I think it was ported. Anyone have any other ideas?
The other item would probably be graphics. I think maybe a Mesa3d port was started? I'm not sure of the status. I know a demo coding contest was talked about at one time. I think we definitely need the right tools before this can happen though. I don't see why it wouldn't sometime in the near future though.
Keep the faith!