Vita:Creating Custom Themes

ThemeTool is a tool that makes it very easy to create themes via a GUI rather than manually editing XML files.

Images

You will need to size PNG images so that they are the right resolution that the Vita expects.

The dimensions needed are as follows:

• Icons: 128x128
• Backgrounds: 960x512
• Preview images: 480x272
• Preview icon: 226x128
• Page indicator: 22x22
• Notification graphic: 120x110

Color Index

All images have to have 256 indexed colors. You can use pngquant or online-converting.com to achieve this.

To use pngquant:

1. Download the latest package and extract it.
2. Create a text file in it with the content:

FOR %%i IN (*.png) DO pngquant.exe --force --verbose 256 %%i -o %%i

1. Save it as go.bat in the same folder as pngquant.exe.
2. Copy all of your PNG images into the same folder and run go.bat and it will process all of the images.

Audio (BGM)

Background audio MUST be in ATRAC9 format with the following:

• 16 bit signed PCM
• Sample rate of 48000hz
• Bitrate of 144khz
• Stereo audio
• Loop points set
• Under 5MB total size

The easiest way is to use Silica's At9 Convert Service and upload an FLAC/MP3/WAV/OGG and click convert. After some time, it will process the audio and output a .AT9 file that meets all the criteria (assuming it's <5MB).

Testing

If you're using ThemeTool, click File(F) -> ExportDir(E), then select an output. The program will verify everything you set so far. It may report errors such as

[Screen] -> [Image] : windows.png The image height is invalid.544 / 512(pixel)

But generally, the solution will be obvious.

Installing

Once you have done a successful test, you should now have a folder containing your theme and a theme.xml file. Copy the folder to ux0:/customtheme and then, using Custom Themes Manager, select the install from folder option and apply it.

Distribution

If you've successfully made a theme, there's a few places you can share it for other people to use, such as the /r/vitathemes subreddit or psv.altervista.org (to add it to Custom Themes Manager).