USCE themes

We maintain themes and skins for UltraStar Community Edition. Modern and Deluxe are the baseline themes. Other included themes are experimental; compatibility depends on the game build and theme support. We welcome testing feedback with the exact build and affected screens.

Themes define the position, size, color, text, and behavior of UI elements. Skins map the texture names used by a theme to image, video, and other asset files. Together they provide the visual appearance of the game menus, song selection, singing screen, score screen, party mode, jukebox, editor, and popups.

Included themes

Clarity

A Modern-derived theme with flat panels and larger, opaque singing lyrics. Relocated unchanged from dgruss's May 20, 2026 USCE theme commit; see provenance. Requires the included Modern base theme.

The screenshots below are inherited upstream references and may show earlier branding.

Modern

Deluxe

Neon

WorldPartyArgon

WorldPartyNeon

Candy

Classic

Temptation

Verdure

Installing

Copy this repository's contents into the themes directory of a USCE installation.

In the USCE source tree this directory is:

game/themes/

Each theme has a top-level .ini file, for example Modern.ini, and one directory containing the skin .ini files and assets for that theme, for example Modern/.

After copying or updating themes, restart USCE. Themes and skins can then be selected in:

Options -> Themes

Repository layout

themes/
  Modern.ini          Theme definition
  Modern/             Skins and assets used by the Modern theme
    Blue.ini          Skin definition
    Winter.ini        Skin definition
    [main]button.png  Example texture asset

Top-level .ini files are loaded as themes. .ini files inside theme directories are loaded as skins.

Theme files

A theme file starts with a [Theme] section:

[Theme]
Name = My Theme
Creator = Your Name
US_Version = USD 110
DefaultSkin = Blue
BaseTheme = Modern

Useful fields:

• Name: display name shown by USCE.
• Creator: theme author.
• US_Version: supported USDX theme format. The included themes currently use USD 110.
• DefaultSkin: skin selected by default for this theme.
• BaseTheme: optional parent theme used for missing sections.

Themes can inherit from another theme. If a section is not present in the active theme, USDX can resolve it from the BaseTheme chain. This is useful for themes that only override selected screens or controls.

Colors are defined in the [Colors] section as RGB values:

[Colors]
White = 255 255 255
Black = 0 0 0
Accent = 40 160 220

Other sections define screen elements such as buttons, statics, text, select slides, popups, and screen-specific layout objects.

Skin files

A skin file starts with a [Skin] section:

[Skin]
Theme = Modern
Name = Blue
Color = Blue

The [Textures] section maps texture names used by the theme to files in the skin directory:

[Textures]
Button = [main]button.png
MainBG = [bg-main]blue.jpg
Cursor = [interface]cursor.png

The Theme value should match the theme's [Theme] Name. USDX lists themes when it can find at least one matching skin.

Creating or Updating a Theme

One possible workflow:

1. Create or copy a top-level theme file, for example MyTheme.ini.
2. Set [Theme] Name, Creator, US_Version = USD 110, and DefaultSkin.
3. Create a matching directory, for example MyTheme/.
4. Add at least one skin .ini in that directory.
5. Set the skin's [Skin] Theme to the theme name.
6. Add texture mappings under [Textures] and place the referenced assets in the same directory.
7. Run USDX and check the screens or modes your change touches.

For smaller changes, prefer inheriting from an existing theme with BaseTheme and overriding only the sections that differ.

Compatibility Notes

• Use US_Version = USD 110 for themes targeting the current format.
• Texture names are referenced directly by theme files, so changing shared names may also require updating the related theme sections.
• BaseTheme inheritance works best as a simple chain.
• A theme needs at least one matching skin before it appears in the game.
• File names referenced in skin .ini files need to match the files on disk.

Contributing

When contributing a change, it helps to:

• Keep changes focused on the affected theme or skin.
• Include any new image, video, or font assets referenced by the .ini files.
• Preserve author and source attribution for third-party assets.
• Try the theme in UltraStar Deluxe before opening a pull request.
• Mention the USDX version and the screens or modes you checked.
• Add a screenshot or video to visualize the change or the theme in general.

Related project

UltraStar Deluxe source code and releases are maintained at:

https://github.com/UltraStar-Deluxe/USDX

Contributing and credits

We review theme changes through PRs. USCE.md explains testing, asset provenance and the community process. These themes derive from UltraStar Deluxe Themes; original creators and asset notices remain credited.