In this article we will explain how a custom PS3 theme can be easily made using "Playstation 3 Theme Builder" application.

We already told you how a custom theme can be made "manually" for PS3 using the "Official PS3 Custom Theme Toolbox" in the "How to create custom theme for Playstation 3" guide.

Fortunately for all of us who don't like to do things the hard way, there is also a nice GUI made by Lili-Chan Software, called "Playstation 3 Theme Builder". It makes the life of every theme-builder much easier.

Not to be mistaken: you will still need to create your custom backgrounds and icons of proper size in some other software, Theme Builder just let's you to put them in place easily.

So, to get started:

1) Download and install PS3 Theme Builder 2.5 and upgrade to 3.0.
On the way, the install will make you add .NET framework and other stuff as a necessary evil for the application to work.

Download PS3 Theme Builder 2.5 Full Install
Download PS3 Theme Builder 3.0 Upgrade Only

2) Download and unpack somewhere official Sony Custom Theme Toolbox:
Download PS3 Custom Theme Toolbox (Zip)

Start Theme Builder (you should have it in your Program Files after the install):

Now you can either click on "New Theme" to start building a them from scartch (or copy and existing theme for editing). Or you can click on "Open" to start editing an existing theme.

Here we go for editing an existing theme just to show you the features.
So click on "Open" and find the folder you unpacked Sony's "Custom Theme Toolbox" to. In subfolders sample/simple choose "simple.xml" theme file.

Now you are ready to edit the theme:

Let's go over the editing options on the first tab above:

"Theme Name" is the name that will appear for you theme on Playstation 3.

Author, Genre, URL, Version and Comment are additional info fields that will be visible on PS3 when you select this theme on PS3 XMB.

You can fill in different theme information for each of the languages you can choose on the left side. If you know how to spell your name in Finnish - great. Otherwise choose only "Default" language and your theme's info will be the same in every language.

You can also customize your Theme Icon and Author Icon per each language.

We will get to other options on this page later.

Now let's go to "Icons, Colors and Font" tab:

For each icon in the Main Menu or Sub-Menu you can choose your own picture here. (Don't forget, you need to create the icon files yourself in a different software, with the right size and format (PNG)).
Once you change an icon you have a nice option of previewing how it will look like on your background (you choose it in the next tab). For that mark the checkbox "Display the background when previewing icons.

You can select the theme color here from a set of colors supported by PS3.

Same as icons, you can change cursors. For each cursor you need to set where its "base" is: the point of your cursor that should be over the target object to be able to click on it.

Next tab "Background, Notification and Sounds":

You can make up to 16 different backgrounds for your theme (they will change randomly on PS3).
For each background set you need to create both SD (640×480) and HD (1920×1080) versions of a background.

Here you can also change notification sounds and the frame of notification window (the one that appears in the upper right corner of your XMB screen).

Next tab "Other Commands" should allow you to upload your theme. It was not functional when we tested the application, so we won't show it here.

Now to the previews and compilation of the theme:

In the first tab if you click on "Generate Preview" or "View Preview"  you can see how your new theme would look like as a static image of background with icons.

Another nice option is "Test Drive" - a button in the bottom of the application's window.
You can click on it to launch "XMB Simulator" - it would create an interactive screen that would look exactly like on your Playstation 3 with your new theme applied:

Once you are done with editing your theme, you can save it (use "Save" button).

Now to prepare theme file that Playstation 3 can use, click on "Build Theme" button.
Once the build process finishes, you will have a new "p3t" file in your theme's folder (in our case it's "simple.p3t").

You are good to go, your theme is ready.

To apply it on your Playstation 3:

1. Place the theme file in the /PS3/THEME/ directory of a Memory Stick or USB storage, and connect it to Playstation 3.
2. In the XMB™ home menu, go to [Theme] under (Settings) > (Theme Settings) and install a theme file from the recording media.
   
   
3. Select "Settings" > "Theme Settings" > "Theme" in the system software again. A list of theme files will be shown in the option menu. Select the (theme name) and press the button.
   
   
4. Select (Apply) and press button to use the selected theme. The theme will now take affect displaying a new background and icons.
   
   

Another option of trying your theme on the PS3 is to upload your theme file to a website and then to open it on the PS3 web browser.

Have fun!