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For starters, you need Adobe Photoshop or some other image program. I'm going to go through this like it's for Photoshop. Now, you'll need to make a pattern. To make a pattern, you'll need a new canvas, 6 pixels by 6 pixels for example. You'll need to make the background transparent. It should look like this, zoomed in to 1600 % (1).
Now you'll want to make a pattern in it; it's an optional step but it could make it better. If you don't want to, SKIP. You do this by use of the Pencil tool. After you've made a pattern in it, for example this popular favorite (2). Now you go to Edit -- Define Pattern, and press OK. dddddddddNow make a new image, with dimensions 350 x 20 pixels. This will be the userbar. After you're finished putting whatever on it, you'll need the pattern. Now go (on the userbar) to Edit -- Fill, and this window should pop up.
You'll click on the circled drop - down area, than select 'Pattern', then click on the circled 'Custom Pattern' and select yours. sssssssssssssssss Whew! Now you'll have something looking like this.
Transforms to: dd Now you might be thinking that these stripes (or whatever your pattern is) are a little too dark. If that's the case, change their Opacity down. That can be done Here or Here.
Now you'll need some text. The best text for this is called Visitor and can be found by Google search. You introduce new text types by going to My Computer (this is for PC's) -- Local Disk -- WINDOWS -- Fonts, and putting it in there. Now put whatever you want said on it. Here's my example.
Last, you want to make it 3-D, right? Well how you do this is by a white-background shape and Opacity. I use a circle. Position it something like this, from corner to corner.
Now change the Opacity using Example 7. Finally, it should look something like this.
Isn't that shiny? Well, congratulations! You're finished! (this is pretty bad, but It'll look MUCH better with an image and other stuff on it. Why don't you try it!)
Now that you've mastered the art of Userbar-making, there is a step further you can go to. Animation. I find this easiest to do in Adobe Fireworks, so I'm talking in Fireworks terms. I hope everyone who doesn't have it can learn as well. Now, on to the learning. First of all, you need more than one userbar. I use about 4. Next, you'll need to import those to Fireworks. After you have that done, you want to copy and paste them so they're all on the same image, all of them in different layers. Now you, with all of the top userbar selected, go up to 'Modify', over to 'Animation' and click on 'Animate Selection'. Now a window will pop up, and first you'll want to change how many frames the animation will run for. I like about 8-10. Anyway, you now must choose between Move (top userbar slides away and uncovers next userbar), Direction (which way the slide goes), sss Scale to (Shrink or grow), Opacity (fade), or finally Rotate. I like Opacity, and if you choose that you'll have to pick where to where the opacity will go. 100 to 0 is nice and easy. After you have all of that done, click the OK button and it will do it for you! Wait! We're not done yet; we haven't done the other userbars, and even if we had none, we'd still need to make the userbar fade and reveal something! So, if the userbar is fading into white and there's no image beside it, then you copy and paste the next userbar in every frame except for the first (100% Opacity). After all that, continue anon. Don't forget to make it loop around! Finally, you need different timing on the different frames. I like 150 on the straight userbars and 10 on all the rest (100ths of a second). This is set by double clicking on the number zone on the right-hand side of the Frames window.
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Example 1
and 2 
Example 3
and 4.
Example 7
and 8. 
sssssssssssNow
you're done!