Fun Facts Splashscreens

Parviglumis

So I went digging around and found some of the carbon theme's assets here: https://github.com/RetroPie/es-theme-carbon/tree/master/art

So I was at least able to throw something rudimentary together. Don't know how to do the cool logo shadow or the glow or anything really but this works for me!

Here's the .xcf file (it's like a .psd but for GIMP instead of Photoshop) if anyone wants to tinker around with it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By0c01L3M2kHWUc0WGV5ZmNKSEE/view

hiulit

@parviglumis I think this could be automated using some of the code used in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/7193/runcommand-launching-images-for-any-theme by @meleu .
So the splashscreen could be created with a random fun fact from an array or something.
What I'm not sure of is if it could be done on startup.

But I like the idea of these fun facts splashscreens :)

SgtJimmyRustles

I think this is pretty slick here. I'd love to see this set up. Maybe I could even help make some.

cyperghost

@Parviglumis @hiulit The generic solution is to create the funfacts picture on the fly. This is indeed a nice option I would like to use ;)

sudo apt install imagemagick

convert picture1.jpg -gravity SouthEast -font Times-Bold -pointsize 72 -draw "text 0,0 'Hello World'" funfacts.jpg

To check available fonts use
convert -list font

This works on Ubuntu ... I'm not sure if the Raspberry gots the imagemagick package already as it needs ghostscript for text feature... If yes, then have fun facts fun :D

@meleu What's your opionion about?

hiulit

@cyperghost I'll give it a try and see if I can come up with a little script or something :)

cyperghost

@hiulit If it works then I think it can be converted as a repo to be available for all. Not only funfacts are possible. A generic launching screen can be created. Therefore you need three pictures... and merge them to one.

For Ex. Super Mario Brothers (NES)

---------------------------------------------------------------
|                        PICTURE 1                            |
|                                                             |
|           NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (LOGO)              |
|                                                             |
|                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------
|                        PICTURE 2                            |
|                                                             |
|                      CUSTOM ROM LOGO                        |
|                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------
|                        PICTURE 3                            |
|                      NOW LOADING....                        |
|                   ROM-NAME-WITHOUT[]()                      |
|                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------

imagemagick can add pictures to left, right, upside, downside to create portrait photos. But in this case we can create custom launching images. But this needs lot of work and support from theme creators ;) I know that it works - as I use the same system to create stamps from Letterformat to 70mm Dymoprinter labels for parcels ;)

Maybe picture 2 can be made optional as background image. I'm not soooo common with imagemagick and mogrify but I think there are tons of possibilities ;)

EDIT:
Of course @meleu's script works the same way with imagemagick so @hiulit a fun facts screen should be easily possible ;)

meleu

@cyperghost it's doable. I also would like to see it working generating images on-demand, right before launching a game. But I'm not sure if the overhead for creating the image right before launching the game, then showing the image would be bearable...

Need more tests. I'm a little busy currently, but if you guys wanna try some coding, I can offer some help. ;-)

cyperghost

@meleu runcommand-onstart.shshould be the answer but I really don't know if the runcommand waits for it's proper exit. If it's coded in a good way (and I think it is) then it's not a matter of execution time :)

We will see... I also lack in time so I hope someone can do this ;)

BTW: MAME ROW #57 - I posted a small teaser. Just for encouragement ;)

hiulit

@cyperghost I though @Parviglumis was talking about the initial splashscreen, before EmulationStation starts. But I like your idea too!

meleu

@hiulit if generating the image at boot the overhead would be perfectly bearable!

The fun facts could be in a txt file and the script gets the text there...

Wombat

Great work! These would be cool for a screen saver as well.

Parviglumis

@hiulit

Yes, I did use them as an initial splashscreen. But that is an awesome idea! All of you are wizards.

Please feel free to take this in any direction you want (not like you needed my permission lol). But I am really happy with all the new ideas! Sorry that I am totally useless when it comes to coding.

detron

I also think this is really cool.

the images would be amazing, but even if it is only used on the command line through forture | cowsay it would still be cool

alt text

hiulit

I just wanted to let you know that I've started working on this project.

I'll keep you updated ;)

P.S. Looking good!
0_1510156218247_Captura de pantalla 2017-11-08 a les 16.49.26.png
P.P.S. @meleu When using convert, it takes a lot of time. I'm working on a Virtual Machine. Maybe it's that. I don't know. Here's a snippet of what I'm doing:

convert splash4-3.png \
    -size 1000x100 \
    -interline-spacing 5 \
    -background transparent \
    -fill white \
    -caption:"${fun_facts[$random_number]}" \
    -gravity south \
    -geometry +0+25 \
    -composite \
    result.png

And here's what time outputs:

real 0m7.172s
user 0m6.300s
sys  0m0.656s

hiulit

BTW, if anyone wants to tinker, here's the GitHub's repo https://github.com/hiulit/es-fun-facts-splashscreens

meleu

@hiulit hey man! Well done!! ;-)

hiulit

@meleu Thanks! :D It's super basic now, but it seems to be working. Now it's time to take a look at your generate-launching-imagesscript and improve mine ;)

meleu

@hiulit I'm glad to know it can inspire you. I usually spend sometime making my code readable just to help others to understand it (including @meleu in the future). Knowing that you're reading it and getting some inspiration makes me feel like the work was worth it. :D

Let me know if you have any doubt!

meleu

@hiulit a small tip: if you want to store fun facts in a text file, one fun fact per line, you can get a random line from the file using the shuf command. This way:

shuf -n 1 fun_facts.txt

EDIT: This aproach would be useful if the users want to customize their fun facts. They wouldn't need to edit the script's code.

;-)

hiulit

@meleu Thanks for the tip! I'll try it! :)