Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper

Silent

@megaJekan said in Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper:

Besides that scraping PSX is a total nightmare

Manually hashing .bin files and providing that as a query parameter for screenscraper module provides godlike results. I spent some time doing that and it was very worth it.

megaJekan

@Silent said in Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper:

@megaJekan said in Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper:

Besides that scraping PSX is a total nightmare

Manually hashing .bin files and providing that as a query parameter for screenscraper module provides godlike results. I spent some time doing that and it was very worth it.

Sorry, I think I didn't get the point. What if my md5 hash doesn't match the one from screenscraper site? Because most of the images were converted manually by my own from CCD/IMG/SUB to CUE/BIN. Also I can just take hashes directly from screenscraper and use them as an argument. Then I don't see the logic at all, why name comparison works so bad. So I'm a bit lost.

mitu

@megaJekan Can you give some examples ?

RDBowers

My RetroPie setup uses the Daphne and MAME emulators exclusively. I have used Skyscraper to collect "resources" into the LocalDB and created custom images by editing the artwork.xml. This is all working great!

However, I would like to include a cabinet image as part of the custom image for each arcade game. I think this would be more appropriate than including the "box" image.

Can Skyscraper pull cabinet images from the online sources making them available as a resource for the LocalDB scrape and creation of custom images? I have read and re-read the online documentation and I don't believe this is currently possible. Maybe this could be an addition to a future release of Skyscraper.

Any suggestions for a possible workaround?

mitu

@RDBowers You can add your own image (a cabinet instead of a box) in the artwork.xml file and have it part of the final image. Is that what you're trying to do ?

RDBowers

@mitu That is what I am trying to do.

My question is, can Skyscraper pull cabinet images from online sources, save them as part of the LocalDB, making them available as a resource (just like a screenshot, cover, wheel or marquee) to be referenced in the artwork.xml?

mitu

@RDBowers I don't think it's supported right now. Can you give more details about where these images can be downloaded (site/source), maybe an example of such image associated with an arcade game ?

RDBowers

@mitu One source already built into Skyscraper is adb.arcadeitalia.net. For most arcade ROMs they include a cabinet image. On their Pac-man page you will find a link to this image.

Pac-man cabinet

Another potential source of cabinet images not built into Skyscraper is arcade-museum.com.

They are also a great source for additional information, images and flyers. The Arcade Flyer Archive

Halvhjearne

@muldjord

this is awsome, it was pretty scattered before and this info clarifies things a lot.
only thing i can think of to make it any better would be to maybe add the equivalent option for config.ini to next to the command line option.

sglavach

I have Skyscraper (SS) installed and running on my local machine, I have a number of SBC's (RPi, Odroid, etc..) running and connected to network as well. I can point to the Rom path on each SBC using the -i parameter and it will use the localdb on my local machine and it will scan the corresponding SBC Rom path and create the media correctly on each SBC. My challenge is with Videos since they take up a lot of space. I would rather not copy my videos (already on the SBC's) to the import directory on my local machine and then import them prior to scraping, I would like to point to a non-default import path for my videos (same way I point to a non-default Rom path with -i)... import them from there and then scrape. Is this possible? am I missing a way to accomplish this? In fact having a way to point/configure a path for any non-local import resource would be helpful. Thanks!

raspy+

@muldjord

Wow so much reading and I still can't find the answer to a simple question unless I missed it and fell asleep at the keyboard LOL...

Q: What does each color represent when Skyscraper is collecting data?

(green number) / (yellow number) / (blue number)

Green number = how many roms it checked?
Yellow number = how many roms it skipped?
Blue number = how many confirmed roms matched?

Just a guess on my part or did I just answer my own question?

Q2: If Skyscraper can't find a game while scraping, does that mean it can't find a match from "screenscraper.fr"?

Silent

Just a thought I had due to my invalid bug report (which I have now closed):

A lot of games have region tags, like (E), [U] in their filenames. Could Skyscraper optionally infer region to use when scraping a ROM from this data? This way it would try to collect data matching what you actually see in the game (example: Star Fox vs Star Wing) without the user having to tailor that manually on per-ROM basis.

muldjord

@Silent said in Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper:

Just a thought I had due to my invalid bug report (which I have now closed):

A lot of games have region tags, like (E), [U] in their filenames. Could Skyscraper optionally infer region to use when scraping a ROM from this data? This way it would try to collect data matching what you actually see in the game (example: Star Fox vs Star Wing) without the user having to tailor that manually on per-ROM basis.

I already do this for (Europe) and others. I will include the ones you suggest aswell.

muldjord

@raspy

Q1: found/skipped/total

Q2: Depends on what scraping module you are scraping with. But yes, if it's not found, that means it's not found at the source using the rom information available to Skyscraper.

muldjord

@sglavach You can set a non-default import folder in config.ini with importFolder="[folder]"

muldjord

@RDBowers Skyscraper currently supports cover, screenshot, wheel and marquee resources. If you wish to use other more niche resources, I suggest using the import functionality to get them. Then you can import them as "marquee" resources for instance, and use them in the artwork.xml for the arcade platforms.

Halvhjearne

@muldjord

lets say i scrape fba once with screenscraper without videos and then later decides that i actually also wanted the videos, is there a way to make it download the videos without refreshing everything?

and does this means it does not check already scraped games for missing info/images either?

muldjord

@Halvhjearne You need to refresh everything, there is no way to only refresh one resource from a source. So just enable videos and use --refresh.

I don't understand your second question.

Halvhjearne

@muldjord

you basicly answered both.

would be nice to be able to refresh only one resource like covers or videos tho tho or maby an option to refresh missing resources.

muldjord

@Halvhjearne It's been requested before, but I don't really see why it would be useful (and it's quite a huge task to code). The data retrieved from the source is the same no matter how much of it Skyscraper decides to use. So it's not relevant for optimization reasons.