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    Animated Screensavers

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Projects and Themes
    videoanimationscreensaverscreensaver vidsplash-video
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    • BriganeB
      Brigane
      last edited by

      @Malixx Oh my god, I totally forgot about this great thread. I would like to request a Bubble Bobble screensaver, if you're up for it.

      Systems: Raspberry Pi 0/2/3 Model B+
      Os: RetroPie 4.5
      Frontend: Emulationstation & Attract Mode

      MalixxM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • F
        firemoth333 @firemoth333
        last edited by

        @firemoth333 @Malixx
        I've finished creating all the elements. Everything is sized well enough for 1920x1080. I just don't have a program that can animate that ken burns/netflix effect and spit out a MP4.

        https://drive.google.com/file/d/16pjbwCg7O8rWLEPymAKkoAZ2YcChQJUs/view?usp=sharing

        F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • F
          firemoth333 @firemoth333
          last edited by

          @firemoth333 @Malixx

          So it turns out I have After Effects. I didn't know because I don't know how to use it. So I taught myself how to build this in after effects. So here is my attempt at a Dr. Mario saver.

          https://drive.google.com/file/d/1chM9-1dgOhc-2-paG1IoSVzA_q3Ah467/view?usp=sharing

          the original file is 1.2GB. I was able to knock it down to 20MB but I lose too much quality after that. So if anyone knows good settings for exporting from After Effects or converting to MP4 let me know.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • MalixxM
            Malixx @Brigane
            last edited by

            @Brigane I'd like to get back to it some day (I don't have so much free time lately) I have already started a Bubble Bobble one back then though!

            @firemoth333 Well done I couldn't do it better, this is how I scale down the file:

            I use Media Encoder CC with these preset settings:

            • Format: H.264
            • No Audio
            • 1920x1080 (you can try 720p but the gain is not significant)
            • Frame Rate: Based On Source
            • Aspect: Square Pixels (1.0)
            • TV Standard: Based On Source
            • Encoding Settings:
              Profile: High
              Level: 4.2
            • Target Bitrate: 1
            • Maximum Bitrate: 2

            But there is an alternative if you don't have this software, back then I was uploading the videos on YouTube and then when you download the screensaver from there you will get a decent scale down!

            List of Projects and Themes: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/21766/list-of-projects-and-themes
            Creator of Animated Screensavers: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/12733/animated-screensavers
            Buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/malixx

            BriganeB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • BriganeB
              Brigane @Malixx
              last edited by

              @Malixx said in Animated Screensavers:

              @Brigane I'd like to get back to it some day (I don't have so much free time lately) I have already started a Bubble Bobble one back then though!

              Glad to hear that you are on the case, and no rush, just take your time. I'm just anxious to get a screensaver for my Bubble Bobble bartop someday, although a Bubble Bobble theme would be even better :)

              Systems: Raspberry Pi 0/2/3 Model B+
              Os: RetroPie 4.5
              Frontend: Emulationstation & Attract Mode

              MalixxM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • MalixxM
                Malixx @Brigane
                last edited by

                @Brigane - Added Bubble Bobble screensaver.

                List of Projects and Themes: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/21766/list-of-projects-and-themes
                Creator of Animated Screensavers: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/12733/animated-screensavers
                Buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/malixx

                BriganeB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • BriganeB
                  Brigane @Malixx
                  last edited by Brigane

                  @Malixx Wauw mate, this looks amazing! I have a cabinet like something near this bezel (except mine is a widescreen cabinet), would it be possible to change the background color to something close to this?
                  bfaba3eddb6482ec7779ac9298f20adc.png

                  Systems: Raspberry Pi 0/2/3 Model B+
                  Os: RetroPie 4.5
                  Frontend: Emulationstation & Attract Mode

                  MalixxM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • MalixxM
                    Malixx @Brigane
                    last edited by

                    @Brigane Sure ;) https://mega.nz/#!rXgEnCxa!-K_pwbRb0aUpxrffeyL2nRuigOhS3RMaFCZDv3bd7k8

                    List of Projects and Themes: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/21766/list-of-projects-and-themes
                    Creator of Animated Screensavers: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/12733/animated-screensavers
                    Buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/malixx

                    BriganeB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • BriganeB
                      Brigane @Malixx
                      last edited by

                      @Malixx Much appreciated, keep up the fantastic work! :)

                      Systems: Raspberry Pi 0/2/3 Model B+
                      Os: RetroPie 4.5
                      Frontend: Emulationstation & Attract Mode

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • C
                        clownnut
                        last edited by

                        is this method still work for the newest retropie?
                        i am trying to get this to work, spend hours with no luck.
                        i have an mp4 file in RetroPie/ScreenSaver folder and
                        edit
                        opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/gamelist.xml
                        with
                        <game><path /><video>~/RetroPie/ScreenSavers/ScreenSaver.mp4</video></game>
                        no luck
                        also try to edit
                        opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/fba/gamelist.xml
                        add <game><path /><video>~/RetroPie/ScreenSavers/ScreenSaver.mp4</video></game>
                        no luck.
                        screen saver behavior set to random video.
                        i am running retropie on a laptop that run ubuntu.
                        any help will be great.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • MrJordaaanyM
                          MrJordaaany
                          last edited by

                          Yeah Ive done the post above me method. No luck. Anyone else have issues or any ideas to what i might be doing wrong?

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • S
                            skykid
                            last edited by

                            @Malixx

                            I have this working to a degree, using @lycros 's code just above with the code appended to my megadrive gamelist.xml.

                            But the behaviour is weird. At 31 seconds the screensaver takes about 5 seconds to appear, then I saw the Tetris one play normally for the full duration. But then after that it took another 10 seconds of black screen before the next appeared, and when it did it only played for about 5 seconds before cutting out. And then this behaviour repeats.

                            I changed the screensaver settings duration to 30 seconds after seeing you mention similar issues above, but then nothing works at all (black screen only).

                            Any ideas?

                            Thanks for your great work!

                            S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • S
                              steeeb @skykid
                              last edited by

                              @skykid Ensure it's using OMX player, and go to Other Settings and turn on OMX HW acceleration.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Q
                                QuixoticDev
                                last edited by QuixoticDev

                                @Malixx thanks for the great work - I can't imaging how long it took!

                                I spent a bunch of time on this and finally got it working. I initially tried to follow the instructions by @cyperghost but as he noted in his update this doesn't seem to work.

                                It seems we can no longer trick retropie into using videos that aren't associated with an actual game - I tried creating a text file but ended up with an error complaining about the text file not being a valid rom.

                                I ended up creating fake entries for each of the videos since I didn't want to associate them with my roms - this left me with a bunch of ugly games in my list but I was able to fix that using the "hidden" flag and Kiosk mode.

                                Update: Welp that didn't work - when the roms are hidden (either by filter or kiosk) retropie doesn't use their videos - I just gave up and added them all to the end of the atari 2600 list since it's not used often

                                Here's a quick script that will do just that - create fake entries for all the screensaver videos - thought someone else might get some use out of it :)

                                Quick rundown

                                • Create ~/RetroPie/screensavers
                                • Copy all the video files there
                                • Create the script below
                                • Update the variables to match your environment
                                • Run the script to create all the fake entries
                                • Disable screensaver control (to avoid launch attempts)
                                • Set to Kiosk mode or set the default filter to not show hidden
                                • Enjoy @Malixx 's artwork!
                                #!/bin/bash
                                #=============================================================
                                # Title        : populate-screensaver-gamelist.sh
                                #
                                # Description  : Create fake game entries to load screensaver
                                #                videos without associated rom videos
                                #
                                # Author       : QuixoticDev
                                #
                                # Version      : v1.0 - 05/10/2020
                                #
                                #=============================================================
                                # Screensaver path - where all the videos are stored
                                screensaverPath="/home/pi/RetroPie/screensavers"
                                
                                # A donor rom to copy around
                                # I chose an atari rom to reduce size requirements
                                donorRom="/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600/X-Man (USA).zip"
                                
                                # Parent path to the donor rom
                                romPath="/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600"
                                
                                # Gamelist associated with the rom
                                # I keep my gamelist and media in the same path as the rom, this
                                # isn't default so you'll probably need to change this
                                gameList="/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600/gamelist.xml"
                                
                                # Get an array of all our screensavers
                                readarray -t videoArr <<< "$(ls -A1 $screensaverPath)"
                                
                                # Loop through them and create dummy rom and gamelist entry
                                for i in ${!videoArr[@]}; do
                                
                                    # Create fake rom
                                    if [ ${#i} -lt 2 ]; then num="0${i}"; else num=${i}; fi
                                    newRom="${romPath}/video-placeholder-${num}.zip"
                                    cp "${donorRom}" "${newRom}"
                                
                                    # Build xml entries
                                    echo -e "\t<game>"                                            >> "${gameList}"
                                    echo -e "\t\t<path>./$(basename -a ${newRom})</path>"         >> "${gameList}"
                                    echo -e "\t\t<name>__$(basename -a -s .zip $newRom)</name>"   >> "${gameList}"
                                   # echo -e "\t\t<hidden>true</hidden>"                          >> "${gameList}"
                                    echo -e "\t\t<video>${screensaverPath}/${videos[$i]}</video>" >> "${gameList}"
                                    echo -e "\t</game>"                                           >> "${gameList}"
                                done
                                
                                # Fix gamelist xml closing tag
                                sed -i '/<\/gameList>/d' "${gameList}"
                                echo '</gameList>' >> "${gameList}"
                                

                                The end result looks like this in the gamelist specified

                                    <game>
                                            <path>./video-placeholder-01.zip</path>
                                            <name>__video-placeholder-01</name>
                                            <video>~/RetroPie/screensavers/Advance Wars.mp4</video>
                                    </game>
                                    <game>
                                            <path>./video-placeholder-02.zip</path>
                                            <name>__video-placeholder-02</name>
                                            <video>~/RetroPie/screensavers/Bomberman.mp4</video>
                                    </game>
                                
                                all the rest...
                                
                                MrJordaaanyM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • MrJordaaanyM
                                  MrJordaaany @QuixoticDev
                                  last edited by

                                  @QuixoticDev Hey thanks so much for this. Gonna give it ago later. Makes sense what you've done. i was thinking my issues was due to it not being a "proper" game entry as well..

                                  Q 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • Q
                                    QuixoticDev @MrJordaaany
                                    last edited by

                                    @MrJordaaany let me know if you run into any issues.

                                    One bug that I haven't been able to track down is when browsing one of the roms that has a <video> tag, OMX player attempts to load it but then the screen jostles around and boom, a black screen which doesn't go away until I navigate away from the rom.

                                    This is one of the reasons I didn't map the videos to their actual rom, I didn't want to see that behavior when I was browsing - with this setup I just need to avoid the last section of the Atari2600, not a huge deal.

                                    Fails:

                                    • OMX Player (HW Acceleration): On
                                    • Screensaver use OMX: On
                                    • Theme: Pixel

                                    Works:

                                    • OMX Player (HW Acceleration): Off
                                    • Screensaver use OMX: On
                                    • Theme: Pixel

                                    It works but without OMX the playback painfully slow when browsing, screensaver functionality is unaffected as that's still set to use OMX.


                                    One last thing - I recommend picking a donorRom that's fun or playable - in case someone turns on the screensaver controls, in which case pressing start will launch the fake entry. Just my luck the one rom I pick (X-man) turns out to be early video game smut, who knew!?

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • cnotoC
                                      cnoto
                                      last edited by

                                      These screensavers are amazing. Thank you.

                                      cnotoC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • cnotoC
                                        cnoto @cnoto
                                        last edited by

                                        @Malixx Have I mentioned how awesome these are?

                                        Have you thought about creating a tutorial about how you make these? I could certainly be under estimating how easy these are to create, but I would love to try and create a couple. Provided they aren't terrible (quite possible), I'd share them with the group.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • S
                                          StrangeJaguar
                                          last edited by

                                          is it possible to have these as console screen savers. like when I click "a" it sends me to the console instead

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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