Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots

Chameleon

I was trying to capture screenshots for arcade roms that didn't have an existing image (ie: no existing <image> tags in the gamelist.xml).

After capturing an in game screenshot, a file would be saved to my custom screenshot directory with the rom as the name of the file (as expected).

The emu/system level gamelist.xml showed that your script added the <image> tag details (as expected).

Once I restarted emulationstation (via the menu), I noticed the emu/system level gamelist.xml has been overwritten with the original contents (ie: <Image> tag details are removed).

Further testing concluded that what ever was in memory was most likely being written back into the gamelist.xml file upon emulationstation restart; hence the <image> tag removal.

I then turned off "Save MetaData On Exit" and the gamelist.xml file was no longer being overwritten upon emulationstation restart.

Side note: trying to capture screenshots with lr-mame2003 produces no images in my custom folder, but it works fine for fba-next and lr-mame4all.

meleu

@Chameleon Oh! I reproduced here. I took a screenshot for a game that didn't have an screenshot as emulationstation image, the script updated the gamelist.xml, and when I exited emulationstation the updated entry was gone.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll update the wiki.
[edit: wiki page updated]

Chameleon

>Side note: trying to capture screenshots with lr-mame2003 produces no images in my custom folder, but it works fine for fba-next and lr-mame4all.

Further investigation reveals that lr-mame2003 is saving screenshots to:

/home/pi/.config/retroarch/screenshots

With filenames like: RetroArch-0530-043358.png

I assume that is the typical default filename with datetime stamp as suffix. Viewing the png files reveals direct matches to the screenshots I took in game.

Is there a way to inform lr-mame2003 to use the my custom screenshot_directory as defined in the retroarch.cfg file?

Not sure why lr-mame2003 isnt following the convention.

Edit: my retropie datetime stamp is currently set to May 30 just in case the above filename causes confusion lol.

Edit: spelling

meleu

@Chameleon it seems that it is ignoring auto_screenshot_filename AND screenshot_directory. Can you check if its respective retroarch.cfg #includes the global one?

Chameleon

@meleu said in Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots:

@Chameleon it seems that it is ignoring auto_screenshot_filename AND screenshot_directory. Can you check if its respective retroarch.cfg #includes the global one?

You are totally correct. I overwrote my mame-libretro \ retroarch.cfg awhile back and hence the #include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg" line was missing as the last line of the file - my bad.

Putting the #include line back in fixed it for me.

Thanks a lot!

CoolCat

what would be the easiest way of have screenshots instead of art?
i like the idea of take our own screenshot, but sometimes scrapper is handy.
best wishes,

meleu

@CoolCat said in Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots:

what would be the easiest way of have screenshots instead of art?

My opinion:

Use the runcommand-onstart.sh from method 1 (this will set the needed configs in retroarch.cfg files).
Use the runcommand-onend.sh from method 2 (this will fill the gamelist.xml with the path to the screenshot files).
Turn off "save metadata on exit" in emulationstation.
Take screenshots of your games.

i like the idea of take our own screenshot, but sometimes scrapper is handy.

Uh... I think it was a little contradictory... :-)
If you scrape your roms first of all, and then do what I described above, you'll get what I think you want.

CoolCat

Yes. You are right :)
My issue is that i dont know how to scrape screenshot :/
Best regards,

CoolCat

I know how to take a screenshot with retroarch, but that seems to not work.
Would be cool if retropie could try the other folder for screenshots and use it properlly anyway.
Regards,

meleu

@CoolCat did you read the first post of this thread? There is a link to the wiki showing how to do it.

CoolCat

@meleu Yes, i found it latter :)
Anyhow, i have to look over so many things.
ES has a thumbnail metadata that dont use.
I think hyperspin does have even videos.
Retropie is full new playground.
Wonder if someone is thinking of a lr-jzintv for example.
So im reading and testing atm, but i still need more time testing so i can say something better based.
Probabbly the better would be use the thumbnail metadata (and probabbly have a theme that support it)
For completeness a videoshot support, maybe.
But first i need to understand why it wasnt made before.
Btw, i loved this forum script :) (it just miss the reply by mail. )

meleu

@CoolCat said in Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots:

@meleu Yes, i found it latter :)
Anyhow, i have to look over so many things.

I'll use the default argue to this :-)
"Raspberry Pi is, first of all, a tool for learning."

Although RetroPie is not limited to raspi, it's the plataform where we love to run it. :-)

I think hyperspin does have even videos.

Maybe you like to see what @Floob is doing with attract mode front-end.
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/93/attract-mode-with-retropie-alternative-to-emulationstation

Personally, I love the simplicity of emulationstation and enjoy to run it on my raspi1.

CoolCat

Ok, im doing a retropie setup on a aspire one with ubuntu for my sister :)
Well, i looked the script and the second method is the best for me i think.
I wonder how hard would be to tweak it for a little diferent behaviours.

1-change retroarch screenshots folder at system rom folder, worked fine.
Retroarch has 3 options for thumbnails but i didnt dig into it.

It worked flawless. I will try to study this script.

It would be handy if it could do it as batch on a screenshot folder.

If i have the screenshots allready it fill the gaps.

I will look the other frontend but i think we can have some improvement here in retropie using retroarch and emulstation.

Maybe would be cool if retroarch have a option of auto-screenshot after a time of playing? Im not sure what would be the easy way, but for sure this script helps a lot.

I really think that emulstation scrapper and theme maybe deserve some love and care for better experience, but this script solved the problem atm.

Thanks,

CoolCat

@meleu yes, it was something in this lines i had in mind, thanks :)

CoolCat

Hi,
Is there any reason to not hardcode it?
I mean search the screenshot folder for a image with the same name of the rom (no need for xml in this case)
And the xml could override the hardcoded, though.

Opinions?

meleu

@CoolCat to be honest I didn't understand what you're suggesting... can you detail it?

CoolCat

@meleu i didnt saw the atract mode yet, but i was thinking of adding 2 folders (maybe more if needed) at the same level of BIOS and roms ; screenshots and saves.
So, screenshots/nes/mario.png (or other formats) would be searched and displayed for roms/nes/mario.zip

Are initial thoughts but it seems to be the simplest approach at a first glance.

Regards,

meleu

@CoolCat man, sorry, English is not my native language and maybe I'm not getting something you are trying to say...

With the methods discussed in this thread and detailed in the wiki you can set ANY valid directory to put your screenshots. It only have to exist, be readable/writable for the pi user, and be configured in retroarch.cfg. It doesn't matter if it's at the same level of BIOS and roms, or any other place.

Just to make the things clearer for me, please try to answer these questions:
Did you use any of the methods described in the wiki?
Did you understand the methods described in the wiki? If no, what part you didn't understand?
Are you having some problem with them?
Do you have some feature request for them?

CoolCat

@meleu hi.
Yes, im using the second method and worked great for me.
I was talking of have a standard layout for easier maintenece.
The script allready presume some stuff, as far as i saw.
For me the script solve the "Issue", im tring just to put things together for dont lost my screenshot setup, and have it running nice.

Sorry, my fault. I changed the subject even if it is topic related. Your english is ok :)

Best wishes,

meleu

@CoolCat said in Take and Scrape Your Own Screenshots:

@meleu hi.
Yes, im using the second method and worked great for me.

Phew~
:-)

I was talking of have a standard layout for easier maintenece.

It's up to the user define it at retroarch.cfg and choose something that makes sense to him/her (this is the RetroPie way-of-life :-D ).
I like only one /home/pi/screenshot directory for every system, our mate @herb_fargus likes to put the screenshots i /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/SYSTEM/images directory. You seem to prefer /home/pi/RetroPie/screenshots/SYSTEM...

The script allready presume some stuff, as far as i saw.

Indeed, the method 1 forces some directories, but we assume that the user has the knowledge to edit the script to change it to his/her taste (if hasn't, we are here to help).

The method 2 takes the directory from retroarch.cfg.

Now I would like to talk about something you said previously:

It would be handy if it could do it as batch on a screenshot folder.
If i have the screenshots allready it fill the gaps.

If you wanna scrape all the screenshots you already have you can use my runcommand-onend.sh script (from method 2). You just have to give it the proper arguments (the 1st and the 3rd ones) and make sure that your screenshots have the same name as the rom (except the extension). Something like this:

# IT'S JUST AN IDEA. I DID NOT TEST IT. CHECK BEFORE EXECUTE!
for system in "$(ls -d1 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/*)"; do
    for rom in "$(ls -1 "$system")"; do
        /opt/retropie/configs/all/runcommand-onend.sh "$system" blablabla "$rom"
    done
done

Cheers!