New Comic Book Theme!

pjft · 8 Apr 2017, 18:59

@TMNTturtlguy Sure - no urgency and certainly no pressure or obligation to do anything of the sort. All contributions are made out of your precious spare time!

I'll wait for you to post the theme and then I'll see which systems I'm missing. Would you be providing a template to add more systems? Maybe that could help others create missing systems if necessary, rather than bothering you?

Anyway, keep up the great work!

TMNTturtlguy · 8 Apr 2017, 19:43

@pjft Yes, I will have the theme set up so that there is a template for every system that is currently supported by Carbon. The theme will have a generic system background, so every system that is not programmed by me, will have the same background. The theme is rather involved, but I have made it very simple to understand if you get the concept of themes, so it will be easy for everyone to update with their systems. The issue will be creating the "system" name. To create the custom system name in the ShokaPow text is fairly involved and requires Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The system names are not just typed in font, but rather several layers of font with patterns and opacity. I think that step one will be getting the theme uploaded onto github for further testing. Step 2 will be getting the theme set up for both builds of ES (screensaver and main branch) Step 3 will be figuring out the best way to have the md_video and scraped art appear for each system, weather that be using md_image or md_thumbnail. Right now I am using md_image for the small graphic to the right of the video preview. This works well when you have video previews, if you don't have video previews, then it will only show the MD image 1 time, and you will have a blank space, so by using md_thumbnail, this will allow for basically a 3rd image. The problem with this is that everyone would have to revise their gamelist to have wheel art or logos for each game in their .xml file, this would be quite the undertaking for most.....Then finally step 4 will be getting more systems out there!

This theme is a lot of fun for sure and it works perfectly on the screensaver build when running video previews....so it will be plug and play for those users with no additional tinkering! (@pjft, I believe you will fit into this group!)

pjft · 8 Apr 2017, 19:56

@TMNTturtlguy Thanks!

Don't worry too much about making it work with the screensaver build if it involves too much effort. Focus on the main branch, if you allow me to recommend something. When you have that done for the main branch, let me know and I'll let you know if I can prevent you from having to double the work.

All Carbon systems are exactly what's needed for the most part - that's great :)

Thanks!

TMNTturtlguy · 8 Apr 2017, 20:08

@pjft Thanks, the problem is i built the original theme for my Arcade machine 4:3 with screensaver. I have now converted the 4:3 to 16:9, but it is still built for the screensaver build. I now have to go in and update it to the main branch. In order to do that i need to get a new SD card and start a new main branch build! Time and Money, who has enough of either?

pjft · 8 Apr 2017, 20:22

@TMNTturtlguy Got it. Well, then, just want to make sure you make the most of your time, because nobody has enough of that :)

brickmonkey · 8 Apr 2017, 22:06

This has got to be one of the best ES themes I have seen. I can't wait to give it a spin. Thank you for your hard work.

Nismo · 9 Apr 2017, 03:42

@TMNTturtlguy

Great work, amazing, I love it. Thanks for sharing your work.

Waiting for the HDTV version...

fatelvis1 · 9 Apr 2017, 06:14

@TMNTturtlguy Im running the up to date ES as not too bothered about the screensaver at the moment

xbrazukas · 9 Apr 2017, 08:24

This has got to be one of the best ES themes I have seen. I can't wait to give it a spin.

Syhles · 9 Apr 2017, 15:28

@TMNTturtlguy
Just a suggestion, but maybe instead of using the old system logos to the top right of the detailed view you could put the date the console was released and maybe discontinued in the same style font your currently using for the systems.

xbrazukas · 9 Apr 2017, 17:00

I have seen these images in a social network for a long time

TMNTturtlguy · 9 Apr 2017, 17:14

@xbrazukas please read the original post at the beginning of the thread where I give full credit to the design inspiration to @lipebello and I even ask permission. @lipebello no longer logs onto this forum, however if you continue to read through the threads I did communicate with his brother, who never got back to me. Futhermore I again reference this in my update post sharing the 16:9 theme. I have created all artwork outside of the system logos and controller art from the carbon theme, which I also received permission to use from @Rookervik. The theme gives credit to everyone in the read me and .xml files. As you can see my theme is heavily modified from the images you have posted and at no time have I tried to deceive anyone. Thank you for this post, but please do take care to read through the entire posts before shooting off responses. Thank you

xbrazukas · 13 Apr 2017, 15:26

@TMNTturtlguy Your work is wonderful the image that I posted I imagined that it was from your work I am from Brazil. These photos that I posted someone put it and talking about this work but did not say who was tyava working on it. Then I started looking and I found you. One more time, look, I just posted the pictures thinking that it was you who had done it. Your work is wonderful.

TMNTturtlguy · 13 Apr 2017, 16:32

@xbrazukas Thanks for the reply, no problems at all.

TMNTturtlguy · 13 Apr 2017, 16:34

UPDATE: Just a quick update. I got called away for an unexpected work trip this week which has not allowed me to work on the theme. I hope to work on the theme some this evening and try to post a work in progress on github. More to come soon. Thank you for your patience, I assure you I will get the theme posted in the near future.

pjft · 13 Apr 2017, 16:35

@TMNTturtlguy There's no expectation whatsoever - we know everyone contributes on their free time, and anything that happens is always greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the heads up, though! :)

TMNTturtlguy · 14 Apr 2017, 07:13

UPDATE: WORK IN PROGRESS 16:9 THEME POSTED!
Post update #1 in bold

PLEASE READ FIRST: This is a true work in progress post of the ComicBook Theme v1.0. This is my first upload to github as well, so please forgive me if something isn't correct on that site. Here are important notes:

This is not a finished version, This is a work in progress. ~~Please only download if you are ok testing this theme.~~ More updates will be coming. Update: positive feedback suggests the theme works well in both screensaver and updated main branch ES installs!
This is a 16:9 aspect ration version only
This has been created on the screensaver build by @fieldofcows and @pjft. This was built on an ES that does not support maxSize. Please read the readme.txt on github or in the download for more information. ~~I fully expect weird issues to arise when used in the main branch of ES,~~Update: the only issue is that some video/images will stretch to fill my size settings in the black box. My hope is by changing size to maxSize in the video preview it will fix the issues, ~~but i am not sure if positioning has changed with all of the new modifications that have been made.~~
This will support all systems, however not all systems are completed with updated logos/graphics.
Future updates are planned to bring this up to the main branch version of ES, however this works perfectly with the screensaver version with OMX player enabled. Again, please read the readme.txt.
Please see the images and video posted earlier in this thread for what the theme should look like if working properly.

I am hoping that you will test this theme and provide feedback on what works and what needs adjusted. Please understand not all systems have updated graphics, so please do not send comments that systems are not completed. If you have adobe photoshop/illustrator experience and are willing to contribute to update systems, let me know and i can share the base files with you, and you can add them as pull requests on github.

Thanks for all the help, support, testing, and comments!

ComicBook Theme Link

pjft · 14 Apr 2017, 07:34

@TMNTturtlguy Thanks for putting this together and for sharing! It works wonders on the main ES code base ;)

I suspect you're referring to the image maxSize? At the moment it just keeps the image stretched to the size you declared, which to me is not a problem in any way. Looks gorgeous!

The screenshot images in the main system views look slightly overly dithered for my taste on a large screen, especially when compared to the wonderful high-res system names, but it's likely a matter of personal taste.

Can't complain whatsoever - will very likely keep this around for a while, either in testing or the full version in the end :)

Well done. Enjoy your break!

TMNTturtlguy · 14 Apr 2017, 10:48

@pjft thanks for the update! Glad to hear it is working in the main ES!

Question regarding the systems screen background, do the black outlines still look crisp on the larger scale? I used a pixel filter on the images to give them an old newspaper print feel on purpose. The real issue is trying to save the backgrounds at a reasonable file size while allowing to still look ok on a large screen. I did loose some clarity there, but on my testing on a 4K I found it to be a good balance of performance and newsprint look. I do agree, i wish it were clearer, but the files get to large. The black outlines are a separate .svg file so that they should stay pretty sharp at larger screen sizes.

Thanks for testing and the kind words!

pjft · 14 Apr 2017, 14:55

@TMNTturtlguy I'll look into it later when I have the chance and report back:)