New Comic Book Theme!

[xbrazukas]

@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]

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

[TMNTturtlguy]

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]

@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]

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]

@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]

@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]

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

[jfick13]

the theme looks amazing thanks for all the work you put in. what should i have my vram set at. i keep getting white screens...

[pjft]

@TMNTturtlguy The black outlines look crisp, as well as the font and such.

Yes, I do get the feel for the old newspaper print - I suppose that's kind of what I was going for with "dithered" :)

Thanks! Have a great weekend.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@jfick13 with a pi 3 I am set at 120. I have a memory split of 256 (or higher, not sure higher does anything though). At vram 120 I can cleanly run at least 16 systems whiteout any white screen or lag effect. I also have my monitor or HDTV set to game mode.

How many systems are you running?

Thanks

[jfick13]

around the same. i've been using oldroom 720 with no problem. i keep vram at 260

[TMNTturtlguy]

@jfick13 hmmmm...260 is really hi! Do you really need it that hi? You are holding a lot of vram in ES that isn't really doing much. Can you confirm a pi 3? I have this running on 3 builds and even on 55" 4K Tv without issues at 120. I did have a lot of issues at the beginning before I came up with the smaller file sizes and layering the images and black line work. Now it runs smooth. Do you have any other settings modifications?

[Summunx]

amazing theme.

I love to try in my mini genesis

[Nismo]

@TMNTturtlguy

What I was doing in my theme to optimize it a bit it's to control the filesize of systems backgrounds regarding of resolution.

For 720p my backgrounds have no more than 256kb, for 1080p no more than 512kb.

Maybe you want to try with that settings.

I save my backgrounds in high quality in case I need them later, and I fine tune the filesize with Riot depending on the final resolution: http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/

I hope this help.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@Nismo thanks, this is what I have done. All my background files are under 500kb. I have the photoshop files saved at hi res for working on them and then I compress the file size.

I have the theme working really well for me at 120 VRAM with slide transitions. And up to 17 different systems on a 4K tv...so there should be no issues. So far I have only one comment on the white screen issue from testers.

Thanks

[Nismo]

@TMNTturtlguy I don't use rpi, I use windows version, so I have no problems too....

[pjft]

@jfick13 try lowering VRAM to 120-130, and see if it helps.

[jfick13]

ok so i dropped it to 120 it works better but the art sometimes doesn't pop up behind the system but i know its there. it shows sometimes but shows a white screen behind the console logo other times

[jfick13]

i'm also getting an error message that says underrun occurred