New Comic Book Theme!
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Sorry for the delay, I downloaded the latest version and all issues seems fixed.
I'm still thinking there's no need of two system logos... XD. I'll tweak the theme to display the game logo at top right... ;-)
The only issue I notice, it's the 3D Box for the game it's so small to appreciate any details...
I think you can still rush a little more the available space to make the images a little bigger.
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@Nismo no worries on the delay! I agree with you that the game logo will look nice on the top right, i just think that not many users have all of those logos downloaded and in their gamelist. I might modify my personal one as you are doing because it will look cool!
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I notice that the black lines on sega CD are not displaying correctly:
Also I modified md_image to make 3D box biggest as possible (both width and height) to appreciate more details.
Before:
After:
Code:
<image name="md_image"> <pos>0.923 0.525</pos> <maxSize>0.155 0.195</maxSize> <origin>0.5 0.5</origin> </image>But since gamepads are usually wider, I think cuold be better if you can make the gamepad box less taller to increase 3D Box height size. Example of my desired size:
And as a request, I miss system logos for Game Gear, Master system, Sega 32X, Sega CD, SG-1000, 3DO, Atari 5200, Atari Lynx, Neo geo pocket, Neo Geo Pocket color, Turbografx 16, PC Engine, Zx spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST.
Thanks in advance...
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@Nismo Thanks for even more support! I will try to get to these in the near future.
I am also working on another theme, I was hoping to get video to play on the system view, but it does not appear that is possible. Any thoughts?
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Impossible, video only plays in video view, but you can make a request so maybe some nice people with coding skills like @fieldofcows, @pjft, @jdrassa or @Zigurana can include that option to play background video in system view...
What to do think about make the 3D Box place taller to appreciate more details?
Two themes at same time?, seems you have a lot of free time... just joking.
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Another suggestion, I don't know why menu.png inside art it's not a standard size, it's not 720p or 1080p, it's 792p wich is close to 720p, and it's filesize it's 448kb. (I noticed it's a 4:3 stretched image).
So for better performance on rpi I would reduce it to no more than 225kb, or just make a 1080p one with more quality and leave the filesize no more than 512kb.
The same for every comic.png in every system, too much filesize for a 608p image... I would make a 1080p or 720p version with the tips I told you before...
The thing it's to have the theme better optimized. That's because the white screen in old ES versions.
If you want, I can help to you to resize the images if you upload for me a copy of original/uncompressed ones.
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@Nismo Thanks, i will look further into this as well now that the theme is more optimized on the new ES updates i will try to optimize my art sizes. I will try to make as many of these changes from your last few posts at the same time to minimize all the update releases. (none of the images are stretched from 4:3, they are all originally 1920x1080 and then resized until I had them running smooth on the old ES, I kept some naming conventions as 4:3 as my original theme was 4:3 for an arcade cabinet and i found changing the file name in the .xml files a waste of time!)
regarding the box size, interesting idea, not sure what i will do but i will consider it. The intent of that box is for general scraped art, so by making it tall, it is optimized for tall box art, but what about horizontal box art, now that will look small in the opposite direction. Also, for those who use universal xml to create compilation images, the square format i currently have is optimized. I will look at the code you posted and optimize the max size for the largest possible square shape for now and will consider enlarging at a later time. Once I get further along i can send you the photoshop file for the menu.png and you can modify your system as you would like.
2 themes at once! yes i am crazy - I have a few actual standup arcade projects i am building and i am trying to make each one unique. The ComicBook theme is/was my first ever theme attempt, so now i am working on my second and hoping to have a more clean file structure. Probably won't look as cool, but will be different for sure. I also only have 17 system views, so it isn't to terrible to create what i need, the real work is all the other systems i do not use that others will need :) More to come, probably not until the end of the weekend on this theme. Thanks
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I'll be happy if you almost make the remaining comic look system logos...
@TMNTturtlguy said in New Comic Book Theme!:
(none of the images are stretched from 4:3
Yes, you are right, I was confused by the black bars from windows 10 image viewer when you are not in full screen.
Thanks for taking my suggestions into consideration. Good look with your new theme.
Regards.
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@TMNTturtlguy hi!
A question, if I may: would you happen to have the original images for each system before you apply the dithering filter?
I recalled an old iPhone app I had, called Halftone, that does the kind of visual effect I think you're trying to achieve, but whether it's because of the screen size on the phone, or something else, it looks nice.
I wonder if it'd help to, prior to applying the Halftone filter in Photoshop, manually force resizing the images to an integer multiple, and then using the filter on it.
Not my area of expertise, mind you. It's just that everything in the theme looks so sharp, but those particular images look slightly rougher, that in trying to think of ways to make them consistent.
Have a great weekend!
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@pjft +1 for that, I would like to tweak the dithering filter.
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@Nismo @pjft i am currently away and don't have access to my pi or files. The comic.png files are photoshop files and not image files, so only this with photo shop can modify them. The dither effect is pixelate layer filter applied to a copied layer and then an opacity is applied to that, so you can't actually modify the dither effect. The only way to do this is to delete the pixel layer and start over. Each image of each them is its own layer and I have tweaked them individually based on opacity and color ranges. The extreme dither is not from the photoshop file, but from superpng which is a photoshop add on for compressing png. Per @Nismo suggestion I have downloaded a different compression program and am reformatting the compression to 1920x1080 @ 512kbs.
Once I have a chance to do this I will see how it looks and post it and we can decide next steps. At this point I don't want to share all of my artwork files with the community as I would like to maintain a single but optimized theme. I think we can get some good updates in the near future to halp make everyone happy.
Thank you again for all your help and understanding. I am still learning the best techniques as we progress.
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@TMNTturtlguy Hi!
Not at all, please. You'd only share if you'd be comfortable with it - there's no insistence there :)
If you do have even just one of them, though - say one of the TMNT ones - that you can share, even for me just to see if there'd be any filter that would look different, let us know.
And, just to be clear: this is ultimately your theme - I have no expectation you'd end up doing something that you didn't like.
Thanks! Have a great weekend.
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@pjft @Nismo I have finally returned and have access to my pi and computer! Per your request I have placed the Nintendo files in a dropbox folder for your use. link removed
I have used riot per @Nismo suggestion and placed the updated png file in the folder. It is a much cleaner compression and is now true 1920x1080 and 512kbs.
@Nismo, i have placed my photoshop file for your use. You can delete or turn off the "Copy" layer for each image and the original image is beneath it. Feel free to play with this as you would like and please share the images and photoshop file back with me and I can review.
@pjft, i have placed both a png with the pixel effect, now much cleaner, and a png without any effects at all for your use and testing. The only issue with the clean png is that the gray borders might be affected by whatever filters you use, we will want to keep the gray borders clean for the final product.
I will work on recreating all backgrounds with riot and update the theme so we can review that as well. I might also see if i can devise a way to have all of the backgrounds display clean with no pixels, and see if I can find a way to easily let the user decide if they want the "newsprint" or "clean" version. Let me know if the files work and keep me posted on any progress you make. Thanks again for the help!
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Man First off this is excellent! I am working on a new build and want to use your theme. I was wondering if you take requests? Or would mind sharing source files for me o create? Specifically I'm looking for Game Gear system logo in the comic font, and a virtual-boy theme. Thanks Again!
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Thank you very much, I'll take a look ASAP.
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@modmaster thanks! I am taking request and yours are on the list! I am currently working on optimizing the current files and then will be working on the system logos followed by system backgrounds! Follow the thread for updates! Thanks
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@TMNTturtlguy Ok, so a few things.
First of all: damn, this is hard and takes a LOT of time, especially to adjust. There's no easy way out of it.
Second: you did a tremendous job so far. I am not in a position to comment on or recommend any changes, as this ends up being both up to individual tastes, as well as to one's ability to execute on that vision (which, clearly, is limited on my end).
That being said, I did a rough try to create a second attempt at a similar print effect, which I think I am happier with, and I'm sharing it here for you to compare and see what I think I had in mind. That being said, I haven't tried it out on a proper big screen where I'm running the Pi, so YMMV.
I think the main difference seems to be that my dots are... smaller? My main problem with the current theme as it was is that it has these extremely attractive, sharp logos and letters, but then the game images end up showing up as too blurry and washed out, when compared to the logo, letters and the rest. I would like to believe that it's possible to achieve a pure print effect the way you envision, while keeping a sharp, high-res-ish aspect to the overall theme. :) I'm not sure I'm getting my idea across correctly, but maybe it's useful.
I used Gimp, so it has a different filter (Newsprint). I then added it as a separate layer, same as you, and made it transparent on top of the original image.
Here you go.
https://mega.nz/#!lAEHCSxZ!P7JU_gZ5krNU9klqgZ73ZobgnUJDZV5FhFf74d_IGbA
Still, way out of my league, so I'll leave it to you and @Nismo :) Happy to help if I can.
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@pjft thanks for the quick work! I am on my phone all day, but will look at this tonight! Excited to see what you came up with.
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@pjft I like your option 2, a simple modification to the pixel filter on my end to 30 degrees and a soft glow blending instead of an opacity and i was able to recreate something really close to what you have shown. Our pixel sizes are about the same, however you only have a single dot patter where i had 4 dots each at a different color channel. By placing all the channels on top of each other it is definitely a cleaner more sharp image any may play well to the screen. It does take away from the way a newpaper prints a colored dot matrix, but in terms of a crisp image on screen, you are probably correct that this will read cleaner. I will apply this filter to the images and see if i can get it uploaded for everyone to see as a complete theme. Thanks again for this, a simple modification to the dot angles is all it took!
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