Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes

[ruckage]

@jcook84 said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

@ruckage
Thanks for all your hardwork! How did you achieve the glowing effect in the Vectrex theme? I've been hacking it up and adding it to other themes from your v1.3 build

As you seemed to like the arcade background, here's a version of it with a subtle glow effect.

[arcane]

@ruckage Whoops! I meant the atari lynx not the game gear.

[jcook84]

@ruckage
Awesome! I should be able to figure out the effect in GIMP, or I can switch colors around on the arcade theme you just posted. Thanks again for everything!!!!

[Omnija]

ever thought of modifying the theme to make it less like the original theme and more like the official console?

https://postimg.org/image/bbr7ntwqz/

(Rough draft)

Would open more doors to customization towards plugs and via view towards console look a like instead of background decoractions.

[Syhles]

@Omnija
Are the two controller ports down at the bottom for number of players?

[ruckage]

@Omnija said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

ever thought of modifying the theme to make it less like the original theme and more like the official console?

Would open more doors to customization towards plugs and via view towards console look a like instead of background decorations.

I've considered making console specific borders ( a lot of work with all the systems on retropie) and I've also considered moving away from the nes border completely to a more generic border but I think a lot of people would be upset if I did that. For now at least things will remain as they are.
I can't keep going back and re-doing everything as it's a huge amount of work and the theme would never progress. I've already made at least 2 major but necessary revisions to the entire theme (first when I switched from 720p to 1080p and the last update where the layout was changed) and it takes days of work. Not to mention I could never keep everyone happy as much as I try to as everybody has there own opinion of how things should look.

I'm personally quite pleased with the look of the theme now, I may update the odd system here and there that I feel could be improved but most systems will remain as is. I am adding several new styles to the famicom-mini theme which will feature different borders though so that combined with all the different layouts provides lots of options.

[Stuart2773]

@Omnija said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

ever thought of modifying the theme to make it less like the original theme and more like the official console?

https://postimg.org/image/bbr7ntwqz/

(Rough draft)

Would open more doors to customization towards plugs and via view towards console look a like instead of background decoractions.

did you see this post :- ?

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/8391/cardboard-mini-nes-nes-mini-and-famicom-mini-themes/197

[Omnija]

@Stuart2773 No, i haven't seen that yet. Has it been released?

[Stuart2773]

@Omnija said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

@Stuart2773 No, i haven't seen that yet. Has it been released?

no its not released, its a dual image im currently working on that runs emulation station & attract mode its only going to support NES, FAM, FDS.

ive updated the original post, and heres some screens of the attract mode WIP version:-

all fully animated menus with working icon buttons

[ruckage]

@Stuart2773
From the readme included with my themes as your post implies you are modifying my ES theme:

License

This theme is being actively developed, a great deal of work has been put into the theme so please do not use the graphics I have created in other projects (with the exception of any graphics that are an exact copy of of those from the real 'NES classic'/'Famicom mini' menu).

You are free to modify the theme for your personal use only - please do not share modified versions of this theme.

Obviously the attract mode version isn't a problem as that isn't using my ES theme as a base, providing you aren't using any of the graphics/logos that were drawn by myself. (Hasn't someone already made an attract mode NES/famicom theme though?)

Finally if you want to promote your own theme you should do it in a separate topic.

[Stuart2773]

@ruckage

No need to worry, I have no plans on releasing this image theme as it's just modified for my own personal use, I just wanted to show @Omnija what can be achieved if he wanted to make a theme more true to the original nes mini.

[G30FF]

@ruckage Seconding the Virtual Boy, 32X, Ports, Dosbox/PC, and Kodi. I do have a somewhat non-standard request though.

The Pixel theme offers support for TurboGrafx-CD/PC Engine CD (tg-cd and pce-cd respectively). Would it be possible to get that in your themes?

[felleg]

@ruckage said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

@felleg said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

Awesome work @ruckage , can't wait to try the new versions out! :) Just for the sake of communications, I had two quick suggestions for you that would allow us to better follow this project:

1. Have you made a to-do list of the upgrades you want to add to the theme (new systems, configs, various options, etc.)? If you did, maybe add it to the readme.txt and keep it updated. This should help us follow this project much better than searching posts in this (huge) thread. :)

2. I see you linked this thread in the readme.txt as the place to follow development of this theme. Good idea, however the OP of the thread is completely out of date with where the project is headed now. Just a suggestion, but if you agree, maybe give a quick edit to the OP to say that the theme is now the main focus of the thread, instead of the cardboard nes mini. ;)

Good points. I do have a request list of systems but it's buried way up in this thread: Click Here (I do edit it as I add new systems).
What I'll perhaps do is add theme information (request list, download etc.) to the top of the first post so it's easy to find. Does that sound like a good idea?

Sounds like a good idea to me! :) Any way that communicates information clearly without much search is a win in my book.

[momaw27]

@ruckage Been using your theme from day one and LOVE it and all the improvements you've made!

I recently made the move to an oldschool 4:3 tube tv for my retro gaming and discovered your wonderful theme doesn't quite make the transition into 4:3...

As I was staring at my tv I realized that if we got rid of the metadata, your theme would be perfect for the 4:3 ratio.

Any chance your (or someone with more knowledge than myself) could try a 4:3 version?

Thanks again for your SWEET theme!

Beau

[felleg]

@momaw27 said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

@ruckage Been using your theme from day one and LOVE it and all the improvements you've made!

I recently made the move to an oldschool 4:3 tube tv for my retro gaming and discovered your wonderful theme doesn't quite make the transition into 4:3...

As I was staring at my tv I realized that if we got rid of the metadata, your theme would be perfect for the 4:3 ratio.

Any chance your (or someone with more knowledge than myself) could try a 4:3 version?

Thanks again for your SWEET theme!

Beau

+1 for a 4:3 version of the theme

[ruckage]

@momaw27
@felleg

The theme is designed specifically to work at 1080p and it will have problems at any other resolution. However at some point I'd like to convert it to a 4x3 resolution but it's a lot more work than you perhaps realise. I won't even attempt it until the theme supports the majority of systems as maintaining several different themes at once takes a lot of time so it would be better to convert everything in one go.

Next problem is what resolution to target? There are lots of 4x3 resolutions and due to an ES bug with game lists I unfortunately can't just do a 'one size fits all' solution as the game list will only line up correctly with my art at the specific resolution I target.
I could maybe have an option in the xml that you would have to edit to enable it to load pre-configured settings for several different 4x3 resolutions but ideally I would still like to know the most popular that would be used as a default setting so it works for most users out of the box. (Does retropie default to any specific 4x3 resolution when connected to a 4x3 monitor or TV?)

[momaw27]

Hey @ruckage !

I totally get where you're coming from.

I'd say the most universal and used 4:3 resolution used by me and I'd bet many others is 640X480. I'd be willing to guess that if you hit that target you'd be filling the needs/wants of the majority of tube tvs out there.

Thanks for considering this!

Beau

[felleg]

@ruckage
Basically the same thoughts as @momaw27.
Just food for thought: the theme I've been using as my main theme is @Rookervik 's workbench (https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5552/release-amiga-workbench-emulationstation-theme). I've been using it for my CRT (which has a 4:3 ratio) and it's able to show all information on screen. I don't know if the theme is even designed for 4:3. Maybe the screen gets squeezed, or maybe the sides are cut off but since the info is centered I don't notice it. I've messed so much with my resolution settings that I don't really know how kosher my setup is, really.

I'll try to find time to try your updated version (sorry!) and see if the problem really exists in the first place. I'll try to take pictures.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@ruckage a lot of LED 4:3 monitors are either 1600 x 1200 or 1440x1080. There are not I ton of 4:3 LED/LCD monitors out there. Most are either 5:4 or widescreen. I personally run a 21" 4:3 LED in my arcade cabinet and it runs smoothly with retropie at 1600 x 1200.

On top of this, the CRT users are a lower resolution as suggested in the previous post. I would suggest that if you use the higher resolution for design, the crt monitors will be able to display the theme better than designing to a lower resolution and upscaling on LED monitors.

[ruckage]

@felleg said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

@ruckage
Basically the same thoughts as @momaw27.
Just food for thought: the theme I've been using as my main theme is @Rookervik 's workbench (https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5552/release-amiga-workbench-emulationstation-theme). I've been using it for my CRT (which has a 4:3 ratio) and it's able to show all information on screen. I don't know if the theme is even designed for 4:3. Maybe the screen gets squeezed, or maybe the sides are cut off but since the info is centered I don't notice it. I've messed so much with my resolution settings that I don't really know how kosher my setup is, really.

I'll try to find time to try your updated version (sorry!) and see if the problem really exists in the first place. I'll try to take pictures.

I can 100% say that my theme will not work on a 4x3 resolution as it was designed as a widescreen theme. Some themes are designed to work in both but that's not the case with mine I'm afraid - and if it did either the sides would be chopped off or it would be horribly squashed, neither of which would be a good solution.

@TMNTturtlguy said in Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes:

@ruckage
On top of this, the CRT users are a lower resolution as suggested in the previous post. I would suggest that if you use the higher resolution for design, the crt monitors will be able to display the theme better than designing to a lower resolution and upscaling on LED monitors.

Resolution isn't an issue as such. My assets are low resolution anyway and technically due to the way theme elements are defined as ratios of the screen dimensions a theme should display exactly the same at any resolution (as long as the aspect ratio is the same). This does work as expected for most elements but for some reason it doesn't work correctly with game lists. This isn't a problem for many themes but as the game list entries on my theme have to line up exactly with boxes in the background it causes problems. I'll show an example below.

First 1080p. Notice the text and blue selector bar lines up perfectly with the boxes in the background.

Now 720p. Nothing changed in the theme but notice the text and selector bar no longer line up with the boxes in the background. All other element in the theme however have scaled correctly.

I can correct for this in most cases but if I fix it for 720p then the list is then broken in 1080p. So this is why this particular theme has to be targeted to specific resolutions.

As far a 4x3 versions goes it won't be possible to keep everything on the screen as there simply isn't space. The scaling will also look really bad at 640x480 as all my assets are designed at 270 pixels tall and this will not divide cleanly into 480p - there is no simple solution to this, I can either chop off the entire bottom border which I think will ruin the look of the theme or I can prescale the assets but this will result in a softer look (though may be okay for crt). Basically I'm willing to make the 4x3 at some point but it will not be a simple process and there will need to be some sacrifices to make it possible.