Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections

[meleu]

@Used2BeRX

So, using --no-desc, it would have added marquees and videos if I had them on the Pi, since EmulationStation/RetroPie takes advantage of these file types now?

I tested here and the script generate valid <video> entries.

The script doesn't fill the <marquee> field. I didn't find any image that looks like a "marquee" in the Xtras pack I downloaded. Do you have such kind of image on your system? What would be the path to them? Media/Artwork/...?

Now the idea would be to find a way to make quick edits to the xml files to change which file type is the <image> without having to wait 12 hours for the pi to re-create all the gamelist.xml files. That way I can verify that all of the other media types are all working without any issues.

Didn't get what you mean here. When searching for image files, the script looks only for files ending with .png or .jpg (case insensitive).

My next project on my end is going to figure out where Emulationstation finds all of the gamelist.xml files and edit that.

You can find the answer here: https://github.com/retropie/EmulationStation/blob/master/GAMELISTS.md#gamelists

I want to be able to simply run your program and when it's done I can just reboot the Pi and all of gamelist.xml files that your script makes will load up from the same folder with the names you gave them.

According to the info in the link above, you can't load an arbitrary gamelist.xml. The file must be one of those. But I think that making the script generate files directly in the right places is a fair request... :-)

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu said in Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections:

@Used2BeRX

So, using --no-desc, it would have added marquees and videos if I had them on the Pi, since EmulationStation/RetroPie takes advantage of these file types now?

I tested here and the script generate valid <video> entries.

The script doesn't fill the <marquee> field. I didn't find any image that looks like a "marquee" in the Xtras pack I downloaded. Do you have such kind of image on your system? What would be the path to them? Media/Artwork/...?

It would be /Media/{system name}/Artwork/Marquee/

I don't have any images of this type in my sets. My friends who are working on their own Pi skin have them though. It is a feature that was added in the last few months around the same time that the video previews were added. Their skin makes use of the <marquee> field in the .XML files.

Now the idea would be to find a way to make quick edits to the xml files to change which file type is the <image> without having to wait 12 hours for the pi to re-create all the gamelist.xml files. That way I can verify that all of the other media types are all working without any issues.

Didn't get what you mean here. When searching for image files, the script looks only for files ending with .png or .jpg (case insensitive).

.png and .jpg should be just fine. That's not what I meant, sorry.

Here's my problem. It takes about 12 hours for me to create --no-desc gamelist.xml files for all of the systems, so testing all of the image types can take me about 4-5 days by re-running this for each image type.

First, I will run one --full and --no-desc command to generate all of the xml files with all of the fields. (You say that this is possible, and I will run it overnight while I'm sleeping and verify it when it's complete).

Then I would like a 2nd script that would change which file type had the <image> tag from these complete gamelist.xml files, which should only take a few seconds per file instead of 12 hours to re-run everything.

If I had the standard xmls with the Box Front as image and I wanted instead to have the Title Shot as the image that shows in the romlist, first the <image> tags would need to be changed to <boxfront>, then the <title> tags would need to be changed to <image>.

The script doing this, however, would need to leave any <folder> entries alone and only make these changes to the images inside all of the <game> entries.

I hope I'm explaining this right. Please let me know if I'm not. I think this is a very important feature for the script that could potentially save hundreds of hours of re-scanning everything any time you wanted to change which images were displayed in RetroPie/EmulationStation.

My next project on my end is going to figure out where Emulationstation finds all of the gamelist.xml files and edit that.

You can find the answer here: https://github.com/retropie/EmulationStation/blob/master/GAMELISTS.md#gamelists

I want to be able to simply run your program and when it's done I can just reboot the Pi and all of gamelist.xml files that your script makes will load up from the same folder with the names you gave them.

According to the info in the link above, you can't load an arbitrary gamelist.xml. The file must be one of those. But I think that making the script generate files directly in the right places is a fair request... :-)

I already solved this issue :)

I now have your script in /home/pi/RetroPie/Gamelists/.

I run the script and just leave the files right in there. If I need to re-run anything I can back them up on my PC first and delete them or append to them.

Then I went into all the /opt/pi/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/{system_name}/ and made symbolic links to every one of the gamelist.xml files that your script creates.

Now all I have to do when your script finishes running is type in emulationstation in the Linux console and when it boots it automatically uses the new gamelist.xml files :)

I actually like this solution better than making your script put the files in the correct places. This way all of the true files remain in the same folder.

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu

Hey bud. What was the download link for this script again? I've been just updating it for a while now and somebody else who's got our media wants to try it out.

I'm writing up instructions and put this link to download it: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meleu/share/master/Used2BeTXT.sh

But looking at that it seems like it is an older version that doesn't have things like '--no-desc` and the image options???

Thanks :)

Nevermind... Figured it out. :)

Let me know if I need to re-explain what I said in the previous post or if you need any clarification.

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu I ran --full on the segacd and it looks like the only extra media it found was <threedbox>.

The 3D Boxes are .PNG files. Everything else on my Pi Zero setup was .JPG, so I was wondering if possibly the code for --full is only looking for .PNG files in the Artwork folders?

I haven't tried it for <marquee> or '<video>` yet. I will have to add some of these and re-run that to test them out as well.

EDIT: Could you change the code also so it doesn't change the name of the gamelist if you use options like nes_FULL_gamelist.xml? Now that I have the Symbolic Links set up, this is working great, but if I use an option like that it saves differently and won't work with the symbolic link unless I manually edit the files when it's done.

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu Well.... github makes absolutely no sense to me.

I think if I share the synopsis files it's better to just share them from my MegaNZ account.

If you have any compelling reasons why github would be better let me know. At this point I still don't know what anybody would get out of just having the synopsis files without any of the other media.

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu Hey man. I seen you on around here but not replying, so sorry if I've been asking too much without giving enough back or something.

I'm going to make sure one last time that the Synopsis files are ready to go and then just upload them to a file sharing service. If somebody wants to do something and set them up on github so they're of more use to people, feel free to do it.

You haven't told me what use it would be on github, and since I have no idea what you're thinking or even a clue how to use github, I feel lost. I've spent 2 hours trying to figure github out and I haven't gotten anywhere.

[meleu]

@Used2BeRX I talked about it above. But never mind. Forget it and let's play some game! :-)

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu Too much work for me to still do man. Hope you get a chance to look at the issues I'm still having with the script at some point.

Right now I'm working on converting my old romsets as much as possible to no-intro. Yesterday I finished up adding the new games I was going to add (about 30-40 of them on 4 different systems), and I can't wait to play Pier Solar at some point.

Then I have to figure out a good way to distribute this stuff without roms that is easier than github. That site makes no sense to me. I'm thinking that is partially because I'm a Linux dummy or something.

[UDb23]

@Used2BeRX said in Making premade gamelist.xml with xtra media collections:

github

Initially it may be intimidating but it's not complicated at all.
I upload files just using the web browser both under windows and Mac.
The only thing that's unusual is that there is no direct "make folder" command but, instead, you create folders by adding a new file (even a dummy txt file) and putting the directory path were you want the file to be located.

[Used2BeRX]

@UDb23 Thanks. lol... I don't even see any options for adding any new files though. All I see is <> Code, Issues, Pull Requests, Projects, Wiki, Settings, and Insights.

I've got a few Insights.... but I'll keep them to myself for now :)

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu So am I supposed to be uploading just zip files, or the individual synopsis files?

I finally opened a folder to upload to and when I drag and drop it says "YOWZA! That's a lot of files. Try it again with 100 or less."

No. I don't want to try it again with 100 or less. You're the computer. You do what I tell you to do.

[meleu]

@Used2BeRX don't worry about github. It's a tool for developers and other people can take advantage of it. But if it is confusing for you and you don't see a reason to learn, just move on. ;-)

I was thinking on other guys with the same background as you: people coming from the XBox emulation scene. But I'm not from this scene and don't even know if they want this kind of thing. Let's forget it and move on! We have other stuff in our To Do list, right? :-)

[meleu]

By the way, I'll improve the script to let you change the art on <image> field. No need for another tool to achieve that.

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu If you're sure. I just don't want to come off like I'm not contributing. I have a lot of plans for this stuff, but I have to figure out the best way to do it all. I would be more receptive to github if I saw the benefit of it, but since I don't even understand how to use it other than dumbly typing in commands from Console that other people tell me to type I can't envision the value of putting anything up there.

I said it before. I'm just a big dumb donkey. I just kind of brute force my way around everything and hope that other people a lot smarter than me see value in my work and help ease the work load.

Here's a to-do list on the script so you don't have to go back and look at stuff:

1. Change it so that when you use --full or another option that it doesn't alter the gamelist.xml name. (Eg: no _FULL_ added to nes_gamelist.xml.

With symbolic links I have everything set up to run perfect now after running your script so all you need to do is reboot when it's done. When the names are changed like this it adds the step of having to change names before rebooting.

I actually wrote a guide at the other place that I'm still working on. You can see at the bottom what I did with your script and the symbolic links in depth. I'm going to do a similar write up here as soon as we get this working completely. :)

2. Make sure that script is checking for both .JPG as well as .PNG for the extra fields on a --full command. --full only found .PNG files that were located in the 3D Boxart folders. It did not find any of the .JPG files in the other folders such as Titles and Action.

3. Add <marquee> search and entry to standard script run without needing --full. <marquee> is a usable tag in EmulationStation now, even though my packs don't currently contain any artwork with them. A few of my friends are making skins and have made their own marquees by cutting out the title in the title screen of every game. :)

4. The ability to do a quick switch of which type of artwork has the usable <image> tag after the --full command has been run.

By just changing which type of artwork has this tag after all of the gamelist.xml files have been made, it could literally save about 12 hours by not having to completely re-scan everything on the Pi Zero.

After we can do this stuff, I can go back in and test that all of the other artwork is working properly. I suspect that it all should be, but I do want to verify with my own eyeballs to make sure. Takes quite a while to move through 8,000-10,000 games on the romlist to verify every one has artwork, but it's worth the effort. :)

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu Hey meleu. I was thinking that maybe you could upload a small synopsis pack to github the way that you think it would be of most benefit. Maybe Atari 7800 or Atari LYNX since they're only 80 or so files.

I believe you could share or even change ownership of a project.

If you did that, I might be able to figure out how to do the rest of it on my own. I'm pretty sure you have old synopsis data for all the systems now, but that doesn't matter. If I can just get an idea of how you would like to see it presented for the end user I might be able to figure out how to do it.

Been adding a lot more files on my end. Currently in the middle of a project adding hundreds of translated games to the NES and SNES. :)

[meleu]

@Used2BeRX I'm a little busy currently. Maybe I'll do it when I have a chance. :-)

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu No problem...

I was just thinking today while I was putting more of these synopsis files together that it would be great if they were online and people could have access to make altered versions of them.

I was thinking that if they were all out there, somebody might want to go through and make things like the <genre> uniform so any sort functions would work even better.

Stuff I'd like to do some day, but I'm just way too busy doing bigger things right now.

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu Been keeping busy with a huge project I've undertaken, but I didn't want to lose touch man.

In the process of adding 158 translated games to the NES I realized how lousy the quality of artwork for boxes and carts were for the Japanese games that were collected years back compared to what they are now so I've been upgrading all of them. I've even upgraded all the pirates and I'm working on unlicensed and prototypes now. So far for the NES alone there are about 600 upgraded boxes and another 600 upgraded carts.

Sometimes you just can't get good artwork though and you have to go the extra mile for it. I'll use the Japan game Flappy for an example.

Our original looked like this:

It was clean, but it was tiny. The only larger image I could find online had a pricetag on it:

I managed to find this pretty huge one on ebay though:

And with a little plugin magic on a program called paint.net I was able to change the perspective and end up with this upgraded images that is about 6 times the size of the original one we had:

Now I'm just hoping I can finish all of this crazy work I've given myself before my cash runs out and I need to start working again. :)

[Used2BeRX]

@meleu Hey bud. How's things?

Just a few highlights of what I've been doing here. Getting the artwork prepared for your script update whenever you get around to it. Not rushing you. I have plenty to keep myself busy. :)

I've got about 650 new and/or upgraded boxart and matching cartridge artwork for Japan, Translated, Pirate, Unlicensed and Prototype games, and a majority of them I've tweaked in one way or another. I'd say about 100-150 of them I've put significant effort into beautifying.

I can say with confidence this is the prettiest Obscure NES artwork collection in existence at this point. :)

Hope things are going well for you.

[meleu]

@used2berx if the kids are healthy everything is fine. :-) I'll try to take a look at that script this weekend.

Cheers!