[Theme] Art Book

[alphatoanant]

@hurricanefan great question

I think there 3 main scrapers that people use (at least these are the ones I know about)

1. The one built into ES's GUI
2. Selph's Scraper (see the info under "Steven Selph's Scraper" here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Scraper/)
3. UXS (https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5291/soft-universal-xml-scraper-v2-easy-scrape-with-high-quality-picture)

For #1:

• can run directly from within ES
• gets metadata from thegamesdb
• image is usually boxart (flyers in the case of arcade games)
• I don't believe it can scrape videos?
• doesn't give control over where images are stored (e.g. stores images in downloaded_images folder)

For #2

• has a few different metadata source options (one of them being thegamesdb)
• Should be run while ES isn't running
• It has a GUI with a good set of options to make it easy to run
• Can also be run from the command line which gives a lot of flexibility like..
  --- folder to store images
  --- if you don't want boxart for example you can set it to get screenshots
  --- etc...
  --- this is how I achieved the arcade look in my previous post)
• Can scrape videos (as long as the source you are scraping from has them)

For #3

• Run from a windows machine (accessing retropie install over the network)
• Scrapes metadata from screenscraper.fr
• GUI with a good set of options
• Custom scrape profiles can built (for me this allows for similar flexibility to command line args that #2 supports)
• scrapes videos

---

Once I learned more about the command line args for #2 (Selph's) its becoming my primary because I like that it can be run directly on my pi and has access to a few different metadata sources. It can be installed from the retropie setup script (I believe its under optional packages).

The GUI it provides out of the box pulls in great metadata without any command line work (though if you are interested I can write up a quick step by step for how I am using the command line approach)

Does this help?

[HurricaneFan]

@alphatoanant This helps a ton. Thank you! I'm trying option 2 right now. With option 2, do you re-encode your videos after they are downloaded?

I'm on a Mac so I can't use option 3.

[alphatoanant]

@hurricanefan said in [New Theme] Art Book:

With option 2, do you re-encode your videos after they are downloaded?

Yes I do. I think my handbrake settings are 320x240 @ 30fps with a Constant Quality of 30

Though I remember you had said you used emumovies too right? If so the good news is you might be able to just use those videos.

When selph's scraper runs it checks to see if it has the image/video it expects to get in the folder its looking in. If it does then it just picks up that media and adds the reference to the gamelist (so no downloading needed). For this to work you have to make sure the videos are named as the scraper would expect them to be named. Default I believe is romname-video.mp4 - though this can also be changed if using the command line.

[HurricaneFan]

@alphatoanant Yup, I do have emumovies.com for everything except arcade videos. I plan on using your scraper settings for video and just wondered if I had to change them after they were downloaded.

Really loving your theme and appreciate all the help you've provided me.

[alphatoanant]

Updates 7/29/17

• Started testing the Custom Collections work from @pjft (see: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/11805/please-test-creating-custom-collections/)
• Added 2 new systems with custom logos to help with testing =)
  -- tloz (The Legend of Zelda)
  -- smb (Super Mario Bros)
• Tweaked the retropie system layout to remove unnecessary metadata
• Added a new font to use in logoText property for cases when a custom collection is not based off of theme

Preview:

New SMB and LOTZ systems with logos

lotz system created using the "custom collections > create new custom collection from theme" feature

custom collections not created from a theme shown grouped together

@pjft I am having a lot of fun with this feature. The metadata change you made for grouped collections is awesome. Excellent work!

---

Latest is up at https://github.com/anthonycaccese/es-theme-art-book

[pjft]

@alphatoanant these look fantastic! Thanks for the note on the grouped collections metadata, glad you feel it's useful, and an elegant solution for the context :)

[TMNTturtlguy]

really like the elegant look of this theme! Nice job

[alphatoanant]

@soloskywalker I just added tg-cd and pce-cd systems following the naming convention seen in carbon theme. Latest is on github now.

[alphatoanant]

Update 8/1/17

• Art Book can be installed through the ES Themes section in the latest version of Retropie now (you can still install manually from github as well)
• Added new custom systems to help support the custom collections feature coming soon in Emulation Station

---

The list of new custom systems added:

atari
capcom
dataeast
finalfantasy
konami
namco
nintendo
pokemon
sega
snk
sonicthehedgehog
squaresoft
taito

[HurricaneFan]

@alphatoanant Is it possible for you to add a few more custom systems?

Midway
Williams
Super Mario
Star Wars

[alphatoanant]

@hurricanefan yes for sure.

Super Mario is in place now (its called "smb"). Was wondering if I should rename it to supermario though.

Will look at getting Midway, Williams and Stars Wars done

[HurricaneFan]

@alphatoanant Oh, I totally missed the Super Mario one. Renaming it might help other people.

Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this theme!

[pjft]

@alphatoanant Super Mario or Mario (since there were Mario games that weren't "Super"). Either works, though. :)

[TMNTturtlguy]

There is a new thread that just started about this, check it out, on my phone so sorry for no link to it.

[alphatoanant]

Thank you for your feedback @TMNTturtlguy, @HurricaneFan and @pjft

I made the following changes:

• renamed smb to mario
• renamed tloz to zelda
• renamed sonicthehedgehog to sonic
• added midway
• added starwars
• added irem
• added hudson
• added sunsoft

All are up on github now

Working on tracing the Williams logo next to make an SVG

[meleu]

OK guys, I confess I'm a little late. But I would like to say: @alphatoanant , hey dude! great job on this theme. Looks very clean and elegant!

[HurricaneFan]

@alphatoanant You tweaked Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 boxes. No more overlap! I love it!

[meleu]

@alphatoanant is this theme available in esthemes? (RetroPie-Setup)

[HurricaneFan]

@meleu Yup, it's available in the theme list now.

[alphatoanant]

Update 8/3/17:

• Added additional custom systems - cps1, cps2, cps3 and williams