Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper

SammyBoy

muldjord

The new compositor is largely done now, and it's pretty damn cool! I need to add further effects (stroke, colorize, brightness?, contrast?, 3dbox effect?, rounded corners?) and refactor a bunch of stuff after the coding marathon I've been on for the past few days. I will be back with some examples of what it will allow you to do when I get the time. I'm pretty stoked for this! Glossy round frames to frame your cover? No problem. Rounded edges on your screenshot? You betcha. I feel like I'm implementing Gimp here, haha! :D But yes, it'll allow you to do some pretty awesome stuff using just one simple xml file.

AnalogHero

@muldjord Sounds cool. I guess the artwork.xml is getting really complex now...

muldjord

@analoghero It can be if you want it to. The format is the same as before, it just allows you to do things like nested layers where each layer is anchored to the previous layer, which makes it really easy to center a 'wheel' inside a 'cover' for instance. I'll provide some nifty examples once I get it all sorted out. :)

muldjord

Just a quick video to show you the progress. In this video you see me live-editing the artwork.xml file, while the result is being rendered in an image on the right side. This is a demonstration of the effects I've included so far.

I forgot to demonstrate the stroke effect which outlines a layer. But it's in there aswell. :)

SammyBoy

@muldjord In Skyscraper 2.3.0 will you also be adding blur, colorize and stroke effects (I'm pretty sure you've already planned to add stroke anyway )?

muldjord

@sammyboy Yes, stroke is in there as I also note below the video. Colorize is in there but called 'balance' which is 'color balance' where you can adjust red, green and blue value of the layer. Blur is not implemented yet, but will be before I release it.

SammyBoy

@muldjord One last question are you planning to add 3D boxart in a later version of Skyscraper (not 2.3.0)?

EDIT: Sorry I have another question regarding the screenscraper.fr region problem and that's that SNK VS. Capcom isn't getting scraped from screenscraper.fr whatsoever even though the game is from America I'll check tomorrow and see if it's the because of the filename.

muldjord

@sammyboy I will be looking into this yes. But it won't be the boxard from screenscraper, rather I'll render a 3d box myself from the wheel and cover photo. It won't be in 2.3.0 though.

Concerning your other question, it might be because '-m' isn't set. Try setting it ti '-m 0'. This has also been fixed in 2.3.0 together with the region problem.

SammyBoy

@muldjord That's pretty cool(the 3d boxart) and I'll try scraping neo geo pocket color tomorrow morning. Thank you so much

muldjord

I've decided to include the "gamebox" (a 3D glossy game box) effect in 2.3.0 aswell. It's a lot easier to do than I first thought. It's gonna be really cool!

AnalogHero

@muldjord ...then i need to rescrape again :) I hope its not much work but can you please add a few (common) example artwork.xml files? Maybe you can think of 2 or 3 useful settings (maybe round edges, 3d boxart with drop shadow in the bottom left :)

muldjord

@analoghero Yes, I plan to create a bunch of example artwork[n].xml.example files that will be distributed and installed to the "~/.skyscraper" folder on first run. I also plan to spice up the artwork documentation A LOT with effect examples. It'll take a while to create, but it'll be worth it to understand how everything works.

gamebox effect coming along really nicely btw! It looks really cool, with a glossy finish :)

SammyBoy

@muldjord For the 3D boxart are you going to use a case splice or make generate with the wheel, platform logo and developer logo?

muldjord

@sammyboy I haven't settled on the details yet. I do not have the platform or developer logos available to me, so it won't be that. The front of the box is of course the cover from the game.

EDIT: In a future release I might look into using platform or developer logos on the side. I have implemented a new resource system that allows you to use custom files from the "~/.skyscraper/resources" folder. So you can place png's or other image files in there and use them as masks, frames and the side of the gamebox rendering. So there's nothing holding you back from adding a "megadrive.png" to the resources folder and setting the 'side="megadrive.png"' on the gamebox effect. That would render the megadrive.png on the side of the box. But it would then use that for all platforms of course.

I need to ponder these things some more. But I really need to start nailing this down. I seem to keep coming up with new cool stuff that postpones the release. Maybe it's better to look into these things for future releases simply create the most basic goodlooking box for this release. After all I hadn't even planned to include the 'gamebox' effect in this release in the first place. :D

SammyBoy

@muldjord Can't wait for the release seems like the biggest to date! Can you do a favour for me and add .scummvm as a file format to scummvm because I like scraping from screenscraper.fr but they use a fake file format(.scummvm).

muldjord

@SammyBoy
'*.scummvm' added to scummvm platform. Will be in 2.3.0.

I am currently testing all of the new composite effects. I'm getting real close to being done with all the features I want in 2.3.0, and yes, it is indeed the biggest Skyscraper release to date. And also the toughest to code so far. :D But it's turning out much better than I had expected, so I really look forward to getting it out to you guys. It's a matter of days now unless I run into something unexpected.

AnalogHero

@muldjord I know youre busy with 2.3.0 which is released any moment, but i tried something which doesnt work for me.

Problem: Wings.uae is scraped as Wings of Fury.
Tried Screenscraper Wings.uae -p amiga but it just scrapes everything.

muldjord

@analoghero Are you in the correct folder? I mean, are you in the folder where "Wings.uae" is located? Also, I assume you meant "Skyscraper" not "Screenscraper".

Openretro doesn't seem to have "Wings" on their website which is really odd... So try scraping with '-s thegamesdb' instead. That might help.

AnalogHero

@muldjord Lol ofcourse Skyscraper, just a typo.

Yes im in the right folder, but even with -s thegamesdb added it asks me if i want to overwrite gamelist.xml and if i want to skip existing entries as usual.