[Theme] Penumbra_V4

ace428

Hey everyone, below is my first theme that i am sharing with the community. Honestly, i am just trying to learn how to do some theming and was hoping to get a little feedback on what i have so far. There are some top notch themes that have come out of the community but with each one there was just something that wasn't quite right for me. So i fired up the tutorial , downloaded GIMP and pilfered some assets from other themes. I hope you like it!

The theme can be found at https://github.com/ace428/es-theme-Penumbra_V4

Emulation Station Theme - Penumbra V4

This theme is actually my fourth attempt at bringing together something that i like. I wanted to learn how to do the theming aspect of Emulationstation and got a little carried away.

This theme is a combination of some original artwork and some pieces that were picked apart from some other themes. Alos, this theme does support the use of video previews.

For best results use screenscraper.fr and pull the following:
Visual Type - Simple
Default visual - Screenshot
Alt visual - Wheel
Marquee - Wheel
Video - Yes

I'd like to thank the following for their awesome work:

tronkyfran for his amazing system backgrounds. (please check out their theme Tronkyfran)
Rookervik for the awesome system logos (please check out their theme Carbon)

The systems that are currently supported are:

Kodi
Sega Megadrive
Nintendo 64
Nintendo Entertainment System
Playstation Portable
Playstation
ScummVM
Super Nintendo System
Steam (via moonlight)

Based on feedback i'd be happy to add some more systems.

Thanks!

System View

base_screen

Basic View

scummvm_basic

Detailed View

snes_detailed

mattrixk

@ace428 I'm all for people having a go at making their own themes, and this one looks nice. It's always good to hear when people find the tutorial useful.

I just have a small suggestion: the help text is hard to see on the System View. Either make the text a lighter colour, or give it a lighter background colour. I like the black to dark grey gradient you have on the Detailed View, maybe you could carry that over on the Basic and System Views.

I think the screenshot on the Detailed View needs a little something too. It's kind of just sitting there flatly, while all the other bits around it have borders and drop shadows. Maybe see what it looks like with the same border and drop-shadow, just without the title.

ace428

@mattrixk Thanks for the feedback!

I hear you about the Help objects on the system view, that shouldn't be a problem.

As far as the detailed view goes i'm wondering about a couple things:

I should be able to drop a decent rounded border down and use the z-order to overlay it "above" the video / screenshot.
If a screenshot or video is a smaller size than the MaxSize defined in the area, does it scale up? So if i drop in a drop shadow for the area can i be reasonable sure that it won't look like it's floating out there on it's own.
Bringing the gradient background to the basic view should be easy enough. Will give that a stab as well!

Thanks!

mattrixk

@ace428

I haven't played with the z-index stuff yet, but that should be fine. There are 2 types of video player that you can choose from, but only one of them works with z-index (I don't remember which).
maxSize images will scale up to whatever size you enter, while maintaining aspect ratio.
Cool.

ace428

@mattrixk Hey there mattrixk, i made the changes you suggested and they worked out pretty well. I think it looks pretty nice now. I updated the screenshots with the new changes.

Now the area around the screenshot / movie, that has been more of a challenge to get something that doesn't make the whole thing look too busy or full.

My kingdom for a graphic artist! :)