Chicuelo Theme

duiz

@Wildfire Any progress update on your amazing theme? I been aching to put it on my TV device.

DarishZone

@pootis-spencer I haven't been working on the theme over Christmas but I'm keen to get back to it again in the new year. I'm currently adding more systems/collections, tidying up the code, compressing images within reason (to improve performance) and I'm thinking about separating the characters from the background to make it easier for others to mod. Apologies for the long wait but I'd rather do the work now to get it as good as possible before I upload it.

@movisman glad you like the theme :) I currently have PSP (crisis core) PSP mini (jetpack joyride) and Dreamcast (crazy taxi) but nothing for GameCube yet. It's on the list though so it will 100% be included.

@DarishZone can't say I've installed Supersweet on my build but your modified theme looks awesome! I love simple themes like that which run smooth as butter :D I'm trying desperately to keep my modded theme as light as possible (which is a challenge given the transparent png's....) once compressed the theme works much better but it may still be a challenge to run for people who have tons of systems installed.

Thank you very much! Your themes mods great too, so i'm very flattered!
Supersweet original creator used very smart ideas performance wise, using small vertical PNG images with color scale instead of RGB, little loss detail but they are way more light for ES to handle. As results the theme is light speed even with custom collections enabled, i've stick to that same formula for the mod and i'm very satisfied! Waiting for your work shared.

Wildfire

Hi @duiz, I'm currently working on custom collections. I've completed all the artwork and logos for the game collections (such as final fantasy, sonic, marvel, metal slug etc) just need to create a .xml file with descriptions for them.

Last night I was working on genre collections (such as RPG, strategy, racing, lightgun etc.) I have all of the SVG logos complete and the XML files are ready to go so I just need artwork and that will be finished.

I was going to do developer collections too but I think I'll leave that for another day as its already taking a long time to get the theme ready. Sorry for the delay but I should be finished soon :D

@DarishZone I'm not so sure my theme will ever be light speed but it runs well enough for me. I've been processing all of my compression through a website called tinypng which works really well.

On some images, you can barely tell the difference however there are some images (usually the ones with gradients) that look a bit blocky... They still look good though and it's a sacrifice that has to be made for faster loading.

rand0m

@PittStone

Hi, I am porting this excellent theme to Attract-Mode, If you allow I would like to use your "custom collection" and "mario collection" snaps in the port. Ofcourse I'll give proper credits and link to your original work. Thanks.

PittStone

@rand0m Yes. No Prob. Thanks for the Info.

BJRetro

I just wanted to chime in on the features of the original theme that I think differentiate it from many others and made it perfect for my personal bartop arcade setup. I have around 200 games each with image and video. I set up my bartop, which is ninja turtles themed, to boot into the TMNT game. Then when you exit out I wanted to drop right into the “all games” menu, so it would be as close to as easy to use as a “commercial” product as possible. I wanted the titles of the games to be big and easy to read with clean text, wanted the game image to pop up first then transition to video and also wanted the videos to be very large. This is exactly what the Chicuelo theme gave me and for that I really want to thank you. (Hursty Spin for instance looks great but in the all games menu the graphics wound up covering some of the game names). It was somewhat surprising to me that in the huge “market” of themes getting the combination of very easy to read large game names and a large video was not easy to find. My thought was that since I would have video snaps for every game and not a huge selection of games, the videos would in essence BE the description of the game. That is - I don’t need a worded description taking up space on the screen to say this is a side scrolling fighter if all you have to do is look on the screen and watch the video to see exactly that. I also didn’t need ratings, etc, because I had hand selected the games. So if this is what you are looking for, I haven’t found a better theme than the original Chicuelo!!

chicuelo

@BJRetro Thank you!
I have only one issue on this theme (actually it is a limitation). It was intended for use with raspberry so the images / video aren't big enough as I would liked. wIth a more powerful hardware I would be able to design the theme with bigger image display, removing all the bottom stuff. Maybe in some time if the Pi gets powerful enough I could redesign that menu and enlarge the snaps.

BJRetro

@chicuelo I am certainly happy with it as is! It would be cool if ES would let the games list be graphics instead of regular text - like the images for the game titles! But I think the size of the video and text are great in your theme and definitely larger than anything else out there!

rand0m

@chicuelo

Its amazing how the look and feel of this theme completely changes when system snaps are changed. Great work chicuelo, you choice of background colors and system snaps is absolutely amazing (the contrast is fantastic), a graphic designer by any chance?

My AM port of this great theme is mostly done with a few required changes here and there. How do you like this missing system snap pic (its on AM btw) >

alt text

chicuelo

@rand0m Yes I am a designer :)
It looks great. I was thinking about making a version of the theme with epic images like this for every console. Instead I use an iconic game and character of every system. It look great here, the size of the character is ok. Do you have a controller icon?

rand0m

@chicuelo figures, you have a great eye for colors and balance :D, this here is a missing system flyer pic, in AM we can set missing artwork placeholders which are shown when image/ artwork is not present. That's why the questionmark sign in clouds (snap has too much detail, likely to change it to something which fits in better).

I'm planning on using this controller (KB) icon for X68 alt text

movisman

@chicuelo

Hey :) hope you are good!
I think I might have spotted an issue (or perhaps it's deliberate) with a commit you made 11 days ago regarding 'assets update':
https://github.com/chicueloarcade/es-theme-Chicuelo/commit/7c33a4f1f07a50b5f9a7d8906d328ebeca953b9c

On first glance, I noticed Amiga is no longer Zool but the character you were using previously, FBA is now the Simpsons character as opposed to the Sunset Riders character, ZX Spectrum is the old initial blocky rendition of the Dizzy character (which was really low res) as opposed to the reworked one you made later (which was a lot better). There are a few more changes on this commit to various other characters and i'm not sure what is correct - I think a few of these assets have been replaced with older versions?

Just wanted to let you know so you can take a look? Let me know if I can help. I have not updated my copy - I was about to as I have a few minor improvements to the main theme.xml to share with you, but I have held back for now, as something doesn't seem quite right to me with a few of the images.

Thanks as always!

chicuelo

@rand0m said in Chicuelo Theme:

we can set missing artwork placeholders which are shown when image/ artwork is not present. That's why the questionmark sign in clouds (snap has too much detail, likely to change it to something which fits in better).

If you don't have any artwork it would not display. But for you can opt for using a blank png with the name of the system. I used that way for RetroPie setup, favorites, and auto collections. Instead of having a controller I used a blank png file so the theme displays something and there are no errors.

Try using this one :)

chicuelo

@movisman

Ohh, I think there is a problem with those assets. I only wanted to replace the bg for a new one with a subtle texture, and the Neo Geo controller for a more accurate one. All the other stuff is wrong.
If you want to take a look go ahead!

thanks for the adivce!

chicuelo

@movisman
I updated those one who where missed, now you can pull all the media again and upload your xml.
I have some pull request with assets changes but I closed all, I will only accept xml or display improvements.
Thanks again!

movisman

@chicuelo

Thanks for looking at this so quickly. I see you have restored those assets.

There were quite a few updates made, do you think there are any other images which could be incorrect or do you think everything is as it should be now?

PS. Did you make new updates to the global ingame bg and system ingame bg? I notice the arrows and BG are slightly different now.

movisman

@chicuelo

Also, just to check, did you deliberately overwrite the ports image to go back to the 'Doom' guy? Originally ports was the Doom guy, then it was changed to the Cacodemon up until 15 days ago, now it is back to Doom guy again.

I don't use ports but just another image I noticed which has totally changed? If this is deliberate no worries.

Thanks!

chicuelo

@movisman
I think the character assets are ok now so that's complete.
I changed slightly the global and in game backgounds, make them a little bit darker and added a texture so yes, they are new

chicuelo

@movisman Damn, it has to be the cacodemon, I will replace it now again. I think someone send a pull request and I accepted and changed all my stuff. If you see another asset messed up please tell!