Backdrops in mame2003-plus

UDb23

Artwork completed for another vector game: Solar Quest
Backdrop+RA overlay + launching image.

Original Backdrop is from MrDo; adapted to 1440x1080 game area (1080p) and tweaked colors for max visibility (you still can play with brightness in the .ART file).
Also removed the bezel that was included; nice full original bezel but it made the game area way to small !

Instead I created an overlay that fits max game area in 1080p (1440x1080). Recreated the Bezel in vectors and used that art for the overlay. Score text was moved to right and left (again to avoid reducing game area on top).

alt text

Launching image is a vectorized version of the original marquee:
alt text

Available now in the Repo.
Have fun !

UDb23

(sorry for low res pic)

UDb23

Best vector settings (to me):
Vector multiplier: 3
Antialias: enabled
Beam width: 2
Flicker:20
Intensity: 2.5

Bilinear filtering: on

The game requires sound samples.

Riverstorm

Looking forward to trying Solar Quest BD. That is one game where the busy BD and blue vector lines made the game visibility low so in AdvMAME I set the BD brightness really low.

Riverstorm

@Udb23 - I'll give your vector settings a try too. I am finding monitor vs TV are completely different settings to look optimal so I've been experimenting.

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Artwork completed for another vector game: Solar Quest
Backdrop+RA overlay + launching image.
[...]
Available now in the Repo.

I don't see the backdrop in https://github.com/UDb23/rpie-ovl/tree/master/arcade/Solar Quest. Do I look in the wrong location?

UDb23

@Clyde backdrop pull request done & accepted.
File is part of mame2003plus repository; check here.

UDb23

@Riverstorm Yes, that's why I tweaked a while ;-)

Clyde

Sorry for the late response, but I don't have much time for this at the moment.

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Just download any pre-0.106 artwork (there's a dedicated section) from Mr. Do's website and copy it into your /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003-plus/artwork folder and run the game. No configuration required!

Thanks for the tip, the files work ootb. But if one uses crt shaders (like I do), the bezels are crt shaded, too. Is there any (easy) way to exclude the bezels from being shaded?

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

@Clyde backdrop pull request done & accepted.
File is part of mame2003plus repository; check here.

Great, how do I update the files in that directory on my Retropie?

Riverstorm

Thanks for the tip, the files work ootb. But if one uses crt shaders (like I do), the bezels are crt shaded, too. Is there any (easy) way to exclude the bezels from being shaded?

@Clyde - I run a shader too and asked the same question. I didn't get a definite answer so I don't for sure but I didn't find a way. I do not like BD's with a shader either. =\

markwkidd

There is no way to avoid frontend shaders from affecting the core's built-in artwork display. To the frontend it is all essentially one image coming from the core with no distinction between layers or bezels.

This is one of the reasons it will be good to have backdrop support in RetroArch.

UDb23

@Clyde just update mame2003 plus from source and it will install the latest backdrops.
or just copy the zip files to your Pi into the bios\mame2003plus\artwork folder.

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

how I could share my omegrace.zip with others here?

Do you have a github account ? if so you could add it to my Repo (e.g. 1600 subfolder of Omega Race cockpit).

Finally, I'm getting around doing this, but I can't make a subdirectory in https://github.com/UDb23/rpie-ovl/tree/master/arcade/Omega Race, because I don't have push access to it, as Github tellls me. Furthermore, I somehow seem to have created a fork of your repo by accident: https://github.com/Taranchul/rpie-ovl 😆

Can you give me access? And how do I delete my fork? Thanks!

UDb23

@Clyde Don't worry. The way github works, if you want to contribute to someone else's project actually you DO create a fork; then add files to your fork (with folders like in this case). You can then make a "pull" request to the original repo; I will receive the request and approve it: the files will be added to my repo.

Clyde

@UDb23 Ah okay, thanks. I will try to do it, stay tuned. :)

Clyde

@UDb23 Done. This version has 0.30 brightness and a game area of 1440x1050 because the one from the original machine also didn't fill the whole backdrop area. See https://imgur.com/JeE2aqs.

UDb23

@Clyde merged. see comment on how to create folders.

UDb23

Battlezone backdrop now available.
Actually I "converted" it to an overlay by cutting out the game, radar, score and messages areas. This allows to get 1080p quality with RA. UV version coming; more info in that post.

Clyde

@UDb23 I am confused. How is it a backdrop if it's an overlay?

UDb23

Got quite crazy to make the overlay exactly fit the radar and display boxes; trial and error was the only way !