Show Control Panel Layout before game starts in RetroPie, just like Arcade1UP does.

GreenGriffon

Hey guys,

If this along the lines of what you're looking for? I'm slowly working on a set of these for my own retrocade project.

Between looking up the controls for each game, finding a good quality arcade advertisement flyer, and actually creating the image, it's taking some time to get through the roughly 200 arcade games I keep in my curated collection.

I'm happy to take any suggestions or constructive feedback. I intend to release these when I finish, but that will take some time.

cyperghost

@GreenGriffon I like the idea but there is no need for manual doing. You can setup a config file like keylayout.txt that holds some information about the loaded rom and the buttonlayout

keylayout.txt sample file

NAME of ROM|Button A text|Button B text|Button X text|Button Y text|Button 1 text|Button 2 text|Button Coins|Button Player 1 Start|Button Player 2 Start
Annother ROMNAME|Button A text|Button B text|||||Player 1|Player 2
asteroids.zip|Fire|Thrust|Hyperspace
ROM|Button A text|Button B text

Then you need a script that reads the values out and with a package like imagemagick you can automate button actions according to the description for every Arcade game. With the help of the community every game can get a "Button Layout Art" ;)

The script will look like this

#!/bin/bash
# Keylayout Sample Script

readonly LAYOUTS="keylayout.txt"
readonly ROM="NAME of ROM"
IFS="|"

function get_game_buttons () {
    while read -r name bA bB bX bY b1 b2 bcoin bp1 bp2; do
        if [[ $ROM == $name ]]; then
            return
        else
            echo "No Layout found for $ROM!"
        fi
    done < <(tr -d '\r' < "$LAYOUTS")
}

# call function
get_game_buttons

echo "ROMNAME: $name"
echo "Button A: $bA"
echo "Button B: $bB"
echo "Coin Insert: $bcoin"

BJRetro

@GreenGriffon wow that is exactly what I was thinking of only nicer with the artwork! Ha. Of course @cyperghost would find a way to do it with coding! I guess the coding option is good because depending on the emulator used the buttons might be different for different people (I.e. same game but fb-alpha version vs. mame2003 vs mame2003-plus, then also where people have recoded buttons in retroarch).

TheRealSmilebit

@mitu Yes...I have been looking at the RunCommand.sh to get an idea of how it is getting the information. Just trying to figure out how to code it...should not be too hard...just finding the time to work on it.

TheRealSmilebit

@cyperghost That is good idea.

TheRealSmilebit

@BJRetro said in Show Control Panel Layout before game starts in RetroPie, just like Arcade1UP does.:

I guess the coding option is good because depending on the emulator used the buttons might be different for different people

Yes...I was going to try to figure this out, as if button layout changed would have to change each graphic...but with this would only have to change the text file.

cyperghost

@TheRealSmilebit I think if the community will start to collect the files for navigation someone will start to write a good script. My contribution is likely just a text message display ... simple but will not look well ;) Maybe a more talented user can do the graphic stuff. A tool package like imagemagick is the way to go ;)

Support for different emulators needs to be added, too.

UDb23

@cyperghost Nice idea.
To be useful to players the txt file and the graphics should consider also the different types of gamepads actually used.
Buttons assignment / layout for an arcade game would be different depending on the controller you use. That makes the whole thing quite complicated.

cyperghost

@UDb23 Na it is not so complicated if we assign to a Standard layout like the XBox or PS controller. And then map the inputs to a specific layout. It is doable but needs care what we are doing here. But in fact I would appreciate such a feature

Texacate

I found a database that will associate a rom name, with a list of button actions, like "Fire", "Jump", "Hard Punch", etc. Check out https://github.com/yo1dog/controls-dat-json. Not a full solution, but a necessary building block, for sure.

robertvb83

@TheRealSmilebit what a great idea. This would really add some value to my arcade cabinet
@GreenGriffon wow this is an awesome looking example. I like the idea of using a flyer in addition to the button layout.
of course an automated script based solution would be great. @cyperghost could you imagine a solution to deal with different joypad layouts that people use for their arcade? I mean GreenGriffon uses a 6-Button layout with
123
456
I think of some way to easily change that via a personal input e.g. my pad would also be 6-button but
456
123
other pads would be
1234
4568
you get my idea.

btw. I am pretty sure there already is a source file inside of mame with button names and how many buttons are used for each game @markwkidd am I right? this is what you used to come up with the automated button names to display in retroarch for mame2003-plus

markwkidd

@robertvb83 said in Show Control Panel Layout before game starts in RetroPie, just like Arcade1UP does.:

btw. I am pretty sure there already is a source file inside of mame with button names and how many buttons are used for each game @markwkidd am I right? this is what you used to come up with the automated button names to display in retroarch for mame2003-plus

controls.c has the button names. I am determining the number of players in the code when the game is loaded, but I am pretty sure that information is available in the DAT.

chicuelo

@GreenGriffon Thats my arcade cpo icon ;)

cyperghost

@robertvb83 said in Show Control Panel Layout before game starts in RetroPie, just like Arcade1UP does.:

. @cyperghost could you imagine a solution to deal with different joypad layouts that people use for their arcade? I mean GreenGriffon uses a 6-Button layout with

There is need for a standarized button layout. I suggested the XBOX or PS controllers and then the user can assign like you mentioned in your layout

Button A = 1
Button B = 2
...
or
Button A = 4
Button B = 5

as you like

@Texacate said in Show Control Panel Layout before game starts in RetroPie, just like Arcade1UP does.:

I found a database that will associate a rom name, with a list of button actions, like "Fire", "Jump", "Hard Punch", etc. Check out https://github.com/yo1dog/controls-dat-json. Not a full solution if you have hundres of games, but a necessary building block, for sure.

This is a nice finding!
The data can be extracted out from the 1.3MB database ;)

Texacate

@cyperghost AFAIK, the yo1gog's data appears to be just a reformatting of the data from the Controls.dat project started by Kevin Jonas (SirPoonga) with the help of Howard Casto. The original data is currently archived here: http://controls.arcadecontrols.com I've noticed only parent roms are in the database. So if you run a clone (like PacMan), you will need to account for that limitation. Also, I believe the data has not been updated in several years, (2011? if memory serves...) Newer rom are likely to be missing, but I probably couldn't run those games on a RPi anyway.

Texacate

I'm pretty motivated to get something like this working. I thought about using a separate "slave" RPi, with its own 5" to 7" LCD display to display the button map. That way it could be placed anywhere on my cabinet, and would never interfere with the main gaming display. I sure someone has already created a simple script that just listens on a port, and displays the desired (local or remote) image file. Kinda like a kiosk, or remote-control screen saver, but I have yet to find a simple utility like that. I'm fairly linux and retropie literate, but if I have to build it from scratch, this sort of master-slave network communication is beyond my linux skills.

markwkidd

@Texacate the MAME 2003-Plus controls.c is based on the last 2011controls.dat version plus of fixes and new games. We've also started matching parents and clones.

Link: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/master/src/controls.c

If there is any way to share our controls metadata with your project and have both improve then I would be glad to talk about whether, for example, we could implemented a scripted conversion between our controls.c and whatever format is needed here.

markwkidd

Upon further thought, it should be straightforward for MAME 2003-Plus to export our updated controls.dat metadata as XML and continue to provide XML in an automated way if we were coordinating updates.

When I say updates, I should mention that there are games from even back as far as MAME 0.78 that were never added to controls.dat. There are also some games for which their control names are incorrect, so we have a policy of double-checking that information before making it active in the core.

Texacate

I have been going down the path of using a separate raspberry pi to display the button map.

I have solved the problem pi to pi communication thanks to a set of YouTube videos. Effectively the second raspberry pi will listen to the main raspberry pi, and display the image was instructed to display.

The client side which runs on the main raspberry pie is done. It uses runcommand-onstart .sh hooks provided by emulation station . I’m still tweaking the server which runs on the second raspberry pi to display the desired image .

I will post the instructions and the python scripts on my github account .

Once I have the server working, all I need is a library of images !

Arnulf

I like this idea.
I've done this a few day ago to light my buttons depending on the rom/game.
I wrote a python script which will do this for me.

My next plan would be to illustrate this within the load screen. So this thread is now one of my favorite :)

@cyperghost : I like your method to trace the keylayout.txt.