MetaPixel - A New Emulationstation Theme

mattrixk

Hey @derek2k09. Yes, it is on my list of things to do. I need to update all my themes to support Video Preview, but I have other stuff on my "to-do" list before it. I just finished making my ES Toolkit, so that's a big thing out of the way, but I'm also elbows deep in a new theme. Making dozens of custom console graphics is time-consuming, I don't know how Rook does it so efficiently.

I think I'm going to set a little time aside soon to update my existing themes, because it might be a while if I wait until after I've finished my new one.

herb_fargus

@mattrixk once you've incorporated video view we can update this chart:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Themes/#theme-gallery

mattrixk

@herb_fargus That page is a work of art. Also, I thought @Rookervik had updated Pixel to use video previews (although I could be wrong).

herb_fargus

@mattrixk the theme gallery is many thanks to @wetriner all I did was generate a markdown table of the theme gallery he set up.

our good friend rookervik being the genius artist that he is has been resistant to any changes that arent stable and worthy enough for his art ;) so im not sure where he is at with his themes. I know he's been pretty busy with his new job though

derek2k09

woah, thanks for your answer, hope to see it soon, i really love that theme :)

Rookervik

@herb_fargus You're very right with my time. I have no time for anything any more.

I haven't updated to the newest ES on my Pi and any theme with video tags crashes the theme. So until 90% of the RetroPie community has updated to the newest ES, I don't want to add video support to any of my themes and make them incompatible with older ES versions.

I could make multiple versions, but I just don't feel like maintaining many versions of the same thing. And I'm really totally uninterested in video previews. That's a massive amount of space to take up on your SD card. Fine if you have 20 games per system. Not for collectors like me.

I also don't like how they're implemented, I don't like how you can't control the volume of the playback, I don't like how the layering works. My current Pixel 2 is totally impossible to add video previews to because it uses 2 backgrounds. 2 Backgrounds aren't supported. <shrugs> It's just a hack job right now.

I'd rather wait for more issues to be worked out before I go and update my themes and break them on a lot of peoples' systems.

herb_fargus

@Rookervik well there is a way to implement them without breaking older builds but I'll hash through a few other themes first before I attempt yours ;)

mattrixk

@herb_fargus Are you referring to using <feature supported="video">? If so, wouldn't that also break themes on an earlier version of Es/RetroPie that doesn't recognise the <feature> element the same way they don't recognise the <video> element?

herb_fargus

@mattrixk not from my tests yesterday with a fresh 4.1 image, seems to work swimmingly for me.

mattrixk

@herb_fargus: Sweet. My Pi at home is using the Child-Friendly version and lives in the lounge room mainly as a Kodi box. As such it hasn't been updated since I set it about months ago. I'll have to test <featured> out it over the weekend.

jdrassa

@mattrixk the <feature> element was specifically implemented the way it is to ensure compatibility with earlier versions of ES. It is essentially invisible to older versions. (credit @fieldofcows for the great idea)

@Rookervik I don't think its fair to call it a hack job just because you don't like some aspects of how it was implemented. Regardless, I am working on an update that should solve your problem with multiple backgrounds.

How would you want volume control to work? Would you just want the ability to mute the sound or variable control?

mattrixk

@jdrassa said in MetaPixel - A New Emulationstation Theme:

How would you want volume control to work? Would you just want the ability to mute the sound or variable control?

Could it work as a scale? Like <volume>0</volume> would be no sound, <volume>5</volume> would be the full volume of the file?

Speaking of sound, would it be possible to add other sounds to ES? I think currently there is only the gamelist cycle sound, but there could be a sound for switching Systems, or one for when you start a game. I'm sure other people could think of more.

Maybe even as a "view" like this:

<view name="sounds">
  <sound name="cycle_system">
    <path>./sounds/system.wav</path>
    <volume>3</volume>
  </sound>
  <sound name="cycle_gamelist_down">
    <path>./sounds/gamelist_down.wav</path>
    <volume>2</volume>
  </sound>
  <sound name="cycle_gamelist_up">
    <path>./sounds/gamelist_up.wav</path>
    <volume>2</volume>
  </sound>
  <sound name="open_game">
    <path>./sounds/game.wav</path>
    <volume>5</volume>
  </sound>
</view>

I don't really know why I'm mentioning this, as I don't use sounds, and it would just be making more work for myself to implement them, but I just all of a sudden got really curious if it could be done.

robertybob

@Rookervik said in MetaPixel - A New Emulationstation Theme:

That's a massive amount of space to take up on your SD card. Fine if you have 20 games per system. Not for collectors like me.

There are 128gb cards so for the vast majority of users I bet it's not an issue - hell, that famous Attract / Retropie image that went around the Internet was 128gb and had all artwork and videos for the tens of thousands of roms it claimed to contain.

I don't like how you can't control the volume of the playback

Surely they're the same volume is the games themselves??

ruckage

@jdrassa said in MetaPixel - A New Emulationstation Theme:

@mattrixk the <feature> element was specifically implemented the way it is to ensure compatibility with earlier versions of ES. It is essentially invisible to older versions. (credit @fieldofcows for the great idea)

Hi, is there any info I can read regarding the use of the <feature> element? I'm currently working on adding video support to my themes but want to ensure they are still compatible with older versions of ES.

Nismo

@ruckage

<feature supported="video">
  [configuration if ES supports video]
</feature>

<feature supported="grid">
  [configuration if ES supports grid]
</feature>

Example:

<feature supported="video">

    <view name="video">	
	  <image name="md_marquee">
			<origin>0 0</origin>
			<pos>0.800 0.01</pos>
			<maxSize>0.19 0.10</maxSize>
	  </image>
	  
	  <video name="md_video">
			<pos>0.254 0.202</pos>
			<origin>0 0</origin>
			<size>0.185 0.327</size>
			<delay>0.0</delay>
			<default>./assets/static.mp4</default>
			<showSnapshotNoVideo>false</showSnapshotNoVideo>
			<showSnapshotDelay>false</showSnapshotDelay>
	  </video>
	  
	</view>
   </feature>

ruckage

@Nismo
Thanks.

So if I use this then older versions should just ignore anything within the <feature> tags?
I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

Nismo

@ruckage That's the idea, but I didn't test it yet.

Nismo

@mattrixk @fieldofcows already implemented cycle system sounds lot of months ago, it's working in my windows build:

Example for sound when switching between systems:

<view name="system">
	
     <sound name="systemSound">
         <path>./art/systemsound.wav</path>
     </sound>
</view>

It was a request I did to @fieldofcows lot of months ago, before video view was implemented in the main branch, it's working for me in windows, you can see it working in one of my videos here:

I don't know if it's working in the main branch (unfortunately I don't have a raspberry pi), because he removed a lot of features to add only video support to the main branch, but you can test it because it doesn't break the theme . My theme have that code and the sounds works in windows and nobody told me the theme it's broken in their rpi.

The code it's done and working very good, only that he removed some features for better testing if video implementation on main branch could cause bugs, don't need to worry about other commits.

jdrassa

@mattrixk it could work as a scale, but I am not sure that it should be something set in the theme. It should probably be a system setting. That way users can adjust to their personal preference.

Its certainly possible to add additional sounds, but I am unsure of the details.

ruckage

@jdrassa said in MetaPixel - A New Emulationstation Theme:

@mattrixk it could work as a scale, but I am not sure that it should be something set in the theme. It should probably be a system setting. That way users can adjust to their personal preference.

Its certainly possible to add additional sounds, but I am unsure of the details.

I agree. The end user should have control over video volume, not the theme designer, so a video volume setting in the options menu would be ideal.