[Theme] Obsidian: Simple and Modern EmulationStation Theme for RetroPie

[lioneil]

Hello,

I have been using RetroPie for several months now and just recently decided to dive into theme development.

Introducing Obsidian, a theme for EmulationStation on RetroPie, crafted to be simple and modern.

Features

The theme supports RetroPie/EmulationStation's 4 gamelist view style in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

• Four Gamelist Views: Choose from Basic, Detailed, Video, or Grid views to display your game collection in style
• Colorful Platform Logos: Taken from Carbon theme SVGs.
• Custom Collections: Highlight your favorite game series and collections with artwork (e.g. streetfighter, finalfight, kof, etc).

Gamelist Views

System View

Basic View

Detailed / Video View

Note: Video View is same layout as Detailed View, but a video will play in the background after a delay (requires scraping video enabled).
Disable OMX Player in the Menu if you're on Raspberry Pie.

Grid View

Installation

Follow the github link for the detailed installation steps. But it's as easy as grabbing the latest release from github: https://github.com/lioneil/obsidian-es-theme-retropie/releases/

Then copy to ~/.emulationstation/themes/ folder and enable in the Main Menu settings.

Scraping Game Assets

I don't think the default scraper will look right out-of-the-box. I used the other scraping tool from the RetroPie settings, skyscraper.

Here's my artwork.xml (place in ~/.skyscraper/artwork.xml):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<artwork>
  <output type="cover"/>
  <output type="screenshot"/>
  <output type="texture"/>
  <output type="wheel"/>
  <output type="marquee" resource="wheel"/>
</artwork>

Launching Images

Replace the default launching image from this:

into system-specific artworks, like this:

Run the script install-launch-images.sh included in the theme, or copy the files to the appropriate folders (detailed below).

Via Script

cd ~/.emulationstation/themes/obsidian # or wherever you installed the theme.
chmod a+x .bin/install-launch-images.sh # to allow it to execute under your user
.bin/install-launch-images.sh # run it

Via Manual Copy
Simply copy files from /path/to/obsidian/assets/launchers/ to /opt/retropie/configs/.

Make sure "Launch menu art" is Disabled. In EmulationStation, go to RetroPie Setup > configuration / tools > runcommand. Set "Launch menu art" to Disabled. Otherwise the game's scraped box art will show up on the runcommand screen. More details about Launch Menu can be found in the RetroPie docs.

Custom Collections

Follow the github link for more details about the automatic custom collection script.

Some custom collection samples:

The list of supported game series will expand as newer versions are released.

Splashscreens

I also created couple of RetroPie splashscreens.

Pause Overlays

Setting up Pause Overlays are a bit involved. See the theme's readme section for details.

Attributions and special thanks

Obsidian is based on and inspired from following themes:

based on art-book by anthonycaccese - https://github.com/anthonycaccese/es-theme-art-book
based on carbon v2.5 - 2020-11-17 by Tomaz
based on carbon v2.4 by Rookervik
based on simple(c) Nils Bonenberger - nilsbyte@nilsbyte.de - http://blog.nilsbyte.de/
For use with EmulationStation (http://www.emulationstation.org/)

• System logos directly copied from carbon theme
• Additional system, platform, and console logos from Dan Patrick
• "Bootleg Games" logo created by me.
• "ROM" text in "ROMHacks" logo generated from <a href="https://www.textstudio.com/">Text Studio</a>
• "Hacks" text in "ROMHacks" logo used Lazer '84 Font - a free font inspired in 80's. Designed by Juan Hodgson.

Conclusion

Thank you for checking out the theme! ❤️

I will be looking to expand the supported custom collection, splashscreens, and pause overlays in future releases.
I might also be looking into per-game pause overlay, where you can cycle through characters movelist when you pause the game (maybe on a separate repository).

Lastly, I just ordered a retro gaming handheld. So will start porting my theme into a 4:3 small screen once it arrives :).

Thanks again, and stay safe.

[Renetrox]

@lioneil what a great job my friend!

[Ristul]

@lioneil Looks really clean, I like the Grid version, might just try this one out.