Daphne images?

Finhead

Curious if there is any way to manually load images in the Daphne theme as you would scrape for other emulators? I know you can't scrape the images but is there a directory for images for the frontend? Hope that makes sense. lol

caver01

To add something here, I am curious if it's possible to manually add images to ANY emulator--Daphne included.

Finhead

Anyone have any information on this? Trying to test out Daphne for lilbud's Material theme but I can't seem to find where the frontend would look for artwork.

InsecureSpike

@Finhead said in Daphne images?:

Curious if there is any way to manually load images in the Daphne theme as you would scrape for other emulators? I know you can't scrape the images but is there a directory for images for the frontend? Hope that makes sense. lol

@caver01 said in Daphne images?:

To add something here, I am curious if it's possible to manually add images to ANY emulator--Daphne included.

@Finhead said in Daphne images?:

Anyone have any information on this? Trying to test out Daphne for lilbud's Material theme but I can't seem to find where the frontend would look for artwork.

are you both talking emulation station?
if yeah it's easy, and i'll explain

caver01

@InsecureSpike said in Daphne images?:

are you both talking emulation station?
if yeah it's easy, and i'll explain

I am. Seems like a solution for Daphne is a solution for any emu.

XML? I know there's an XML mechanism that the scrapers setup, so if this is the right path toward a solution, I'd be happy with a few details about required items in the XML and where it should go. I know another thread references a batch file, but I can build a short XML manually for Daphne, or given the format details, I could use other methods to convert a file list into an XML (maybe even use a google sheet to do it).

Or maybe there's an even easier way, like drop jpegs or PNGs into an images folder. Please, enlighten us!

Thanks!

InsecureSpike

ok, now you can store your pictures/boxart etc, in any folder you like.....
i find it much easier when using my own artwork, is to store it within the corresponding rom folders,
like so

<game>
	<path>./Akai Koudan Zillion (J) (V1.0) [!].sms</path>
	<name>Akai Koudan Zillion</name>
	<image>./Akai Koudan Zillion (J) (V1.0) [!].png</image>
</game>

Finhead

@InsecureSpike said in Daphne images?:

ok, now you can store your pictures/boxart etc, in any folder you like.....
i find it much easier when using my own artwork, is to store it within the corresponding rom folders,
like so
<game>
  <path>./Akai Koudan Zillion (J) (V1.0) [!].sms</path>
  <name>Akai Koudan Zillion</name>
  <image>./Akai Koudan Zillion (J) (V1.0) [!].png</image>
</game>

Yes ES. Any way you could eplain that a bit better? That went right over my head.
What directory are you modifying? Is that needed for every image or can it point to a directory for all images to match rom names?

caver01

This is a text file with a .xml extension, yes?

Do we add one xml file per rom? Or is it one for the whole ROMs folder per emulator? What should it be named? Where does it go?

InsecureSpike

@Finhead said in Daphne images?:

@InsecureSpike said in Daphne images?:
ok, now you can store your pictures/boxart etc, in any folder you like.....
i find it much easier when using my own artwork, is to store it within the corresponding rom folders,
like so
<game>
  <path>./Akai Koudan Zillion (J) (V1.0) [!].sms</path>
  <name>Akai Koudan Zillion</name>
  <image>./Akai Koudan Zillion (J) (V1.0) [!].png</image>
</game>
Yes ES. Any way you could eplain that a bit better? That went right over my head.
What directory are you modifying? Is that needed for every image or can it point to a directory for all images to match rom names?

@caver01 said in Daphne images?:

This is a text file with a .xml extension, yes?

Do we add one xml file per rom? Or is it one for the whole ROMs folder per emulator? What should it be named? Where does it go?

Back-up anything you are going to edit...

ok, hope this makes a little more sense, (if not sorry, i'll try n explain better tomorro before i take any of my medication, as it makes my thinking foggy)

so you are editing the gamelist.xml inside the daphne folder

/opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists

there is only 1 file in there!

so via command line and out of emulation station:

sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/daphne/gamelist.xml

have a look at that one, (i don't use it so i don't no what it'll look like)
also look at some of your other gamelist.xml's and you'll see what i mean.

if you put your custom artworks into your rom folders /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne

and look at the code in my first post

Finhead

@InsecureSpike

Got a chance to look at this and changed one to link the picture that the scraper allready downloaded but didn't use?
On a reboot it changes everything back to as it was before so no link to pictures etc. Not sure if that is something Daphne does on startup or what but I was signed in as Root. As a test I tried one of the other emulators and it worked perfectly but not for Daphne. :/

This is what I changed BTW.
<game>
<path>./ace.daphne</path>
<name>ace</name>
<image>/home/pi/.emulationstation/downloaded_images/daphne/ace.jpg</image> <---------- Added this line

Riverstorm

Not sure if it will help but I do it a bit differently. What I do for scraping is just add a folder named images to your roms folder (i.e. - /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/images/). I add the images I want to this folder (image name doesn't matter).

Then in the main roms folder (i.e. - /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/) I add a file called gamelist.xml. The format is below. You can add as many games as you want to the file. Each game starts and ends with <game> </game>. I think most of the information is optional but you'll probably need <path> <name> and <image> for it to work. The release date is year/month/day format with T000000 (the time is usually all zeros unless you want a specific time on a release). The rest of the fields are self-explanatory. The <description> can be as long as you want as it will window and scroll it if it's a long description which the scraper has good descriptions.

The scraper did most of this if it's run from the game folder itself (I had to add a few images and information for some missing games). It also usually names the image exactly as the rom name but with a -image appended to the end of the name (i.e. - ace.txt becomes ace-image.jpg in the images folder). I just backup the /images/ folder and gamelist.xml with my ROMS so they are in one location and easy to restore.

I tried the info below for a quick test but it still doesn't work. I think the issue or key with Daphne is the path. Usually it's the game file/ROM name. As you can see in this case below I added the frame file but I don't know what Daphne would want here to work properly. The <name> and <image> tags can be named anything you want but it's the path that's the key I think.

Also I am guessing sselph's scraper doesn't have Daphne support yet. Hence trying to add images manually. For some reason ES is crashing until I remove gamelist.xml. I am guessing it possibly doesn't know what to do with the file as it might not be fully supported/implemented? It's like it tries to read and crashes ES to the command prompt. Maybe the devs could fill in the blank here.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gameList>
	<game>
		<path>./ace.daphne/ace.txt</path>
		<name>Space Ace</name>
		<desc>Space Ace. The action adventure.</desc>
		<image>./images/ace-image.jpg</image>
		<rating>0.7</rating>
		<releasedate>19881206T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Cinematronics</developer>
		<publisher>Cinematronics</publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
	</game>
</gameList>

Finhead

@Riverstorm

Thanks, gave that a try and it broke ES. lol As soon as I add the gamelist.xml file into the daphne directory it refuses to boot ES and kicks to the command promt.
I'll jut continue to use Attract Mode, I was only doing this for testing the new Material Theme no intent to use ES any longer.

Riverstorm

@Finhead said in Daphne images?:

@Riverstorm

Thanks, gave that a try and it broke ES. lol As soon as I add the gamelist.xml file into the daphne directory it refuses to boot ES and kicks to the command promt.
I'll jut continue to use Attract Mode, I was only doing this for testing the new Material Theme no intent to use ES any longer.

Yeah I added it to my post, after I posted it, that it crashes ES that is. :( I think it's just not fully implemented yet. Well it was worth a try.

InsecureSpike

@Finhead said in Daphne images?:

@Riverstorm

Thanks, gave that a try and it broke ES. lol As soon as I add the gamelist.xml file into the daphne directory it refuses to boot ES and kicks to the command promt.
I'll jut continue to use Attract Mode, I was only doing this for testing the new Material Theme no intent to use ES any longer.

are you on the irc channel?

Finhead

@InsecureSpike

Sorry no I actually don't know what that is. lol

caver01

I figured it out.

a proper Daphne gamelist.xml can be found under configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/daphne

instead of a rom.zip file for path, it's looking for the rom.daphne folder:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gameList>
	<game>
		<path>./ace.daphne</path>
		<name>ace</name>
		<image>./images/ace.jpg</image>
		<playcount>2</playcount>
		<lastplayed>20160329T062931</lastplayed>
	</game>
</gamelist>

I created an images folder there next to the other rom.daphne folders and dropped ace.jpg into it, then modified my gamelist.xml and it works just fine.

Thanks for the details! This will make it easy to correct the names of these titles too.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Daphne images?:

I figured it out.

Nice Caver! I think the snapshots are the icing on the cake! I really appreciate it. I will be implementing that today. Is there a recommended image size or range sort to speak or it doesn't really matter?

caver01

@Riverstorm A couple ideas here: From what I see of the scrapers, some of them use poster images for arcade games, and that's just not familiar imagery to me. I prefer actual snaps of the gameplay. As such, most of my snaps are actual screenshots from the games themselves and are sized according to the games' native resolution.

If I recall, back when I had my old cabinet running Windows XP, someone wrote a script that would go through your ROMs and launch the games, deposit coins, start player 1 and "play" them for 10 seconds or so. Then, it would trigger the MAME screen snapshot, close, and start the next game. I am pretty sure my 6000+ snaps were self-generated that way, so they are all running different resolution.

For Daphne, I probably have the snaps from the original emulator front-end. I think these are 640x480.

Depending on the theme, you probably get different results. I am using Carbon since that seems to have the best combination of Emulators built out. Some have Daphne, but not Arcade, others have Arcade but not Daphne. Anyway, Carbon displays my snaps nicely.

I have also been tracking the ROMs I add via a google sheet. I started with a copy of the sheet on the retropie wiki. I think it was for a .78 romset. Anyway, I built out the XML using formulas on another tab for the 155 or so titles I have in Arcade. I don't have all info (I am missing publisher, dates, descriptions, etc) but I can add more later. My process is pretty clunky.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Daphne images?:

@Riverstorm A couple ideas here: From what I see of the scrapers, some of them use poster images for arcade games, and that's just not familiar imagery to me. I prefer actual snaps of the gameplay. As such, most of my snaps are actual screenshots from the games themselves and are sized according to the games' native resolution.

I agree completely and prefer an in-game screenshot. I used F12 for a quick screenshot and pasted to the correct folder and renamed it. It works! :)

If I recall, back when I had my old cabinet running Windows XP, someone wrote a script that would go through your ROMs and launch the games, deposit coins, start player 1 and "play" them for 10 seconds or so. Then, it would trigger the MAME screen snapshot, close, and start the next game. I am pretty sure my 6000+ snaps were self-generated that way, so they are all running different resolution.

That is impressive. That would be a nice feature. People's ingenuity and creativity never cease to impress me.

Riverstorm

It does work nicely, here's a screenshot slightly washed out due to light coming in the window:

RetroPie Daphne

Here's some "template" code for gamelist.xml if it helps anyone. It needs descriptions a few other things on publishers or developers I couldn't find.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gameList>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./ace.daphne</path>
		<name>Space Ace </name>
		<desc>Space Ace.</desc>
		<image>./images/ace-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19840429T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Advanced Microcomputer Systems</developer>
		<publisher>Cinematronics</publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./cobraab.daphne</path>
		<name>Cobra Command </name>
		<desc>Cobra Command.</desc>
		<image>./images/cobraab-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19840101T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Data East</developer>
		<publisher>Data East</publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./dle21.daphne</path>
		<name>Dragon's Lair Enhanced 2.1 </name>
		<desc>Dragon's Lair Enhanced 2.1.</desc>
		<image>./images/dle21-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19830623T000000</releasedate>
		<developer></developer>
		<publisher>Cinematronics</publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./lair.daphne</path>
		<name>Dragon's Lair </name>
		<desc>Dragon's Lair.</desc>
		<image>./images/lair-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19830623T000000</releasedate>
		<developer></developer>
		<publisher>Cinematronics</publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./lair2.daphne</path>
		<name>Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp </name>
		<desc>Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp.</desc>
		<image>./images/lair2-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19910616T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>LeLand Corporation</developer>
		<publisher>Digital Leisure</publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./mach3.daphne</path>
		<name>M.A.C.H. 3 </name>
		<desc>M.A.C.H. 3.</desc>
		<image>./images/mach3-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19910616T000000</releasedate>
		<developer></developer>
		<publisher></publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
	<game id="" source="theGamesDB.net">
		<path>./sdq.daphne</path>
		<name>Super Don Quix-ote </name>
		<desc>Super Don Quix-ote.</desc>
		<image>./images/sdq-image.bmp</image>
		<rating></rating>
		<releasedate>19840101T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Universal</developer>
		<publisher></publisher>
		<genre>Action</genre>
		<players>1</players>
	</game>
</gameList>