Pixel Theme
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@Nismo I might just update the logos, and ship it with the logos and video support and call it good enough. I like these new screens, but I'd probably need to release it as Pixel2 instead of changing the current pixel to this.
Video support is already in the pixel update I am working on. Took me a while to find the forum post saying you need to set background as a default object and not an extra. How video was implemented is kind of crazy, and not really documented very well, yet.
And I haven't updated ES on my pi yet. I'm really scared to update since I have my system set up the way I want. Any time I update something, something else breaks. So I'd like to get another SD card and put the newer ES on that and test out the theme there.
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@Rookervik You can test the theme on windows. That's what i do. I don't have retropie.
Also i think you can create an "image" of your retropie install to restore it if you need.
And yes, i think it my be named pixel 2, and keep the old one and the new one.
About the theming I think it's easy enough and well documented here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5823/looking-for-testers-for-es-video-preview-on-raspberry-pi/2?page=1
And yes any extra images will be on top of video. Why you need background to be extra?
Also if you need some help you can always ask to me and don't loose a lot of time looking for posts. why you didn't ask to me? I'm glad if I can help...
Happy new year.
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@Rookervik said in Pixel Theme:
How video was implemented is kind of crazy
fieldofcows here who implemented the video theming. Haha - yes it seems a bit crazy doesn't it?!
However, it is how it is for a reason - I wanted to put the video and marquee tags into the 'detail' view but the way ES works is that they would then be mandatory in the detail view, i.e. if you don't want to support video in your theme but your gamelist includes video tags then the video would start playing even if your theme didn't support video (you would get the sound even if the video is off the screen). Hence the new 'video' view and all the extra work theme makers have to endure.
Same goes for the background object. The render order is fixed in ES and not themeable so in order to support translucent images on top of video you need to carefully configure the background and extra images.
I say this here in this thread because as an expert theme designer I welcome your suggestions on how to improve the theming of video (or anything else for that matter) because I have my own ideas but would love to hear other suggestions. If you can think of any improvements then let me know - maybe in the original video preview thread.
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@fieldofcows Ah, I didn't realize some of those points. The fact that background needed to have 'extra="true"' removed boggled me. Because themes will not load if you do not set the background to extra in the basic and detailed views.
It wasn't too hard to get things working after I found that bit of information.
@Nismo If you check the screenshots, you will see that I do use the Windows version of ES to create and test my themes. But that isn't always the best way to make sure a theme works. Windows doesn't care about the letter case, while Linux cares very much. So I could point to files that wouldn't work on Linux, but they do work on Windows. Also, this is not necessarily the same version of ES that the RetroPie fork is. So I need to make sure to test it on the pi before I release it.
As far as screwing up my retropie build... my card is a 64 gig card. And it's the only 64 gig card I have. But you are right, I should back it up. I just hate to use 64 gigs to back it up. :D
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@Rookervik Ah hell. I have to take my Super Famicom apart to get to the SD card. I don't want toooooo -_-
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Made this a long while back.
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@Rookervik I like all your work... XD.
I think you have a little obsession with squares and blocks... just joking.
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@Nismo Well, you know, Pixel theme and all. :P
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@Rookervik I forgot to say that marquees in your theme is an option, just because if you don't want to use marquees simply don't put marquees images inside marquees folder... so you just can let the code for marquees and people decide if use it or not.
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@Rookervik Pixel2 would be great, as I love it and I can revert to Pixel if I choose! :)
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Ok, the latest RetroPie SD image does not have the updated EmulationStation included. You have to update the setupscript and then update EmulationStation by source. So I won't be changing any themes until ES with video is a default on the sd image. Otherwise it's going to white-screen on everyone and cause a lot of panic. LOL
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@Rookervik hey mate happy new year, only one question, are you plannig to add video to carbon theme?
I don't want to waste my time if somebody it's doing the same...
Regards.
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@Nismo I think someone has already sent in a pull request to add video to Carbon. But it cannot be added until video is default in ES in the RetroPie download. If video is added now and everyone updates the theme, it will not load in ES. This should be posted in the Carbon thread, anyhow. :P
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Oh yeah, PS, Happy New year... in case you didn't notice, above, Pixel has had a major update. Check the first post for more information. :D
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The new logos look fantastic @Rookervik and I can't wait to see what you do with the console images. Thank you for letting MetaPixel continue to use the old images. If I am missing any attribution please let me know and I'll fix it up. I tried to make sure it was all done correctly, but MetaPixel was my first theme, so I was playing it by ear.
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Thank you @Rookervik for the updates! They look great! I didn't realize the graphics needed to be updated until you updated them!
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@mattrixk You've done great and let everyone know. I really appreciate it. <3
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@Rookervik was Pixel with Metadata updated with video as well?
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@ebtalk I haven't updated any themes with Video previews. Video previews will break the theme with the current state of emulationstation.
(Users currently have to update emulationstation by source to get the video feature)
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@fieldofcows said in Pixel Theme:
However, it is how it is for a reason - I wanted to put the video and marquee tags into the 'detail' view but the way ES works is that they would then be mandatory in the detail view, i.e. if you don't want to support video in your theme but your gamelist includes video tags then the video would start playing even if your theme didn't support video (you would get the sound even if the video is off the screen). Hence the new 'video' view and all the extra work theme makers have to endure.
Same goes for the background object. The render order is fixed in ES and not themeable so in order to support translucent images on top of video you need to carefully configure the background and extra images.
[sorry for the derail]
I would like to work together with you on changing that. We should be able to make the population of detailed GamelistView to depend purely what ES finds in the ThemeData::ThemeView (that is: all the nodes that are of a known type in the selected theme).
That way, themers just include whatever they want to have in their theme, without having to resort to tricks like placing it off-screen (and having it show up somewhere else!).
It also means that the VideoGameListView can be merged back into the DetailedGamelistView.As an approach, I think it needs only a dynamic building of a list of recognized metadata tags, somewhere in the constructor of DetailedGamelistView, or onThemeChanged() or something similar. The only tags we need to recognize are those that need to be filled by the current metadata-data.
In addition, we can finally get rid of the hard-coded metadata-label texts, let them be themed entries that are simply text elements with a certain value.
Also, I still have some ideas floating around about combining multiple types of metadata into a single string response by ES.So, what do you think?
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