Pixel Theme

Rookervik

All box art should scale to a maximum width and height, never further. It should also keep it's aspect. Be sure to check the original image and check to be sure the aspect ratio of that image is correct.

If you're wanting a certain box art to be bigger or smaller than the others, there is no way to change that at all. The only way I can imagine you could do it would change the theme to display images at 100% size, and then manually edit all of your box arts to display at the size you want. Very tedious.

maurisouto

@Rookervik Thanks! I will try it! I'm not a vector expert but I have worked with them before... this shouldn't be that hard!

Thanks all for your help, I will post the results later so you I can get some feedback :)

dankcushions

found a strange problem - i noticed the various retropie icons (wifi, etc) are nice and pixelly in the pixel repo: https://github.com/RetroPie/es-theme-pixel/tree/master/retropie/icons

eg:

i updated my retropie-setup script, and updated pixel via the theme manager, but they're still the 'cleaner' 3d style (from carbon?). it seems that they've correctly updated because if i look in the theme folder it has all the new images (i've checked them via ftp to check):

pi@retropie:/etc/emulationstation/themes/pixel/retropie/icons $ ls -l
total 56
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 488 Jun 16 22:26 audiosettings.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 553 Jun 16 22:26 bluetooth.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 537 Jun 16 22:26 configedit.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 402 Jun 16 22:26 dispmanx.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 473 Jun 16 22:26 esthemes.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 356 Jun 16 22:26 filemanager.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 742 Jun 16 22:26 raspiconfig.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 385 Jun 16 22:26 retroarch.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 518 Jun 16 22:26 retronetplay.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 594 Jun 16 22:26 rpsetup.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 383 Jun 16 22:26 runcommand.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 390 Jun 16 22:26 showip.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 697 Jun 16 22:26 splashscreen.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 579 Jun 16 22:26 wifi.png

so i guess somehow whatever is pointing es to the various images has not been updated correctly by the script? does anyone know the specific file that points ES to the elements of the current theme?

herb_fargus

@dankcushions they pull from the main RetroPie menu supplied by the script. That way it's universal. If you want ones specific to the pixel theme you have to point to those manually

dankcushions

@herb_fargus oh! hmm, so /RetroPie/retropiemenu/icons
that works!

i wonder if the theme manager should copy icons over (if they exist)? or perhaps the above folder gets overwritten by every retropie-setup update so not much point?

herb_fargus

@dankcushions yeah the pixel theme was really the only one with custom icons (and I guess kinda nbba) but the rest will just utilise the default ones so we figured we'd just code for the majority and then the more custom builds can be done manually.

Might be possible to add additional logic specific to pixel perhaps

Rookervik

Yeah I remember going over things with Herb on the icons. Was a neat idea, but really tedious to get custom icon packs to copy over. I made the icons for Pixel, but I don't think they typically show, since it's not a "theme" aspect, it's actually "box art" for the "games" in the RetroPie menu. Maybe in the future we can make icon packs or something. But still, users can use whatever they want. :D Just edit the gamelist.xmls, or overwrite the icons with what ever you want.

Redstoner

Awesome theme, will definitely use this on my arcade build!
can you also please upload the ESThemeHelper ?

Rookervik

I haven't re-uploaded anything since the site change. You can get the Theme Helper in my dropbox: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/60872572/EmulationStation/ES Theme Helper3.rar

It's windows-only. If more than 2 or 3 people used it, I might use Construct 2 and make an HTML5 version of it that would work in a web browser on any system. But I think there are.... exactly 3 people that use it. LOL.

Necro

So, I'm just adding a new system to my setup (Turbografx CD). It's not supported by default - it just falls under TG16 - but I'd still like to seperate it. While I've gotten the logo made, I'm wondering if you're hand doing each console, finding them somewhere, or using some process to get the nice defined pixel art. I'm guessing tracing and hand done, but just curious before I start digging in on making the TGCD one.

Rookervik

@Necro

To make the pixel art I try to find a photo of the system at a particular angle, then take it into Graphics Gale and do the outline. Then transfer it into Photoshop to color it. But you brought up a great point...

TG16 CD really should have it's own section. It's no different than the Sega CD. So if you'd like, I will make a section for it.

Rookervik

Here's the console.png that I will add to Pixel. You can use it right away :D Make sure to rename it "console.png" since I named it "tgcd_console.png" just to keep it sorted out from other files in my dropbox.

TGCD Console Image: https://db.tt/SSnoScao

Pixel Theme update 8 (Including TGCD theme): https://db.tt/5Eqmr1oF

Necro

You rock, thanks! Mine's close, but I'll use the official!

Redstoner

@Rookervik thx!
im gonna try and make my own theme now.

mattrixk

@Rookervik

I love the look of the Pixel theme, but is there a way to get the game's metadata (game summary and number of players are the main ones I care about) in the space under the main image, instead of the console details?

Rookervik

@mattrixk Yep, code it! It's pretty easy!* I meant to do it months ago but... yeah.

*"easy" depends on your region and your background

Rookervik

There's currently a massive debate on what is the most important meta data to include. One persons' most-important is much different from the next persons'. The only way to make everyone happy is to put all of the meta data in that bottom right area. But that doesn't give us enough room for description.

I could use a different font and make it much smaller and fit everything, but that would look nasty against the pixel art. I really don't think there's a great way to add it and make people happy.

I say if you really want those couple of metadatas, you can use my theme helper and work the code. It's really not too bad once you understand the percents.

If I have 20 or 30 people ask me for the same meta data, and we all agree that's what needs to go there, then by all means, I will add it. It's just so blooming hard to make everyone happy without making someone else post irate ramblings against it. :-(

mattrixk

@Rookervik I've downloaded Pixel v8 and your Helper tool, and I found this url:

https://github.com/Aloshi/EmulationStation/blob/master/THEMES.md

So I have enough to get me started. I don't have any dirext xml experience, but I do have HTML/CSS/PHP/JS experience, so I might be able to muddle my way through. I think I'll also get the files for the Carbon theme and compare it to Pixel. I might have the time for it this weekend (but probably won't get to it for a few weeks knowing my time management skills).

The next step for me after this would be integrating it with the Child Friendly version.

Rookervik

@mattrixk

Knowing that ES goes by a "Percentage of Screen" measurement system should help you. "0.5" is 50% across the screen, or 50% the size of the screen. Depending on which tag you're editing.

So the <image> tag will have a <size> or even <maxSize> ....

would make the image 50% of the screen wide, and 25% of the screen tall. First number is X (width) and second is Y (height)

Let me know if I can help more. I really intended to add the meta data myself, but found there wasn't really enough room.

mattrixk

Thanks @Rookervik

The space issue was one I noticed too. I was actually considering doing some rejiggering to the space everything takes up. I was going to make the border squares about half the size, and make the main (box art/screenshot) image smaller so that there was more room for the metadata.

I was even thinking I might just duplicate the Carbon theme and replace the graphics, colours and fonts, and add the border box graphics to make a theme that has a layout out like Carbon, but looks just like Pixel.