Cardboard Mini NES + Nes mini and Famicom mini themes

ruckage

Thanks for the replies everyone :).

@ruckage

Wow that is amazing!!

Did you use a 3d printer?

No 3d printer was used. I have cutting machine so I did use that to cut out the 'skin' that covers it and the initial frame as it's quicker (if you have the tools you may as well use them) but the grey board that makes up the bulk of the case is really thick (about 2.4mm) so I had to cut that by hand with a ruler and craft knife which was hard work.

@backstander said in Cardboard Mini NES:

@ruckage Great work on this! I just noticed that you have a working power button!

I agree that is a cool theme!

Did you coat the paper with something?

Yes , the power button works. It's a momentary switch that shuts down the pi via script and then restarts the pi if pressed again. I found out how do it from a video by ETA PRIME on youtube along with the led - you can find it here:

All parts of the case have a 'skin' wrapped around them which was made from paper with the colours/designs laser printed onto them - these were covered with a textured matt self adhesive laminate film to protect them and give it a bit of plasticky look.

I have a few photos of the wip so I'll post those later.

@lilbud said in Cardboard Mini NES:

@ruckage will you release the theme?

I'm more than happy to share it but just bear in mind it only has NES and Gameboy supported and doesn't have a dedicated 'basic' view.

Dochartaigh

Very nice! Do you work for a package design company? I'm a Graphic Designer and whenever I do a layout for a package the prototype comes to us exactly like these! I wonder if my company would ever find out if I switched in a Nintendo version to get a prototype sent to me....lol

klachow

Stuart2773

@ruckage

where can i download that theme? that is amazing work :)

ruckage

@Dochartaigh said in Cardboard Mini NES:

Very nice! Do you work for a package design company? I'm a Graphic Designer and whenever I do a layout for a package the prototype comes to us exactly like these! I wonder if my company would ever find out if I switched in a Nintendo version to get a prototype sent to me....lol

Thanks :). No, I don't work for a package design company, I just like to make things. I'm sure your employer would never suspect if you were to start having prototypes of retro systems made :D

@Stuart2773 said in Cardboard Mini NES:

@ruckage

where can i download that theme? that is amazing work :)

I've just tidied a few things up with the theme and will upload it somewhere so anyone who would like it can get it. I'll post again once it's ready.

Kischa

@ruckage King!! 😉

Capeman

This is awesome! Mad paper skills!

How exactly is your power button connected and how does it function? It looks like it's connected to the gpio and the power looks like it goes right from the barrel jack to the micro usb port... I don't quite get it, do you have some software running to control power on/off or do you have it wired to return to menu?

Also... where did you get that rectangular power button, i like the shape.

ruckage

@Capeman said in Cardboard Mini NES:

This is awesome! Mad paper skills!

How exactly is your power button connected and how does it function? It looks like it's connected to the gpio and the power looks like it goes right from the barrel jack to the micro usb port... I don't quite get it, do you have some software running to control power on/off or do you have it wired to return to menu?

Also... where did you get that rectangular power button, i like the shape.

I posted a youtube video a few posts up which shows you how to setup the power button step by step (the video was made by ETA PRIME). Basically a script is running in the background which checks the gpio pin that the button is connected to and when pressed it shuts down the system. The pin used is the default pin that can be used to restart the pi so when you press the button again the system comes back on.

To connect the barrel connector on the back to the raspberry pi I cut off the end of the lead of an official raspberry pi power supply this then plugs into the pi and the cut end is soldered to the barrel socket. On the lead of the now cut power supply I soldered a corresponding barrel plug - just be careful not to reverse the wires, they are marked but it's an easy mistake to make, in my case I soldered the positive wire to the centre pin on both the barrel and socket but definitely double check before plugging it into the pi (not sure what would happen if you accidentally reversed the polarity but I can't imagine it would be good).

The button came from CPC, you can find it Here.
It also comes in red. Make sure though if you plan to follow the tutorial that you get the Momentary version of the switch.

PokeEngineer

@ruckage

One day I was going to try to make a NES Classic Edition theme, but looks like you beat me to it!

ruckage

I've uploaded the theme to mega. Here is the link: Nesmini ES theme

I still may work on it some more yet as it could maybe be streamlined a bit to make it easier to add more systems. I'd also like to add some sound effects so that will be next.
Currently it supports NES, Gameboy, and the Retropie setup menu.

Stuart2773

@ruckage

Thank you, very much appreciated :)

lilbud

@ruckage Did you make the logos yourself?

ruckage

@lilbud said in Cardboard Mini NES:

@ruckage Did you make the logos yourself?

I copied the NES logo from pictures of the NES classic menu. I rearranged it for the system select screen and converted it into an SVG. The Gameboy logo was copied from the real gameboy color loading screen and converted to SVG. I did though have to redraw the gameboy logo a bit for when it appears in the top bar as it was too tall.

mattrixk

@ruckage This looks awesome. I've downloaded the theme so I can have a play with it.

Off-topic, but are you the same Ruckage from the old blog that made the NewGen Theme? If so, thank you. It was a big inspiration for when I made my MetaPixel Theme (along with Pixel obviously).

Kischa

@ruckage Many thanks for sharing this super theme!! 😜

@mattrixk If you or someone else skillfull thememaker will do some more systems to it plz share to the noobs 😊

Im really consider to learn skinning so I also can contribute...

momaw27

Wow!

I just LOVE this theme! It is everything I've been looking for...

A few things I've noticed:

for some reason the apostrophes are not showing up in the description area. Instead they are box outlines.
I'd love to see other systems in this style.

The way I'm planning on using this theme is for ultra retro systems on a pi zero. Systems I'd love to see:
Atari 2600
Atari 7800
GBC
GBA
SNES (weird sized box... not sure how it would look...)
Genesis
SMS
Gamegear

Again... AWESOME look and feel! Easily in my top 5 favorite themes!

Kischa

@momaw27 ad Neogeo to that list ;)

@ruckage what is the native resolution?

ruckage

@mattrixk said in Cardboard Mini NES:

@ruckage
Off-topic, but are you the same Ruckage from the old blog that made the NewGen Theme?

Yes, I'm the same Ruckage. I really should go back to NewGen and get it released as I'd put a lot of work into it, I was ill for most of last year so I just didn't feel like doing it.

@momaw27 said in Cardboard Mini NES:

Wow!

I just LOVE this theme! It is everything I've been looking for...

A few things I've noticed:

for some reason the apostrophes are not showing up in the description area. Instead they are box outlines.

I'd love to see other systems in this style.
.......

Yeah, I know about the apostrophe thing. It's because there are 2 different apostrophe symbols that can be used and only one of them is contained in the font (I think the non working apostrophe is a unicode character but the font only supports standard ascii). The standard apostrophe will display (the one that can be typed from your keyboard - it's near the enter key on the same key as the @ symbol on a UK keyboard). A simple fix is to open the gamelist in notepad++ and do a replace all of all the bad apostrophes with the working version. I did see if I could add in the extra apostrophe to the font but I wasn't sure how to do it - I may look again.

Regarding extra systems, since there seems to be a bit interest in this theme I'm happy to work on some more systems, I'll maybe get a few more done today.
You're right about snes though as the horizontal boxes may look odd (they will either have to be quite small or stretched) I think though you can get a set of custom snes box art which has been redesigned vertically so that may work better. The other alternative is to rotate the picture 90 degrees so they are on their side (I've done that for the Japanese nes games as those boxes are landscape also).

@Kischa said in Cardboard Mini NES:

@momaw27 ad Neogeo to that list ;)

@ruckage what is the native resolution?

The Native resolution is 1280x720 but I'm using it at 1080p and it looks fine (it scales well due to the large pixels).

Stuart2773

Here's some run-command splash screens i made based on the nes/famicom disk system boot,

full Tutorial here :-
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4611/runcommand-system-splashscreens

ruckage

@Stuart2773 said in Cardboard Mini NES:

Here's some run-command splash screens i made based on the nes/famicom disk system boot,

Nice. I hope you don't mind but I made some changes to to them otherwise when scaled up on the pi they will look blurry as I believe bi-linear filtering is applied.

What I did first of all is alter your vertical resolution from 272 down to 270 (this is a multiple of 1080 so will scale up cleanly). Then scaled up the entire image to 1920x1080 using nearest neighbour scaling to get a clean pixel look.