New Comic Book Theme!

Zenjiro

I really love this theme. So much so I have taught myself how to use GIMP, created my own fork on github, and I am getting close to start pumping out newer themes and collections.

Here is a current work-in-progress Banjo-Kazooie Theme:
I still have some touch ups I need to do.
Sorry for the low quality. Had to fit it into site restrictions.

Zenjiro

I've created a fork for this theme which can be found here: https://github.com/Zenjir0/es-theme-ComicBook
I am calling this a v3.0 of this theme. Please read the changelog in the readme for all changes that were made.

Added Holy2tack's themes as well as my own touch-ups to holy's system/collection images.

I've added my own original theme, Banjo Kazooie and a Template Theme. More to come in the future.

I have not tested this theme on a Raspberry Pi yet. Most of my tests have been on either jrassa's or fabricecaruso's fork of EmulationStation. If you encounter an issue, please feel free to leave a ticket on the github. I will do my best to fix it.

Same goes for requests. I already have a huge list of collections and systems I want to add.

Hope you all enjoy.

Clyde

Since FB Alpha was replaced by FB Neo in Retropie awhile ago, could/did anyone make an FB Neo logo?

Clyde

@Zenjiro Thanks for taking over the baton. Any chance for a 4:3 version?

Zenjiro

@Clyde - "Any chance for a 4:3 version?"

As of right now, no. My primary focus is on 16:9.

I'll update the FB Neo system image.

Zenjiro

@Clyde Here is the FB Neo system image:

Clyde

@Zenjiro Thank you very much!

Zenjiro

One of my all time favorite game series is the Mega Man series. And one of my fondest arcs of said series is the Mega Man Zero series on the GBA. So here is my current WIP collection comic and system logo:

Triquick

@Zenjiro said in New Comic Book Theme!:

I've created a fork for this theme which can be found here: https://github.com/Zenjir0/es-theme-ComicBook
I am calling this a v3.0 of this theme. Please read the changelog in the readme for all changes that were made.

Added Holy2tack's themes as well as my own touch-ups to holy's system/collection images.

I've added my own original theme, Banjo Kazooie and a Template Theme. More to come in the future.

I have not tested this theme on a Raspberry Pi yet. Most of my tests have been on either jrassa's or fabricecaruso's fork of EmulationStation. If you encounter an issue, please feel free to leave a ticket on the github. I will do my best to fix it.

Same goes for requests. I already have a huge list of collections and systems I want to add.

Hope you all enjoy.

All your additions and changes look great, what's the best way to install your theme? I've only ever installed a theme through the ES Theme Menu.

Zenjiro

@Triquick

Just download the repo by clicking the "Clone or download" button

Extract it and place the extracted folder in the themes folder, on your device.

If any thing doesn't load or things seem sluggish it might be because the resolution of the images I uploaded are to high. I might have to create another fork, one for older raspberry pis and another for newer devices. I'd imagine the newer raspberry pi 4 would have no issue.

I test everything using the Windows version of EmulationStation from jrassa or fabricecaruso. Their links in the readme.

Zenjiro

Got another one, this time it is for a system and not a collection, Original Xbox:

Clyde

@Triquick Another way to install the theme are these commands in the Retropie command console you'll land in by pressing F4 in Emulation Station (using the official Retropie image, not other OS). Everything behind a # is just a comment.

sudo apt install git                 # install git if not already installed
mkdir -p ~/.emulationstation/themes  # create the themes directory if not already present
cd ~/.emulationstation/themes        # change to the themes directory
git clone https://github.com/Zenjir0/es-theme-ComicBook    # clone the github repository there

Exit the console by entering exit. The theme should be listed in Emulation Stations UI Menu.

Zenjiro

I'm slowly churning out more of these themes:

Zenjiro

Greetings fellow retro-gaming enthusiasts,

I wanted to give a quick overview, of my fork of this theme, and the plans I have for the future.
As of right now I am only focusing on expanding the 16:9 version of the ComicBook theme by TMNTturlguy. My scope includes adding new systems, collections, and sound effects for launching titles.

Please note, I still consider myself a novice and I am learning as I go. So if something does not work or does not display properly please open a ticket on my github page: https://github.com/Zenjir0/es-theme-ComicBook. I will get to it as soon as I can.

Looking towards to future, I want to create the best looking version of this theme focusing on the 1080p resolution and ensuring that no aliasing occurs for the system logos. This proves to be a challenge as I have to decide to either aim for Retropie compatibility or modern PC compatibility. Currently I think I can achieve both.

Here is an example.

The NES system image is 576x219 with only 50KB, and looks like the following on the Retropie as well as Jrassa’s, and fabricecaruso’s Windows version of EmulationStation:

If I upscale the image using “Deep Convolutional Neural Networks” I can get the image to go from 576x219 (50KB) to a staggering 2400x900 (2.35MB) which is 47x larger in storage space! Since Retropie has some limits on what it can render I need to get the width down to length down to 2000p and I also need to adjust the height to keep the ratio the same, otherwise it will look squished. After scaling the image is now 2000x715 (1.38MB). Lastly use some more computer black magic to optimize the image file to get a final result of 2000x715 (501KB) only 10 times larger than the original, but with the benefit of still working on the Retropie, and looking like this on fabricecaruso’s Windows version of EmulationStation:

Zenjiro

Also here are some more themes I have been working on:

comic (7).png

comic (6).png

comic (5).png

comic (3).png

comic (2).png

Zenjiro

I finally got my Raspberry Pi 2 up and running and tested out the newer collections/systems that I have added. While they worked fine on the Windows version of EmulationStation, it seemed to struggle on the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.

Therefore I have went through and converted all the newer comic backgrounds from 1080p backgrounds to 720p backgrounds. As well as optimized several PNG image files. Optimizing the PNGs has drastically dropped the size of the repo from around, 243MB to 143MB.

I still have other ideas for optimizing the sound files to get the size even smaller.

I am still tinkering with the upscaled version and I hope to get it to play nice with the RP2 and 3. Worse comes to worse I might just create a branch or second repo for those who want the best looking version of this theme.

Zenjiro

Just a small update,

I plan on releasing my next version (v3.2) when the next version of retropie is released. Right now I am hoping that better sound file support is added, as raw WAV files use up more space than say OGG or MP3 files.

With the release of version 3.2, a total of over 45 new themes would have been added since the v2.6 release.

Here is a few more samples of what will be in v3.2:

MrJordaaany

Amazing work man. Are these all "collection" themes to use with RetroPie?

Zenjiro

@MrJordaaany They (the themes themselves) can work on RetroPie (Raspberry Pi).

Some of the games, series, and consoles may only be usable on Windows or Linux Desktop.

A good example is the PS3 only has a good emulator (RPCS3) that will work on a desktop. The Pi is not powerful enough.
I use fabricecaruso or jrassa's EmulationStation for Windows.

Pi2go

@TMNTturtlguy said in New Comic Book Theme!:
...

I am trying to figure out how to do this (although rather than a video I would prefer a screenshot). When using Skyscraper it seems like the wrong items go in the wrong spaces, if they appear at all. Could someone please explain how or where md_image, md_marquee, and md_video are defined. Is it in the theme, or somewhere else? I know about the /home/pi/.skyscraper/artwork.xml file but I am not sure it is correct, and in any case it uses tags like "cover", "screenshot", "wheel", and "marquee" but that is in the scraper configuration, not RetroPie's, and obviously those aren't the same as md_image, md_marquee, and md_video.

Here is some info about my system:

Pi is 3B+
Power Supply is CanaKit 2.5 amp
RetroPie Version is 4.5.1
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices Connected: USB keyboard
Controller Used: Amazon Fire Bluetooth Controller

The artwork.xml file I am currently using with Skyscraper is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- This example simply exports the raw unedited versions of each artwork type coming directly from the scraping source -->
<artwork>
  <output type="cover"/>
  <output type="screenshot"/>
  <output type="wheel"/>
  <output type="marquee"/>
</artwork>

I understand that skyscraper doesn't always scrape all the items but even when it does the display is wrong.