New Comic Book Theme!

Zenjiro

@sergio_mikkos If you are going to use my fork I recommend starting fresh or renaming it to something like comicbook_revived or anything other than the default. I moved several folders and images around so if you were to overwrite what you already have it will probably break something.

Best thing to do is to download it from my github page and manually add it to your themes directory.

As for fixing the overlay of the two images, I can poke around, but can't guarantee I can get it working. I am a very novice themer and have self taught myself several things during this project.

Zenjiro

@sergio_mikkos hahahahaha well... I fixed it

It was stupid simple to do.

I will update it to my fork, but it you want to do it manually, all you need to so is open the comic_book.xml in the text editor of your choice. (I use Notepad++) And edit the following:

From this:

<rating name="md_rating">
         <pos>0.87 0.66</pos>
         <size>0 0.038</size>
         <filledPath>./_assets/star_filled.png</filledPath>
	 <unfilledPath>./_assets/star_empty.png</unfilledPath>
        </rating>

To This:

<rating name="md_rating">
         <pos>0.87 0.66</pos>
         <size>0 0.038</size>
	 <unfilledPath>./_assets/star_empty.png</unfilledPath>
         <filledPath>./_assets/star_filled.png</filledPath>
        </rating>

What is happening is that when it is applying the images on the screen it first applies the star_filled.png then the star_empty.png, which causes the overlap. So the edit just changes the order of apply the empty star image first, then the filled one.

sergio_mikkos

@Zenjiro great dude!! :D

I will download it and install it as soon as you update your fork :)

Thanks!!

Zenjiro

@sergio_mikkos It has already been updated. The version naming I am using is subjective. I will typically create a new branch if I am experimenting with new features. The latest is 3.2-Beta2 and small tweaks like the one you pointed out will simply be added whenever I make a push to the repo, and if anyone else finds small graphical errors I will do the same, and make adjustments to the images.

The reason it is Beta is because I made so many changes/alterations that there might be some small issues here and there, as well as possible compatibility issues with older devices, but overall it is complete in its current form.

Zenjiro

Currently in-between jobs, so I have some more spare time to pump out a few more themes here and there.

Wish she got a spot in Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

Zenjiro

My personal goal is to create one theme per day, until all the tickets I've created for myself have been completed.

Here is todays:

Zenjiro

Today we have Devil May Cry:

smartazz104

These updates are looking great, but has anyone noticed that the border.svg file reduces the fps by about 15 in the main menu?

Zenjiro

@smartazz104 Can you give me some more info:

System Platform (Windows, RetroPie, Batocera)
Resolution of Screen (4K, 1080, 720, 480)
Hardware you are running (RaspberryPi, Windows PC, etc)

From what I understand with SVG files; is that while they are great for auto-upscaling based on the output resolution, they can be taxing on lower end hardware, such as the RaspberryPi. Which is why I converted most of my images to PNG as they have a fixed resource consumption with the trade off of not looking all that good on higher end screens (4k and 1080p).

smartazz104

@Zenjiro said in New Comic Book Theme!:

@smartazz104 Can you give me some more info:

I'm running Retropie on a RPi 3B+ @ 1080P. I did find that commenting out the section that displays the border.svg fixes the issue basically.

Zenjiro

F-Zero for today's theme:

Zenjiro

Today I created a theme for Indie Games:

salor10

@Zenjiro i love it. Which are the indi games, i'm only know cave story.....🤨🤨🤨

mitu

@salor10 Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Journey. 3 left that I don't recognize.

Zenjiro

They are as follows from Top Left to Right: Cave Story, Shovel Knight, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Journey, Hyperlight Drifter, and Cuphead.

salor10

@mitu said in New Comic Book Theme!:

Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Journey. 3 left that I d

GREAT!!!!

Crush

Glad i came over here, cause the version that can be installed from within Retropie has its ratings broken since the Pi4

Perhaps it'd be a good idea to include @Zenjiro updated version to the Retropie theme installer.

Zenjiro

I've played around with the idea of adding in background music for each system, or at least offering the ability to do so. The issue is, is that Retropie does not support .ogg natively within their version of EmulationStation. It does support .wav files for making sounds which is why this theme has the cursor ticking noise and launch sounds when launching into a game. But even if I convert files to .wav it will greatly bloat the size of theme. (Example: 40sec music clip is 680KB in .ogg but same clip is 6.82MB as a .wav)

I've been successful in adding background music, but with the caveat that you will need to use the Batocera EmulationStaion, which means not all features will work in Retropie, and possibly break existing sound elements within the theme, but will work completely in Batocera. Does anyone have any knowledge on the subject matter of adding background music natively into themes?

Zenjiro

Just a few small updates:

I've converted all .WAV to .OGG files and it saves about 20MB of space. I've not tested it on Retropie's ES yet, but it works flawlessly on the Batocera ES port for Windows. My guess is that sounds will not work on Retropie until .OGG is supported.
I have successfully added a slide sound to the theme so that every time you scroll through your systems/collections it will make an audible "paper page turn" sound.
I have also came up with the idea for each custom collection theme to have its own unique scroll sound. Like for Kingdom Hearts collection, when you scroll through the collection gamelist it will will play the Kingdom Hearts menu scroll sound as to the current default "tick" noise it currently has.

Zenjiro

Small update:

I pushed the five themes listed above to the main branch.

Shantae
Indie Games
Double Dragon
Devil May Cry
F-Zero