New Comic Book Theme!

[lipebello]

Hello, i was working on the system themes and on the 3D rendered covers when i first saw your post. I don't want to sound rude or anything, but this is not the first time that this kind of thing occurs so i just didn't care. I've just stopped to work on my theme and move to other things.
There's no need to put my name on the credits, i was the author of this theme and you rip-off my work. I think that the term "inspiration" that you used a little insulting.
Anyway, fell free to distribute it because i won't working on it anymore.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@lipebello Hello @lipebello, I tried to reach out to you several times, i also had contact with your brother. link to post, link to post, You had not visited the forum for several months and it did not appear that you would be returning. This is also not an uncommon thing. Seeing that your brother was getting in contact with you, and I did not hear back, I assumed that you were no longer interested in not only the theme, but the forum.

Please see this post where I state that I am awaiting to hear back from you or your brother, link to post

Also see this post where I again state I am waiting to hear back. I "tagged" both of you in posts and did not receive a response. link to post

I apologize for upsetting you as this was not my intention. I would have never released this had you let me know you were still working on it. I will gladly remove the theme if those are your wishes.

I do disagree with you on the fact that I ripped off your work. I clearly told everyone that I took the design of the system selection views directly from your posts. As you only posted about 3 systems worth of images, and my game selection menus are completely different from yours, I would suggest that giving you full credit for the design inspiration is appropriate. I created all of the artwork used, and I modified them to work on both 4:3 and 16:9 setups.

Again, your theme is/was amazing. I apologize that this upsets you. I wish you would have reached out earlier. I would like to continue to give you credit, because credit is deserved. I will also remove the theme from the community at your request because i have no intentions of creating enemies or disrupting the community. I really enjoy this community, i gain a lot of knowledge from all of those working and participating on this project, and i also feel like i help make some positive contributions as well.

Thank you for contacting me.

[lipebello]

I read the entire thread and i'm not upset with you especifically. If was not you, other will end up doing this. That's why i decided to not share anything else again. But you can't expect me to be happy to see my idea (and a project that i was still working on) posted by someone else and fell glad that my name will be on the description.

"As you only posted about 3 systems worth of images, and my game selection menus are completely different from yours"
Yeah, the screens are "completely different". It's funny how i think alike and decided to put the description box in yellow to resemble old comic books.

[pjft]

@lipebello thanks for getting back to @TMNTturtlguy on this matter. As he stated, he tried to contact you, was even under the belief that your brother or someone close to you was giving you the heads up on this, and still included you in the attributions. He is also very much open to removing the theme altogether from distribution should you so request it.

I was checking the source thread and it doesn't seem you shared any specific theme code, unless I'm mistaken. And while the layout of the system view is certainly quite similar, the game list view seems to be sufficiently unique in its own right.

Given that no code was shared, this was closer to inspiration and adaptation from your design and then there was effectively effort put into this rather than just appropriating your ideas, as you put it. There's only so much one can do with the current ES layouts and one could make the same argument about several themes having specific elements in similar locations, or having similar looks.

I understand how you may feel about this, and I believe most here do. As @TMNTturtlguy very openly stated, just say so and he'll pull the theme down, and just use it himself if you so wish.

Nobody wants anyone to have any hurt feelings, people just want to create things and allow others to benefit and share from each others' work. Creators and sharers are what makes a project live. The easiest option for most people would be to do something for themselves and never share it with others, and that's not what happened here.

Now, there's no point in posting sarcastic remarks towards anyone who's trying to solve things around here in whatever way is possible. We understand you're frustrated and unhappy with the situation, and I'm sure things can be worked out as reasonably as possible.

Thanks, and peace.
-- a Community member

[lipebello]

There's no point in continue arguing about this. I came up with an idea, started a project and posted it on the comunity, made about 300 MB of images and someone release a "quite similar" project first. It's released, right ? and i should be glad that i served as an inspiration.

I'm pretty sure that is not how the comunity grows, but i won't be replying on this topic or post anything more. So enjoy this theme, it is released to the comunity.

[herb_fargus]

@lipebello well If anyone has a right to complain it's @Rookervik because almost every theme is derived from his assets in some form or another.

Or the retropie team as countless people are stealing our work and selling it.

Nobody is stopping you from releasing your version of the theme and @TMNTturtlguy has been more than amicable.

You're welcome to be part of the community or you can have a pity party because someone was inspired by a great idea you had.

[TMNTturtlguy]

To the community and leadership/moderators of this forum:

First off, I want to again thank everyone for their continued support in my growth and learning, I am completely addicted to retropie and this forum. Props to leadership and everyone involved in making this forum and project what it is today.

With that said, I again want to state that I do not want to create any issues or enemies on this forum and I want to be a good steward to the project. I look to leaderships advice on next steps and for their recommendation on how to proceed or shutdown this theme.

I have been working hard at updating the 4:3 theme and want to thank @modmaster for all of his hard work in helping create background graphics for the 16:9 theme. We are nearly complete with most all systems at this point. I also want to thank @pjft and @Nismo as well as everyone else who has made this theme better, and what it is today. Without everyones help on graphics, layouts, .xml codes it would not be where it currently is.

I started this theme for my own use after waiting a few weeks to find out if and when @lipebello would release his version. After no response and seeing that he no longer visited the forum, I decided to take as stab at building a theme on my own. I have a few full size stand up arcade cabinet builds and I wanted his comic theme on one of them. A few days later I had the theme up and running and I had all of the systems Intended to run (12) systems completed. I noted that there were several others interested in the original theme so I decided to try to reach out to the community to get the attention of @lipebello and approval to share or shut down. Since that time i have spent several hundred hours, and i am not making that number up, tweaking the theme to make it run more smoothly for the community, We now have something like 42+ logos and backgrounds created and 4+ members supporting and creating content for the theme to share with the community. None of this work is needed for may arcade cabinet. It would have run well on my system and served its needs. The rest of the time spent has been to create a theme for everyone to enjoy. Along the way i have learned so much and the theme has improved well past what I had originally imagined.

Speaking on behalf of myself and @modmaster, we would enjoy the opportunity to continue to improve and release updates and additional systems for this theme. Our goal is to have a 100% complete and optimized theme that can one day be part of the retropie script.

If the community and leadership supports these continued efforts we are happy to continue our work. However if advised, we will also immediately shut the project down and remove it from github. My sincere apologies for the long post and for anyone who I have upset.

Respectfully and Very Gratefully,
TMNTturtlguy

Edit: i must have hit enter right after @herb_fargus did :) Thanks for your comment.

[modmaster]

I am happy to help! I have received help on this forum (and other sites) from @herb_fargus and @Rookervik and @TMNTturtlguy and several others. I saw this as an opportunity to contribute to a revived project and I plan to continue work on it. If that in some way hurts your feelings @lipebello too bad. The backgrounds I created were my own work. Hours of my time working to complete a project that you had obviously given up on.... Great timing showing up to the party now as everything is nearing completion. As said before @TMNTturtlguy went out of his way to contact you... He did a lot more than I would have... Instead of taking credit or getting buthurt over something like this, release your version... I'd love to see it! If not stick with your " i won't be replying on this topic or post anything more." and allow the rest of us to enjoy what I think is the best theme for ES out there. Like I said I plan on finishing the rest of the systems and helping @TMNTturtlguy with HIS theme any way I can.... hopefully it is shared with the community and we all get to enjoy it.

[pjft]

Just to add a bit more here, even though @herb_fargus and @TMNTturtlguy already stated a lot of what should be said.

I would likely have a different point of view if it was the case of someone having picked up someone else's code, perhaps tweaked something or maybe added slightly to it, and perhaps even releasing something first before the original work. Here, not only was that not the case, the final theme (system view and gamelist view samples) here is significantly different to the last update of @lipebello's one that sure, while there are certainly resemblances (namely on the System View front), there isn't even re-use (i.e. misappropriation) of any asset or anything other than the idea and wanting to develop on it.

The way I see it, this isn't especially different to seeing Google's material design guidelines and wanting to create a Material theme, seeing the NES mini menu layout and wanting to implement it as a theme in a frontend (Attract Mode only), or seeing a vertical wheel carousel on Attract Mode and wanting to implement it in ES.

I believe @TMNTturtlguy has shown openness to shut down the theme, though going through this all I ultimately don't feel that it should be needed or even warranted, given that all that's there is effectively the result of their own work - of course, based on Carbon as most themes are, under a CC BY-NC-SA license stating "This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.", and definitely inspired by your idea.

I ultimately believe that the ideal outcome would be for you all to collaborate and build an excellent theme together, given that you all seem to share a passion for the same kind of ideas.

That being said, whether that is one outcome, or whether that is not something you decide to pursue or even feel like pursuing - which I fully respect - I very much look forward to seeing the outcome of the current theme from this thread, as well as yours @lipebello , as well as any other themes that any of you here create in the future.

All the best, and have a great weekend.

[TMNTturtlguy]

Back to the theme itself!

Thanks to @pjft we have discovered that with the new updates to ES V2.1.8RP the current .xml code for the bar behind games available no longer works correctly. I will be addressing this in the next update. The does not affect the theme in any way, except that it is annoying that the bar went away. Thanks

[ruckage]

@TMNTturtlguy
Firstly, I'm sorry for the drama you've had with @lipebello , it's a shame when there are disagreements like this. While I can to a point understand where he is coming from you really did do all you could to fix things and @lipebello just handled things quite badly. As others have said there is no reason that @lipebello couldn't still release his theme, I'm sure the 2 themes would end up being different enough to warrant it (I still plan to release my Newgen theme at some point despite Futura already being available).

On a more cheery note I have to say the theme looks great, you've done a fantastic job.

[pjft]

@TMNTturtlguy back to the theme, indeed, I noticed that at least the PC engine (I think) system logo image also seems to have a border artifact of sorts, like the previously reported master system one. I suspect it might be worth checking those images somehow - I'll still give you the heads up even I notice some but since I don't have all systems, I can't promise a comprehensive review at the moment.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@ruckage Thank you! I appreciate the kind words, and so you know, I am following your theme daily and keep updating when I can...i am running that on one of my setups. Can't wait for the new console art you just posted.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@pjft it appears that somehow the borders of the photoshop image is saving to the png slightly larger than what i see on my end. I will adjust accordingly. Thanks for the heads up.

[mediamogul]

The recent activity on this thread had me reading back quite a bit for context and I realized that I've never commented on how nicely this theme both started out and has come along over time. The addition of the splattered system hacks is an especially inspired touch. Great work all around. This is up there with the best and really something to be proud of.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@mediamogul Thank you! and thanks to @modmaster for the splat idea, the first idea I ran buy him was green slime that was oozing down the screen from the top. He said, "try just a splat" so I did and we thought it was awesome!

[mediamogul]

@TMNTturtlguy

It's very appropriate to the overall look and feels very 80's/90's retro at the same time.

[modmaster]

Thanks Guys! I thought the same!

[pjft]

@TMNTturtlguy Personal note: after testing the transparency on the "Games Available" bar, I found that (personally) the "eeeeee99" color and transparency still made the font somewhat hard to read with the background.

I changed it to "eeeeeecc" and feels easier to read on my end. Just a thought.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@pjft thanks for the tip, definitely a lot to play with for the next release. The current setting for the released version is the standard gray, i will check out your code and play around with it! I might try an outline version of the font as well! Great input.