New Comic Book Theme!

Nismo

@TMNTturtlguy

I was taking a look at the theme, I think you can optimize it a lot. I have some tips for you:

- A few system logos missing.

- It has a bug, the system logos are displaying on top of the marquees on top right section in all systems.

- All the 3d boxes are stretched, you need to use maxSize for images.

alt text

- Why to place a border_4-3Outline.svg for each system?

- I don't draw the border outlines lines on comic.png itself? less memory use if you do that.

- A lot of systems with the same comic.png. Why don't create only one comic-default.png and place it inside main art folder and point to it for systems that need it?

- Why a lot of system.svg files on each system folder?

- Also I feel the gamepads are not matching the "feeling" of the theme.

- Amazing font but doesn't support accents.

Tell me if you need help with the theme.

Edit: I love the gamelist scroll sound, can I use it in my theme?

Nismo

@darkbreaker I think you are running a ES version without the whitescreen fix.

darkbreaker

@TMNTturtlguy I'm going to try that version 1.1 and I'll tell you. Thanks!!

darkbreaker

@Nismo I dont know.I'm a little new to this and I do not know how to apply that fix. Could you help me?

TMNTturtlguy

@Nismo replying from my phone, so I will try my best to hit everything!

Yes I am missing several systems logos if you read the readme.txt

Good catch on the marquee. I only run the marquee on my arcade file so it is never an issue for my other systems as they don't have marquees. I can remove the marque from the main xml and make it system specific.

I will have to look at the 3D boxes...I may have missed updating max size on that one? I am away for work today but will look into it.

The 4:3 is a separate .svg because the .svg will resize itself for all HDTV sizes without losing quality. It will keep clean crisp lines even on 4K. If I put it into the background .png it is rasterized and loses quality at all sizes larger than the original compressed file size. Also I can save the images at a lower quality size with the newsprint filter so that you get a comic print feel while small file size and you don't notice the loss of clarity when upscaling to large screens or 4K.

If you read the readme text and previous post I explain that I don't have all systems completed, so I have created a generic comic background so that all systems will look complete, however they are just a place holder. I put them in each folder instead of the art folder because I can simply save a. Ew updated background for each theme as I complete them without having to update the .xml files

System logo is the same comment.....and does it really matter how many are in there :)

Appreciate you comments, I will try to update some of the issues. As far as design and layout, I like it and it was originally for my arcade machine build! This is how I want it and how I will keep it. Feel free to make any changes to your own system and change out the controllers the way you would like.

Thanks

TMNTturtlguy

@pjft any images you can collect and share would be awesome. Thanks

darkbreaker

@TMNTturtlguy I have tried the version 1.1 and I get the same results. White backgrounds although I can read the names of the systems.

TMNTturtlguy

@Nismo as for font, sorry....not much I can do there.

Sounds, yes please use them all. I believe the scroll sound is the default from carbon? Can't remember if I changed it.

TMNTturtlguy

@darkbreaker 2 things:

I think you probably need to update your version of ES.
I don't have recall box, so maybe something in the theme is not compatible with that? Not sure, I don't know anything about recall box.

darkbreaker

@TMNTturtlguy First of all, thank you! . As I said before, I'm a little new to this. Could you guide me in the updated ES?

Nismo

@TMNTturtlguy

I think you must leave marquees in main xml file and remove the system on the top right.

I don't see the point having different system logos on top left and right, why don't leave the top right box for marquees? You already have a awesome nice system logo on the left...

Also are you planning to do the gamepads more comic feeling?

I forgot to say that the dithering pattern on backgrounds seems to much strong for my liking, just a personal opinion.

Yes I know, there are not much to do with the fonts, fortunatelly not too much games with accents, and easy to solve. I repeat i love that font.

Thanks for the sounds.

Regards.

pjft

@TMNTturtlguy sure, I'll try! It's it 6 per system?

@darkbreaker I honestly don't know enough about recalbox to suggest how to update ES in it. Meaning, I don't know in which folder it is, and how to update individual packages.

If you do have access to the file system, and if you are comfortable with the command line and with manually changing things there, try to locate the path for ES in recalbox and then backup the current emulationstation binary, and copy one of the latest ones there. I believe @jdrassa has shared some builds that are close to the latest somewhere on the forums, and if you search for OMX player you'll find some that I put together. They'll each have their own particularities but should both have the white screen fix.

You may also compile it straight from the RetroPie repository if you're comfortable doing so.

But otherwise my best recommendation would be to seek such guidance on the Recalbox forums, just so you don't break anything unintentionally via any pointers we give you here that may be specific to RetroPie. I'm sure you're not the only one who has considered doing that, so maybe someone can share their experience:)

Sorry for not being able to help further, but if you decide to try it out on your own via installing one of our builds, let us know, happy to try and help, though I'd backup your entire Recalbox installation prior to attempting it, just in case it breaks something in the process.

Best.

darkbreaker

@pjft Thanks for your help.I think in recalbox, ES is integrated and I have not found anything about how to update it. I also do not see the specific fix for recalbox. Thanks for the help.

TMNTturtlguy

@pjft I am away right now, but I believe it is 7 games and 1 controller image per system. Thanks

TMNTturtlguy

@Nismo

I will modify the theme so that the marquees are in the arcade cabinet systems for example, arcade, all the mame, FBA and Neo Geo. I will remove the marquees for console systems and leave the classic system logos. I have 2 reasons for this. 1. A lot of people do not have marquees for all of their games, especially not for console games, as i said, i only have marquees for arcade cabinet games that actually had marquees. If you don't have marquees, then the box would be blank. 2. I really like the original/classic logo for each system. I like having my new comic text logo, but I also like having the original feel to each system logo as well. Please feel free to modify your personal build to display as you would like. If you need me to send instructions on how to modify your .xml let me know.
Gamepads. I originally wanted to do comic style controllers, but I just don't have the time to do this for all the systems, so i went with the classic outline because they already exist for every system. If you would be so kind as to create some really nice comic style controllers, i would love to review them and incorporate them into the theme!

Dithering - I agree with you and @pjft on this. As i already described earlier, I originally built this theme on the old build of ES/retropie 4.1 before the white screen issue was resolved. After about 10 systems, i would get white screens no matter what i would do. I had to find a way to make my file sizes smaller to run 15-20 systems. After hours and hours of testing on both my 21" arcade monitor and my 55" 4K TV i devised the current system in which i use a pixel filter and then compress the file size. In doing so, we get a dithering pattern that might be a little much, but what it does is let me get a very small file size and allow me to expand the artwork to 55" 4K without much quality loss. I also separated the boarder so that it would stay nice and crisp. Now that we have the updated 4.2 and ES i might not need to compress my file size so much, but it would just take to much time to go back and redo each background and retest to see if 20+ systems would run nicely. I think the overall look and feel of the theme is still really nice, and after awhile the dither has actually grown on me. When i look at a more clear crisp game image, it almost looks overdone and to sharp and I think you actually have to much focus and to many pictures, the dither softens the entire background and makes it more of a composition instead of sharp detail. Just my opinion.

Thanks again for all your support and comments, really good stuff that I will get updated.

Nismo

@TMNTturtlguy

I use riot for resizing, maybe you will like to take a look at it.

About the old system logo at top right... well it's your theme, and of course you will do the theme the way you like it, I know how to modify it to add my marquees in all systems, so it's not a problem for me, the problem it's for users who have marquees, they will see their theme "broken" at top right, without the old system logos nothing will see broken for nobody...

That's because I said if you want to consider put all marquees /logos there.

About the dithering I would like less amount of them, but if not possible it's still not a problem, just because the theme it's amazing as is, but I think it can be better with less dithering.

You did a great job.

Tip: You can add game launching sounds, if you need my help tell me.

Example for launching game sound (working in all ES versions)

 <view name="basic, detailed, grid, video">
	<sound name="launch">
		<path>./art/launch.wav</path>
	</sound>
</view>

Example for sound when switching between systems (need a ES version that supports it):

<view name="system">
	
     <sound name="systemSound">
         <path>./art/systemsound.wav</path>
     </sound>
</view>

TMNTturtlguy

@Nismo I have an updated that will be posted momentarily that will fix the marquee issue. Marquees will show properly for all arcade cabinet systems, and console logos for all home console systems.

The theme already has launch sounds for NES, SNES, GB, GBA, GBC, NDS, N64, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, PSP, PSX. I also added more to the other sega systems in update coming in a few seconds.

Thanks again for the kind words - will you be able to help out with comic style controllers?

TMNTturtlguy

UPDATE: v2.1 16:9 Theme and v0.1 4:3 Theme Updated

v2.1 16:9 Theme Github Link: Comic Book v2.1
Thanks to @Nismo for his excellent comments and suggestions I have updated the 16:9 theme as follows:

Marquee's have been corrected. For all Arcade Cabinet systems, a marquee will appear in the upper right hand dark gray space. If you do not have a marquee this will be blank. For all home console systems, the original console system logo will be displayed.
md_image in bottom right box corrected. The scraped image/box art in the box below the controller has been corrected to maxSize.
the background images for all Mame systems and FBA have been changed to match the Arcade background for the time being. I think Mame will stay the same, FBA may be updated in the future.
The backgrounds for all sega systems except Sega Saturn have been updated to match the Sega Genesis background for the time being. Eventually these will need to be udpated with proper controllers and some game image changes.
Launch sounds were added to more sega systems.

v0.1 ComicBook 4:3 Github link: ComicBook-4:3

Marquee's have been corrected. For all Arcade Cabinet systems, a marquee will appear in the upper right hand dark gray space. If you do not have a marquee this will be blank. For all home console systems, the original console system logo will be displayed.
the background images for all Mame systems and FBA have been changed to match the Arcade background for the time being. I think Mame will stay the same, FBA may be updated in the future.
The backgrounds for all sega systems except Sega Saturn have been updated to match the Sega Genesis background for the time being. Eventually these will need to be udpated with proper controllers and some game image changes.
Launch sounds were added to more sega systems.

TMNTturtlguy

@Nismo What size do you typically try to get your backgrounds down too? I try to get mine below 500 kb each. Your oldroom theme has such nice images, i hope to get something like that on my next theme attempt!

Nismo

@TMNTturtlguy

With size I think you mean "filesize"...

I said to you before, for 720p no more than 256kb, and for 1080p no more than 512kb.

Very nice update. I'll modify your theme to show console logos instead system logos on top right for my personal use.

Unfortunately I can't help you with controllers, I'm still working in my theme and I still have a lot of work to do with it, and also with the media files.

Thanks for the update.