Made my first theme but need help

[demonseed]

So I made my first theme it works pretty well, just trying to tweak and had some questions.  When I unzip my theme and try to edit it, I get an error in Hypertheme that it can not find 7za.exe??

My themes are stored in Hyperspin/hypertheme/mythemes.

 

I noticed that 7ze.exe IS in the Hyperspin/hypertheme directory.

 

Any Help?

 

Other issue is getting the theme background music to play? When I unzip the theme and look, there is a folder called EXTRAS/background sounds/then my mp3 is there.. but it does not work when I try it in HS?

 

Themes- is there a list of themes that are NEEDED? I type in say WWF in downloads no WWF theme? does that mean it does not exists?

 

Last question is, I see many people making cool animated things,.. is there a place to download them? what format are they? do you just add them as a artwork? Is there websites to download video game characters, transparent etc?

 

thanks

Jim

[THK]

So I made my first theme it works pretty well, just trying to tweak and had some questions.  When I unzip my theme and try to edit it, I get an error in Hypertheme that it can not find 7za.exe??

 

I don't know what you mean exactly, but with HyperTheme you should be able to just open the zipped theme, no need to unzip it 1st.

 

When you want to edit artwork layers outside of HyperTheme (like in Photoshop) you can unzip the theme or extract the desired files and rezip or add them to the zip file using the store (important, otherwise the theme will not work) method or just put the theme bacck together in HT from scratch.

 

Other issue is getting the theme background music to play? When I unzip the theme and look, there is a folder called EXTRAS/background sounds/then my mp3 is there.. but it does not work when I try it in HS?

 

No experience with this, but the mp3 should have the exact same name as the database entry, rom, theme zip, preview video & wheel.

 

Everything always has to match case-sensitive

 

Themes- is there a list of themes that are NEEDED? I type in say WWF in downloads no WWF theme? does that mean it does not exists?

 

I guess the new download section doesn't search by file-name but by tags (that are mostly not used) If I do the search I come up with nothing, but when browsing through the letter W there's a couple of em.

 

I never use the download section to download themes anyway. But weird

 

 

Last question is, I see many people making cool animated things,.. is there a place to download them? what format are they? do you just add them as a artwork? Is there websites to download video game characters, transparent etc?

 

You'll have to elaborate on this a bit more, themes? flash themes? special artwork? 

 

You can find some transparent games chars/artwork, even vector, but we mostly cut everything by hand (Photoshop mostly) fix it up or even redraw artwork from scratch. Basic animations can be done in HyperTheme, the more 'flashy' complicated animations are done in Adobe Flash.

[demonseed]

Ok, so I figured out the SWF files are Particles, the things where you can add sparkles etc..  Is there somewhere to add more? download them?

I can not seem to get the MP3 to work. I have renamed them to the proper wheel/rom name but the video preview always plays and no sound.  When i preview in hypertheme the mp3 plays? weird..

 

I am having fun, still a lot to learn..... I am not understanding how to centre videos?  Also confused with backgrounds what size are they supposed to be? I tried 800x600 but its too small and doesnt fit screen of hyper theme?

[THK]

 

HyperSpin standards
- Save settings below as a preset in Photoshop called something like "Wheel" & "Theme", so you don't accidentally cock it up and end up wondering what made HS/HT act out
- Before cutting or touching up artwork, increase the image size something like 400%+ to be able to do more detailed work and resize it back afterwards
- When placing/pasting art that needs sizing down, make it a Smart Object, this will ensure the original information/detail won't be lost so you can increase it's size again without losing detail. (for most editing the smart object needs to be rasterized again, so it's best to either do it before sizing down or make a backup of the smart object before rasterizing)
- Make sure the file extensions are lower cased!

Wheels
- 400x175 px
- 72 dpi
- 8bit
- RGB
- png (interlaced)

- When adding stokes/shadows/glow, make sure it doesn't get cut off by the canvas size, so apply before sizing down or make it a smart object and resize to fit canvas

Themes
- 1024x768 px
- 72 dpi
- 8bit
- RGB
- psd (to import into HT)

- All artwork layers can be larger than the canvas size except the background!, which needs to be exactly 1024x768
- When adding/replacing art or the xml on a zipped theme, make sure you set 7zip/WinRar to store & add and replace files

Some tips for searching artwork
- Start your way at large images and work your way down to any size
- Start with png's and then repeat the process with any filetype (for png's: add filetype : png without the spaces to your search query)
- For Japanese games, look up their Japanese name and search for that as well and search for both the English and Japanese names on Google.jp, set to japanese sites only
- For new games, look up their official website, there's often nice art to rip (I use firefox for this, right click page > page info > media tab, let's you browse through all non-flash art and download it)
- For new games, search for a Press Kit on the developers/publishers/official game site
- Look up a game's (or game series) wikia (not to be confused with wiki), there's sometimes some good art to be found

Some sites I use for art (plz add your own)
- http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/ (Arcade flyers)
- http://www.coinopart.com (Arcade, requires membership)
- http://www.arcadeartwork.org (Arcade)
- http://arcadeartlibrary.com (Arcade)
- http://www.arcade-gear.com (Arcade)
- http://gamesdbase.com/ (All, not too good art, but usable for redraw source)
- http://www.giantbomb.com/ (mostly for PC games)
- http://www.fightabase.com (Fighting games)
- http://fightersgeneration.com/ (Fighting games)

 

[THK]

I recommend using Photoshop if possible. You can directly import the .psd into HyperTheme and all the art will be in the correct position, only need to add the video (and .swf layers if needed)

 

When doing so, the best way to go about it is:

• make a back-up of your .psd
• remove all the non-used layers
• rasterize all the layer effects (or make the layer a smart object)
• name the layers exactly like below:

from top to bottom (case sensitive, Video is the video border):

• Artwork4
• Artwork3
• Artwork2
• Video
• Background

[SUBZERO]

Hyperspin\Media\MAME\Sound\Background Music place your mp3 there and name it exactly as the theme

[demonseed]

Thanks for the tips I will work away at some, its kind of rewarding... I attached my first attempt.. It turned out pretty good I think.... I am still having issues with mp3.. they just wont work for some reason.

[zomboided]

Ok, so I figured out the SWF files are Particles, the things where you can add sparkles etc..  Is there somewhere to add more? download them?

 

SWF files are Flash animations and can be on any layer in place of PNGs.  If a SWF being used for particles then this allows multiple different graphics to be used during particle generation.  You basically put a different graphic on each frame and HS knows how to deal with it.