New Unified Megatheme

[gibbawho]

yeah ever since getting into making themes... i've come more and more to believe it would have been smarter to put the video player dressing behind the video instead of in front.

[DamnedRegistrations]

Only other method i can think of would involve putting the box in the background.. like in the image.. or if you want it to have an intro effect, do the background in flash and add it to that.

I could've sworn I had tried that before by putting it on the background, I can't remember why I didn't stick with it but there was some reason. Maybe something to do with stretching on widescreen, not sure. Flash isn't my area either. I made a PC games theme once (in my FTP folder I think) and used Flash to make the logo, last time I ever wanted to use it. Boooooo hiss, hated using Flash.

Anyway, yeah I wish HS supported a couple more artwork assets. It'd make doing somthing like this a lot easier and allow both box and cart/disc art too. I don't like the style most themes use with the video popping in and out like a whack-a-mole head when you're scrolling through.

[THK]

yeah ever since getting into making themes... i've come more and more to believe it would have been smarter to put the video player dressing behind the video instead of in front.

I couldn't disagree more

[Styphelus]

Ok...permanent video window it is. Created a few in 16:9 and it looks good. Using up Artwork1 (easier than having it on the background). Currently re-sizing the box art and carts to 16:9 so the aspect ratio looks correct. Will upload on the weekend.

[keltoigael]

Any chance the themes and resized carts will be added to Hyper Sync in the future?

[kb1ujs]

Any chance the themes and resized carts will be added to Hyper Sync in the future?

That would be truly epic.

[kyoken]

Amazing!,thanks

Ok...permanent video window it is. Created a few in 16:9 and it looks good. Using up Artwork1 (easier than having it on the background). Currently re-sizing the box art and carts to 16:9 so the aspect ratio looks correct. Will upload on the weekend.

[gibbawho]

I couldn't disagree more

Eh ... maybe a switch for one or the other then? or maybe allow both. I can see why its done the way it is but it does cause problems in certain situations.

I guess, in the end .. it'd probably just be nicer to have more artwork slots to work with.

[Unknown50862]

Hope no one minds, but I tried my hand at a couple of the main menu widescreen themes that I was missing for my setup. They're currently in my folder, but if everyone would prefer and Styphelus doesn't mind, I could stick them in his folder so all the widescreen themes are in one place.

Also, a suggestion to the others working on these themes. For the handhelds, I found it looked better to fade in the video rather than fly it in from the right. The different dimensions of the video and handheld cause them to move at different rates so they aren't synced on the fly in. Messing with the times/delays didn't seem to improve the issue much either.

[THK]

Eh ... maybe a switch for one or the other then? or maybe allow both. I can see why its done the way it is but it does cause problems in certain situations.

I guess, in the end .. it'd probably just be nicer to have more artwork slots to work with.

Well, it would be nice if we had more layers or could swap out stuff. But in the current way, having it over the vid is just better than underneath, with certain exceptions. There's always compromise.

[Styphelus]

I don't mind. Go right ahead. They look good!

I noticed that my 16:9 was not actually 16:9 (it was 16:10) and the themes were coming out a bit stretched. I've adjusted them... Sorry guys.

I will upload them on the weekend at true 16:9 - main menu + system + artwork.

That's what happens when you have a 16:10 monitor but a 16:9 TV.

My bad!

When I'm done with these, I might create a few extra for my setup but I'm moving on after that...still a lot to do to get my hyperspin running properly and I would like to get involved with the hyperpsin project as well.

[gibbawho]

atari themes should be coming soon. i'd give a date but ... yeah i don't have the best track record with that

[pinsanity]

Did the XBox theme from the first post on page 1 get completed/released?

[DamnedRegistrations]

I noticed that my 16:9 was not actually 16:9 (it was 16:10) and the themes were coming out a bit stretched.

With most artwork a good way to get images to look right in 16:9 is to shrink the width by 74-76%, depending on what they are. That is if you don't have the original project files to work with, so that tip doesn't really apply here but could be helpful to some who don't know. I've had to do with that with all my boxes, pointers and such. That seems to be a sweet spot for most assets.

I've seen so many screenshots people post and their boxes, carts and everything look so stretched.

[gibbawho]

With most artwork a good way to get images to look right in 16:9 is to shrink the width by 74-76%.

4x3 is exactly 75% of the width of the same height in 16x9. So if you were guessing, pretty good guess. At least when we're talking 1024x768 (4:3) to 1365x768 (16:9). I guess extrapolating it to other resolutions brings in the +-1% margin of error there?

[Unknown50862]

With most artwork a good way to get images to look right in 16:9 is to shrink the width by 74-76%, depending on what they are. That is if you don't have the original project files to work with, so that tip doesn't really apply here but could be helpful to some who don't know. I've had to do with that with all my boxes, pointers and such. That seems to be a sweet spot for most assets.

This works for the individual artwork assets (carts, boxartc, etc.), but I think it needs to be a little bit different when converting these themes. The PSDs are in 1280x720, so just compressing them horizontally would not make them the right size to work in HyperTheme. What I did was convert the background to 1024x768 and then take the scale ratio used for that and applied it to the other art in the file. The scale turned out to be 80% x 106.67%.

Edit:

I just realized that I did things backwards. Rather than take apart the layers first and then resize them individually, you can just resize the original PSD to 1024x768 and then save the layers separately. Since the PSDs are already designed in 16:9, this should be enough to get them to fit HyperTheme and retain their aspect ratio when stretched.

[DamnedRegistrations]

The only downside to do doing any of this is when you're working with rasterized art, then you get some detail loss and create jaggies especially on rounded corners. Smart objects and bicubic sharpening/smoothing don't seem to help much in preventing that.

[THK]

Best is to resize the canvas in photoshop, move the artwork around a bit and re-import into HT.

[jakedoo]

Edit:

I just realized that I did things backwards. Rather than take apart the layers first and then resize them individually, you can just resize the original PSD to 1024x768 and then save the layers separately. Since the PSDs are already designed in 16:9, this should be enough to get them to fit HyperTheme and retain their aspect ratio when stretched.

Unknown50862 is correct, you can just resize the 1280x720 PSD to 1024x768 and save the layers individually. The reason that works so well is because 1280x720 is a "true" 16:9 ratio and 1024x768 is a "true" 4:3 ratio.

Weather you resize the whole PSD or individual layers the math is the same. To perfectly resize individual images in gibbawho's 16:9 PSD files you need to set an images width to 80% and the height to 107%. The reason we know this is because (1280 * 0.8 = 1024) and (720 * 1.07 = 768). That means 1024 is 80% the width of 1280 and 768 is 107% the height of 720.

So working backward you can prep your images for HyperTheme. For example you would copy and paste Mario into a new Photoshop file (make sure "Clipboard" is set as the Preset for the new file size). Now say Mario is 417x523 then you would do (417 * 0.8 = 333.6) and (523 * 1.07 = 559.61). So you would resize Mario to 333.6 by 559.61 to prepare him for HyperTheme.

You're all doing a great job on these themes, especially gibbawho!

Edit: It's true that we lose some image quality in the conversion but that is unavoidable until a future update of HyperSpin gives us widescreen support. Atleast we can shave a few pounds off of Mario's mid section in the meantime

[Styphelus]

Ok...let me explain,

Hyperspin requires 1024x768. The themes were created at 1280x720. So if you increase the height to 768 while maintaining the aspect ratio you end up with 1365x768. That is the right size (not what I had done before). However if you increase the height of the theme to 768, some of the artwork does not scale properly and gets a bit blurry so what I did was keep the theme at 1280x720 and increased the canvas size around it to 1365x768 and scaled the wallpaper to fill in the small empty border around it.

When you scale it down to 1024x768, it shows up properly in hyperspin. Take a screenshot in hyperspin and overlay it over the original themes and the artwork will line up properly.

What I had done before was increase the height to 768 but had kept the width at 1280 so in hyperspin it was stretching horizontally. That was my mistake but it has been fixed.

[jakedoo]

Ok...let me explain,

Hyperspin requires 1024x768. The themes were created at 1280x720. So if you increase the height to 768 while maintaining the aspect ratio you end up with 1365x768. That is the right size (not what I had done before). However if you increase the height of the theme to 768, some of the artwork does not scale properly and gets a bit blurry so what I did was keep the theme at 1280x720 and increased the canvas size around it to 1365x768 and scaled the wallpaper to fill in the small empty border around it.

When you scale it down to 1024x768, it shows up properly in hyperspin. Take a screenshot in hyperspin and overlay it over the original themes and the artwork will line up properly.

What I had done before was increase the height to 768 but had kept the width at 1280 so in hyperspin it was stretching horizontally. That was my mistake but it has been fixed.

I see where you're coming from Styphelus but here is what's happening.

The reason the artwork got a bit blurry and wasn't scaling properly was because 1365x768 is not a "true" 16:9 resolution as you can see on the chart at http://pacoup.com/2011/06/12/list-of-true-169-resolutions/. Also by first up-scaling the art before down-scaling it to 1024 by 768 you unnecessarily lose image quality.

Your current method of increasing the canvas size does maintain the aspect ratio which is good but leaves the art unnecessarily smaller than the source PSD. If you follow my method in my previous post you can maintain the same quality as your current method while also keeping the original size of the source art.

[gibbawho]

so is this the longest hyperspin forum thread ever yet? seems like its on track to be soon if its not

[gigapig]

so is this the longest hyperspin forum thread ever yet? seems like its on track to be soon if its not

Here's my favourite for that prize. http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?26741-Taito-Type-X-and-Hyperlaunch-3-0

[Unknown50862]

Honestly I still haven't quite wrapped my head around it, but I think Styphelus is correct. Or at least his updated themes more accurately reflect the PSDs than his originals. Taking screenshots in HyperSpin and overlaying the original file should give you some comparison between the two.

EDIT:

Went back and did my themes with the method that Styphelus mentioned and they came out the same. Looks like both methods work.

[gibbawho]

The reason the artwork got a bit blurry and wasn't scaling properly was because 1365x768 is not a "true" 16:9 resolution as you can see on the chart at http://pacoup.com/2011/06/12/list-of-true-169-resolutions/. Also by first up-scaling the art before down-scaling it to 1024 by 768 you unnecessarily lose image quality.

I'm not sure exactly how he was resizing them but my original psd's have pretty much all the artwork in higher res and down-scaled as smart objects, so as long as he didn't rasterize'm before resizing they shouldn't lose any clarity.