jaZz_KCS Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 so they are there but not properly being incorporated? or was that part of the actual HS?thanks ill see what i can do just reread is actual part of HS xD sorry The transitions you mention do not come with the system themes. They are part of base HS and will show regardless of the system themes chosen. The question is whether the system them of for example SNES where the coins would show up, if it is showing too quickly making the coins show up in the background. Do you hear the coins/ring although it is not shown? That might be an indication that the system theme is just popping in too soon. That's why I always have a 2 second delay on all themes making sure the the transition video plays first and the system theme only pops in when the transition is nearly finished.
Unknown50862 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 How much of a "beefy" system are we talking about for the completely flash formatted themes? Ignoring the animated background, will the other art assets require a significant performance difference? My current HTPC build has minimal specs, so I'm curious how much of a difference this will make. If we are talking noticeable slowdown and there is enough interest, I can contribute to making a non-flash set using the traditional methods. Unifieid Megatheme - Themes, Extended (on-hold), Additional Systems, Wheels 1/Wheels 2, Fade, Bezels, Letter Packs, Pointers, Controller Icons My Hyperspin Setup
gigapig Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 How much of a "beefy" system are we talking about for the completely flash formatted themes? Ignoring the animated background, will the other art assets require a significant performance difference? My current HTPC build has minimal specs, so I'm curious how much of a difference this will make. If we are talking noticeable slowdown and there is enough interest, I can contribute to making a non-flash set using the traditional methods. Could you try it and report back, you'd probably be a good test case.
AlexDC22 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 The transitions you mention do not come with the system themes. They are part of base HS and will show regardless of the system themes chosen. The question is whether the system them of for example SNES where the coins would show up, if it is showing too quickly making the coins show up in the background. Do you hear the coins/ring although it is not shown? That might be an indication that the system theme is just popping in too soon. That's why I always have a 2 second delay on all themes making sure the the transition video plays first and the system theme only pops in when the transition is nearly finished. sorry for the stupid question...but where would i set that in? thanks.
gibbawho Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 sorry for the stupid question...but where would i set that in? thanks. You set timings in the theme.xml contained in the theme zip.
gibbawho Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 btw i'm working on a tutorial on how to make your own transition videos. look for it soon. it'll be a new thread though.
gibbawho Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 How much of a "beefy" system are we talking about for the completely flash formatted themes? I'd imagine when you take the animated background out, it speeds up significantly. It also depends how i did the background in that particular theme. When its simple vector shapes (as in genesis) its less intensive. Having giant images inan animated hd background gets VERY sluggish even on my i7 4770k. Whatever systems i do in hd will have more simple backgrounds. You're welcome to make non-animated versions of whatever I do. People do need them. Most people don't use their main gaming box for hyperspin like I do. I'd be willing to bet more than half of HS users run it on a system 5 years old or more.
Unknown50862 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Could you try it and report back, you'd probably be a good test case. Sure thing, but it will have to wait a bit though. I haven't touched it in awhile (configuring everything locally first) and I've seem to have misplaced the power adapter. As soon as I find it though, I'll give it a shot. Unifieid Megatheme - Themes, Extended (on-hold), Additional Systems, Wheels 1/Wheels 2, Fade, Bezels, Letter Packs, Pointers, Controller Icons My Hyperspin Setup
jaZz_KCS Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Well the difference between unanimated backgrounds and animated ones will be exponentially higher at HD resolutions, so testing compatibility with your system should be mandatory. My lower end laptop for example can handle 1080p themes just fine, but if there's too much movement it breaks its knees.
Styphelus Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 "You're welcome to make non-animated versions of whatever I do" Cool. Thanks! Already created 6 themes in HD - non-animated background. Will keep creating more and will post at end of week if anyone is interested. My system handles them fine. I have no idea how to create animated backgrounds. Only issue is that the 3d box and cart artwork don't look sharp like everything else. No - I'm not creating them in swf format. That would be nuts unless someone knows a way to do it in batches.
gibbawho Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 Cool. Thanks! Already created 6 themes in HD Like full HD like my prototype? Did you end up jumping into flash and trying it out?
Styphelus Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 I did. Followed your process - import PSD into flash at 1080p, resize image inside flash to 1024x768 and export to swf. Works really great! Did the same with the background too - nice and crisp but non-animated. Don't know how you figured it out but you are a genius.
jaZz_KCS Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 "You're welcome to make non-animated versions of whatever I do"Cool. Thanks! Already created 6 themes in HD - non-animated background. Will keep creating more and will post at end of week if anyone is interested. My system handles them fine. I have no idea how to create animated backgrounds. Only issue is that the 3d box and cart artwork don't look sharp like everything else. No - I'm not creating them in swf format. That would be nuts unless someone knows a way to do it in batches. I want to state - hereby again - that I would be overjoyed with both animated and non-animated-16:9-versions of these themes as I am working on two totally diff. setups right now and would hereby outcry my utmost respect and gratitute for bot Styphelus and gibbawho continueing their work independently! Don't worry folks, it'll be christmas all over again very soon. Better get you spare pants because at least one pair is going to be shat!
bubsy54 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Only issue is that the 3d box and cart artwork don't look sharp like everything else. No - I'm not creating them in swf format. That would be nuts unless someone knows a way to do it in batches. I am not sure what you are using to create swf files, but if you are using Adobe, you should be able to do batch files easily.
gibbawho Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 I am not sure what you are using to create swf files, but if you are using Adobe, you should be able to do batch files easily. 1. i'm not sure how to do it but i'm sure you're right. 2. the vast majority to the hyperbase artwork isn't even big enough for 1080p display. i'm sure we could at least get better quality out of it but then you've gotta redo your artwork every time you sync. getting all the hyperbase artwork in flash is probably just not feasible the way things are now. hopefully one day HS2 will come out and we'll have native support. Then we can start the whole artwork creation thing over again. Styphelus: do you resize all your cart/box/cd art for widescreen display? That's always been my biggest issue with doing widescreen.
bubsy54 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 If you go to file, scripts, image processor in photoshop, you can do batch files from within to change image properties. I used that method as well as using an action method in order to batch resize a lot of box and cart art. And I know that Flash has something similar. Just a suggestion to make your life easier if you choose to use it.
gibbawho Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 Can Photoshop output swf files? i wasn't aware if it can. As far as using actual Adobe Flash.. it doesn't have the same automation functions as photoshop.
bubsy54 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Photoshop doesn't output swf, but Flash does have a way in creating actions or scripts that will make the process much simpler to complete. I no longer have Flash on my computer, so I have no way of looking into it for you other than asking my brother who is a graphic designer, which I just did. he said that it is worth using Flash's scripts cause it will make everything much easier especially if you are looking to do the same thing for 1000s of images the only problem with flash is that you will have to do a little scripting in order to get what you want accomplished Photoshop makes the process much easier to accomplish, but Flash gives you more options So it maybe worth taking a few minutes to check out batch filing with Flash, sorry I can't help you further since I no longer have the program but I thought I would let you know that it is possible to do if you didn't know already
gibbawho Posted January 22, 2014 Author Posted January 22, 2014 I have no doubt it has ways to do it. I guess I slightly mis-spoke. There's no really simple way, and like you said it would take learning a scripting language. at least some of it. I have no plans on doing so. This would be the only thing i ever use it for and I don't personally find the idea of having crisper boxes and carts to be worth the trouble that comes with it... and its not just learning a script... its all the other cons of having your artwork nonstandard in this whole system they've built. Definitely not saying its impossible though.. its totally possible.
bubsy54 Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 I also think that it is an unnecessary process, but Styphelus was interested in doing so I don't see the point of having them in swf unless you were pretty much starting from scratch. Being that most box art has been completed already, if you don't want a stretched out look, you are better off taking the png files and resizing them using the action process within photoshop. It works pretty well. I think that it is especially necessary for some of the NES cart art that I have seen, since they can often be too large for my liking I was only mentioning it because there are a lot of scripts posted out there that can be copied and pasted and I am sure someone has created one in the past to achieve this result Anyways....keep up the good work, your themes are fantastic
Styphelus Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 I posted 6 themes in 16:9 HD in my ftp folder. Have a look.
AlexDC22 Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 I posted 6 themes in 16:9 HD in my ftp folder. Have a look. wow...way better for my project.....will miss the animated backgrounds tho...is there a way for me to implement that on my own? also, are you going to do the default theme as well? otherwise fantastic job brother
Styphelus Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 Default themes? What do you mean? My plan is to do all the main menu themes Biggawho created + system themes + a few others of my own. Unfortunately doing them this way takes a bit longer but they will get done. If you want animated backgrounds, you can take the background.swf from the 4:3 themes Biggawho created and replace the background.swf file from my themes. You can do it either through hypertheme or by replacing the files in the zip file (use 7z set to zip with compression level set to store). I don't know how to do animated backgrounds in Flash and I'm not sure if Biggawho will do themes in 16:9 either. He mentioned he might not so I went ahead and did it. Changing background is easy anyway.
AlexDC22 Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 Default themes? What do you mean? My plan is to do all the main menu themes Biggawho created + system themes + a few others of my own. Unfortunately doing them this way takes a bit longer but they will get done.If you want animated backgrounds, you can take the background.swf from the 4:3 themes Biggawho created and replace the background.swf file from my themes. You can do it either through hypertheme or by replacing the files in the zip file (use 7z set to zip with compression level set to store). I don't know how to do animated backgrounds in Flash and I'm not sure if Biggawho will do themes in 16:9 either. He mentioned he might not so I went ahead and did it. Changing background is easy anyway. yeah i meant system themes....reason is because of the stretching of the box and cart art with the 4:3 themes ill also check into switching things around and see...thanks tho...i really like the 16:9 a lot...looks better for the monitor/tv i am using
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