Looking for some feedback on my theme-set

[SkyHighGam3r]

Hey guys,

I have finally finished the general setup for how I want to run my themes, and was hoping to get some feedback from you guys that hangout here in Graphic & Theme Creation.

Really any criticisms, ideas, and even praise (lol) is welcome.

SO... here we go!

 

1. Sega Master System
The Background here is a simple color edit of the same one you will see in the Genesis wheel below.

 

 

2. Nintendo NES
Google Art

 

 

3.) Turbo Duo
Google art, minor contrast/brightness change

Sega Genesis
Google Art, color edited to be more like  the original genesis boxes.

 

Super Nintendo

more google art,the background was 4 differant colored stripes. I also considered going with the 4 primary colors as with the non-us controllers.

 

 

Neo Geo
Edited from the same original as above in SNES. made to look more like the arcade cabinets they used

 

 

3DO
I really struggled to think of something that would work here... lol what I ended up using (at least for now)... if you will notice, that is the old solo cup print, but with the hue/saturation altered lol.

 

 

Saturn
Another google image "Brushed Metal" was the keyword I used.
As you can see, I still need to find decent box art and videos for this system.
 

 

 

Nintendo 64

COMPLETELY original! I made 4 idential sections, filled them with the primary colors, threw a light focus in the middle then blurred outwards in a circular pattern.
Here you will also see the first Rom-Hack I have implemented. Right now I am toying with a few ideas concerning 'box' art for these titles. Either a generic hack-box for each system, a copy of the original with HACK overlaid on it, or a completely custom box.

 

PSX
Google image "Silver Tiles", slightly cropped to keep the square shape.
Again, still need a couple boxes here, but mostly videos. You can also see I grabbed a fan-made box for Chrono Trigger. No "Final Fantasy Chronicles" crap here lol

 

 

Dreamcast

I took a super-sized orange swirl from their logo and just placed it on a black background.

 

 

 

Gamecube

Google image, heavily altered. Rotated, saturated, brightness/contrast changed, hue changed.
Had to use some interesting ideas for the controls as Dolphin won't let you click the analogue triggers on a X360 pad by pulling all the way. So I seperated them
You can also see that the Z-trigger has been moved to the R3 position. Unorthodox.. but it works.

 

 

PS2
Google image, it's REALLY hard to see with this size image, but the little specs are actually playstation button symbols.
I edited the hue on this one.

Still working on box art, mostly videos I need here.

 

 

Wii
Google image
Played with hue/saturation untill I got this mixture.

I have no videos or box art here lol This was a LATE addition to the system once I was able to hook up a wiimote to my PC.
You'll notice there is no controller art here. The reason is that I intend to have this pop up on a per-game basis. So if a game uses the wii-mote you will see a picture of that, if it's the wii-mote plus nunchuck and motion plus, that. If gamecube, the same image from the gamecube wheel will show.
 

 

 

PC
Google image, but no changes necessary.

Again, there is no controller art here. This is because each of these games is so differant regarding that so I haven't decided EXACTLY how to approach it yet.

 

 

PSP

Google image, "XMB Wallpaper" was the keyword, I inverted it and played with the brightness/contrast/lightness untill I got the grey I wanted.
Again, box art and videos.

 

 

DS
Google image, slightly cropped to remove the DS title from the bottom right. Had to stretch the very top and bottom to compensate.

Box art and videos.....

 

 

Neo Geo Pocket/Color
Google image "Carbon Fiber" This is cut from the center of a MUCH larger image.

 

 

 

 

Game Boy
Google image, can't recall what I searched for to find this. Played with the saturation and hue.
I felt the green was good for the original, and the purple for the advance. seemed fitting.

 

 

Game Gear
Google image "blue grid" HEAVY HEAVY Alteration, pushed the perspective of the grid into going into the background, blurred the edges, then mirrored the whole thing on the top.

 

 

 

One last detail I'm sure some of you will notice, is the controller layouts for the 2D games don't reference the select button.
This is because in order to fit the select button onto the controller, It had to be tied to a special combo. I am hoping to use the fade screen to display a list of the combos I have setup (There are a lot) but I haven't been able to make fade do anything but fade to black yet.

If you want to learn more about my console-build, please check out the link in my signature! Thanks guys!!

[JoyStickKilla]

Nicer video border, better looking controller image and do something with game title

[SkyHighGam3r]

I hadn't considered doing a border for the video, that's a good idea! Maybe I can do something for each theme...

When you say a "better looking" controller image, what sort of thing would you have in mind? I originally went with just the silhouette so I could fill in whatever buttons I needed. Plus the generic-ness of it plays to the idea that I have my console setup to accept any controller for any system. (assuming you have enough buttons lol)

 

Also not sure what you mean by 'do something' with the game title lol. Like as far as the placement or? I used to have some title art for some of the systems, but given the amount of work needed to download/find/create it for every single game, and then having to match it all to my custom naming scheme... it just seemed like too much haha.

I know for the short titles it looks pushed to the left, but that's because I wanted longer titles to have room. (Some are still too long though)

I notice some color values in the settings ini, thought maybe I'd play with that a bit.
 

[THK]

I'd go for either a good vector basic default controller or a simple vector controller redraw of the actual controller for each system.

 

Definitely do a horizontal wheel at the bottom when using boxes. Wheels are best in vertical and cart/disks can go either way. So if you want to have the same layout for every system, I'd go for the horizontal arrangement.

 

Might be nice if the backgrounds reflected the system's a bit better. Either generally used colors, the console colors or maybe the console's box style? They seem to be a bit generic to me.

[SkyHighGam3r]

Are those not vector redraws of the Sega Saturn pads and Xbox One pads? I though that's what I had gotten haha. Can you show me an example?
I also felt like the generic nature of the images I used lended themselves well to the fact that when playing this you may likely NOT be using a SS or Xbox pad.
NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Gamecube, PS1-3, PS4, Dreamcast. I have it set so they all can function without issue (assuming you have enough buttons to play what you want lol)
Honestly the only one I'm having SERIOUS trouble getting setup is an original Xbox controller... they are almost modern 6-button pads, so I was bummed I couldn't make it work. I bought a mayflash adapter, but I don't think it works with Windows 10.

I had thought of doing a horizontal wheel, in fact my last theme set was based around this idea. The problem I ran into is that every wheel needed to have different sizes in HyperHQ, and to get them to be spaced about the same I had to either A: Deal with videos like 3DO being incredibly small because the cases took up so much space, or B: Systematically go through and resize every box until they matched an exact size, but that would also compromise the shape of certain boxes. Like the CD cases, or the long 3DO ones. In the end I had settled on the vertical method because I didn't have to worry about any of it. As long as the boxes in a given system were relative in size to eachother (which was a simple resize fix for only a few)

Still it would be nice if on vertical I could stack them end to end from the center outward...

Here was my thinking for the backgrounds as well:
SMS - The red grid was for the cartridges
NES - The Hard edges and colors seemed to fit the feel of that old Square NES and rectangle controller.
NEC - The box for the turbo duo was gray, and the button on that was purple if I'm not mistaken. Still, I'm open to sugguestions

GEN - The black grid is used almost ubiquitously for genesis.
SNES - I'm not 100% happy with this one, but you can see I was going for a controller color scheme. Sugguestions?
NEO - Self explanitory, right? I thought this one was perfect.
3DO - I'm not so happy with this one... I just couldn't think of a background to use that felt like the 3DO. I did a search for 90s patterns and edited that solo cup lol

SAT - The brushed metal is just like the one you see when you boot up the saturn, right behind the logo.
N64 - The 4 primary colors from the logo, I've actually seen a similar pattern used in N64 marketing materials.
PSX - I was thinking of the BIOS memory card menu for this one.

DC - I could stand to change this one, but I was going for the feel of the CD cases.
GC - It's purple cubes, I couldn't think of anything better lol
PS2 - It's hard to see in the small images, but those little specks are the playstation button symbols falling everywhere. That and the blue-tint felt right.

Wii - White and light blue seemed to be the only 2 elements to even reference for the Wii lol
PC - I felt the circuitry feel was appropriate.

PSP - it's an XMB background, the same kind of thing that was on the PSP... right? (Now that I think about it, mine was modded and I can't recall the original) I know it was on the PS3 lol
DS - I would have liked something a little better, but what else could I use?
NGP - The Carbon Fiber I felt was iconic for the handheld.
GB/C/A - I had a hard time finding something that I felt covered all three systems, any suggestions?
Game Gear - I HATE the pink stripes that is usually associated with Game Gear, and I felt a blue/black grid somehow felt like the system.

Any sugguestion you have would be great, I was really trying to stick to the backgrounds reflecting the systems. I didn't want to get TOO flashy though, so that the box and the video take center stage.

[THK]

With vector its clean & crisp, this is more like simple n crummy

[dahakadaevas]

here is a great site for some image grids. i use in my kodi setup. http://consolegrid.com/ it can also be directly downloaded from 3rd party apps.

[SkyHighGam3r]

here is a great site for some image grids. i use in my kodi setup. http://consolegrid.com/ it can also be directly downloaded from 3rd party apps.

NICE!

I'm actually looking at new designs for my themes as my system has evolved a great deal since I created these ones.

These are... really really cool!