"Polygon" Widescreen Theme Development (HTPC / UNIVERSAL) [W.I.P] (UPDATED 08/20)

[Styphelus]

I love the consistency and professional look and feel of your themes. They look like something out of a commercial package. You nailed it!

 

Hope you do a full pack of them.

 

I'm currently using the Megatheme pack, again due to it's consistency and ability to make my own themes whenever I want to add a new theme, but you mentioned you would release mp4s so people could create their own. Love that idea as well.

 

Using random themes with no consistency just gives hypespin a cheap look. I also don't like all the stuff flying around them.

 

Keep going! Your work is really great!

[thatman84]

Theses themes really do look super slick.

[tcmt]

UPDATE 07/08

 

atari2600:

 

 

amiga:

 

 

8 systems to go till my initial batch is ready.

take care!

tim

[gigapig]

UPDATE 07/08

 

 

amiga:

 

8 systems to go till my initial batch is ready.

take care!

tim

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but Shouldn't CD32 be a separate system?

[tcmt]

yeah you're probably right. to be honest i didn't really wanted to include the cd32 at first (or the 1200 for that matter). the only system i have a bit of nostalgia going on is the a500 (and nostalgia is the main reason I'm doing this). so i might edit that and do a cd32 separately at a later date on request if someone wants it.

 

my thinking was that they all pretty much work under the UAE emu. but yeah the cd32 is basically a console competing with other fourth/fifth generation consoles at the time (well pretty much just europe exclusively) instead of a home/personal computer.

 

thank you giga for your feedback!

[tcmt]

UPDATE 07/09

 

arcade:

 

 

nintendo entertainment system (nes)

 

 

 

cheers and hava a good one!

tim

[tcmt]

UPDATE 07/12

 

pc games:

 

 

nintendo gamecube:

 

 

 

on top of that, i like to ask you guys for help. i'm slowly getting to the point where my first batch of themes are ready to distribute (there are atm three systems left that i want to cover in the first batch). but i personally have no idea on how to distribute them. can you guys recommend a good service where i can upload and share all the files (filesize is about 50-60mb per system theme)? or is it possible to share the themes directly here on the hyperspin site (again don't know because of the file sizes)?

also, at the moment i use copyrighted music for the themes (only game music) and i don't know if i should remove the music before uploading. already got one copyright claim on YT from good old nintendo .

 

would be awesome if someone could give me some tips on the overall distribution process.

 

thanks for watching and reading.

 

have a good one!

tim

[gigapig]

 

 

on top of that, i like to ask you guys for help. i'm slowly getting to the point where my first batch of themes are ready to distribute (there are atm three systems left that i want to cover in the first batch). but i personally have no idea on how to distribute them. can you guys recommend a good service where i can upload and share all the files (filesize is about 50-60mb per system theme)? or is it possible to share the themes directly here on the hyperspin site (again don't know because of the file sizes)?

also, at the moment i use copyrighted music for the themes (only game music) and i don't know if i should remove the music before uploading. already got one copyright claim on YT from good old nintendo .

 

would be awesome if someone could give me some tips on the overall distribution process.

 

thanks for watching and reading.

 

have a good one!

tim

I will find out for you.

[Henderson33]

Wow these are awesome soooo many good themes going around now. I already have a bartop arcade and shield tv and now it looks like i need to set up hyperspin on my laptop so i can use these too lol

[ictyyz]

Great work, hope you had fun making this.

[Styphelus]

Anyway you can separate DOS and Windows? While they are both PC games, they are completely different things. Otherwise, good job. These themes look really good.

[tcmt]

Anyway you can separate DOS and Windows? While they are both PC games, they are completely different things. Otherwise, good job. These themes look really good.

 

 

i'll probably make another version where the two get separate themes, yes. for me they are not different things tho. thats why i decided to combine dos and windows games under a single menu. and thats what i personally want to use in my setup. i can definitely see why people want separate menus for dos and windows tho, so i'll try my best to have an alternative ready for the first release  . 

 

thank for all very much for the feedback. it is greatly appreciated.

[Styphelus]

Do you plan on releasing your templates in case we want to make additional systems?

[tcmt]

Do you plan on releasing your templates in case we want to make additional systems?

 

for the game/rom themes most definitely (as they are quite simply structured project wise). for the main menu themes, i'll take a look into it. problem is, i need to clean a lot of things up and rename a ton of things appropriately in the After Effects project for other people to be able to understand what is going on . i'm really messy when it comes to naming and stuff. and i probably need to write a tutorial to go along on top of that.

so if i get around to it, i see no problem sharing a "template" version (if you want to call it that ), but it might take a while.

 

besides that, i was planning on taking requests after my personal initial batch of main menu themes is done (if anyones still interested at that point that is).

[tcmt]

UPDATE 07/14

 

first of all as requested by styphelus i created two new themes for msDOS- and Windows-Games, to have them separated if you wish to that in your setup (otherwise i have a "PC Games" Theme ready which includes DOS and Windows games in one):

 

here is the msDOS version:

 

 

the windows version looks very much like my "pc games" theme (see previous update post). just with appropriate artwork and text. will render that one out when the time for a release comes.

 

 

additionally here is a wii version:

 

 

 

two more to go (master system and dreamcast) till i have my personal system list completed. after that it's request time.

 

cheers

tim

[tcmt]

UPDATE 07/15

 

dreamcast version:

 

 

master system version:

 

 

 

thats it for my personal list. from here on i'll take requests for further systems, if anyone is interested. furthermore i'm going to work on the rom/game themes and try to get a template ready for others to use. hope i can figure out how to put my initial batch up for download, but all in due course.

 

thank you everyone who contributed; be it by giving feedback or answering questions. i'm very grateful and proud to be part of this community.

 

have a good day!

tim

[thatman84]

Great looking themes man

I'm sure you can just put them in upload here section of downloads. Just label them correctly. (Check the themes forum for details) 200mb file size limit.

If your not sure ask advice from JSinn or Gigapig maybe

[tcmt]

GREAT NEWS EVERYONE!

 

remember this video of my system menu theme layout?

 

 

and remember that billyc999 has those awesome spreadsheets with all the metadata for games ( https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByYQYrCoEmGuQUZzdHJ0bGdrMFE&usp=sharing  //   https://github.com/billyc999/Game-database-info ).

 

well just like the aeon nox theme i found a way to automate/script the process of replacing every artwork and text layer in my layout with the correct information provided by billy's sheets. this means i can now batch process every single game theme in those spreadsheets with a click of a button and have it automatically rendered out as an mp4 to use in hyperspin.

 

here is just a little test batch i rendered out today. these are the first 38 games in billy999's list for the super nintendo:

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2e7SqAK_7E-emFTDXaOkhhjknCZX7E1u

 

this was all done automatically. so this is quite huge for me, as it normally would take me like 10minutes for every singe theme to composite and then another 5-10minutes to render out. this way, if have to do pretty much nothing, but wait.

 

now the result is a big list of mp4's to use in hyperspin and i use jjb awesome cinematic code to run them embedded in an .swf in hyperspin. and here is where i need your help guys if possible:

i still create the .swf for the corresponding mp4 manually with adobe flash, which takes about 2-3 minutes (for a demonstration of how to create such swf for an mp4 here is the link to jjb's video on that topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgsM5G5BzG0).

i need a way of automating that process as doing this for hundreds or thousands of mp4's in an impossible task to do manually. i have two ideas on how that might work:

 

1. write a script for adobe flash professional that does all the steps i'd normally do manually (something like dark13 awesome widescreen conversion scripts, just for this task)

2. create single .swf that reads it's own name and plays back a video, that has the same name as the .swf file. for example if the .swf file is called "Super Mario World.swf" i want it to call up the video "Super Mario World.mp4". That way i could just make alot of copies of that .swf and rename them all according to the standard hyperspin rom naming. 

here is the code that needs to be changed:

import fl.video.FLVPlayback; 
import fl.video.VideoEvent; 

flvControl.source = "cinematicvideos/SuperMarioWorld.mp4";

flvControl.autoRewind = true; 
flvControl.autoPlay = true; 

function Loop(event:fl.video.VideoEvent):void 
 { 
  flvControl.play(); 
 } 

flvControl.addEventListener(fl.video.VideoEvent.AUTO_REWOUND, Loop); 
flvControl.getVideoPlayer(flvControl.activeVideoPlayerIndex).smoothing = true;

stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, myKeyDown);
function myKeyDown(e:KeyboardEvent):void{
if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.ENTER){
flvControl.getVideoPlayer(0).close();
}
if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.ESCAPE){
flvControl.getVideoPlayer(0).close();
}
}
 stop();

i think something may be possible with this line

flvControl.source = "cinematicvideos/SuperMarioWorld.mp4";    //instead of "SuperMarioWorld" i want the swf to read 
                                                              //its own name and insert it here. so an swf that is 
                                                              //called secretofmana.swf would put its
                                                              //source path to "cinematicvideos/secretofmana.mp4
                                                              //and if i rename it pacman.swf it would set its 
                                                              //source path to "cinematicvideos/pacman.mp4
                                                              //and so on

but thats only my ideas of how this might be possible. if someone could help or you know someone that might be able to help, please PLEASE let me know. would mean a alot to me.

 

 

 

On the Main Menu side of things. i'm in the process of rendering out all the mp4's in highest feasable quality while still maintaining a managable filesize. should be ready the next couple of days.

 

as always have an awesome day! and thanks for reading!

 

cheers

tim

[tcmt]

I think I have #2 working, let me make sure I understand you correctly. What I did was follow that vid to create the swf but modified the code to use the swf filename in the flvControl.source instead of a hard coded filename.

 

I made the swf using Super Mario Bros. 3. In the same folder where that mp4 was I added an mp4 for batman. I copied the swf and renamed it to batman and it now plays the batman mp4. So the swf will play any mp4 in that folder as long I rename the swf to match the name of the mp4. Is that what you wanted?

 

 

hey agent47, thanks for getting back to me.

 

yeah that is the basic concept i had. the only thing that is different in the above code is that the mp4 resides in a folder called "cinematicvideos". but it's relative to where the swf is. so instead of the mp4 being in the same directory as the the swf, it is in a subfolder relative to the swf, hence

flvControl.source = "cinematicvideos/SuperMarioWorld.mp4"; 

but overall it is the same core concept yes.

[tcmt]

dude, wow. really WOW. it works. i can't thank you enough for this. .

 

you are absolutely awesome and amazing!!! 

 

it might not seem much to anyone else but this solves so much for me! (at least till we get native widescreen support )

 

really Thank You.

 

have an awesome day!

[alissongamer]

This is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever seen so far in Hyperspin, very much hope it works out.
As sujestão, I think it would be cool to have a video game display on the theme, or running in the background or somewhere else.

[tcmt]

This is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever seen so far in Hyperspin, very much hope it works out.

As sujestão, I think it would be cool to have a video game display on the theme, or running in the background or somewhere else.

 

 

hey thank you for your feedback. i consciously decided against having gameplay videos on my themes. the reason is a bit of an odd one.

my previous setup used the standard hyperspin theme where every game has its own video playing. and more often than not i found myself just browsing the menus and watching gameplay videos instead of just launching a game and see it for myself (while actually playing the game ). so in a way i found them distracting and tbh they get a bit old after a while (at least for those games you goto often)

thats why i now have this blurry screenshot gallery that shows shots of the game; this gives a kind of a hint of what to expect and i find that "lack" of information more pleasant when browsing the games.

 

don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me but thats basically the reasoning why i don't use gameplay video snaps in my themes.

 

tim

[tcmt]

 

Yup, that's how I had it as well. Here's the code:

import fl.video.FLVPlayback; 
import fl.video.VideoEvent; 

var swfName:String;
swfName = this.loaderInfo.url;
swfName = swfName.slice(swfName.lastIndexOf("/") + 1, -4);

flvControl.source = "cinematic/" + swfName + ".mp4";

flvControl.autoRewind = true; 
flvControl.autoPlay = true; 

function Loop(event:fl.video.VideoEvent):void { 
    flvControl.play(); 
} 

flvControl.addEventListener(fl.video.VideoEvent.AUTO_REWOUND, Loop); 
flvControl.getVideoPlayer(flvControl.activeVideoPlayerIndex).smoothing = true;

stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, myKeyDown);

function myKeyDown(e:KeyboardEvent):void {
    if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.ENTER) {
        flvControl.getVideoPlayer(0).close();
    }
    if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.ESCAPE) {
        flvControl.getVideoPlayer(0).close();
    }
}
stop();

 

 

 

ah sadly it doesn't seem to work inside hyperspin tho, as i just found out. works great when you run the swf itself, but in hyperspin it won't load the mp4. if the swf has a set path (hardcoded path) it seems to work without problems, but not with a relative path like in the code above. my guess is that hyperspin might make a temporary copy of the swf and runs it from some other location? i don't know. have to experiment further. if someone has more ideas, please feel free to post them here.

 

on the topic of main menu mp4 to distribute: it is so hot at the moment, that my pc just can't handle the heat while rendering. seriously i even removed my overclock settings. but still. will wait a couple of days for lower temperatures.

 

all of you, have a great day!

cheers

tim

[dark13]

HS and flash player//MPC does not "see" the .swf in the same manner, for example HS seems to ignore text metrics (and it as a GOOD thing while making self animated scrolling text animation)

Upload the .fla, I'll add my autoreading code to it. Probably the code i sent you was not working because you need to use a folder structure that mimic the HS folder (es. ..\Cinematics\Sega Genesis\3 Ninja Strikes Back.mp4).

[tcmt]

Hey dark13, thanks for offering your help, you are awesome!

 

here you go: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkToObuCkd_-hABFnGqzBJwsoteQ

 

in this .fla i imported a video from my harddrive. so i don't know if that messes up stuff on your end. let me know.

 

 

in other news: i released the first batch of my MainMenu Themes: http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/topic/27257-polygon-widescreen-theme-htpc-universal-base´pak-release/?p=245344 

 

cheers

tim