New Frontend (Coming Soon)

[BadBoyBill]

Hi everyone,

Been lurking in and out of this forum for many years, I decided to write my own FE (HyperSpin) for fun for myself and am thinking of sharing it now.  I know there are lots of FE's out there but I wanted something like the old Arcade Legends/Ultracade feel.  I want to put together full documentation and a site during the next few weeks, so it'll be a bit before theres a download.  For now though here's a sneek peek.  I'll link a download to a better quality video if anyone is interested.  The video doesnt show submenus and game launching, I'll put that video up later.  This is just the main menu that I took to show animation, and the different things you can easily do with your artwork, sorry no sound. 

Youtube:


Higher Quality Download:
http://rapidshare.de/files/38579841/Frontend1.avi.html

Some features:

-Smooth continuous animated wheel. 
-Individually skinnable games and menu items.
-Skin and Animate videos
-Animate any artwork easily with a couple settings and achieve lots of different animations and transitions.
-Individual  settings for each game, allows for custom lists(ie. combine all street fighters from all emu's into one wheel cps2, cps3 , mame etc...)   or make a taito legends are capcom classics list etc...
-Multiple Emu's(One main wheel with sub wheels) or Single Emu mode (Run just one wheel with one emu), wheel
  animates in and out to see new wheels.
-Basic features(Attract mode, Intro Vid, List building, Controls , FPS Counter, etc...)

-Working on right now
  -Additional wheel styles, (horizontal flat, horizontal half moon)
  -Text effects, stroke text, shadows, color glow)
  -Backend software to help with skinning.
  -Joypad support

Let me know if theres any interest. Thanks.

[bent98]

Wow this is nice!

As long as I can use LED Blinky.

When are you going to release it to public?

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

Hi!

Video looks VERY intriguing!  Your artwork animation options give me TONS of potential skin ideas!

Make it relatively simple to set up lists and emulators, and make it relatively easy to skin (just not as cumbersome as 3DArcade, please!) and you've got my interest for sure!

Looking forward to more info and more videos! 

[Space Fractal]

Look awesome.

Any plans for make a Jukebox and PC games as "emulators" as well to the wheel (etc start a Jukebox or PC game(s) of your own selection)?

[bent98]

Are there any min requirements for video cards?

[Howard_Casto]

I really really really really really like it.  Keep in mind, I hate everything!

Could you post video of what happens when you actually go into one of the lists?

Also can it be done without the wheel?  I'm not sold on the wheel.  When ultrastyle first did it I thought it was great.  The more I played with it the more I hated it though... it just doesn't allow for maximum screen usage and it's hard to read elements on the outer edges. (They are at a 90 degree angle!)

[SGT]

Very nice, I'm impressed. 

[Havok]

Looks awesome - can't wait to see more..

 

I really really really really really like it.  Keep in mind, I hate everything!

That is a serious testimonial: Howard even hates the stuff he codes...

 

[loadman]

Cool.

Will it have native rotation options?

Will it have Plug-In Support? 

[fatfingers]

I really really really really really like it.

*heart attack ensues*

*fatfingers dies*

[BadBoyBill]

Very nice, I'm impressed. 

bent98 - LED Blinky support might be later on, I'm not really familiar with it yet.  Release will be soon hopefully,
I won't put a date on it yet, till I've tweeked everything But maybe a few weeks I'm guessing.  I will consider releasing it without a backend so all editing will be through ini, and I'll package a generic list  builder(dat to xml) compatible with no intro and other dat sets, and list from folder option.  My main holdup is the backend which is twice as tedious as writing the frontend.

Hi!

Video looks VERY intriguing!  Your artwork animation options give me TONS of potential skin ideas!

Make it relatively simple to set up lists and emulators, and make it relatively easy to skin (just not as cumbersome as 3DArcade, please!) and you've got my interest for sure!

Looking forward to more info and more videos! 

I think set up is fairly simple,  nothing on the level of 3DAracade.  All your skin ideas can come to life for sure,  just a breakdown.
All artwork follow this setup: 
1) Determine a final resting spot for an artwork and angle. 
2) Choose 1 style: Bounce, Ease, Grow, Grow X, Grow Y, Fade, Sweep Left, Sweep Right, or None(Linear Motion).
3) And last, choose where the artwork should animate from: Top, Bottom, Left, Right, or None.
Easy as that!  Combo any of those settings and you have hundreds of animation possiblities without having to know how to animate.

Look awesome.
Any plans for make a Jukebox and PC games as "emulators" as well to the wheel (etc start a Jukebox or PC game(s) of your own selection)?

I dont have the slightest clue of whats good for jukeboxes, but I definitely want it for my machine.  If you have a recommendation let me know, and I'm sure I can incorporate it.
Also yes PC games will run.  You can have a wheel image for PC games, select that wheel and a whole new wheel will have all your PC games.

Are there any min requirements for video cards?

Well, Im not for sure yet, but yes you do need a good PC/VideoCard, I'm running an older 9800XT Pro Radeon and I'm pullin 60 FPS on the animation continous with the down button, but... my Laptop Dell XPS older version 9700 256MB Video, the animation runs fast at first then gets a little bogged down.  Not sure why, but I do need to reload the laptop.  We will find out when people start testing.

I really really really really really like it.  Keep in mind, I hate everything!

Could you post video of what happens when you actually go into one of the lists?

Also can it be done without the wheel?  I'm not sold on the wheel.  When ultrastyle first did it I thought it was great.  The more I played with it the more I hated it though... it just doesn't allow for maximum screen usage and it's hard to read elements on the outer edges. (They are at a 90 degree angle!)

Thanks Howard, I agree on some points you make, I have only once seen an ultracade and it was pretty choppy going from game to game.  I don't really have a problem making out items on the wheel.  They do angle up at the top and bottom of the screen, but I dont think it interferes with selecting a game.  But it would be very easy to just have an option to not have a wheel, I will impliment it before release.  Text list arent built in yet.  I'm working on it now, but all FE's that I've seen have text lists so I figured people would just use them where I wanted an artwork based FE. I will get  a video up soon for your request.  I gotta borrow a camera again.

Very nice, I'm impressed. 

Looks awesome - can't wait to see more..

Thanks SGT and Havok

Cool.
Will it have native rotation options?
Will it have Plug-In Support? 

Sorry no rotation options.  That would be something I would really have to think about.
There isnt anything in place for plugins so far.  Are there certain plugins that provide features for other FE's in particularl. Or just in general for people to add functionality to this software?

I will be posting a better video of the first video so you can download it in a few minutes.

[Circo]

This looks like it has alot of potential, very exciting!!! 

[SGT]

Sorry no rotation options.  That would be something I would really have to think about.
There isnt anything in place for plugins so far.  Are there certain plugins that provide features for other FE's in particularl. Or just in general for people to add functionality to this software?

Below is a link to Mala plugins *and* the Plugin SDK.  How cool would it be if the current Mala plugins would work with your FE out of the box! 

http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/plugins.html

If you add plugin functionality and rotation, I predict an explosion of interest for this FE.  Don't get me wrong, it has great appeal already. 

[Havok]

Will it have Plug-In Support? 

Don't mind loadman - he's just jealous that yet another front end is graphically superior to Mala...

[bent98]

I dying to see sub menus

[loadman]

Will it have Plug-In Support? 

Don't mind loadman - he's just jealous that yet another front end is graphically superior to Mala...

It's strange that you took it that way,  It was a ligit question. If I wanted Bling Bling I would have switched to GameEx long ago.. Anything but Atomic    Just Kidding 

Anyway....
I was very impressed, but I like to make Plug-ins to add custom functionality hence the question.  Such a thing could make me switch FE's   

[Dazz]

Very very hot... can't wait to see how easy it is to skin and also how end user friendly it is.  I have kids and when using Mala and MameWah in the past I would always find the configs out of wack somehow.  I switched to Maximus Arcade and absolutely love it so far and NOTHING has been screwed up yet by the kids.  If your FE comes close I might just have to see what this can do. 

Thanks for your awesome contribution to the scene!

[Havok]

Such a thing could make me switch FE's   

Yeah, riiiiiight...

 

[headkaze]

Fantastic! Very similar looking animation system to the engine I'm currently writing. It looks like you even have some of the bouncing and ease in/out type effects it has too.

I really can't fault the overall look, it's very impressive! There are quite a few new 3d accellerated (next gen) FE's coming out this year and it will certainly be an exciting one for arcade gamers! I can't wait to see the new skins people make for them.

[youki]

Very Impressive. Looks very promising.   I love it.

If you do a good follow up , and activily support it , it will be surely a Killer App! 

Looks quite similar to my Atomic "NextGen" engine can do.

[headkaze]

Looks quite similar to my Atomic "NextGen" engine can do.

So you finally decided to drop DirectDraw for Direct3D Welcome to the party!

[youki]

Yes.     but i don't drop DirectDraw. 

The "Next Gen" will be a brand new Front end  for modern PC. And could be  .NET/XNA too... (yes ,i'mgetting old, i'm becoming a lazy coder  )

AtomicFE ,as it is ,is still evoluing. But less on the "bling bling" part.  I'm doing a very hard work on Configuration tools.

Anyway, don't wait for Atomic "next gen"  for short term. It is not ready at all. It is just a set of  nice routines for now.


I'm curious, in what language did you developpe your Front End BadBoyBill ?

[headkaze]

Yes.     but i don't drop DirectDraw. 

The "Next Gen" will be a brand new Front end  for modern PC. And could be  .NET/XNA too... (yes ,i'mgetting old, i'm becoming a lazy coder  )

AtomicFE ,as it is ,is still evoluing. But less on the "bling bling" part.  I'm doing a very hard work on Configuration tools.

Anyway, don't wait for Atomic "next gen"  for short term. It is not ready at all. It is just a set of  nice routines for now.

I'm curious, in what language did you developpe your Front End BadBoyBill ?

Lol! You finally see the light in .NET! You can call it lazy coding or you can call it "rapid development". You get alot more done in a shorter time.

BTW I looked at XNA for my engine and decided not to go with it for now. XNA has no support for DirectShow so there is no way to do 3d accellerated video on textures AFAIK. Maybe they have added it now but when I last looked they didn't. The main reason for that I believe is support for XBox 360; no DirectShow on XBox 360! So I decided to stick with MDX 1.1. One other avenue I think worth persuing is SlimDX but I haven't looked alot into it.

I don't want to sound like I'm putting this excellent new FE down, but after watching this video a few times I realised my engine was capable of this type of animation over a year ago. I just don't have a nice skin to show it off yet. I know Atomic could do things like this but software alpha blending using DirectDraw API is always going to limit what it can do. But I think AtomicFE with a 3d engine could be a different story, especially if you support your current skins. Now with Khameleon and DK are both 3d it's going to be interesting to see all the different opinions on those.

[youki]

Lol! You finally see the light in .NET! You can call it lazy coding or you can call it "rapid development". You get alot more done in a shorter time.

You know, i work with .NET since 2000 . I really like it. Just that for what i wanted for Atomic it would have limited the target plateforms.

software alpha blending using DirectDraw API is always going to limit what it can do.

There is no software support for Alpha Blending in DirectDraw API. I had to write my own routines.   

In fact , what is really limitating me with Direct Draw , are bitmap "rotations". Like for instance , doing a Wheel List with directDraw...  It is in these case you really regrets Direct3d.

[Cakemeister]

Very, very cool. It takes Youki's trajectory files to the next level.

[RetroBorg]

Great video, frontend looks great and I like the name "Hyperspin" too. 

With Khameleon and Howard's frontend coming out shortly, plus all the other current frontends already out, we are really going to be spoiled. 

[Popcorrin]

Very nice!  I've seen a few ultracades in action and it's hard to tell yours apart.

Once it's released, I think it would be a cool idea to have a repository that people could add their per game animations to and that way people could share rather than trying to make a few hundred per game animations on their own.

[unclet]

Would it be possible to add a "Most Played" emulator?   It would be nice to have one game list which lists the Top25/50/75/100 games played.  Basically the most popular games from all other configured emulators would be listed in this one "most played" emulator list.   

[BadBoyBill]

Thanks to everyone showing interest.

Its really encouraging and makes me want to keep hard at work.

Some features already implimented that might be interesting that I didnt mention.

From the video.  You can see some videos have overlay png's that animate along with the video.  You have 3 options with video.  Plain square.  Overlay png.  Or border.  The border option allows for a quick visual skin.
You choose the border width and color and the border will be are rounded corner frame for the video.  This is for those not wanting to spend time creating a picture but do not want a plain square video.  I might add another option so you can set the roundness of the border in pixels.

Also from the video.  You can see 2 things at the bottom of the video.  The words press start/free play blinking in and out, and also Some kind of info in the center of the screen showing the user what to do.  These two items come from the same class and show you what can be done with different settings. 
You have tons of possibilites with these special artworks.  They are differnt than your normal artworks which your allowed up to 4 on the screen.  Your allowed 2 of these artworks and they have different kind of settings.  They are basically artwork that switches out.  For example the free play/ press start are just 2 pictures that rotate out.  Advantage of pictures in this case is obviously you design your text on your own.  Gradients etc... Like in the video.

Settings Include:
How long each pic stays on the screen in the press start case (about 1 second)
Type of animation, in the press start case(fade)
How long the animation lasts and where it starts, in the press start case (about half a second)
Delay between pictures to show up, in the press start case(about half a second)

With these four settings you can create hundreds of possible scenarios.  The second example the info at the bottom center of the screen is cycling 3 pictures(no limit though), with a different animation type(ease). Think of the posibilities, artwork slideshow, game controller viewer, FE instructions, etc...

Everything you see on the screen has default settings via ini files, if no per game settings are set.  So if you want to build a 1000 game wheel and just want boxart moving in and out , then just set your artwork defaults for a quicker setup.

This is a flash9 based frontend for those who care.  It is wrapped with third party software that allows me to extend flash way beyond its normal capabilities and make use of .NET.  The reason I chose this route was time mainly and to see what AS3 can do when combined this way.  Everything you have seen so far was made in just weeks on my spare time.  The best part to me is that it doesnt have a flash feel, and with the Virtual Machine 3, animation is much better.  There are no internal assets, everything is defined by the user.  All dialogs are normal windows, no cheesy flash stuff.  I have two versions available ready to go so far and not sure which I'm going with, one requiring .NET.  I'm feeling them out right now.  If your not feeling it then thats cool, but from what I've been playing with I havent seen any major issues so far and am very happy with the outcome.  Perfect for a frontend.

All the extra details will be given about the FE on the website.
An artwork repository will have to be on a seperate site.
Creating a top played list automatically wont be an issue.  To take it a step further, my idea for a better attract mode will be this.  One or any combo of these in order:

First play random video from a specified folder.
Second display a nice screen with hi scores from the top played games(MAME). With Logos for each of the games with a score to the right.  All customizable of course.
Third. Animated instruction screen or something else.

Will try to get the top played lists  going as one of my first post release projects.

****
I'm not sure if anyone is interested but I'll just put it out there anyways.  If there is any interest in contributing with writing backend I could really use the help. I only have a few hours a night to work on this(12-14 hour a day job), and it would be nice to spend my time working on the frontend and documentation and just overall have a partner to work with.
If someone wants to help you will be the first to have access to play with and all releases, plus artwork.
And all credit for your work of course.
If your good with forms are very comfortable working with xml, then let me know, I can release this alot sooner otherwise I'll probalbly get started on it in the next few weeks.

[headkaze]

Very interesting you used Flash, I guess that is why it reminded me alot of my animation system as it's based on Flash's animation system (Tweening/Frames/Easing). My engine is in pure .NET and I'm a little disappointed yours isn't as I would possibly be interested in working with you.

I have a lot of the backend code in .NET for dealing with emulators in other software I've written. Including a plugin for LEDWiz as metioned earlier in this thread. My guess is you would like to keep using your own engine but I would want to keep using mine. Also another problem is I might want to use my engine for commercial projects which means it would be impractical to share code. I am interested in getting your skin running through my engine though

I smile because there are alot of your ideas in my own engine, like masking for videos and transitions. My themes are broken up into layout files where everything from animation to layout is defined in an xml file. It has alot of flexibility and is very powerful.

My guess is you have a strong Flash/Actionscript background because alot of the animation stuff, for me anyway, is inspired by Flash.

Oh well I can still help you with anything related to .NET if you encounter any problems. You know I once wrote a FE in pure Flash + OOP ActionScript 2 but I found it rendered too slow so I gave up on it. I wrote it because MCE only allowed plugins using HTML so I wanted to imitate the look of MCE in Flash so plugins looked nicer. It looks like ActionScript 3 and this software to integrate with .NET has improved it's performance alot.

[BadBoyBill]

It's nice to here that someone else has attempted this.  I did an AS2 version about 5 years ago, ran games fine and everything, and I had the same issues as you, waaay to slow.  Now its a different ball game and AS3 is making my visions come alive, so I'm rebuilding an old project.  I'm sorry that its not fully .NET, but I'm glad you can still apprciate what it can do. 

I wanted animation to be easy for the user without needing to import swfs which some FE's support.  Anyone can animate without flash for free.  So I made premade animations that can be set by the user and a simple name like ease.  And like you all themes are XML. But not in indiviual layouts, the "List" database is the theme. Something like this:

<System>
      <Description>Nintendo Entertainment System</Description>
      <Artwork1 x="512" y="200" r=360" time="2" animation="ease" start="top"/>
      <Artwork2/>
      <Artwork3/>
      <Artwork4/>
      <Video/>
</System>

Will animate an object from the top of the screen to 512,200 rotate in a full 360, eased into position in 2 seconds.

From the backend would be real fast to setup animation for your png file.
The videos is the fun part, same as above with a couple extras for borders and scaling.

I appreciate the offer for help, I might need it.  No shame in my game.
Obviously the drawback with Flash is that it will never be as good as anything you can make speed wise,
but I'm just happy I'm getting the speeds that I am right now.  Just worried about others trying to run it.

[headkaze]

Yeah it's almost scary how close they are lol. But I put it down to Flash really which was my inspiration. I was really excited about this feature in my engine and thought it was ingenious to use Flash animation techniques in Direct3D. Lol now I don't feel like it's so unique

Here is a snippet from a test theme that shows the tweening syntax

Code: [Select]

<Video Name="VideoSnap" Source="Video.avi" X="0.0312" Y="0.3017" Z="0.5" Width="0.3047" Height="0.3613" Loop="True" Mute="False">
<Mask Name="VideoSnapMask" Source="masktv.png"></Mask>
<Tween Ease="Bounce" EaseType="InOut">
<Frame Duration="5"><Rotate X="0" Y="0" Z="0"></Rotate></Frame>
<Frame Duration="5"><Rotate X="0" Y="0" Z="5"></Rotate><Scale X="0" Y="0" Z="-1"></Scale></Frame>
<Frame Duration="5"><Rotate X="0" Y="0" Z="0"></Rotate></Frame>
</Tween>
<Reflection Name="VideoReflect" X="0.0312" Y="0.72" Z="0.5" Width="0.3047" Height="0.1806">
<Translate X="0.08" Y="0" Z="0"></Translate>
<Shear X="1" Y="0"></Shear>
</Reflection>
</Video>
So as you can see it's a little similar (in concept), although I don't have any "built in" animation types yet but it seems like a good idea to simplify common movements/transitions into single commands. Right now I'm just adding as much flexibility as I can.

I'm very impressed by the speeds too. Never belived you could do anything like that in Flash without it chugging. Macromedia/Adobe have obviously pulled their fingers out this time.

[nipsmg]

Let me just say, wow.  I absolutely love it, and the skin for it is great.  I would definitely use this, without question.

That being said, I would love to help you with coding, but again, I'm a .net guy, so like headcaze I don't think I could be much help.  I can't wait to see a release of this, it looks amazing.  Keep up the good work!

[BadBoyBill]

So as you can see it's a little similar (in concept)

Sheesh, you got that right, very similar, I had a similar setup at first, then I tried pretty hard to simplify everything.

For instance the game description pretty much defines everything the video name and overlay name. 

I didnt even think about loop.  Its automatic loop, but your right maybe the user doesnt want a loop.  Need to add.  I thought to add reflection to video but didnt add it since my themes are all cartoony lookin, but again need to think about the user here, some people like that. 

Ya I felt premade but yet customizable animations were the way to go for simplicity sake.  For instance if you watch the video the very last part for MAME uses one I call Sweep Left or Sweep Right.  Sweep take your png fly's it across the screen out the other side of the screen  then moves it into location from the top of the screen all with one keyword.  The user still defines the speed of the animation, the timing and final location, and rotation.

Let me just say, wow.  I absolutely love it, and the skin for it is great.  I would definitely use this, without question.

That being said, I would love to help you with coding, but again, I'm a .net guy, so like headcaze I don't think I could be much help.  I can't wait to see a release of this, it looks amazing.  Keep up the good work!

Thanks, I still could use any help with the backend, which can be in done in anotherer language.  But I know thats booring work for most, and I'm not looking forward myself.  But would definitely put your name on this FE.  Working alone on this is driving me nuts. LOL.

Also I will be designing a logo this week, if any Graphic guys out there want to toss up any ideas lemme know. The official name will be HyperSpin.

There is also a higher quality video of the youtube vid in the original post if anyone is interested.

[Hoopz]

There is also a higher quality video of the youtube vid in the original post if anyone is interested.

OF COURSE!  Where is it please???

Very cool!   

[BadBoyBill]

In my first post of this topic, it uses rapidshare, so click the link, scroll to the bottom and click the free button to get your file.

[RetroBorg]

BadBoyBill,

Any chance the skin and setup we saw on the video could be the default skin and setup that we download and all we have to do is add roms, emulators and fine tune a few settings to run straight out of the box.

Second display a nice screen with hi scores from the top played games(MAME). With Logos for each of the games with a score to the right. 

Can you describe how this might work? e.g. will your frontend be able to read the high score files from those games and display on some custom screen?

The more I read about your frontend the more I'm impressed, I look forward to seeing the finished project.

[Cakemeister]

Are skins going to be XML, some other plain text format, or binary files?

[BORIStheBLADE]

Nice work. Hope to see it out soon.

[Dazz]

I am really curious to see what the emulator config is going to be like for this? 

Is it going to be all .ini and .xml files like others or a simple easy to use interface?   I found MameWAH and Mala to be excellent front ends, but configuring them to work nicely takes a lot of work.  When I was using them I was doing more configs and re-configs than I was playing anything.  I've switched to Maximus (which costs) for it's nice and easy way to setup new emulators.