[WIP] Minimalist HyperSpin Theme - opinions needed

[Muroth]

Hi BYOAC, so I just finished my "Multicade" arcade cabinet and it's running Hyperspin, however I am a simple guy and don't like all the bling bling it has. So I decided to try and make my own. I'm no graphics artist, I just started fooling around with Photoshop and came up with something that I think is starting to come together. This is still a WIP, so any criticism, opinions, recommendations are greatly appreciated.

For the main menu, i'm going for sort of a Maximus arcade front-end feeling. I think less is better. This is what I have at the moment.


I'm not fully decided on the layout of the MAME section... That's why you guys are here 

Here's another layout a little cleaned up:

Version 3...


I tried filling out the space a little bit and started adding characters...but i'm not sure if I like it. Maybe I need more? Or completely just get rid of it.

[lamprey]

I'm all for using HyperSpin. But, if you are going for a more minimalist look, have you thought about using another front end that already comes that way?

[twistedsymphony]

The way you've got it laid out makes it look like so many other non-HyperSpin interfaces, it kind of defeats the purpose.

I built a Minimalist HyperSpin interface for my cab but the way I did it was this: the whole background is just the gameplay video, and the wheel images roll across the top of the screen with the selected game wheel dropped down in the center to act as a title over the gameplay image. while the other images are set to fade.

I don't have any pictures of it at the moment but I was inspired by this setup:



mine looks very similar but I have the wheel images are setup a bit different.

simple and unobtrusive but still professional looking.

[vwalbridge]

Here is a simple hyperspin layout I created for my Coleco tabletop:



I wanted it to look like iTunes cover-flow so the box art slides across the bottom and the corresponding video preview loads above. No other text. Most people can tell what game it is by the box art and the video preview. I didn't like text mucking up the screen.

For console games the box art scrolls along the bottom and for arcades its just the stock wheel art.

[Slippyblade]

I do really like the little pixel art arcade machine w/player.  Very cute.

[kiel0909]

I built a Minimalist HyperSpin interface for my cab but the way I did it was this: the whole background is just the gameplay video, and the wheel images roll across the top of the screen with the selected game wheel dropped down in the center to act as a title over the gameplay image. while the other images are set to fade.

any chance you would want to share said interface?

[twistedsymphony]

any chance you would want to share said interface?

there's not much to share. I used adobe photoshop to batch rotate and standardize the width of all the wheel images.
I the theme were I just show the video in the background is saved as the default and only theme. I made my own but I think JeepGuy has one just like it available on the HyperSpin FTP. JeepGuy also has the rotated special art (such as the flashing "press start text" and wiggling joystick"

The rest is just tweaking the settings inside of Hyperspin to remove all of the other crap, setup the wheel spacing and rotate the controls.

[kiel0909]

sorry to bug again, but how did you change the font style of the games in the wheel, in Hyper HQ it only gives me 5 styles with no custom choice, and searching through folders i cant find anything to replace, google is no help either, hopefully my version isnt too old

[twistedsymphony]

sorry to bug again, but how did you change the font style of the games in the wheel, in Hyper HQ it only gives me 5 styles with no custom choice, and searching through folders i cant find anything to replace, google is no help either, hopefully my version isnt too old

Assuming this is directed at me and not the OP...

there are no fonts used in my setup at all, All of the game titles are image files. hyperspin refers to these as "wheel images" and they go in the media folder (there should be a sub-folder for each system and then a wheel folder in the system folder, it's been a while since I looked at the folder structure), If you have access to the hyperspin FTP you can use HyperSync to download the official wheel images. Otherwise I think can get some/most of them from the download section of the hyperspin website.

on the vertical theme i used a photoshop macro to rotate all of the images 90* since Hyperspin technically only supports horizontal monitors. it only looks vertical but HS thinks it's running horizontal.

[kiel0909]

was for OP.  he's got that old 8bit font, I need to make that switch instead of all the wheel images