Image Naming for cab pics (Poll) -

[Tiger-Heli]

Okay, I am starting work on ImagXtreme again - http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/museum/ - again, and I want to redo the imageformats.  I want to rename the images to use MAME names, but sometimes this isn't so straightforward, so I was wondering what you guys preferred.

I'll start with a simple example: Defender had only one cab style (other than cruddy conversions).  I don't like the trend of saving one image as defender.png, a different perspective image as defendg.png, the next crappier image as defendw.png, etc.   I much prefer to save the images as defender.png, defender0000.png, defender0001.png - A format which Emuloader supports (among other fe's).

Also most FE support displaying the parent game image if a clone image is not found.

This is pretty cut-and-dried for single image cabs, but here's three examples of games with problems that I would like your opinions on:

Gyruss - The most common arcade version was made by Centuri (gyrussce), but the parent game in mame is the Konami version (gyruss).  Do I stay arcade accurate and name the centuri version gyrussce.png, but then if you only play parent games you will never see this image?  Or do I name the centuri version gyruss.png and the konami version gyruss0000.png and the frontend should display the more popular ones.

PacMan - The most common version is PacMan (midway) but the parent is Puckman (and also had a cabinet.  Do I name the familiar yellow cabinet one pacman.png and the japanese version puckman.png?  This is arcade accurate, but if I do this, games like pacmod will show the japanese cabinet instead of the more accurate yellow cab.  Or do I name the yellow cabinet puckman.png, and make the true puckman cabs puckman0000.png?

Space Invaders - There were three versions of this cab - The most common being the midway version, which is the parent, but there were also at least two Taito versions, a full-size cab with blue artwork and a joystick, and a TrimLine (cabaret) version with orange artwork.  (And there are four taito versions in MAME (sicv, sisv, sisv2, and sitv)  I don't know which MAME version went with each Taito Version, if there was even a correlation (the same board may have been used in different cabinets).

In thinking this through, I am leaning towards just using Parent names and starting with the most popular game version for the first image, but that might just be a simple and cop-out way to save me having to determine which MAME variant matches the game.

Also - I couldn't make this a poll question, but I also see the following problem and would like your opinion -  Let's say I already have a defender.png and defender0000.png image on the page.  Somewhere out there, I come across a defender image that is better than my 0000 image, but not as good as my basic image.  If I were doing image packs, the solution would be to re-name defender0000.png as defender0001.png and make the new image defender0000.png., but I don't plan to do image packs (site bandwidth problems).  So do I re-name the images as above (new viewers get the site the way it should be, but returning viewers will have a tough time since 0001 is the image they have as 0000), or do I put the new image as 0001 even though it's better than 0000?  What if I just want to drop 0000 and replace with the new image?

Comments appreciated!!!!

[Howard_Casto]

My two cents.....

In most cases (not all)  you shouldn't have multiple images of the same cabinet anyway.  Lots of times when you start researching you'll find that this secondary cabinet was only used on a certain revision of the rom. 

Let me give you an example....  Discs of Tron:

There are three rom revisions, Environmental, Upright and Upright Alternative

Gee I wonder what those descriptors represent?

If you really do your research, you'll find that 9 times out of 10 a particular cabinet shape was only used on a particular rom revision. 


Now the only exception to this I can think of are cabaret games and cocktails.  I suggest making it standardized.  Any 0001 image is a cocktail/cockpit any 0002 image is a cabaret, and 0003+ image is ect.... You would only jump to this convention though if one rom revision actually had two cabs.... like I've said redundantly, this usually isn't the case.

[Tiger-Heli]

Howard, thanks for your input, but let me play devil's advocate a little.

In most cases (not all)  you shouldn't have multiple images of the same cabinet anyway.  Lots of times when you start researching you'll find that this secondary cabinet was only used on a certain revision of the rom.

Well, lot's of times I have multiple images even of the same game.  For example, using Defender again - Ideally, I have one 300x700 image at 3/4 perspective, showing the full sideart, marquee, and control panel, and all are in great shape.  This becomes defender.png and we move on.  More often than not, I have a fuzzy 3/4 perspective shot at 120x240, and a so-so 3/4 perspective shot at 250x500 with torn side art, and a great 300x700 shot that is either front on (no side art) or from the side (no front view).  See http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/museum/Lunar_Lander.htm Since it's hard to decide which is better, I usually include all of them and let the user choose, but that will mess up your numbering idea.   

Let me give you an example....  Discs of Tron:
There are three rom revisions, Environmental, Upright and Upright Alternative
Gee I wonder what those descriptors represent?
If you really do your research, you'll find that 9 times out of 10 a particular cabinet shape was only used on a particular rom revision.

Well sure, but that's a simple one.  Two more examples - Missile command came in a cockpit and an upright (and a cabaret, maybe a cocktail).  MAME has two versions - Missile Command (Set 1) and Missile Command (Set 2).  Hard to tell which is which.  Another example: http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/museum/1942_(Williams).htm 1942 (Williams) - I know that's a Xevious cabinet it's running in, but MAME shows four versions of 1942 and none  mention Williams.

Now the only exception to this I can think of are cabaret games and cocktails.  I suggest making it standardized.  Any 0001 image is a cocktail/cockpit any 0002 image is a cabaret, and 0003+ image is ect.... You would only jump to this convention though if one rom revision actually had two cabs.... like I've said redundantly, this usually isn't the case.

Won't work as I mentioned above.  (Although I didn't plan to include cocktails unless that was the only way the game was released).

I take it from your response, that you would rather see the image name match the romname in general, then - so the popular Gyruss becomes Gyrussce.png and Frontends that display parent info would not have a cabinet for this image.

[Howard_Casto]

Basically.... I'll take accuracy over asthetics anyday.  It's the reason controls.dat only has approx 50% of the entries done.  We could fudge a great deal more, but that'd make future sorting functions based on the dat useless.

[Tiger-Heli]

Yep, I'm coming to that realization.  I also looked at Mr. Do's CP page and that's basically what he said also.

Basically, there are two ways to do this.  You either name the game to match the parent game in MAME with multiple entries for different versions.  This is easiest for frontends to handle and easiest to do.  Or you match the game to the ROM name.  This is closest to the spirit of MAME (documentation), but doesn't work as well in a frontend.

Unless I get convinced otherwise, I am leaning toward the second option, except in many instances it won't make a difference because there is no way to match the game to the rom.

Example - 1942 (Williams), and Space Invaders (Taito) will probably all end up as variants of the parent game b/c I can't see any way to match them up with the correct clone rom.