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prettiest front end?
)p(:
--- Quote from: headkaze on March 30, 2006, 09:58:26 am ---
As for 3D Arcade, I love these ideas that 3D Arcade is using, in fact some of the concepts you describe are what I'm tackling on a project of my own, so it's nice to see them in visual terms. I think 3D Arcade is really great, including the Ultracade wheel and other effects. But as for creating an editor for a program like this, the only way to do it is like Doom 3 - the game *is* the editor, or in this case, the FE is the editor. So you would be within the FE, select "Edit Theme" then have options to select the type of view - cyclic wheel using images, animated textures, 3d models, marquee's etc. then select the view type - infinite cylinder, vertical, sideways etc, then perhaps a background effect eg. radial blur like the XBox 360 dashboard background effect or a wavy mesh effect like MCE background. Then you have the various options of spacing between objects, orientation etc. and as you adjust these options (using keys, joystick or buttons - whatever) the effect can be seen live on your list. This is the only practical way I could see an editor being made for such a FE. But either way, 3D Arcade is still very impressive work.
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Yeah I agree. For the old 2d part of the fe skinning in 3darcade actually works like that. But its actually more suited for the 3d stuff. And if I would have developed it further I would have done it like you said for everything that happens in the 3d sprite too. For the fpsarcade mode there is already an interactive building mode. Not perfect but a good start. But I have never got around to start one for cylarcade. Knowing that its even more startling how Deniro made that c64 skin isnt ;)
peter
sWampy:
--- Quote from: tspeirs on March 30, 2006, 10:08:51 am ---I personally cant wait for Vista, WinFX, Avalon and DirectX10, when I can start pimping the graphics in the beast! From what I can tell its going to make the whole process much easier as the whole OS runs on Direct3D, and .net developers get the biggest and best support from MS. I think yourll see a lot more from GameEx too, in terms of visuals, while maintaining a host of features, and ease of use, and allowing me to code and deliver things in rapid time due to .net.
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There are a ton of us that will never, ever put vista on a machine, way to much drm crap, and even more restrive bs with activation, and monthy fees to Microsoft for updates.
)p(:
--- Quote from: tspeirs on March 30, 2006, 10:08:51 am ---and maybe thats why more people tend to use GameEx, Mamewaht, Atomic etc than 3D Arcade, which pisses over us in terms of graphics.
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That and the fact its really old and never designed to be used by anyone else but me ;D
Times have definately changed a lot since I build my emulaxian cab. And started to make a fe to fit with the theme of the cabinet. It was fun and great to see that youki made some sort of shooting script to show what his script engine can do as that was one of the features I started with all these years ago...shooting at galaxians to select gamelists. Hehe a nostalgic feeling about a hobby that started with a nostalgic feeling about a longing to play those old great games again as they were meant to be played! ( you can still see how it looked and worked in the frontend section here www.i-modernist.com/emulaxian I actually still use the fe exactly like that...I never changed it on my cab!)
I agree its now time for more userfriendly frontends designed with users in mind from scratch. Its just not my kind of thing...I like doing weird experimental stuff :)
peter
Minwah:
--- Quote from: headkaze on March 30, 2006, 08:20:35 am ---The thing is, I think the majority of people want a text list and graphics but done in Direct 3D/Open GL environment taking advantage of 3D acceleration and hardware effects. Like the original post asks about a FE like the XBox dashboards available.
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I think you're probably right here, although I don't think like this personally. I built an arcade machine to play classic (or at least old school) games on...so I want the FE to look old school also (low-res 2d). So for me personally, my FE is good enough (even graphically, which isn't it's strongpoint). However I do plan to one day update it using DirectDraw, which will allow for a few extra graphical features. Unless I have some other reason to learn it, 3D is something I don't think I'll ever incorporate tho.
youki:
--- Quote ---Sorry youki, don't know what gave me the impression it was using GDI.
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Surely because i use the GDIPlus.dll to load my images. But i don't use GDI to display. :)
--- Quote ---I really like your scripted themes, but they can be awful slow. If you optimize that feature, it could definately be a more useful feature. Although, again creating themes could be difficult for a non-programmer unless there is a whole editor with scripting
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I working on that. I just introduced the feature in this version , it should go better and better in future version. And the layout editor should help to build script too. And i plan to make a library of simple script that the user can modify easly.
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