Author Topic: Frontend so I can use my own graphics? (Read 3959 times)

paigeoliver · « **on:** April 11, 2003, 06:56:57 am »

My Artic Mini Mame is only going to have about 32 games or so installed on it (it has a 4-way joystick and a vertical monitor, so my choices are limited, and I only want the GOOD games that use those controls).

Here is what I would like. I would like my front end to not show any menu at all. I just want it so show a full screen graphic (which I can make), pressing start will load that game, while pressing left or right will move on to the next or previous game.

I could make a different graphic for each game.

)p( · « **Reply #1 on:** April 11, 2003, 07:36:59 am »

really only one pic and no list...you could setup a lot of skinnable fe's like that...

with mine you would set it to load with the listbox menutype and turn of the 3dcab then move all other sprites offscreen in skinner mode so that only the screenshot sprite is on screen and filling the whole screen...map only kgameup and kgamedown key to move through the screenshots and kstart to launch a game, done ;-)

peter

Brad Lee · « **Reply #2 on:** April 11, 2003, 11:06:25 am »

Advancemenu has a mode like this also (mode full) and the keys are configurable so you can remap them to whatever you need

Superdude · « **Reply #3 on:** April 11, 2003, 11:22:48 am »

EMUTRON. That will allow you to create a front end that is unlike anything else you have seen! I will be posting my creations with emutron soon. Unbelieveable fe.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #4 on:** April 11, 2003, 02:42:24 pm »

Lazarus will do this to, you simply turn the list mode to "snapshot" and make it a one element list. But to be honest all of these fe's mentioned are a bit overkill for what you are asking. You have far better options available to you than just simply making a graphic for each game.

Chris · « **Reply #5 on:** April 14, 2003, 11:00:39 pm »

There is so much you can do other than one big image per game. I'm fond of my Lazarus skin, which uses marquee images for the selection list:

By the way, Howard, that center marquee used to have a blue line around it; when I upgraded to the latest Lazarus, it became an almost invisible transparent line. How do I get that line solid again?

--Chris

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #6 on:** April 14, 2003, 11:47:11 pm »

You don't

Although dx laz eill let you use a transparent png as your highlight, so the sky is the limit.

Superdude · « **Reply #7 on:** April 15, 2003, 11:14:11 am »

Here is emutron:

Superdude · « **Reply #8 on:** April 15, 2003, 11:15:52 am »

One more image:

wee beastie · « **Reply #9 on:** April 16, 2003, 11:06:19 am »

Superdude,

It's great to see that someone else has gone crazy with EmuTron too. My cab is called the mamelith, so I have this monolith theme (pics) going on in all my menus. It's nice to be able to skin every page...

wee beastie

Superdude · « **Reply #10 on:** April 16, 2003, 11:57:22 am »

No doubt wee...
Emutron is just as easy as html. You can just about do anything you would like. I think the reason why people don't use it is because they are lazy. Do you have pics of your system? Thanks

said7 · « **Reply #11 on:** April 16, 2003, 04:08:58 pm »

can you use flash in emutron? Are the any Fe's that allow you to use flash?

rampy · « **Reply #12 on:** April 16, 2003, 04:26:55 pm »

Quote from: said7 on April 16, 2003, 04:08:58 pm

can you use flash in emutron? Are the any Fe's that allow you to use flash?

emulaxian does... *shrug* dunno whether emutron does, although I'm sure pacmanfan knows =P

rampy

PacManFan · « **Reply #13 on:** April 16, 2003, 04:36:48 pm »

Quote from: rampy on April 16, 2003, 04:26:55 pm

Quote from: said7 on April 16, 2003, 04:08:58 pm
can you use flash in emutron? Are the any Fe's that allow you to use flash?

emulaxian does... *shrug* dunno whether emutron does, although I'm sure pacmanfan knows =P

rampy

Not yet, but it's on my to-do list
-PacManFan

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #14 on:** April 16, 2003, 06:21:01 pm »

Pac I wouldn't reccomend it unless the entire fe is in flash. Flash movies are one thing, but if you get fancy it interferes with the rest of your gui stuff. (Already looked into it, decided it's best to convert a flash movie to mpeg instead.)

PacManFan · « **Reply #15 on:** April 16, 2003, 09:08:03 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on April 16, 2003, 06:21:01 pm

Pac I wouldn't reccomend it unless the entire fe is in flash. Flash movies are one thing, but if you get fancy it interferes with the rest of your gui stuff. (Already looked into it, decided it's best to convert a flash movie to mpeg instead.)

How does it interfere? I haven't really looked into it, As long as I can set the hDC output to blit into a DirectDraw7 lpSurface, and get a signal from the control when it draws, I should be fine. The way that the UI is drawn in my code is not very windows - based. I've got everything set up in it's own separate run loop thread, with windows message handling in another thread entirely so I can maximize the speed. I don't rely on WM_PAINT messages to do the draw.
What have you found out about it?
-PacManFan

PacManFan · « **Reply #16 on:** April 16, 2003, 09:10:27 pm »

Quote from: Superdude on April 15, 2003, 11:14:11 am

Here is emutron:

SuperDude!
Those look awesome! Do you mind if I post that on my site in a gallery?
-PacManFan

PacManFan · « **Reply #17 on:** April 16, 2003, 09:14:44 pm »

Quote from: Superdude on April 15, 2003, 11:15:52 am

One more image:

Nice pic! Did you know you can get rid of that black border on the Nintendo Logo by using the DisplayBitmapStretchFitTrans function instead of the normal blit? Just declare a color with the transparency color , and pass that along like this:

DisplayBitmapStretchFitTrans(bitmap,rectangle,transparentcolor)

Those scripts look sweet, keep'em coming!
-PacManFan

wee beastie · « **Reply #18 on:** April 16, 2003, 11:01:15 pm »

Here's some of my pics. (again) my machine is called mamelith, so I wanted to stick with the monolith theme.

Here's the startup script background. From here, you choose your emulator

I can't seem to upload my mame background image at the moment. It basically is the same layout as the original ET background image, but I redid the colors and bordered all the menus with neon-esqe tubes kinda like the arcade84 skin that is popular.

wee beastie

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #19 on:** April 16, 2003, 11:36:27 pm »

Quote from: PacManFan on April 16, 2003, 09:08:03 pm

Quote from: Howard_Casto on April 16, 2003, 06:21:01 pm
Pac I wouldn't reccomend it unless the entire fe is in flash. Flash movies are one thing, but if you get fancy it interferes with the rest of your gui stuff. (Already looked into it, decided it's best to convert a flash movie to mpeg instead.)

How does it interfere? I haven't really looked into it, As long as I can set the hDC output to blit into a DirectDraw7 lpSurface, and get a signal from the control when it draws, I should be fine. The way that the UI is drawn in my code is not very windows - based. I've got everything set up in it's own separate run loop thread, with windows message handling in another thread entirely so I can maximize the speed. I don't rely on WM_PAINT messages to do the draw.
What have you found out about it?
-PacManFan

Well both flash and shockwave plugins/applications steal focus away from the main form (or in this case directdraw surface). So it will display fine, but all input gets wrangled to it in istead of the forms hwnd. There are tricks to get around it (how i got the w3d plugin to work) but it is a buttload of work and even when you get it working it's just a tad glitchy. So technically it is possible, your just going to need a few months to dedicate to it.

)p( · « **Reply #20 on:** April 17, 2003, 01:48:11 am »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on April 16, 2003, 11:36:27 pm

Quote from: PacManFan on April 16, 2003, 09:08:03 pm
Quote from: Howard_Casto on April 16, 2003, 06:21:01 pm
Pac I wouldn't reccomend it unless the entire fe is in flash. Flash movies are one thing, but if you get fancy it interferes with the rest of your gui stuff. (Already looked into it, decided it's best to convert a flash movie to mpeg instead.)

How does it interfere? I haven't really looked into it, As long as I can set the hDC output to blit into a DirectDraw7 lpSurface, and get a signal from the control when it draws, I should be fine. The way that the UI is drawn in my code is not very windows - based. I've got everything set up in it's own separate run loop thread, with windows message handling in another thread entirely so I can maximize the speed. I don't rely on WM_PAINT messages to do the draw.
What have you found out about it?
-PacManFan

Well both flash and shockwave plugins/applications steal focus away from the main form (or in this case directdraw surface). So it will display fine, but all input gets wrangled to it in istead of the forms hwnd. There are tricks to get around it (how i got the w3d plugin to work) but it is a buttload of work and even when you get it working it's just a tad glitchy. So technically it is possible, your just going to need a few months to dedicate to it.

yeah but that is only if there is interactivity between the fe and them...if he only wants to display it like an intro movie then it should be not difficult at all but that probably defys the resaon as you can just export a flash or shockwave as a normal video and use that instead.

peter

paigeoliver · « **Reply #21 on:** April 17, 2003, 03:45:30 am »

Whoa, thanks for all the replies guys. It looks like front ends have come a very long way since the last time I really looked at them.

Superdude · « **Reply #22 on:** April 17, 2003, 11:18:00 am »

Quote

Quote

Nice pic! Did you know you can get rid of that black border on the Nintendo Logo by using the DisplayBitmapStretchFitTrans function instead of the normal blit? Just declare a color with the transparency color , and pass that along like this:

DisplayBitmapStretchFitTrans(bitmap,rectangle,transparentcolor)

Damn Thats what I have been waiting for! I was going to just photoshop the logos in with the background but now I got a choice. Can you use DisplayBitmapStretchFitTrans with animated .gifs?

Go ahead if you want to post the pics. I will get better pics as time goes on.

Superdude · « **Reply #23 on:** April 17, 2003, 11:24:00 am »

Quote from: wee beastie on April 16, 2003, 11:01:15 pm

Here's some of my pics. (again) my machine is called mamelith, so I wanted to stick with the monolith theme.

I can't seem to upload my mame background image at the moment. It basically is the same layout as the original ET background image, but I redid the colors and bordered all the menus with neon-esqe tubes kinda like the arcade84 skin that is popular.

Those look great! Is it possible to take a snap shot with the skin active? Id like to see what it looks like running. Maybe we should make a thread for Emutron and different skins. I have a few others I will post later this weekend.

PacManFan · « **Reply #24 on:** April 17, 2003, 01:41:23 pm »

Quote from: Superdude on April 17, 2003, 11:24:00 am

Quote from: wee beastie on April 16, 2003, 11:01:15 pm
Here's some of my pics. (again) my machine is called mamelith, so I wanted to stick with the monolith theme.

I can't seem to upload my mame background image at the moment. It basically is the same layout as the original ET background image, but I redid the colors and bordered all the menus with neon-esqe tubes kinda like the arcade84 skin that is popular.

Those look great! Is it possible to take a snap shot with the skin active? Id like to see what it looks like running. Maybe we should make a thread for Emutron and different skins. I have a few others I will post later this weekend.

I've had good luck just using the print screen button.
I'd love to see all the skins people have been making. I'll post a few of my own.

Here's a tip.
Instead of a jpg,bmp or png file as the background, you can use an avi file, and set it to loop.
I've got the mamearcade.avi file playing in the background the whole time, with all images being alpha-blitted over it. It looks sweet!
I'll take a snap shot and make a post later.
-PacManFan

wee beastie · « **Reply #25 on:** April 17, 2003, 04:37:39 pm »

Wish I could make a snap with the skin active, but my mame machine is not connected to the network. So getting the pic from my cab to my other computers would be a righteous pain.

said7 · « **Reply #26 on:** April 17, 2003, 06:03:38 pm »

Pacmanfan -

Im a flash designer (www.said7.com) and im a decent actionscripter, so if you need any help on the flash end maybe i can offer some insight. You may be worlds ahead of me.

Let me know

southpaw13 · « **Reply #27 on:** April 18, 2003, 01:15:31 am »

Is anyone using EmuTron with Windows XP? I would love to get this FE up and running on a vertical display, but I am having problems. Did anyone else get it to work with XP and a vertical display?

PacManFan · « **Reply #28 on:** April 18, 2003, 11:44:02 am »

Quote from: southpaw13 on April 18, 2003, 01:15:31 am

Is anyone using EmuTron with Windows XP? I would love to get this FE up and running on a vertical display, but I am having problems. Did anyone else get it to work with XP and a vertical display?

Vertical rotation - 90 or 270 degrees seems to be kind of hit or miss at this point, I've got a radeon 7500 in my machine, and it works great. All rotation is currently done in software. I'm putting in hardware based rotation now for video cards that support it.
As far as I know, it works fine on XP.
-PacManFan

southpaw13 · « **Reply #29 on:** April 19, 2003, 04:11:42 am »

Thanks for the response....So what graphic cards support rotation? I currently have a Nvidia 4200, I don't think that it has the option to rotate. But I can upgrade if I need to...

)p( · « **Reply #30 on:** April 19, 2003, 04:19:15 am »

Quote from: southpaw13 on April 19, 2003, 04:11:42 am

Thanks for the response....So what graphic cards support rotation? I currently have a Nvidia 4200, I don't think that it has the option to rotate. But I can upgrade if I need to...

interesting i also have the 4200 and have the rotation problem with emutron...probalby a problem with the nvidia driver.

but you can allready rotate any frontend including offcourse emutron easily with geforce 4 cards,the latests nvidia driver support full hardware accelerated rotation natively...so you can also play any emulator and visual pinball that can not be rotated natively on a vertical monitor.

peter

southpaw13 · « **Reply #31 on:** April 19, 2003, 12:15:02 pm »

Thanks, so PacManFan, is Geforce 4 the way to go or should I go the raidon route. Which one is going to work the best with your FE EmuTron, or which ones are you writing code for?

PacManFan · « **Reply #32 on:** April 19, 2003, 03:44:06 pm »

Quote from: southpaw13 on April 19, 2003, 12:15:02 pm

Thanks, so PacManFan, is Geforce 4 the way to go or should I go the raidon route. Which one is going to work the best with your FE EmuTron, or which ones are you writing code for?

I'm not going to recommend that anyone run out and buy a specific new video card just to get rotation out of EmuTron. What I need to do is buy a video card that supports rotation in hardware, so I can code some DirectX routines to take advantage of it. Currently, my video card in my development machine (ATI Rage 128) does not support hardware rotation, so it's impossible to code for it and test it, unless I start coding versions, and sending them off to other people to test.
I've got a ATI Radeon in my Arcade Cab. I might pull that out to test some code.
In EmuTron, I have written software - based rotation routines for 16 and 32 bpp modes, I haven't written anything for 8bpp or 24bpp. 8 bpp should be easy enough, but for some odd reason, my video card doesn't support any 24bpp modes.

I need to go back and look at the software rotation code to make sure it's generic enough to work on any video card, and I need to get a new video card w/ hardware rotation so I can put that support in for everyone else.
I'll keep everyone posted. If any other FE developers are interested. I can make the video rotation routines available for use in other FE's too.

-PacManFan


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