Khameleon WIP

[Cakemeister]

November 19, 2008

Hello,

I've been working on my Khameleon front end. With my venture into rental real estate I haven't had the time I've wanted to dedicate to it, so there still is no skinner. Skins are XML text files that can be edited by hand.

I split the distribution into pieces because the whole download was approaching 200 megabytes.

Executable and skins
Images (cabinet, bezel, marquee, etc) for the demo games
Gameplay movies (AVI) for the demo games
3-D Models for the demo games

The model handling has some bugs. I had to take all the 3DS Max files and rename all the textures so that they would have 8.3 filenames (required by the .3ds file format). There are still occasional crashes.

I added some new demo skins to the demo application, some of which are working.

I think the next thing I want to do is get the Linux port working.

I've also made a of the frontend running a set of native Hyperspin themes. The movie handling code does not run .swf movies, so I removed all those.

Regards,
Cakemeister

[brian_hoffman]

Good luck with the real estate, I cant seem to get the video link to work.
I myself decided to go to college. Iam 27 and pretty successfull but with the
economy the way it is I figure the more marketable I am the more successfull
I will be.  Anway the point is I dont have as much time for emulation and things as
I would like. Sorry to de-rail your thread slightly.

Thanks for contributing.

[tspeirs]

Video works fine for me if I right click and save as.

Looks just like hyperspin to me. So if its the intention then good job.

If you can get it running on linux that would be quite something.

[youki]

No problem for video for me.

That's really a great job!!  Congratulation! 

[Ummon]

Hmm. I saved it and it shows in the directory as a WMP file, but WMP says there's an error when I try to play it. I looked in the file's properties and noticed this little caption that said 'this file came from another computer and may be blocked to protect this one', and I pressed unblock but still the error when playing.

[headkaze]

Video works fine for me if I right click and save as.

Looks just like hyperspin to me. So if its the intention then good job.

If you can get it running on linux that would be quite something.

I agree although I think Abobe are bringing out tools to compile Flash on Linux.

[Cakemeister]

Dec 19, 2008

I've uploaded a new wip. Mainly bugfixes. I changed the default skin to be a simple list with a 50% transparent movie in the background, because that is what my cabinet will use. I also split some of the dialog boxes in the config program to make it more friendly to cabinets with small screens. My cab has a max resolution of 640x480 (interlaced, so I usually run it at 320x240) so it was a real pain to navigate some of the dialogs before this change was made.

[Wade]

I'm very interested in this.  I spent days setting up and tweaking my Hyperspin setup and LOVE it, but it crashes regularly on my PC, so I don't think I'm going to be able to use it.  If yours can do the Hyperspin themes, I would be VERY interested.

Wade

[Wade]

The video wouldn't show on my PC so I uploaded it to youtube for easier viewing.  Looks a LOT like Hyperspin to me.  If I can get this running on my PC I've love to give it a try.  Couldn't be less reliable than the Hyperspin setup I'm running.



Wade

[Cakemeister]

I've posted a new wip. Mostly bugfixes. I've written a new skin import utility which I use for updating skins between versions. Also, I added some stuff back to my new version of my ListGen utility which the older version had but the new version didn't have. One example is filtering by control type. You would use a SQL query such as:

Code: [Select]

select * from gamedata
   where
       control = 'joy2way'
       and is_bios='0'
       and buttons = '1'
       and orientation = 'vertical'
;

This query will pick up 1-button vertical games, such as Galaga, Space Invaders, and so on.

   

[Wade]

Oh, BTW, I gave this a try with the HS setup.  It ran too slow to use, even on my P4 2.8ghz.  Bummer.   Inevitably I'm just going to have to get a better PC for my MAME cabinet I guess.

Wade

[youki]

If you are interrested in hyperspin "like" effects on low powered PC.

You should try AtomicFE.

Some users run it with a big set of hypersKin layout on a 1.5ghz (even less)  machine with only 256 mega of ram and it runs really smoothly.

We have now about 200 skins (available from my french forums only for now) for mame games. New are coming each days.

[Cakemeister]

I have gotten .swf movies to play successfully. It took some doing. Several new libraries had to be added to the project, including swfdec, cairo, etc. Performance is dreadfully slow. Currently I'm trying to improve .swf performance.

[youki]

Great news!

What library did you use?

#edit: forget my question, if i had read well your post i would have the answer !   

[Cakemeister]

Too bad there isn't any special smiley for thread resurrection.

After a long hiatus I am working a little bit on Khameleon. My latest addition is a grid-like display a la MultiFE.

I've uploaded a video (highly compressed, low bit rate). I really ought to try this YouTube thing.

Cheers,
CM

[Ummon]

Looks interesting.

[youki]

Nice. 

Did you managed to improve the SWF rendering?

[Cakemeister]

The SWF mostly works but has problems.

1) You can't skip to any desired frame.
2) SWFs always loop (replay from the beginning when done). Some SWFs should loop and some should not.
3) You can't pause or freeze-frame.
4) The code is very slow.

What I really want to do is piece together a Linux box and get the thing to compile and run on Linux.