The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: )p( on May 09, 2003, 09:53:23 am
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FE-3Darcade/Emulaxian 0.81 released!
Whatisnew:
0.81:
-Expanded movecabs mode to cover fpsxtramodels, including texurizing them on the fly, turning it into a basic interactive worldbuilder!
-The internal skinner now has full control over ink effects including transparencies and the overlapping order (z-order) of sprites.
-The 3dsprite supports now two layers of overlays and two layers of backdrops. Each can show bitmaps, bitmap cycles, video's and animated textures. The first overlay and backdrop have some special additional features to make the 3d sprite even in direct to stage mode appear to be behind transparent parts of the foreground and or appears to float above it.
-Added an internal by the user customizable box model in addition to the cylinder model. Both of them can now also be scaled etc like external environment models.
-The fe will now accept besides real media video any format supported by windows media player as video textues on models.
-Added a new generic skin to the skin section of the 3darcade site.
-Some more stuff, see als allways upgrading tips.txt
The pictures below show some of the new skinner features:
(http://www.i-modernist.com/vegasredlistbox.jpg)
(http://www.i-modernist.com/vegasredcylarcade.jpg)
In both pics the 3d sprite uses an overlay to appear behind the borders. Before this was only possible when the 3d sprite was not set direct to stage.
In the pic of the listbox menu type there is also a backdrop to let the 3d psrite seems to float. Again before only possible when the 3d sprite was not set directo stage causing a big speed hit.
To the left we see a sprite behind the list that shows when found a video if not found cycles between bitmaps, tiles and screenshots by default. This was allready possible but not accessible to the user with the on the fly skinner.
Then in the pic of the cylarcade. I put a backdrop layer in that while cycling shows the marquee image and when standing still when available the marquee gets replaced with a video.
Just a few of the many ways you could use the overlays and backdrops and other skinner features. ;-)
websites:
http://3darcade.mameworld.net
http://www.i-modernist.com/emulaxian
:-)
Peter
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to cue-ball, i did take your advice and also did darken the background behind the title text in the lower part...this are just the same old screen grabs ;)
peter
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Peter,
Do you have some detailed documentation on how to arrange everything so it shows up properly? Specifically, i'm trying to get a screenshot to show up behind the 3D cabinet. I've changed a dozen things trying to get it correct but can't seem to figure out the right settings. What's strange is that if i press PgUp to use the editor, then press it again to exit the editor, the screenshot (flyer right now, actually) shows up. But if i never enter the editor, the flyer never shows up behind the cabinet. I checked the short explanations of the settings in the arcades\default.cfg but can't figure it out. Can you help?
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Peter,
Do you have some detailed documentation on how to arrange everything so it shows up properly? Specifically, i'm trying to get a screenshot to show up behind the 3D cabinet. I've changed a dozen things trying to get it correct but can't seem to figure out the right settings. What's strange is that if i press PgUp to use the editor, then press it again to exit the editor, the screenshot (flyer right now, actually) shows up. But if i never enter the editor, the flyer never shows up behind the cabinet. I checked the short explanations of the settings in the arcades\default.cfg but can't figure it out. Can you help?
this is where the backdrop feature is used for. The flyers or screenshot or whatever sprite will always be hidden by the 3d sprite when it is set direct to stage. so you can either turn direct to stage off for the 3dsprite. or to get no speed hit use the backdrop for example for a screenshot in default.cfg This will show anything that you map to the screenshot sprite on the backdrop with a blend of 80:
backdrop2listbox|true/80/reserved/false/pause/screenshot//false|
also be sure to not show the environment model else you can not see the backdrop
showarcade|true/true/false|
if that does not work just send me your arcade and skin cfg file with a note how you want it... ;)
When i have some time i will integrate these options in the point and click interface so you can just select the most used default options from a popup.
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Thanks, Peter. I'll give your changes a shot this weekend and will let you know how it goes.
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Okay, i got it working using the default.cfg settings that you gave me. However; 4:3 screenshots "squish" into the 3Dsprite box. Is there a way for me to make the screenshots orientation-sized and still have them fill the entire 3Dsprite background?
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Okay, i got it working using the default.cfg settings that you gave me. However; 4:3 screenshots "squish" into the 3Dsprite box. Is there a way for me to make the screenshots orientation-sized and still have them fill the entire 3Dsprite background?
no not yet i have not yet mapped the fe's stretch options to the overlay and backdrop in the 3d sprite. It defaults to stretch to fit. If you want to use strecy to aspect you will have to turn the 3dsprite's direct to stage off in the skinner and put the screenshot sprite behind it and give the 3dsprite a higher z-order value then the screenshot so that it appear to float above the screenshot.
peter
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I made a few updates to the 0.81 release exe. One addition might make cueball happy ;)
0.81.2 (13-5-2003)
-All stretch options now also work on bitmaps shown on overlays and backdrops in the 3dsprite in the listbox menu.
-Changed the way lists are converted to strings when they are saved to file, for example by the internal mame parser. I use now my own code using a combine method instead of a sequentional one making it much faster.
0.81.1 (12-5-2003)
-Thanks to a very generous donation by Saint from byoac I was able to buy a license for the mpeg advance xtra. His website for all things related to building your own arcade controllers and cabinets was the place that gave birth to my Emulaxian cabinet and hence also the Emulaxian/3darcade frontend. I have been a regular there from the beginning so I really appreciate this...thank you John! :-) This means the special exe using the xtra has been removed and the normal exe's in fe081part1.zip and fe081upgrade.zip have been replaced.
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Great job, Peter! I'll have to download the new version when i get home. I did have one more question though, i noticed that when "screenshot" is selected that the background cycles through the bitmaps just like the screen on the 3D model (i have mine cycle between "titles" and "snaps"). Is there a setting to only show the screenshots ("snaps) without cycling but still have the screen on the 3D model cycle? Or maybe have it only show the titles? I don't have the config files in front of me so maybe that's an option that's available and i just didn't see it when i was working on it the other night.
I'm just curious, so if this isn't possible don't feel the need to add this feature on my account. I'm actually waffling between using screenshots or flyers. The advantage to flyers is that they would always fit since my 3dsprite area is pretty much a 3:4 ratio like the flyers. I'm just going to try out a lot of options to decide what i like best before i "finish" configuring the FE. :)
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Great job, Peter! I'll have to download the new version when i get home. I did have one more question though, i noticed that when "screenshot" is selected that the background cycles through the bitmaps just like the screen on the 3D model (i have mine cycle between "titles" and "snaps"). Is there a setting to only show the screenshots ("snaps) without cycling but still have the screen on the 3D model cycle? Or maybe have it only show the titles? I don't have the config files in front of me so maybe that's an option that's available and i just didn't see it when i was working on it the other night.
I'm just curious, so if this isn't possible don't feel the need to add this feature on my account. I'm actually waffling between using screenshots or flyers. The advantage to flyers is that they would always fit since my 3dsprite area is pretty much a 3:4 ratio like the flyers. I'm just going to try out a lot of options to decide what i like best before i "finish" configuring the FE. :)
flyers can now also use all stretch options in the 3d sprite...but you can use it also for screenshots by pointing flyers to your screenshot folder and not using cycling on the flyer sprite...
or
now you have
backdrop2listbox|true/80/reserved/false/pause/screenshot//false|
what this does is actually show the contents of the screenshot bitmap on the 3d sprite that is why you see the cycling...but you can also use the third option which retrieves artwork from the pathnames setup in the emulator cfg files. You can make your own but when you want to use the screenshot you can just use the default sshot. So
backdrop2listbox|true/80/reserved/false/pause/false//sshot/orientation|
this will show the screenshot at the moment you stop walking through the list for the selected game.
peter