SNAK3ATER

Posted June 17, 2017 · June 17, 2017

@shadowblind can you elaborate more please? The top images will be the flowcontrol wheel images with a white outline (Banner/clear logo/screenshot etc) and on the bottom left will be the game info and notes, the bottom right part I can certainly make it start with the game's fanart which will then fade out and transition into the game's video...now the bottom section where it says "overview, more like this, episodes, details" I can workaround with something creative like displaying the front cover boxart of the game and some details like "release year, play count, play mode, last played date" dunno that's just an idea from my side

What do you think? Share with me your idea as how you want the view to look like

Posted June 17, 2017 · June 17, 2017

1 hour ago, ALIE said:

All look fantastic @SNAK3ATER very curious if @Jason Carr got back to you about the steam banner thing...

Can't wait to try the finished product.

Not yet, no but hopefully he'll get back to me as he always do as this request should not be hard to implement (I hope it isn't)

I'll tag him here just incase he missed my original post in the beta thread / @Jason Carr

Posted June 17, 2017 · June 17, 2017

Thanks to everyone for your support, I have completed 3 views so far and i'm planning to develop one more games view and then i'll move on to developing platform views

My plan is to have BIGFLIX v1.0 have 3 platform views (Platform videos fullscreen view, fanart view similar to game view 1, and Platform/playlist list text view) and 5 games views (fanart view, boxart view, full coverflow view, game list text view and 5th view i'm currently brainstorming for) and will gradually add new views/updates in subsequent theme updates

Here are the completed views so far:

Game view 1: Fanart view

Game view 2: Boxart view

Game view 3: Coverflow game view (please ignore the unaligned metadata info, it will be fixed)

For the fourth view i'm planning something similar to this: (what do you guys think, should I go for it?)

June 16, 2017

@Jason Carr I have an important request for the next LB release as my new theme is dependable on it for some of its views:

Add the ability to set the ImageType for the Flowcontrol to Steam Banner for both platform and game views:

Currently i'm using "Screenshots" ImageType for some of my game views and while they look acceptable there is a room for better potential here:

Game view with ImageType set to Screenshots

Game view with some screenshots manually replaced by banners (very tedious process)

The banners really enhances the looks of the theme significantly and I do have more than 1 GB of artwork compiled over the years that i'm planning to upload here once the feature has been added

Posted June 14, 2017 · June 14, 2017

4 minutes ago, Kriven said:

Oh wow, you did some cool things with my ideas there. I like how you included the play button and had it fade out as fanart became video, that's very nice.

Thanks bro your idea was so cool I had to implement it! I worked on the second view of this theme and overall i'm happy with how it turned out:

This view has the top main fanart fading into game video as someone requested a view with videos earlier on this thread. Now to be honest i'm having a hard time thinking about the design of the third view so i'm hoping for creative people like you to share some cool ideas to implement

Posted June 14, 2017 · June 14, 2017

Thanks everyone for your support it helped me stay motivated and made me decide to shift theme development priority to BIGFLIX. My two other themes are progressing nicely but i'll try to release a working version of this theme first before going back to my other themes.

That being said here is the first video preview of this theme in action as promised:

So far only one view is completed (dubbed the fanart game view, skip to 00:30 seconds in the video to see it in action) while the second view dubbed the boxart view is still in early sketching phase. If you liked the final look of the Fanart game view let me know so that I move on to develop the Boxart view and other platform/game views. I'm open to ideas and suggestions so if you want to share with me your version of mock-ups similar to when my mate @Kriven shared earlier please do so and we'll work together in implementing your ideas into reality

Posted June 13, 2017 · June 13, 2017

Here is a final look for the first games view of BIGFLIX, the lower half of the theme was a royal pain to develop but I felt the end result was worth it:

Hopefully i'll upload a video of the theme in action tomorrow, it's 3:00 AM here and i'm exhausted lol..

Posted June 13, 2017 · June 13, 2017

Here's a quick update on the two views that i'm working on based on the community feedback:

View 1: Game Banner + Fanart (Great for platforms/games that has multiple wallpapers/screenshots/banners)

View 2: Game Boxart wheel logos + game video preview (Great for platform/games that has large front cover boxart such as PS2 and Sega Genesis)

Here is the changelog based on the community feedback:

1- Replaced "BIGFLEX ORIGINAL" with Platform title (I replaced the text with platform clear logo on my first attempt but it did not look nice imo, custom banners for the platforms would be ideal here)

2- Toned down the Netflix style branding, now each view has only one unique logo for it (Still WIP as i've yet to apply fading effects to make them less obtrusive)

3- Rearranged the icons and Metadata info based on suggestions from @Kriven (Favorite and Complete icons are missing as I still didn't mess with the bottom half of the views)

4- Added a new view that uses game video snaps instead of fanarts with different wheel logo style

I'll start working on the second half part of the views as the wheel logos were not touched since the beta days, as always your feedback and suggestions are always appreciated towards the development of this theme

Posted June 12, 2017 · June 12, 2017

8 minutes ago, Kriven said:

I decided to combine some of what I was trying to do with what you've done here. BigFlix Original replaced with platform clear logo. Took some influence from the web version of Netflix (which my theme was going to be based on) and moved the "Favorite" and "Completed" icons. The currently selected game is larger than the next games in line, and also displays the game's clear logo in the corner. ESRB rating with description text. Altered Netflix color scheme to Big Box color scheme.

There's a lot of empty space on the bottom that could be used for things, although I know the sleek look is part of what makes the Netflix theme so definitive. If it's possible, it might be worthwhile using that space for either the ESRB/developer information (to declutter the upper section).

This actually looks pretty impressive! Although must probably i'll keep the red scheme for aesthetics reasons (but hey I can always offer Alt looks in the future)

I'll try and move some of the icons similar to the picture here but I do have a question:

Is the Assassin's creed wheel logo a static picture? Cause it does have a play icon on it

Originally I had an idea where the center game wheel logo fades into a video but at this current stage this is not possible; I can certainly make the picture fade out into the game's video but currently there is a limitation with BigBox where you cannot delay the playback of the video (Actually if you check my RetrAO Cafe thread I posted a new teaser of the theme where you can see one of the views implementing this idea but it is still not perfect)

I'll work on your suggestions and will update the thread back with my progress

Posted June 12, 2017 · June 12, 2017

25 minutes ago, dilladog said:

+1 tone back the branding. The "Bigflix Original" doesn't really mean anything and Netflix alternates between right top and right bottom, but doesn't place both.

Pretty sweet work though. Hope it comes together smooth.

That can be done, how about I keep the top right branding only for fanarts view and use the right bottom only for the game videos view as to not obstruct the videos? "Bigflix Original" will be replaced with something else in the next update

24 minutes ago, Kriven said:

Oh man, I had started working on a Netflix theme a few weeks ago. Now I gotta figure out something else

I've got some mock-ups of what I was planning on doing, if they interest you....

For your current theme can I make a little suggestion? Instead of "BigFlix Original" can you put the logo for the game's platform?

The "BIGFLIX ORIGINAL" can be replaced with the logo for the game's platform but i'm still unsure what type of logo should I use (Should I insert a text only like "Sega Genesis" or should I use a picture like a custom platform banner or should I use the platform clear logo..still undecided)

I'm happy with any assistance whether it is some mock-ups or theme/artwork development, share with me your ideas bro!

13 minutes ago, kerszr said:

Could you give us a video, @SNAK3ATER? This looks incredible.

Sure man can do, I'll upload a video soon after implementing some of the suggestions on this thread most probably sometime this week

Posted June 12, 2017 · June 12, 2017

2 minutes ago, shadowblind said:

Whoa, this looks like it has potential. I like the idea, though not so much the netflix style branding (such as the netflix font, netflix red flag, etc. But that's probably just me). Still looks amazing from just the one screenshot.

I like having videos displayed in my themes though, so maybe if the center screenshot in the ribbon is a video in one of the views? Just an idea. Interested in seeing where this goes!

I'm glad that you liked the theme! The netflix style branding of this theme is based on the actual user interface of Netflix application for HTPC and PS4

Here is a reference of the Netflix Gui that my theme was based from:

As a perfectionist i wanted the theme to stay true to Netflix design wise but as I mentioned the final view is subject to change based on the community feedback.

I'm planning to have a separate view that uses platform/game videos instead of fanarts so your feedback is taken into consideration

Cheers

Posted June 12, 2017 · June 12, 2017

Hello,

This theme started as a side project during the development of RetrAO Cafe 1.7 along with a third theme that i'll reveal soon.

BIGFLIX as the name suggests is a variation of Netflix for BigBox, the theme is still in early beta stages with only one view completed so far as my main focus was directed towards the completion of RetrAO Cafe 1.7, but I decided to resume developing this theme as RetrAO Cafe 1.7 has been put into halt as I wait for the release of Launchbox 7.11

Here is a screenshot of the completed view (subject to change in the final release):

I'm still undecided on how to move forward with regards to designing other views so your ideas are much welcomed, i'm also looking for talented people from the community who can help me in designing artwork for this theme (i.e banners, platform clear logos and custom fanarts)

If you liked the theme and you're interested in helping me with the artwork design let me know in the comments below.

Cheers

June 8, 2017

@Jason Carr Since the main focus of this beta is around custom themes I have two requests that will help me and I believe others as well with theme development:

1- Add support for custom playlists to the custom themes in BigBox (add playlist folder that includes banner, clear logo, fanart and devices folders similar to how custom platform folder is implemented currently)

2- Add playback delay property for BackgroundView and ImageVideo objects. Currently the background videos play instantly and ignores any attempts to delay their startup in a view (The two themes I'm developing relies heavily on this missing feature and it would be ideal if I can set the background videos to start playing after an X amount of time)

3- This might be difficult to implement but is really needed in theme development: Fixing the dpi scaling issues (I know it might be hard to implement custom dpi scaling for BigBox but what if we can enforce a specific scaling for a theme? i.e. Force the theme to always display the text at 100% scale regardless of what the user has set in Windows display option)

June 7, 2017

18 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Wow. That is looking incredible @SNAK3ATER. Especially the room view. I love it!

Thanks @Jason Carr i'm glad you liked it!

I do have a request if you don't mind regarding my theme development, i've sent you a pm about it

June 5, 2017

Here is a teaser showcasing some of the new views and features of RetrAO Cafe 1.7 this is a major update to the existing theme spanning 3 months of work

I was also working on two new themes at the time of RC 1.7 development but the themes are still in beta stages as my main focus was directed towards this theme..

Full theme reveal and official release coming soon..Enjoy

June 5, 2017

I'm currently at work but I'll try to replicate your issue once I get back to check if I'll get the same error. This may sound silly as I don't have my PC to test but try changing Lines 5 and 9 where it say bigBox and rename it to BigBox (i.e. change xmlns:bigBox to xmlns:BigBox) and see if the issue is resolved

June 5, 2017

Just to chime in, I agree with both @SentaiBrad and @CTRL-ALT-DEFEAT in terms of business perspectives and ownership/legal rights this is an extremely tricky subject and it can backfire as it happened before in a couple of communities I was active in..

Let me give you an example, I used to be a member of a modding community for a certain fighting game. The community started out great at the beginning with everyone contributing contents for free stemming from their own effort and passion for the game similar to what we have here in Launchbox (Currently one of the best communities imo, I hope it never changes) but then the admin introduced a donate function under every user account and guess what happened down the road? Some modders started to send Mod creations to only the users who donated the money to them instead of uploading the content to the downloads section basically making the mods Pay-to-download and believe me as a modder myself many of the mods were not even original assets which made things worse.

The admin did not interfere and eventually greed lurked in so far the modders were publicly announcing on their content support thread that they'll only PM donators with the download link so I deactivated my account at the end.. this is just an example of some good community became toxic due to greed but you can get the idea.

I do understand your sentiment but I think there are other ways we can show support to content creators that does not involve monetization.

June 5, 2017

4 hours ago, Cadizking25 said:

anyone knows how to fix this error that I am getting when I open my games list?

Can you right-click on TwoColumnGameDetailsView.xml and GameDetailsView.xml files and select edit with a notepad, take a snapshot of the two files and upload them here?

Have you edited the theme before getting this error or is it resulting from a fresh install?

June 4, 2017

1 hour ago, alnyden said:

Is there a way to limit the number of views a theme can show? For example, let's say on a given theme there are 6 views for platforms, but I really only like to use 3 of them. Can I possibly remove 3 of them from showing when I scroll through?

Thanks,

R

Yes you can, as a matter of fact you can even limit the theme to strictly use only one platform view and one games view.

The process is as follows:

1- In the root folder of your preferred theme you will find a file called "ThemeSettings.xml" right-click on the file and select edit with a notepad (I use a software called notepad++ in my case but the default windows application works as well)

2- To disable or enable Platform/games views look at the highlighted line numbers on the image below:

3- In my theme for example I enabled all the views as they are being utilized by the theme, basically to enable any view set the value of the highlighted text to "false". To disable any view set the value of the highlighted text to "true"

4- Goodluck and enjoy your theme

June 4, 2017

7 hours ago, alec100_94 said:

I was wondering if it would be possible (perhaps via the plugin system), to create custom Theme Settings (Maybe as Bindings), that could then be conditionally queried through the XAML files, and what the syntax for accessing them would be. I am currently creating a Theme that could really do with some changeable settings.

Yes I believe it is possible. @eatkinola has already implemented the plugin system in his theme Epoch09 and produced some independent plugins as well as @Grila for general uses.

Those are the right people for your queries when it comes to the plugin system as well as the man himself @Jason Carr.

June 3, 2017

18 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Just a quick note, i can still hear the easter egg while actually playing games. All other BigBox audio is muted when you launch a game except the easter egg. I am loving this theme. Thanks @nosh.

Actually while i am here is there a quick and easy way to move the clock to the top right rather than the top left, i know it will be a xaml edit but some pointers would be lovely.

Just to add on neil's comment I can still hear the easter egg even when i'm using other themes as well. I think it has to do with the placement of the Plugins folder within the Theme's root folder but that's my speculation though. Nice theme @nosh and I look forward to more creations from you keep up the good work!

P.S. For future updates you can edit the ThemeSettings.xml file to force disable the platform and game background videos in order to avoid any confusion from the users side. Just set the following lines to "true":

May 22, 2017

Beautiful looking theme, congrats! It's nice seeing more theme creators in this community so I wish you all the best in your work

May 16, 2017

5 hours ago, keltoigael said:

I am also having this issue with both CityHunter and CriticalZone.

Same here I have this issue on all of themes as i'm using my TV as a PC display.

Big Box desperately needs DPI scalling option as having anything above 100% not only messes up the text but also highly affects the performance and stability of the themes

May 6, 2017

1 hour ago, eatkinola said:

Tried the following ... had some initial success but nothing that really solves the problem:


    <Storyboard x:Key="09WheelOP2Plat_SBX">
        <!-- WORKS FOR TWO SELECTIONS, THEN STOPS WORKING -->
        <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Visibility)" Storyboard.TargetName="BGVID">
            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:0.2" Value="{x:Static Visibility.Collapsed}"/>
            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:6"   Value="{x:Static Visibility.Visible}"/>
        </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
        <!-- DOES NOT WORK THROWS AN EXCEPTION
        <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="(transitions:TransitionPresenter.Content)" Storyboard.TargetName="BGVID">
            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:0.2" Value="{x:Null}"/>
            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0:0:6"   Value="{Binding BackgroundView}"/>
        </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
        -->
    </Storyboard>

Perhaps if we were able to interact with the Transitions object, e.g., set a delay on the transition? The transitions class is in the LB library, and I'm not sure Properties etc. are accessible.

Thanks for trying it out @eatkinola and you're right I believe that the limitations come from Big Box so perhaps @Jason Carr can help us out on this one.

I'm planning on creating a new theme once i'm done with updating RetrAO Cafe but since the theme relies heavily on media playback controls (i.e. Delaying the playback of Background View video) i'll have to wait for a possible fix first before I lay the grounds for the new theme

May 6, 2017

On 5/4/2017 at 6:09 AM, eatkinola said:

For the next set of platform/game views, I'm thinking of a VR concept using these two images. The woman would be the platform background; I've made her glasses translucent to display platform fanart, and I'm thinking I'll use the left side of the background to display the interface elements. The sorry looking guy hooked on VR would be used for the games view. No, I'm not talented enough to have created these images; found them anonymously posted online. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. I have a few other views stewing in my mind but could use some more inspiration. Also, if you find any promising images, please let me know. A set of cyberpunk images would be nice, but I've yet to find ones suitable for an interface. I prefer 4k images to help the theme scale nicely up to that res. @kerszr: I've not yet found images for the concept you provided, but I really like your idea. It made me think of movies like Equilibrium and V for Vendetta.

The platform Background VR idea is totally cool! How about instead of displaying the fanart on her glasses you display the platform videos? I think that would make the view more "interactive" and will give the illusion that the woman is using BigBox in VR mode (maybe another idea for @Jason Carr? LOL )

Just a thought of other ways you can use the backgrounds but I really like the way you're going and will try to help if I found any interesting images along the way

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