Retrofrogg

If you find sources that have complete, full box scans with all spines included, send me a PM. Looking for 100% coverage of released games for a system, which could help show that these images exist. I've looked into this further @faeran. I've focused on the Nintendo NES initially. I've found sites with full actual box scans (unfolded) for many of the USA region games. I was messing around with separating out the front, back and 4 spine images - though it's difficult to check the finished work without the feature being available in Launchbox. I don't fancy going through the whole set only to find that when applied to the 3D box model, something doesn't look right and it requires redone. It would therefore be great to have the feature, so that we can start working on image packs (and adding to the database, when that is updated). As mentioned before, adding a rotation lock to limit the rotation to the horizontal plane would open up this possibility to the many systems that would have left and right spine scans but not the scarcer top and bottom.

Hey don't forget the Cassette case (single & double) - C64, CPC, etc etc!

Nobody have any suggestions about this?

First rule of beta 5...don't talk about beta 5.

@faeran I would be more than happy to make some packs. If you're waiting for packs to appear before you implement the ability to display the images within them - it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation isn't it. The images will be out there, but I think the packs aren't out there because no other frontend has this feature at present. If you build it, they will come. Personally, I was waiting for the feature to appear before I started working on image packs, as I didn't want to waste the time making them only for the feature never to appear. But if it would help kick-start things, I could start off by making an NES pack for example. Do you have any preferred naming convention or does that not matter at this stage? I can imagine that overall, left and right spines should be available for most systems, though top and bottom spines will likely be more challenging to source. One way around this would be to add the option of having a vertical rotation "lock" for the 3D model box (per platform), so that the box only rotates horizontally and the top and bottom spines therefore don't come into it. I had actually already requested this feature on Github - as when using a mouse, box rotation in Launchbox is a bit cumbersome as it tends to flip about the X axis.

On the topic of the CD cases, other than the ability to alter size, the main thing that stands out is the black strip on the front left of the case - it should be ridged, whereas in the model it appears flat. Just detracts sa bit from the realism. Edit - the stretched jewel cases seem to have this effect, just not the standard jewel cases. Will we have the ability to add the other spines for boxes?

Nice. Now just add full spines support and the model is complete!

I recently upgraded my mobo, CPU and RAM. That's the only thing that has changed since this was working properly. Now, when I rotate a 3D box model in Launchbox using the mouse (either in the carousel, or maximised to fullscreen), the rotation is no longer smooth. Around once every second or so there is a very brief pause before the rotation continues. My current system includes a z690 mobo, i7-13700k CPU, 32GB DDR5 Ram, 1080ti graphics card. On advice from @C-Beats, the "use all controllers" box in the settings is unchecked. Apparently rendering is done by DirectX 9. I have DirectX 12 (the latest version). I don't know if that is part of the problem - I imagine that most people will have 12. I tried to install some older versions but Windows gives me the message "Direct X setup has determined that a newer or equivalent version of Direct X has been installed already". Interestingly, when using the "Thirdscreen" plugin which shows a rotating 3D model box on another screen, the rotation is smooth when it's automatically rotating. If I try and rotate in manually, same problem. Also, when it's rotating automatically and I move a different window around using my mouse, the same problem occurs. See the video below for an example of the problem. Any help appreciated! ezgif.com-gif-maker.mp4

I’m sorry, I must have missed that apology, if you are indeed referring to my thread. In my original post I was just seeking the opinions of community members as to the generally accepted meanings of box - front and box - front reconstructed. Suffice to say I have yours. I’m sure it can be hard. I’ve done one or two myself. Whether something is worthy however is a value judgement and is up to each individual user to decide. I can see you’re frustrated. Hey, it’s your time, and if you feel it’s well spent then that’s what matters! It’s not a game or a competition; each individual user is free to use whatever box images they like. That seems a strange way to put it, and is maybe where some of the conflict lies. I don’t want each box to be consistent and homogenous - I want it to look like the real thing, i.e. what I had on my shelves as a kid. Retro is old and dusty, not clean and homogenous.

Lol @Freestate, thanks for your opinion, albeit a rather polarised one. Suffice to say we disagree in a few areas, including how "quality" applies here. A dime-a-dozen perfectly reconstructed and Photoshopped image of the original box takes away any of the box-aspect and leaves you with simply the image that went on the box. I want to see the box, not just the image on it (in particular now that we have 3D rotatable models). Though, different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm not sure what you're getting at with your second paragraph, in particular the unjustified vitriol. Wouldn't that be....a scan? Talking about retro systems I mean. How do you get closer to the actual box than a high quality scan of the actual box? I agree that as close to an authentic image that we can get when the box was new is what we're looking for. Though to take forward the idea of authentic...to me this would imply that any creases, marks or even just the uneven edges of the original box should be captured. If you edit these away, you lose some authenticity IMHO.

Niiiice!

A similar plugin called "Thirdscreen" can show rotating 3D boxes on the second screen. Don't think it can do platform-specific settings though.

What's the setting in the code for the rounded corners?

Looking to increase clarity on the different variations on a particular image type, and what people feel is best. The Launchbox Games Database has no guidance on what the various image types actually mean - and neither does Launchbox itself. Currently, taking the "Box - Front" image type as an example, we have: Box - Front Box - Front Reconstructed Fanart - Box - Front As well as a few other more specific items. Having spoken to @C-Beats about this, my understanding of what these mean is as below: Box - Front : the front box as it originally was - an actual scan Box - Front Reconstructed : an approximation of how the actual front box was, either put together from various elements, or a photoshopped tidy-up of the actual scan Fanart - Box - Front : not the official original front box image, but a new unoffical image, created by users My first query is whether the above is the general consensus. And if so - where do we draw the line between Box - Front and Box - Front Reconstructed when the latter is a photoshopped tidy-up of the actual scan? In my opinion, if the image has no discernible marks -i.e. it looks like a clean computer-generated image, rather than a scan of the actual box, then it should be labelled as Box - Front Reconstructed. You can easily tell the difference between these two by looking at the image; most images that are automatically scraped from the database look very clean. These tend to be labelled as Box - Front, but should really, as per the above, be labelled as Box - Front Reconstructed. The reason for most of them being clean images is that these are readily available online and much easier to get hold of - actual authentic scans are harder to come by. So my proposal is that Box - Front images should be and look like the actual scans - scuffs and all. Clean images should be labelled Box - Front Reconstructed. Proper scans should trump the clean images for the Box - Front category. Clean images should trump messy ones for the Box - Front Reconstructed category. Users can therefore choose what they prefer.

Great story. We watched the first 3/4 of it last week. Going to watch the last bit tomorrow

Thanks @garrett521 @JoeViking245 - a feature request; could we set which images display on the monitors per platform? For example, for MAME I might want the arcade controls to appear, but for NES I might want the box art.

Have you seen @C-Beats's comics app?