TheClassicalGod

This was happening to me as well. Going into the LaunchBox install folder(typically C:\Users\****\LaunchBox\Updates\ .. with the **** being your logged in username) and manually installing the most recent beta, you should be good to go after that. If you also happen to run into the odd issue that I did where LaunchBox seems to load but you don't see the full windows; I closed and reopened a few times until I noticed the top window bar was still there and I had to double click(or right click) to make maximize both windows before they were fully visible. I closed LaunchBox and reopened two or three times and it seemed to be fine after doing it that one time. This could entirely be something I mistakenly did myself, but just thought i'd share in case it happened to others.

I'm pretty sure it's my own fault things aren't running. I kinda cherry picked some ROMs that I used to have a while back that seemed to work ok back then, but I guess don't know. Using the standard MAME program, 9 out of the 10 I tried all told me they were missing files that I don't remember needing in the past. Mostly CPS2 games(MvC, SF3 Alpha, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, etc...). I grabbed alternate regions as well since I wasn't sure which the parent ROM was, but still got errors about files being missing. The only thing I got working without issue was the TMNT 4 player arcade game and oddly enough Tekken 1 and Soul Calibur worked, but I guess I can just use the console versions of those since I have the Playstation discs for pretty much all of those. I just prefer the coin-op versions for when I finally get my cab finished and I can just throw a roll of quarters at my kid and tell him he can play whatever he wants until he runs out. lol

I know there is a thread from a while back on this same topic, but it didn't resolve the issue i'm having and I figured it best to start a new thread than resurrect and old one with different issues. So, I have been switching to Retroarch slowly for different consoles. So far, it's streamlined a few things a lot but I since I decided to try to get my arcade ROMs going, it's been nothing but a headache. I don't NEED to use retroarch for arcade games, I guess I just assumed it would work easier since I remember MAME having to launch every game(I don't have many, at least) and configure controls and last I used it, I don't think actual controllers worked, though I could be wrong about that. I can launch Retroarch, load a core, and load a ROM without much issue. Though some of the ROMs seem to just crash at the first menu. Using Launchbox, however, I am not able to launch anything. I made sure to edit the emulator config and add the Arcade line using -L "cores\mame_libretro.dll" and I tried mame2014_libretro.dll. The standard one seems just flicker like it launched and immediately crashed quietly, while the 2014 one gives me errors. If the answer to this is just don't bother with Retroarch for arcade games, i'm fine with that assuming there is controller support for MAME these days. Trying to use a PS4 controller, and 360 controller, and a steam controller. That alone is a headache to configure all the time for new stuff. lol Anyway... any past experiences and thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

That.... actually sounds pretty awesome. Definitely a great idea. I just started a new job yesterday, so i've got less time to work on this, but i'll definitely be working on it and seeing if i'm able to do something like that. I was always more of a fan of the side scroller Mario games over the 3D ones, so even though they're 3D models, I think the way i'm trying to do this is the best of both worlds. As with the last one I did, I'll probably do two versions; one short and one longer. There aren't many start up videos outside of my first one that were short and got to BigBox faster. Most seem to like the longer videos, but there are a few that just want something cool to happen as a quick splash screen and get right to the games. I can definitely appreciate both mindsets. Unless I can do something that happens quickly to spice it up, the shorter one will probably be the current one with some music. The longer might end up being your idea. I had this whole big scene in my head where everything was all light and happy, Mario and Luigi were doing their thing and out of focus in the background, you see Bowser in this HUGE scale.. like.. Galactus, devourer of worlds scale, stomping toward the them and the main screen. Then they're basically(but not actually of course) crap their pants, Bowser would laugh all maniacally, his shadow would darken the scene to black then the Launchbox/BigBox logo at the end. lol That would take forever for me to learn everything to make that happen..that and I don't think everyone is as evil as me. lol So, your idea seems better. lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactus

That image is a little darker than it actually ended up being. Here's an updated one. They may not look contrasted enough at first but like you can already see with the upper right corner of the O, in motion, each coin catches brighter spots of light depending on its angle and placement of light sources. I started render last night. 3 seconds at 480p. Took about an hour and 23 minutes. I'd imagine 1080p at least triple that. Uploading to youtube right now to give you an idea of how it'd look. I forgot to put an effector on the grass, so it doesn't move the way I wanted it to. lol Oh well. As far as movement of the characters, not much I can do with my current skill. I guess the next thing i'll be looking into would be rigging character models so I can change their poses and whatnot. If anyone has the skill to do more, i'll gladly share the scene file. I'm actually thinking I might bring all of this into Unreal Engine instead of C4D. That way I can just do a screen recording of something realtime at 60fps that can easily look just as good as this current 30fps render rather than waiting hours upon hours for 3 seconds of animation. Shouldn't take long to migrate it over. I'd just have to reinstall UE4 and redo texturing. Then check into UE4 character rigging. I might even be able to just scale down the default bi ped rig and not have to worry about keyframing movement poses. Hmm... Again, any ideas are definitely welcome. Nothing about this is solidified at the moment. 480p test render on YouTube

Deleted previous posting in another section of the forum when I realized it was in the wrong place and reposting here. Sorry for the mixup. lol So, on and off, I've been messing with 3D animations for a long time now. I mess with Cinema 4D a few things for a couple of hours maybe a few times in a week and then I stop for like a year or two then find myself interested again and start messing with it again and stop and start and stop and start and.. well.. you get the point. I'm back at it again. I'm not amazing at it, but in my hunt for learning new things, I find its best to practice with things you love. That usually leads me to something music or gaming related. Since i've been using Launchbox non-stop and with the boom of updates that are constantly happening, I figured it would be cool to make some stuff people may or may not use and be Launchbox/Bigbox related rather than just be some one off render that will sit on my storage drive to maybe be seen again in another two years. I started off with learning to create instances of objects on a spline, then adding dynamics to it, then having them render with random colors and that ended up being what I used to throw together the BigBox Particles startup video a few weeks ago. Mainly did it for myself, but threw that up on here in case other people might like it. So... I thought it'd be interested to do a few more with different game themes to them. I spent the last few weeks messing around here and there with a Mario centered one in mind and I keep putting things together that i'm not entirely happy with. Honestly, i'm just not skilled enough to do everything I want. lol But I can do SOMETHING. I got the main parts set up and kept changing everything else. Different stuff in the background. Outside. Inside. Tried putting it in different rooms. Different lighting. This. That. UGH.. Ultimately I just don't have the skill to do what I want. I don't know how to rig models yet, so it'll likely end up being outdoors and the only real thing I'm good enough to do is keyframe some rotating coins. lol Here's what I am thinking of settling on, but I don't want to commit to a full render until i'm really sure since even a 3 second animation can take hours upon hours. I single frame test render last weekend and it took 25 minutes for just one frame. One frame... lol There's 30 frames for 1 second of video. lol Not that i've sufficiently babbled on about nothing...Sorry about that.. lol Here's a single frame of what i've got right now. Like I said, I've already keyframed the coins to rotate in place, but it feels a little bland to me still. If anyone has any input or ideas, i'm more than willing to change this or even do multiple variations from suggestions. Every little thing ends up being a learning experience and can only ever be a good thing. =)

Thanks guys. I appreciate the kind words. Hope you enjoy them. I plan on redoing both the longer and the shorter one over this weekend. The longer was only rendered in 1080p24. The shorter was 1080p30. Going to fix the lighting on the longer one to get the gloss look I got in the shorter one and render both in 1080p60 if anyone has any interest in it. It'll take like 13 - 14 hours JUST to render out the initial frames, but it'll look smoother. lol Any other suggestions are always welcome.