Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 These are now available in the downloads section! The images need to go in Launchbox -> Images -> Platforms -> [platform name] -> Clear Logo. Delete the old logo (if present) and refresh your image cache in Big Box. Enjoy! Version 2 Post: Spoiler Below you'll find the download for version 2 of my clear logo pack. I'm scrapping the "easy install" version for the time being as I've come to the conclusion that there's a significant amount of discrepancy between people's platform names; partly due to the fact that some of the default names have actually changed over time and partly due to people just manually renaming them. Theme "image packs" are in the works, so hopefully once those are implemented I'll be able to release them that way. The download contains categorized folders (for normal and scanlines versions) with all the relevant image files in them as well as a folder named -Alternate Versions- which contains some variants. The images need to go in Launchbox -> Images -> Platforms -> [platform name] -> Clear Logo. Delete the old logo (if present) and refresh your image cache in Big Box. Last Update: 8/24/2016 (check posts in this thread later than this date as they're not yet included in the download link for the set) Clear Logos V2 Download Platforms covered in this pack are as follows: 3DO Amiga (new in V2) Arcade Atari 2600 Atari Jaguar (new in V2) Capcom CPS-1 Capcom CPS-2 Classic PC Commodore 64 MAME (new in V2) MS-DOS NeoGeo Nintendo 64 Nintendo DS (new in V2) Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Nintendo Game Boy Nintendo Game Boy Advance Nintendo Gamecube Nintendo Wii (new in V2) PC Engine (new in V2 / alternate text from TurboGrafx-16) PC Engine-CD (new in V2 / alternate text from TurboGrafx-CD) ScummVM Sega CD Sega Dreamcast Sega Genesis Sega Master System Sega Mega CD (new in V2 / alternate text from Sega CD) Sega Mega Drive (new in V2 / alternate text from Sega Genesis) Sega Model 2 Sega Saturn Sony Playstation Sony Playstation 2 Sony PSP Super Nintendo (SNES) TurboGrafx-16 (new in V2 / alternate text from PC Engine) TurboGrafx-CD (new in V2 / alternate text from PC Engine-CD) Windows Enjoy! Version 1 Post: Spoiler Okay folks, below you'll find the first release of my platform clear logos. There are two files available for download - "Easy" and "Manual". Easy uses the existing Launchbox folder structure so that all you have to do is drag, drop, and merge. The manual version just contains categorized folders (for normal and scanlines versions) with all the relevant image files in them. You shouldn't need to, but you may want to back up your images folder just as a precaution. Please note that you should be using Launchbox version 6.4+ when using these because clear logo image quality has been improved as of that release. The Scanline versions especially benefit from this improvement. Last Update: 7/27/2016 Platform Clear Logos V1 - Easy Platform Clear Logos V1 - Manual If you want to just drag and drop images one at a time, you can use the manual version and ignore all of the below. They just need to go in Launchbox -> Images -> Platforms -> [platform name] -> Clear Logo. Delete the old logo and refresh your image cache in Big Box. Using the Easy version comes with a couple caveats. 1) You have to be using platform names that are named identically to Launchbox's defaults 2) You'll still (probably) have to delete the old clear logos the first time If you've renamed your "Super Nintendo (SNES)" platform to just "SNES", for example, this isn't going to put it into the correct folder because it's looking for the default names. The platforms included are named exactly as follows: 3DO Arcade Atari 2600 Capcom CPS-1 Capcom CPS-2 Classic PC Commodore 64 MS-DOS NeoGeo Nintendo 64 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Nintendo Game Boy Nintendo Game Boy Advance Nintendo GameCube ScummVM Sega CD Sega Dreamcast Sega Genesis Sega Master System Sega Model 2 Sega Saturn Sony Playstation Sony Playstation 2 Sony PSP Super Nintendo (SNES) Windows I would advise double-checking your platform names and verifying that this is how they're named. If they're not, you may want to use the manual version instead. Also note that this includes a custom platform called "Classic PC". You may want to just delete that folder (but it won't hurt anything if you don't). If your platforms are named identically, all you have to do to install these is the following: 1) Pick which version you want, either "Normal" or "Scanline" and enter that folder 2) Drag the "Images" folder into your base Launchbox folder 3) Windows should then prompt you with a message stating that the folder you're copying to "Already contains a folder named 'Images' Do you still want to merge this folder?" Select yes. 4) If it prompts you with a message of "There is already a file with the same name in this location" select "copy and replace" if you wish to replace your existing clear logo (this message probably won't appear the first time) 5) The first time you install, you'll likely still need to delete your old clear logos because Launchbox currently pulls the default clear logo files in as a .jpg extension (even though they're actually .pngs) and, as result, my files aren't going to prompt a replace request because they have a different file extension (.png). The folders that contain the clear logo files are located in Launchbox -> Images -> Platforms -> [platform name] -> Clear Logo. If you see a second image file in that folder that isn't mine, delete it. 6) Open Big Box, hit escape, go to Options -> Image Cache and select "Refresh Platform Wheel Images" You're set! Now that they're installed, if you want to switch from the "Normal" version to the "Scanlines" version or vice versa, all you have to do is go into that folder in the download, drag out the "Images" folder into your base Launchbox folder, merge, replace, and refresh your image cache. You'll also notice that there's an additional folder named "-Alternate Versions-". This contains a few variants that I made for some of the logos. If anyone has any questions, concerns, or issues, don't hesitate to ask! I'm also looking for suggestions on further logos to make so please post those as well. I hope people enjoy these. I enjoyed working on them and I'm looking forward to making some more! Original Opening Post: Spoiler I haven't been entirely happy with the clear logo view since it's been implemented, but that's basically because I'm just not satisfied with the current group of default clear logos. They're a bit of an inconsistent mishmash of stuff and it's too much for my OCD tendencies to handle haha. This is actually the same reason that got me started on making platform banners quite a while back. But with background videos not being implemented into the platform text view yet, I kindof felt obligated to use the clear logo platform view... so I figured I'd just fix the issue myself. Obviously I've got a long way to go but I'll continue to post more as I make progress. I'm having fun with these; and when I'm having fun it motivates me to keep going so I should be cranking these out in fairly quick fashion. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 This is super impressive. I would very much love a pack of these when they're done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CriticalCid Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 They look awesome! You, sir, have definitely a huge talent on creating such artwork. Maybe it’s just me but I find the platform names a little bit too hard to read, especially the arcade one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Yeah the platform names need to be a higher contrast colour to make them easier to read but overall I really like the design and look a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 looking great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Thanks guys! Yeah, you're definitely not wrong about the legibility - I was actually very aware of that fact while designing these. The problem is that the approach I've taken to the text is to use them as a semi-transparent color filter for the background image and, because of that transparency, they're inherently less legible... but I think it looks cool haha. It's been a bit of a balancing act between [more transparent - looks cool - less legible] or [more opaque - looks less cool - more legible] I agree that the arcade one is probably the most dubious in this regard. I had a couple of ideas this morning for improving legibility without sacrificing the look that I'm going for, so I'm going to try those out. Stay tuned! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Okay, here are some alternates for Arcade, 2600, and CPS-1 logos and a new one for CPS-2. I think these are all a pretty good improvement but the others are still there in case anyone prefers them. I think the 3DO one was already okay as is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CriticalCid Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Way better! :) I definitely consider using them when your set is finished. So keep ‘em coming ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FistyDollars Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Those look really good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Some Contra 3 action: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Yeah they are nice I like how they look like they have scan lines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexis524 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 zombeaver, very nice! youre work reminds me of some wide-icon banners that were up on xbox-scene a loooooong time ago when i was using my oXbox for emulation. Lemme see if i still have them. maybe they'll inspire someone... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 DOS76 said Yeah they are nice I like how they look like they have scan lines. I have a pattern overlay of diagonal lines to add a little visual interest. I actually hadn't thought of making them look like scanlines (horizontal instead)... Hmm. Unfortunately, Big Box seems to downscale them to some degree because you can't even see the lines when they're in Big Box :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Dude, @DOS76 thanks for giving me the scanline idea! I messed around with that for a bit and these are what I came up with. I get that not everybody digs scanlines so I'll still be doing both versions of each going forward. I'm not sure if it'll even show up in Big Box properly since I'm not at home at the moment to test (I know the diagonal ones don't). EDIT: Dear god when scaled down in the forum they look awful (which probably doesn't bode well for what they'll look like in Big Box). If you click on them and see them full size you'll see what they're actually supposed to look like Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Yeah they look great in full screen thanks for making these up bro! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 DOS76 said Yeah they look great in full screen thanks for making these up bro! No problem! I'm just worried about how they're going to look when scaled in Big Box. I think the scanlines might be too dense to scale correctly unless it's in a 25% increment. Based on my testing last night, Big Box seems to scale these down to right around 32-33% of their full size. I made another one at 150% scale on the scanlines to test. I think it looks bizarre in full screen but it seems to scale significantly better so maybe that would work; it's hard for me to say without being at home to test them out in Big Box. Normal (diagonal): Scanline: Scanline (150% scale): Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsten Marie Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Those are awesome @zombeaver!!! Thanks for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Kirsten Marie said Those are awesome @zombeaver!!! Thanks for sharing! Sure thing! I'd make these for myself anyway so I might as well share! So I made a quick stop by the house to check these out in Big Box. As I feared from the get go, none of the scanlines are visible in Big Box, even at 150% scale. It seems like there's some serious downsampling and/or filtering going on for clear logos. I did a little digging in the options menu to see if I could find anything that would help, and noticed that in the "General" section there's a setting for "Coverflow Image Quality" which, by default, is set to "High (Slow)" but has a step above that - "Highest (Slowest)". As I kindof anticipated, however, this doesn't seem to have any impact on the quality of the clear logos. @Jason any chance of getting a similar option for clear logos? Pretty pretty please? If you want me to submit a Bitbucket ticket for that, I can. I know, I know... picky/OCD/anal/what-have-you... I won't deny it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 And now for some MGS smexiness. When it's all said and done I'll have these packed up into separated folders so you can just drag out whichever style you prefer. Normal: Scanline: Scanline (Alternate): Scanline (150% Scale): Scanline (Alternate) (150% Scale): Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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