LaunchBox Beta Testing - 6.8+

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr is there a way to make a GIF work per individual platforms through the platform views in xaml as id like to add a GIF to say N64 that doesn't loop but starts as soon as i scroll to that platform, my idea is to have a game character say walk across the screen when i go to a specific platform, is that feasible?

Edit:-

To be more precise have the said game character walk across the VIDEO background in the platform views.

Oh and also on another note while its still in my head where we use the packsiteoforigin....image png in the platform views in xaml that we could have two pngs, one that BigBox would use when we specify use platform background videos say with the scanline overlay, and then say a similar png without the scanlines when we don't use background videos as this would be a wonderful addition to have to the themes.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Maddoc1007
more info

[Jason Carr]

Thank you guys. Yes, Higan is still working on the VLC stuff. I know some of the video alignment is off currently with it too.

Just put out a new beta that fixes a bunch of issues with LEDBlinky. Now that I have my cabinet, I'm of course able to test it all out. Also fixed a few minor issues with the voice recognition (including a volume control crash and the debug window showing up whether or not debug mode was enabled for the voice recognition).

@Maddoc1007 The tutorial videos show how to use a different GIF per platform, but getting a guy to walk across the screen sounds like it might be pretty difficult, unless you used a full screen gif. So a video might be a better option for that. I do plan to add built-in scanlines options here soon as well.

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr yes that was the plan using a fullscreen gif but directly on top of the background video thanks will have to look at the videos again as could not get it to work per platform.

 

As per the image samples i uploaded in images thread is it ok to upload here or where to as these are ones i made for cart art for some of the arcade platforms.

Edited September 8, 2016 by Maddoc1007

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr watched the video on gifs but it doesnt show how per platform only for all platforms, here is the code i used in xaml

 

</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <transitions:TransitionPresenter TransitionSelector="{Binding BackgroundTransitionSelector}" Grid.Column="0" Content="{Binding BackgroundView}" IsContentVideo="true" Margin="219,22,52,103" />
                <Image gif:ImageBehavior.AnimatedSource="pack://siteoforigin:,,,/Themes/Metallic/Images/Platforms/Gifs/Nintendo 64.gif" RenderOptions.BitmapScalingMode="HighQuality" Stretch="Fill"/>
            </Grid>

Thanks 

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr here is what gif looks like overlayed on video but for wrong platforms

 

had to delete video link as it kept going to my desktop

 

 

Edited September 8, 2016 by Maddoc1007
delete

[Maddoc1007]

seems like my video didnt upload even though it said it did, couldnt upload it to demo videos as it needs a url

Edited September 8, 2016 by Maddoc1007

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr sent a copy of the gif overlay video to your gmail address have to say it looks really sweet

[kmoney]

@Jason Carr I did some testing with ledblinky with the newest beta and I am still seeing the same issues as I reported here last night in the thread. For instance when I launch mame it should switch the leds on to that specific game but it is not. I can get this to work if I have " Use MAME to Trigger the Game Start/Stop Events" enabled in Ledblinky's Mame options which is fine but according to LedBlinky's config guide you should not have to have this option enabled "unless" if your frontend cannot launch LedBlinky prior to launching a game. This is copy and pasted from the guide:

Use MAME to Trigger the Game Start/Stop Events

With this option checked, MAME output messages will be used to detect when a game (MAME only) is started and stopped. You should only use this option if your front-end cannot launch LEDBlinky prior to launching a game. You can also use this option to launch LEDBlinky without any front-end, just using MAME or any MAME variant that supports MAME output messages.

 

[Jason Carr]

Another new beta is out guys. This latest beta has some fixes from Higan for the VLC engine; let me know if you can crash it.

@kmoney I haven't gotten MAME working properly for my cabinet either. I've noticed that Nintendo Entertainment System is properly showing the two buttons that are used once a game is launched, but other than that I'm not sure that any game or system-specific things are working. I have attract mode working well as well as switching systems and such though. But yeah, I'm not sure that LEDBlinky is all the way there yet. Hopefully @arzoo can help out by telling us what needs fixed yet.

Got the email @Maddoc1007; that does look pretty awesome. Here's the video I was referring to:

This shows you how to change an image path based on the platform that is selected, which is basically what you're looking for I think.

[kyoken]

I have 1650x1080 resolution (16:10) in my desktop computer, and i have full screen video with WMP, in VLC i have (16:9) videos with black borders, but now its faster, centered and smooth.

Enviado desde mTalk

[ThePolish]

7 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Another new beta is out guys. This latest beta has some fixes from Higan for the VLC engine; let me know if you can crash it.

[ThePolish]

@Jason Carr @higan -  no crashes to speak of - but still having the background audio playing in the background.

I tried switching back to WMP after the audio got caught in the background looping but even switching to WMP, you can hear it still playing a random snes video's audio in the background. Only seems to start when manually flipping in and out if platforms, I haven't seen it happen when attract mode takes over. 

[kmoney]

@Jason Carr Looks like the latest beta broke a few things with ledblinky. Right now, my Pause,Start, and Exit buttons are not staying solid lit up when I am in a platform and they were before and all I did was update to the latest beta. They light up in startup animation and such but not staying li solid while in a platform....very weird.

As for your issues, all my platforms are lighting up the buttons correctly for that said platform when I enter a platform and when I enter a game except for the issue above introduced in the newest beta. I have all my platforms in BB named after the HS naming convention so thats probaly why mine works and this is what Rocketblinky goes by when it creates the ledblinkycontrols.xml. I am confident that if you go into that xml and change the platform names to how you have them in BB it will work correctly.

Also for Mame @arzoo wrote this on his website: 

 

As of MAME v.170 the output system was changed, breaking LEDBlinky (and multiple other apps) ability to detect MAME outputs. The output system was restored in MAME v.176 but must be manually enabled from the mame.ini file: 
  #
  # OSD OUTPUT OPTIONS
  #
  output     windows
If you are using any of the LEDBlinky features that require MAME outputs, do not use MAME v.170 - .175.

If you are using MAME.xml version 0.162 or later, you must use LEDBlinky version 6.2.1 or later. If you do not wish to upgrade LEDBlinky, you may downgrade your MAME.xml to a version prior to 0.162.

As soon as I changed this in my mame.ini file and checked the box in the mame config options in ledblinky gui to enable mame output it works correctly. But again we should not have to check this option if the frontend has the ability to call ledblinky before starting a game.

 

[Jason Carr]

Alright, and here's another new beta guys. We fixed one NullReferenceException we found with the VLC engine. Since then, I've been running it for 3 hours now in attract mode on my bartop with no issues, so I'm really hoping that the VLC crashes at least have been resolved. Please test it as much as you can and let me know if you run into anything with the VLC engine in Big Box. I think we're finally close to getting it all fixed up thanks to @higan.

@bundangdon Can you get me a screenshot or something as an example for the VLC video size issue? I'm not seeing those issues on any of my machines and I haven't been able to reproduce it. Also, what theme and view are you using? Do you have background videos enabled?

@kyoken Oddly I'm not seeing black borders with the VLC videos on my 16:10 monitors, so same questions: what theme and view are you using? I assume you're using background videos?

@ThePolish I suspect that the double audio problem is likely because of moving too quickly in and out of platforms. Are you able to reproduce it consistently if you move quickly?

Also, this new beta has some new voice recognition options. You can now change the voice prefix, as well as the voice to use for the speech synthesis (thanks to @jadekitten).

Next I'm heading back to LEDBlinky to fix those issues. @kmoney, then the only issue is that your pause, start, and exit buttons aren't staying lit? That is pretty weird, and sounds like it's not even possible for me to control that. I think we'll have to ask @arzoo on that one. Do you think the MAME issue is an issue with the LaunchBox code? Or is that just because of the MAME issues with .170-.175?

[RetroArcade]

@Jason Carr I too had the issue when using VLC the video would have black bars above and below and didn't fill the area completely with the actual video. Whatever has been done seems to have fixed it because with VLC enabled it now shows all videos completely filling the screen area.

[Jason Carr]

Awesome. Great to hear @RetroArcade.

[RetroArcade]

One other thing I did notice though just testing out different themes is that if you use a theme that has a background in it for the options screen(such as minimal) and you change to a completely different theme, the options page background from minimal stays on there.

Edited September 8, 2016 by RetroArcade

[Jason Carr]

Yeah, I have noticed that too. The System and Options screens generally stay running and don't refresh so that's the problem there. I'll add that to my list.

[kmoney]

@Jason Carr Yeah I was kind of thinking that the LB code could not be messing with the pause,start and exit buttons but I could of swore they were staying lit before in a couple of betas ago. Maybe they want and I was imagining that thet were. I think it is because I am used to using LedBlinky with HS and LedBlinky has a Frontend specific plugin that has a few additionals options you can do that choosing "Other Frontend" does not have. Like the HS ledblinky plugin  has an option that you can demo the controls in HS frontend, like when you are scrolling through the mame game list it "demos" in other words lights up the controls for that specific game while you are still in the frontend. Also you do not have to check the box that says use mame to trigger start and stop events as it just works. 

So I think your code is probably all good and hopefully @arzoo can make a LaunchBox plugin and we can have those few additional options that HS has as well. Maybe arzoo can try out the new beta and see if he gives the thumbs up

[ThePolish]

@Jason Carr yup, that's exactly what the cause is. I haven't  narrowed it down to how long a pause I need to give it before jumping in and out but it seems too be existent only with platform videos continuing to play once a system is entered and won't stop until BB is exited.