Dreamcast Box art

[Latch]

Hey all, long time user/lurker first time poster and recent premium user.

Currently I'm adding games and sending changes to the DB when I see missing artwork and have recently started on the Dreamcast. Unfortunately unlike the N64/PSX there seems to be no theme running through for the covers at all! Some have black templates, some have white, some say Dreamcast down the side, some say SEGA Dreamcast, it's just a mess!

As a result I decided I liked the white template the most and found a PNG of it and since then I have been bulk editing the titles I have added to LB to fit with this template, now, they look great! My goal is to complete the flat front image and then move onto the 3D image as the 3D database is not only empty but again, all over the place, so it would be easier to complete after the flat images have been completed as these can be used and morphed into the 3D art.

So my questions:

#1 Is there a way for me to bulk upload these to the DB rather than going through each individual game and going through the entry requirements for each?

#2 Anyone want to jump in and help so we can get it done faster? I have the template setup in a way that all it requires is the current cover art and a simple scale to fit the size of the template, easy if you have a little know how of photo editing and I think I'm in the right place for that

Below is an image as to what the current box art looks like and the template is attached ready to start editing in case anyone wants it!

EDIT: Added images that I have currently completed (only 20) I forgot to add them, ha

Dreamcast Boxart.7z

Box_-_Front.7z

Edited January 6, 2017 by Latch

[dionymnia]

The problem with this is that these are not reflective of the actual covers. Some Dreamcast games had front covers with a white left border, some had black versions, and of course non-U.S. releases were in other colors (or without a left  border at all). I realize that it doesn't make for a visually consistent aesthetic, but that's how they were actually released.

Furthermore, from what I've found in my own work on Dreamcast covers, very few (if any) games actually used the style of cover that you're using for that template. The "Sega Dreamcast" text wasn't part of the cover image itself; it's more of a merging of the full cover and the front inlay that would appear under the jewel case.

I'd say that I don't really support using a generic template for them, especially when sources like SegaRetro, MobyGames, and others actually do provide physical scans of all the Dreamcast game covers. Otherwise, it doesn't really represent an authentic view of the covers.

Edited January 6, 2017 by dionymnia

[Latch]

3 minutes ago, dionymnia said:

The problem with this is that these are not reflective of the actual covers. Some Dreamcast games were released with the white left, some with black, and of course non-U.S. releases were in other colors (or without a left  border at all). I'd say that I don't really support using a generic template for them, especially when sources like SegaRetro, MobyGames, and others actually do provide physical scans of all the Dreamcast game covers. Otherwise, it doesn't really represent an authentic view of the covers.

That's a fair point and one I didn't actually pick up on. Being from the UK I'm used to DC games being in blue cases and as I am sticking to NA releases for all systems as this is the most populated and up to date area, I am not sure what covers these releases had. I do know that I am incredibly anal about themes so hopefully I can at least bulk upload these somewhere until "hopefully" the DB allows for alternate covers so people as anal as me can benefit from them :P.

[dionymnia]

As far as I understand it, you could upload those alternate covers as "Fanart Box - Front" - that way they would still be available but not confused with the original release covers!

[SentaiBrad]

Yes, you can totally upload these as a separate category. I would actually consider these Reconstructed, but FanArt Box - Front works too. Since you have premium, you have access to Image Priorities in the options menu too, so check that out. Once the images are approved, you can even have them scraped, downloaded, and have them be your default image.

 

[jayjay]

I decided I would do the same thing to game gear. I downloaded through launchbox all covers. Then used a bulk resize tool and resized all images the same, then used a bulk merge tool to merge a border and all the covers together at once. Actually the merge tool I used would leave a white border around the whole image for some reason, I couldn't work out why. So I then used a bulk crop tool. Apparently photoshop has bulk edit options.

 

Anyway Im waffling, I would use you covers, they look good. 

[SentaiBrad]

Careful with batch resizing, aspect ratio's can get off easily and if the image is smaller than your target resolution then up-scaling automatically happens and can make it look blurry. Also, Game Gear has borders and official portions of the boxart (not the art portion), so you put the full box art inside of a border?

[jayjay]

yeah there was a good amount I couldn't use because of aspect ratio and also just didn't look acceptable. Better grabbing large pics and down sizing them.

 

I used the word boarder as I didnt know how to write "that purple bit down the side" lol. I know they arnt the best looking but I think acceptable taking into consideration how much time editing each one takes and how much I dislike doing it. I was going to do it to Genesis til I looked at the covers and saw "Megadrive" written across lots of covers... Im not separating and editing them lol that's far to much work

[Latch]

10 hours ago, jayjay said:

yeah there was a good amount I couldn't use because of aspect ratio and also just didn't look acceptable. Better grabbing large pics and down sizing them.

 

I used the word boarder as I didnt know how to write "that purple bit down the side" lol. I know they arnt the best looking but I think acceptable taking into consideration how much time editing each one takes and how much I dislike doing it. I was going to do it to Genesis til I looked at the covers and saw "Megadrive" written across lots of covers... Im not separating and editing them lol that's far to much work

I've noticed that some covers may say Megadrive but if you go into edit for that game and cycle the images, you can often find the Genesis cover. I looked at the Game Gear covers too, I believe I have 90-100% that collection and the covers make me shiver I like what you did with the battletoads/butt-head covers, I wouldn't have thought the purple vertical banner would work with the grey horizontal banner, but it doesn't look too bad. I might mock up a few and check the difficulty I have with it, if it goes well, I will start on this until my DC collection is big enough to continue that. 

Edit: Woah, the box art for the game gear is pretty bad quality! Just when I think I've got the average size down for my template and go to add a cover, I get one that's less than half the size. Looks like if I'm to do this ill need to check every single game for the best quality cover and pray there are better ones out there... I will start on #-A and see how I get on...

 

Edit#2: That wasn't TOO bad, it just takes a little longer thanks to each image requiring a lot more image searching, some of them I had to do an insane amount of copy/pasting and for Ariel assault I simply had to use the Japanese box art but edit the Japanese out of it.

I've stuck with a theme throughout, that is, no other platform information other than that which is down the side, this again made my work a lot longer but overall, it looks a lot better for it (I think). I had a problem with only 2 games:

#1: Alien syndrome, All images I could find were really low quality, as a result I spliced 2 images together and lack the skills to finish the box art to a high quality standard, as a result, its put to one side for now

#2: Andre Agassi Tennis. As again all images were bad quality I used the master system image and simply cut out the MS logo at the top, however, the area where it is cut is busy and quite hard to disguise, again, put to one side. 

I've attached the files incase you want to look at them but I do intend to continue with this as I have nothing to do until the 30th of this month  

GameGear_Boxart.7z

Here is an image of Aerial Assault, the Japanese version and then the butcher job I did on it.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Latch

[Omen]

On 1/6/2017 at 1:32 AM, SentaiBrad said:

Careful with batch resizing, aspect ratio's can get off easily and if the image is smaller than your target resolution then up-scaling automatically happens and can make it look blurry. Also, Game Gear has borders and official portions of the boxart (not the art portion), so you put the full box art inside of a border?

You can use Photoshop's automation tool to resize images while keeping the aspect ratio. It can automate any task/set of tasks, in PS. I used it to make 300x300 cart/disc images to use as fade media for RL, and it worked perfectly.