RetroFresh

[faeran]

RetroFresh

View File

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This theme was designed to add as little overhead as possible, while giving a clean and simplistic view of the content. RetroFresh works with your own media and uses them as its centerpiece. Hope you guys enjoy.

This theme was ported over to the COMMUNITY Theme Creator, and is the only version still supported. Both the theme and the Theme Creator files are supplied, just in case you would like to make any changes with the theme.

 

Installation Instructions

1. Extract 'RetroFresh - Theme.zip' LaunchBox/Themes folder.
2. Open Big Box, go to Options/Views, select the RetroFresh theme.

 

Video Demonstration

 

The views I made are as follows:

RetroFresh

Spoiler

Platform Wheel View 1
This platform view was designed to get out of the way of the full screen platform videos made by all the wonderful people contributing to LaunchBox. The platform videos are the focus here, as the wheel's transparent background let's the video shine through.

- Platform Wheel View 2
This is a vertical version of Platform Wheel View 1. It was designed to get out of the way of the full screen platform videos made by all the wonderful people contributing to LaunchBox. The platform videos are the focus here, as the wheel's transparent background let's the video shine through.

Platform Wheel View 3
This view's focus is on the platform theme videos, along with displaying their descriptions. It's all tied together with background platform images.

Game Wheel View 1
This game view let's the box art and game video take center stage, while the blurred background image allows for the transparent UI elements to take on its color property.

Game Wheel View 2
This game view is the same as the first, except the wheel is on the right.

Game Wheel View 3
This view keeps the same focus as with the Vertical views, while also providing space for more game details.

 Game Wheel View 4 - Experimental
This experimental view is designed specifically for game theme videos. It's a bare bones view with the main focus on the game video.

Game List View
This game view substitutes the wheel for a text list. This view will help on lower end systems, while the essence of theme remains intact.

 

 

If anyone finds any issues, please let me know.

 

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• Submitter
  faeran
• Submitted
  01/17/2017
• Category
  Custom Themes

 

[Talia]

Really liking the new update! The horizontal wheel view is perfect for my setup.Thanks for the cool theme @faeran

[BluSonik]

I really like this theme, great work on this @faeran 

Is there any chance of an alternate view for the platform view? Someting like Game View 1 with the vertical wheel to the left and a big platform video on the right 

Edited January 19, 2017 by BlueArrowUK

[faeran]

5 hours ago, BlueArrowUK said:

I really like this theme, great work on this @faeran 

Is there any chance of an alternate view for the platform view? Someting like Game View 1 with the vertical wheel to the left and a big platform video on the right 

Thanks @BlueArrowUK

Is this kind of what you were thinking of?

[BluSonik]

Thanks for the reply @faeran 

I've used Game View 1 to show you what I had in mind, the white area is where I was thinking for the platform video as you can see the whole video without anything overlapping plus still being able to see any fan art used in the background 

[faeran]

2 hours ago, BlueArrowUK said:

Thanks for the reply @faeran 

I've used Game View 1 to show you what I had in mind, the white area is where I was thinking for the platform video as you can see the whole video without anything overlapping plus still being able to see any fan art used in the background 

Oh I see @BlueArrowUK... So Something like this then:

[BluSonik]

11 minutes ago, faeran said:

Oh I see @BlueArrowUK... So Something like this then:

OMG!! This is Perfect my friend, exactly what I was after  

If anything I'd say you don't need the text in the corner of the video because it's perfect without it 

Edited January 19, 2017 by BlueArrowUK

[faeran]

1 minute ago, BlueArrowUK said:

OMG!! This is Perfect my friend, exactly what I was after  

Awesome!

I'll clean up the code and add it to the next release (v1.2). Possibly today or latest by the weekend.

I'll need to find some cool platform fanart backgrounds to show this view off 

[BluSonik]

Great News  I'll be keeping an eye out for the update. Thank you for doing this view @faeran I can't wait to get this in my setup 

[DJFallout]

Hey guys! So I feel kind of stupid, when I select 'RetroFresh 1.1' as a theme within BigBox, it reverts back to the default theme when I got back into BigBox. So I'm not actually getting the theme. I followed the instructions, put it in the Theme folder, installed the fonts, and went into BigBox and switched to that theme, but it doesn't seem to be working. *shrugs Any ideas would be great. Thank you! Can't wait to use the new theme!

[Kriven]

Oh, holy smokes. If you get that game video view BlueArrow suggested going, I am all in on this theme.

 

I've been looking for the perfect theme to give me that GameCube intro squeak.

[faeran]

1 hour ago, DJFallout said:

Hey guys! So I feel kind of stupid, when I select 'RetroFresh 1.1' as a theme within BigBox, it reverts back to the default theme when I got back into BigBox. So I'm not actually getting the theme. I followed the instructions, put it in the Theme folder, installed the fonts, and went into BigBox and switched to that theme, but it doesn't seem to be working. *shrugs Any ideas would be great. Thank you! Can't wait to use the new theme!

Hey @DJFallout, thanks for trying out the theme.

I'm currently in a class for the next 4 hours, so if I can't figure it out for you, maybe somebody else can.

First question:

Did you extract the RetroFresh folder from the zip file, and place it into the Themes folder, or did you place the RetroFresh zip file into the Themes folder?

[DJFallout]

I did extract the zip file to the themes folder. I think though that if I did just put the zip file in the themes folder, it wouldn't pop up as a viable theme option, right? Or am I wrong on that? No rush though, your class is waaaay more important than me troubleshooting this theme. haha

[CriticalCid]

Your assumptions are completely right. If you open your RetroFresh folder, have you various subfolders in it which are called “Views”, “Styles”, etc, or is there just a single folder which is also called “RetroFresh”? If the latter is the case than you have to move everything from this subfolder to the main RetroFresh folder.

[DJFallout]

 

2 hours ago, CriticalCid said:

Your assumptions are completely right. If you open your RetroFresh folder, have you various subfolders in it which are called “Views”, “Styles”, etc, or is there just a single folder which is also called “RetroFresh”? If the latter is the case than you have to move everything from this subfolder to the main RetroFresh folder.

 

That did it! Thank you sir! Although oddly enough, I know that in all the tutorial vids Brad always says to use VLC, however in my case, VLC makes the videos choppy and slightly distorted. Windows media player is playing back the vids buttery smooth. I'd love to do the City Hunter background, but VLC doesn't like BigBox for some reason. It'll play the .mp4 ouside of BigBox no problem. Not sure if anyone else has come across that or not. *shrugs

[faeran]

1 hour ago, DJFallout said:

 

That did it! Thank you sir! Although oddly enough, I know that in all the tutorial vids Brad always says to use VLC, however in my case, VLC makes the videos choppy and slightly distorted. Windows media player is playing back the vids buttery smooth. I'd love to do the City Hunter background, but VLC doesn't like BigBox for some reason. It'll play the .mp4 ouside of BigBox no problem. Not sure if anyone else has come across that or not. *shrugs

I'm glad you managed to work it out. I feel yeah about VLC, as it's also buggy on my system. I usually switch to WMP in BigBox, but neither are really great on my system.

Maybe at some point we'll see integration for the open source media player mpv, if that's even possible.

[faeran]

Update 1.2 has been posted on the Downloads page. Lots of information can be found there.

Here is the basic change log:

Spoiler

• Created an alternate version of RetroFresh (called RetroFresh Detailed), which adds game descriptions to each game view
• New Platform theme added - It is a vertical platform wheel view with a large video and platform description (this view utilizes your platform fanart) 
• The selected game on the game wheels now glows
• The Game Wheels are now Unified: The Horizontal Game Wheel now has the same look as the Vertical Game Wheel
• Experimental: Added a 4th game view to the main RetroFresh theme designed to be used with 4:3 Game Theme videos, this may be tweaked/altered in future versions

 

Hope people enjoy. Let me know if you run into any issues with this new update. I might have missed something.

Edited January 22, 2017 by faeran

[kmoney]

Great job on the new views...they look great! Awesome that you included the view for 4:3 Game Theme Videos

[BluSonik]

Hey @faeran 

Noticed a small issue with platform view 2, it seems that if you don't have a platform video the standard gameplay video doesn't fill the whole box.

[faeran]

4 hours ago, BlueArrowUK said:

Hey @faeran 

Noticed a small issue with platform view 2, it seems that if you don't have a platform video the standard gameplay video doesn't fill the whole box.

Hey @BlueArrowUK,

You are right. The issue here is that I set the grid background to fit the size of a 16:9 aspect ratio video, so any other videos that are not in that widescreen format will not fit to the edges. I played around with trying to stretch 4:3 videos to fit without any luck.