BIGFLIX: A new user experience for your HTPC

[kerszr]

5 hours ago, SNAK3ATER said:

 

 

THIS LOOKS EPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPIIIIIC

[T.K.O. Cinematics]

Absolutely gorgeous and super creative....

[Retro808]

Man I wish I had a creative eye to do these kinds of things. Looking amazing. Definitely adding to my theme rotation. 

[SNAK3ATER]

Thanks to everyone for your support, I have completed 3 views so far and i'm planning to develop one more games view and then i'll move on to developing platform views

My plan is to have BIGFLIX v1.0 have 3 platform views (Platform videos fullscreen view, fanart view similar to game view 1, and Platform/playlist list text view) and 5 games views (fanart view, boxart view, full coverflow view, game list text view and 5th view i'm currently brainstorming for) and will gradually add new views/updates in subsequent theme updates

Here are the completed views so far:

Game view 1: Fanart view

Game view 2: Boxart view

Game view 3: Coverflow game view (please ignore the unaligned metadata info, it will be fixed)

For the fourth view i'm planning something similar to this: (what do you guys think, should I go for it?)

[ALIE]

All look fantastic @SNAK3ATER very curious if @Jason Carr got back to you about the steam banner thing... 

Can't wait to try the finished product. 

[SNAK3ATER]

1 hour ago, ALIE said:

All look fantastic @SNAK3ATER very curious if @Jason Carr got back to you about the steam banner thing... 

Can't wait to try the finished product. 

Not yet, no but hopefully he'll get back to me as he always do as this request should not be hard to implement (I hope it isn't)

I'll tag him here just incase he missed my original post in the beta thread / @Jason Carr

[shadowblind]

That fourth view may well be my favorite (although all of them look great.) Having the video on the bottom-right that fades into the metadata and boxart (or screenshot, whatever you decide) at the top with a white outline would be a beautiful view. Just an idea, but I really like where you're headed with this!

[SNAK3ATER]

@shadowblind can you elaborate more please? The top images will be the flowcontrol wheel images with a white outline (Banner/clear logo/screenshot etc) and on the bottom left will be the game info and notes, the bottom right part I can certainly make it start with the game's fanart which will then fade out and transition into the game's video...now the bottom section where it says "overview, more like this, episodes, details" I can workaround with something creative like displaying the front cover boxart of the game and some details like "release year, play count, play mode, last played date" dunno that's just an idea from my side

What do you think? Share with me your idea as how you want the view to look like

[mr 2fngrz]

Wow, this is sexy as hell.  Damn good job on this and can't wait for you to drop this.  Definitely on my watch list.  One quick question though, how did you get the video clips for pc games? I've been wanting some for a while now

[SNAK3ATER]

3 minutes ago, mr 2fngrz said:

Wow, this is sexy as hell.  Damn good job on this and can't wait for you to drop this.  Definitely on my watch list.  One quick question though, how did you get the video clips for pc games? I've been wanting some for a while now

Hello @mr 2fngrz i'm glad that you liked the theme and to answer your question I imported my steam games and launchbox did the rest of the hard work:

Assuming you haven't imported your steam games yet

1- Open launchbox and go to tools-->import-->steam games

2- You will be greeted with the wizard guide box, enter your steam id as shown in the picture and click next

3- Here you can tell launchbox what metadata and media to download for your games, to get the video trailers make sure Steam Trailer Video is checked

Complete the wizard and you'll have everything you want once the games are populated

 

Now assuming you already have imported steam games (or any games for that matter)

1- On the left hand side where it shows all of your available platforms click on Windows (or whatever the platform name you decided to give for your pc games)

2- Once clicked the middle section will populate all the games you have for that particular platform, click on any game once and then use Ctrl + A to highlight all the available games for that platform

3- Once all the games are highlighted go to Tools-->Download Metadata and Media... and follow the wizard guide instructions

4- you can choose the Steam Trailer Video option similar to step three above

That's all

[LogicalEgo]

Really, really awesome.

[shadowblind]

20 hours ago, SNAK3ATER said:

@shadowblind can you elaborate more please? The top images will be the flowcontrol wheel images with a white outline (Banner/clear logo/screenshot etc) and on the bottom left will be the game info and notes, the bottom right part I can certainly make it start with the game's fanart which will then fade out and transition into the game's video...now the bottom section where it says "overview, more like this, episodes, details" I can workaround with something creative like displaying the front cover boxart of the game and some details like "release year, play count, play mode, last played date" dunno that's just an idea from my side

What do you think? Share with me your idea as how you want the view to look like

Ah, I think my fade comment wasn't clear. I meant that the video is behind a black vignette effect on the left side--that would make it look as if it's "fading" into the metadata. It'd be more organic-looking instead of the video just being displayed in a square box like, well, pretty much every theme, haha.

Still not sure I'm explaining it well....basically, in the fourth view screenshot of Daredevil you posted, just replace the video in the bottom left with the snap video of the game. It already has a black vignette effect on the left side, and make the right side reach the edge of the screen on the right.

I like the idea of changing "overview, etc." into other buttons! Play count works, maybe favorited . . . really wish launchbox had a rating system (does it?) so we could rate it 1-5 stars, or something.

In any case, those are just some thoughts--you're doing awesome work and I can't wait to see the finished product!

Edited June 18, 2017 by shadowblind

[DOS76]

LB does indeed already have a rating system built in

[shadowblind]

2 hours ago, DOS76 said:

LB does indeed already have a rating system built in

You're gosh-darn right it does. Not sure why I'm just now realizing this, haha.

[SNAK3ATER]

19 hours ago, keltoigael said:

Really, really awesome.

Thanks kelto, I really appreciate it 

2 hours ago, shadowblind said:

Ah, I think my fade comment wasn't clear. I meant that the video is behind a black vignette effect on the left side--that would make it look as if it's "fading" into the metadata. It'd be more organic-looking instead of the video just being displayed in a square box like, well, pretty much every theme, haha.

Still not sure I'm explaining it well....basically, in the fourth view screenshot of Daredevil you posted, just replace the video in the bottom left with the snap video of the game. It already has a black vignette effect on the left side, and make the right side reach the edge of the screen on the right.

I like the idea of changing "overview, etc." into other buttons! Play count works, maybe favorited . . . really wish launchbox had a rating system (does it?) so we could rate it 1-5 stars, or something.

In any case, those are just some thoughts--you're doing awesome work and I can't wait to see the finished product!

As @DOS76 mentioned there is a rating system hence why you see in some of my pictures posted a 5 rating stars (red stars, they vary based on the rating you set for each game) and some are not rated yet (grey stars) but currently you can only rate the game via launchbox only but your settings do reflect in BigBox

Btw your idea of faded black vignette was already implemented as I want the theme to be true to the source  Now unfortunately the bottoms system cannot be implemented currently at this this stage as i'm not even sure if the feature is even supported by BigBox but it would be so cool to be able to click on "overview" to get the metadata info, click on "more details" to get publisher/developer/release info, "player stats" to get play count/last played etc.. but one can only hope 

Let's hope that Jason hears my pleas and stealthily implement them in one of his developer sessions 

[Jason Carr]

This looks amazing @SNAK3ATER! I should be able to get steam banner support for the wheels added very soon. Possibly in the live stream today.

[SNAK3ATER]

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates as I was busy with work and life lately, after a month of hard work i'm happy to say that I finally completed all the games views of this theme. I started working on the platform views earlier today and once that's completed i'll polish the rest of the experience (System and option views, logos, text alignment, etc) and hopefully will push for an official release before the end of this month  

For the time being here is an updated video of my current progress in BIGFLIX: (I'm using @nosh platform banners temporarily as I do not have one yet for this theme)

 

On 6/21/2017 at 8:14 PM, Jason Carr said:

This looks amazing @SNAK3ATER! I should be able to get steam banner support for the wheels added very soon. Possibly in the live stream today.

OH MY! Thank you @Jason Carr I love you bro! This is much appreciated you have no idea how excited I am for the next official LB release!

Ahem..If you don't mind Jason I do have a couple of requests that will not only help me with my theme, but will help all of us theme makers in general. Let me know if you're interested in hearing them.

 

P.S. Since the theme is in a usable condition now I would be honored if you'd beta test it in one of your developing sessions 

[shadowblind]

That dimming effect...brilliant. The contrast between the scroll bar and the background has always seemed to be tough for theme creators to figure out. How do I make one less important over the other depending on what the user wants to focus on at the time? Some have used a fading scrollbar which, until this, was my favorite solution. But with the background dimming when the scrollbar is being used, it shifts focus entirely to the bar without causing any contrast or hierarchy issues with the video still playing in the back. Then, after a second, the bar disappears and the vignette lifts.

Sorry, the graphic designer in me REALLY likes this solution. Kind of frustrated I didn't think of it myself. I will say that I don't care one bit for that "BigFlix" logo in the corner--it seems extremely out of place even if it does fade after a moment.

The first games view looks fantastic. I love how the video plays over the front-most "screenshot" on the screenshot bar. And using a screenshot instead of boxart is a very interesting solution, one I'm excited to test out. Not sure I'll use it much, but it looks like it has great potential. I'd prefer the play icon (the ->) fade a bit faster though. It lingers a couple seconds too long.

The box art view looks, in my opinion, almost perfect. The video appears to play before the screenshot fades, which may be something you might want to change (so that the video starts to play the exact moment that the screenshot fades out). However I can see this view being my most used on this new theme. My Launchbox always seems to load images much slower, though, so I'll have to see.

Don't much care for the screenshot-bar at the top view, but some may prefer it. 

The boxart-only view looks nice. I'd like a bit more space between the rating box (M, T, E, etc) and the game details. They kind of bump right up against each other. I vastly prefer the boxart-and-video view, but that's not to diminish one over the other. This is just personal preference.

I really like the text-based games list with the large video view, but holy cannonball please reverse the red and the black, haha! That's way too much red in my opinion. I'd just put a strip of red at the top and bottom and have the background be black instead of red. That way the Netflix branding will be maintained without burning our eyes out, haha!

Wow, that was WAY more than I expected to type. This, in my opinion, is the best theme I've ever seen on Launchbox. Can't wait to download it, it looks so awesome. Great work, SNAK3!

Edited June 23, 2017 by shadowblind

[SNAK3ATER]

Yo shadow, what's up bro?

Thanks for your feedback man, I really do enjoy those kind of constructive criticisms as they help me tackle any flaws/weaknesses that I may have overlooked and also help me improve my work overall so thanks again 

The platform view is still a work in progress so that fading Bigflix logo can be removed completely in the final version, still haven't decided on how to finalize the look of this view (currently the wheel scroll is showing only 3 banners at a time so may increase the number of banners shown? Dunno haven't decided yet)

The play icon of the first view can be adjusted to fade out faster, noted.

As for the box art view and the rest of the games views, this was an intentional move as this is how I wanted the view to play out:

1- Game is highlighted, the game fanart is displayed

2- The play icon buffering animation starts (notice that some of the views has the play icon buffering (0%->50%->100%)

3- Once the buffering animation is complete the fanart fades out and THEN the video playback starts

 

Now unfortunately video playback delay is not possible at this current stage due to limitation from BiigBox, the main goal of this delay effect is to give the user enough time to read important bits about the game and appreciate the game's fanart before shifting focus to watch the game video (Before I had this issue where I didn't know whether I should read the info or watch the video and I tended to loss focus inbetween. this solution should help elevate those issues for me atleast). I have already requested video playback delay in the beta thread so hopefully @Jason Carr would help me look into this.

I did not understand the screenshot-bar at the top view comment, but if you meant this view then I believe it was request by you earlier on this thread  

Here was the concept art

Here is the final view based on the concept art

As for the spacing for the boxart only view, I will look into it as part of the polishing phase 

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the text based view as the bright red is an eye scorching especially at 4K  I did in fact start out with black background similar to the rest of the views but here's the problem I faced: Using black background, the nice big square video preview was lost due to the video borders mixing with the black background so I resorted to the red scheme.

Here's what I can do, since you are a graphic designer i'll send you the png file for you to modify. Share with me your idea of how you want the text game view to look like and we'll work on it together.

 

As I mentioned earlier on this thread I have an open mind policy thus the community ideas and contributions will be much appreciated towards the development of this theme, keep them feedbacks coming people!

 

[kerszr]

Is there many different views for platforms? I only see game views so far.