Nostalgia

[eatkinola]

Nostalgia

View File

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Nostalgia uses the amazing platform videos created by @viking to create a per-system theme; thanks to viking for letting me derive from and name my theme after his work. It's designed for 16:9; tested at HD but not 4k since I don't have a 4k setup. Please let me know if you spot problems or have suggestions. It relies on a set of plugin controls I created, so you'll have to unblock either the entire zip file, or more specifically the DLL files in the theme's Plugins folder (see below). Due to its reliance on certain plugin features, the current version of this theme requires LB version 10+. Bundled with Nostalgia are some clear logos from viking's silver ring set, along with a few extras. Also bundled are platform banners created by @Grila and @Omen. For the best experience (including CRT curvature effects for videos), I recommend setting BigBox to use Windows Media Player.

• Platform Views: Background as the current platform (from viking's video set) including a video playing within the arcade cabinet, TV screen, etc. If there is no video for the selected platform, category, or playlist, a random list of relevant game videos are played instead. If no vids are available, screenshots are used. Platform, category, or playlist details are displayed to the left of the screen.
• Game Views: Selected game is displayed within a platform-specific background. If no game video exists, the game's screenshots are played as a slideshow while the game's soundtrack (if found in your LB setup) is played in the background. If neither game nor screenshots exist, a video of TV static plays. Game details are displayed to the left of the screen.
• Filter Views: E.g., Genres, Series, etc -- in this view, a random list of game videos for the selected Series, etc. will play.

KNOWN ISSUES: (1) 3DS and DS videos do not display properly. This is due to how they were captured, i.e., with both screens on these dual screen devices being squished into a single video. A potential workaround is to crop out the auxiliary screen from these videos and use on the part from the main screen. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know. I think handbrake would work for batch cropping. (2) There are missing platform backgrounds. I tried to include the most common platforms. Viking's background set is quite thorough; please send me any requests.

NOTE: Unblocking the ZIP file will also unblock the DLLs (e.g., Ao.Bigbox.Themer.dll and others) contained therein, giving your computer permission to run these DLLs. This is an issue with all plugins you might download from this forum. It's a Windows security feature. You basically have to vouch for a file before Windows will use it. I liken it to how a MS office document you download from an email runs in Protected Mode until you unblock it for printing, editing, etc. Below is the error you'll see if you don't unblock the file, as well as a screenshot of the solution.

 

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• Submitter
  eatkinola
• Submitted
  09/27/2017
• Category
  Big Box Custom Themes

 

[Omen]

I love this! One request though, could you make it where if a video is missing it will place a screenshot in the TV screen if available? Other than that this is perfect!

[eatkinola]

12 hours ago, Omen said:

I love this! One request though, could you make it where if a video is missing it will place a screenshot in the TV screen if available? Other than that this is perfect!

Awesome! Yes, I'll add that. Thanks for the feedback.

[LogicalEgo]

Great work. I ran across a few bugs with the platforms. Majority of them are being squeezed some what center into the desktop overlay. Looking through the code atm to see if I can help in any way.

 

 

[eatkinola]

Thanks for the report @keltoigael. Looks like a problem with the mapping for platform to background image. Please check the AVLF subfolders of Views\Images. I don't think I included backgrounds for those Sega platforms. I have these backgrounds ready to go at home and can fix that later. When the platform's background is not found, a default is used in this case MS Windows; a second problem is that the video is not being positioned appropriately in this default background. That should be an easy fix, too, and I'll post an update today or tomorrow. Please let me know if you find anything else.

[eatkinola]

@keltoigael: Also, what RA core do you use for those other Sega platforms. I can add core-specific icons for those. Looks like you use mednafen for saturn.

[neil9000]

Hi @eatkinola, i'm having the same issue as @keltoigael but am getting it on NES as well, i just looked in that folder you mentioned above and see the there is a image called "Nintendo NES" and that's a completely different name to the default name Launchbox gives the platform, could that be a issue?

 

[eatkinola]

48 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

i just looked in that folder you mentioned above and see the there is a image called "Nintendo NES" and that's a completely different name to the default name Launchbox gives the platform, could that be a issue?

Thanks for the report . Yes, that's probably it. I call it Nintendo NES. There's a mechanism in that platform mapping file to override that and use the name for your setup. I should probably make it default to "Nintendo Entertainment System" for the release. I'll have to document the use of that mapping file, too, in case someone has a really off the wall platform name they want to use.

[neil9000]

6 minutes ago, eatkinola said:

Thanks for the report . Yes, that's probably it. I call it Nintendo NES. There's a mechanism in that platform mapping file to override that and use the name for your setup. I should probably make it default to "Nintendo Entertainment System" for the release. I'll have to document the use of that mapping file, too, in case someone has a really off the wall platform name they want to use.

Thank's for the reply, i have just renamed the image to Nintendo Entertainment System, then edited the index file to match, and it is now working. Thank's for the tip, i'll go through and edit any others as needed.  

[neil9000]

Hi @eatkinola, sorry me again.  Another thing i have just noticed is that none of my game snap videos play, in any platform, but i have a idea as to why. I have Launchbox on my ssd and all the platform video's are in the usual place in the Launchbox folder, however due to space concerns on my ssd i have all the game video snaps on a another hdd in my system, this works just fine in all other themes just not nostalgia. Do you have it hardcoded to always use the Launchbox/Video's folder?

Thank's again.  

[eatkinola]

10 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Do you have it hardcoded to always use the Launchbox/Video's folder?

I don't think so, but let me check. We'll find a way to get it working. PS. No worries at all, I really appreciate the feedback to help find and fix the bugs!

[eatkinola]

@keltoigael @neil9000 @Omen @Rincewind @UnderwoodNC

Updated with bugfixes and new features to address the issues raised. Thanks again for your feedback.

[neil9000]

7 hours ago, eatkinola said:

@keltoigael @neil9000 @Omen @Rincewind @UnderwoodNC

Updated with bugfixes and new features to address the issues raised. Thanks again for your feedback.

Excellent, thank's for the update @eatkinola, i can confirm that the game video snaps are now showing for me, was it a issue of me not having them in the default folder in the end?

Thank's again for the update, and i look forward to the official release.  

[Rincewind]

Works a treat now @eatkinola love the theme, it works very smoothly and looks great. Could you please add the "Total Games:"  if you update again cheers  

[neil9000]

Hi @eatkinola, a couple of little issues i have found.  

When i imported my mame set i let Launchbox auto create the playlists for me, these don't seem to work correctly in the theme. I did copy the index and all the images from the platforms folder and paste them into the playlists folder of your theme, and i also edited the index to match the playlist names i have in Launchbox. However i still always get the default image in all of the arcade playlists except for the actual arcade playlist. Also every single arcade playlist plays the same same video, it's the Arcade Platform Category video, i have all the playlist videos in the Launchbox/Videos/Playlists folder, but as i said they all play the Platform categoty video not the actual correct playlist video.

Thank's again. 

[eatkinola]

13 hours ago, Rincewind said:

Works a treat now @eatkinola love the theme, it works very smoothly and looks great. Could you please add the "Total Games:"  if you update again cheers  

Nice, thanks for testing it! Regarding the total games, that is included in the item on the platform/filt/cat view that says "Completed x of y Games". Sorry that wasn't clear. Is that the info you had in mind?

PS. The total count was broken (was counting all in the category not the playlist) related to the same issue in the next post below. Both of these issues are fixed now.

Edited October 2, 2017 by eatkinola

[eatkinola]

12 hours ago, neil9000 said:

a couple of little issues i have found

@UnderwoodNC: this is also the issue you described. It's fixed now, but my ISP has not been working today. Once it's back online I can post an update. Thanks again for letting me know about the issue.

[LogicalEgo]

I see you got most of the issues worked out already. Sorry I couldn't get to it fast enough.

[eatkinola]

6 minutes ago, keltoigael said:

I see you got most of the issues worked out already. Sorry I couldn't get to it fast enough.

No worries at all! I'd be surprised if there aren't more issues on the horizon.

[LogicalEgo]

Just now, eatkinola said:

No worries at all! I'd be surprised if there aren't more issues on the horizon.

lol, I know that feel