Jump to content
LaunchBox Community Forums

COLORFUL bigbox theme


viking

Recommended Posts

On 7/15/2020 at 3:37 PM, hawkguy said:

Just started using this theme and I aboslutely love it. It's literally the most beautiful thing I've laid eyes on. I see it's still a beta, so I'm not sure the plans going forward (I'm going to read through the thread), but a couple of ideas I had were;

1: GAME VIEW: Instead of a full screen video - having the console image remain from the console view and the gameplay video for each game showing up on the TV/handheld. I'm not sure if this is actually possible to make the video that small on the screen, but it's a though. 

2: The empty space above the game name - is anything planned for that or is the blank space to keep it cleaner? A 3D box or a clear logo or even the game cart/disc might look cool up there. I'm not sure. I like how clean the theme is so I don't want to make bad suggestions, but in my head it looks okay. 

I also love the suggestion above with the Kirby Star Allies - I think that still looks clean but slightly more visually appealing. 

Regardless what you do - this is the theme I'll be using on my main build. It's just wonderful. Thank you for your hard work. 

Thx !

1: It's something long and/or complex. Each placement of Gameplay Video would be different. Other tried with my previous video set. The result is very cool, but it is not universal and here I have considered something simpler, more elegant. Maybe someone will get started?

2: This space is reserved for the long game name which grows upwards + the status icons.  The ClearLogo is already on the Wheel + on the BoxArt. It is these empty spaces, these breaths, which make this theme a little elegant. ?
So no, sorry !

On 7/20/2020 at 7:46 PM, releasedtruth said:

viking, crazy awesome theme! Appreciate all the hard work. Made a few small changes to get things attuned to my cab. Thought I'd share in case there was other interest. Adjusted one of the views to replace the box with clear logo and moved it to top left. Also killed the scroll text so the titles have room, even if some titles are waaaaaaay too long. Works nicely when you have all themes vs. video snaps. cheers!

IMG_20200720_114707.jpg

Thx !!
Not a bad idea ? ... If I have any free views left, why not!

13 hours ago, andreycout said:

Best theme available for Big Box and possibly any emulation frontend, hand down. Thank you for your hard work, viking. Your talent and great sense of aesthetic is a gift to the emulation frontend community!

Right now, I'm trying to edit it to make it suit my particular use case a little bit more. I have a couple of questions and one suggestion:

1. Is it possible to make a Text View that is just like the wheel view, only replacing the wheels with the text list? Text list is much snappier and faster than the wheels for very large collections, and some logos are kinda hard to read. Right now, the wheel view has more info about the game. Text feels a little bit incomplete compared. I personally believe that text view is better for large collections, and provide a better experience for "exploring your collection and finding hidden gems", because you can browse so much faster. That being said, without details like release date, rating, number of players and description, it becomes that much harder to dig around for the good stuff.

2. What values would I need to change to make animations start slightly sooner and/or go slightly faster? The way it is right now is very pleasant for an exhibition kind of experience, like attract mode for example. But on day to day use, if you just go straight to the game and select it as soon as you can, chances are you'll never get to see a lot of the animated content because it takes a little big too much time to resolve. You kind of have to purposefully wait if you wanna see the boxart or game info. I don't think the default values should be changed, but I'd like to dig into the XAML and change values for my particular setup. Or maybe just add a "quick animations" view as an option for next versions.

3. It was suggested already by user johnsanc, and I agree: a scanlines overlay for the video area would be great. Not even premium emumovies has video snaps that look any good when upscaled to 4k resolutions. Even very fake scanlines are great for hiding imperfections in low res content, because you distance the delimitation between visual pixels from one another, making the "staircase" effect less pronounced and blocky artifacts less visible.

 

Thanks!

Thx !!!

1: The problem is the theme architecture in BigBox. The GamesListView is the same file as the selected game view. (where you click on PLAY)
So I had to make a choice and this view is thought to display the "Selected Game". Because everyone ends up on this view.

2 : The problem is, the timing of the animation is like a waterfall. If you change the start value, you have to adjust all the other values. And there are soooooo many!
Making a new "quick animation" view is a good idea, but the total number of views is limited. I'll see if I have room left and do my best.

3: Yes, very good idea. I will add it to my ToDO. Maybe for v.1.0 ?

11 hours ago, modjoo said:

Hey there,

absolutely love your theme! ?  It Runs with no issues so far.

Apart from that, one Issue I have is, that i normally don't use Platform View since there are too many Games to Scroll for me ;) I use Playlists for each Console with just my Favourites in it, e.g. for Nintendo 64 Platform i created a Nintendo 64 Playlist with just my favourites. I edited the Playlist Video Paths  to the Corresponting Platform Video from Colorful. So far so good.

Unfortunately i can't match Background Color to the corresponding Color of the Video for each Playlist. Tried to poke around with Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a.dll.config and Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a-Colors.dll.config but didn't succeed at all..

 

Could anyone help me with that issue? Would be great :)

Indeed, I had not considered this situation !!!!
You can try this :

Go here :
LaunchBox\Themes\Colorful - Light\Plugins\Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a\AssemblyConfig

#01 - Open "Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a.dll.config" with a text editor.
This is where you will add the name of your playlist. The goal here is to standardize the names.

Add your Playlist Name to the curent platform name: 
(Respect the writing standard!)

Form:
<add key="Platform.NINTENDO_64" value="Nintendo_64" />

To:
<add key="Platform.NINTENDO_64" value="Nintendo_64|Nintendo_64_Playlist" />
(Add the exact name of your playlist)


If that doesn't work:

Add your Playlist name to the Playlist Category: (line 131)
<!-- PLAYLISTS -->
<add key="Playlist.NINTENDO_64_Playlist" value="Nintendo_64_Playlist" />

#02 - Open "Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a-Colors.dll.config" with a text editor.
Here you add the color HEX code.
 

If the previous method 1 works, you don't have to do anything. The theme will use the color of the platform.

If you had to use method 2, you must add here the playlist created just before.

Line 128, add the playlist
<!-- PLAYLISTS -->
<add key="Playlist.NINTENDO_64_PLAYLIST" value="#1bb861" />

And copy/past the color code from the same platform.

If method 1 worked, give me the list of the names of your playlist, I will add them directly to the theme!

Edited by viking
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, thank you for the fast answer. Yeah I tried something similar or thought that you could solve it this way. But I didn't know the right naming Conventions for Playlists etc.

Will give this a try when work is done and give feedback. Thank you! :)

Edited by modjoo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, viking said:

Thx !

1: It's something long and/or complex. Each placement of Gameplay Video would be different. Other tried with my previous video set. The result is very cool, but it is not universal and here I have considered something simpler, more elegant. Maybe someone will get started?

Ah, fair enough - makes sense. The full screen videos, are just a space eater for quality and makes the otherwise light theme, run heavy. It's fine for my PC, but others I'm not so sure. But thanks for the response! Great work!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys, I have what may be a stupid question. I'm running the COLORFUL theme on a 1280x720 screen but the layout appears with two black bars (one on top and one at the bottom). Isn't a 16:9 aspect ratio supposed to fill in the entire screen?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, it's not a theme issu, but a Windows setup issue. If you right clic on BigBox.exe and go option, no strange compatibility setup ? Or in your graphic card driver, no special setup for bigbox.exe ?

Look like Windows force a wrong ratio.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really, really love the design of this. Well done @viking

If only there was a view to cater for 16:9 video content. Most of my files are carefully edited game themes that just don't look right when cropped to 4:3. I could download a bunch of game clips which would mostly alleviate the issue but themes are far superior to many of the low-res snaps available on Emumovies. Especially when viewed on a 4K display. Perhaps 16:9 content could be implemented as a transparent background?

One can dream..

Edited by Thornback
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thx @Thornback !

I understand very well. I'm trying to create an interface that matches the maximum of GameplayVideo.
I have to mix old games (4:3), newer (16:9) and extravagant systems (NDS, ...)
What blocks me is that I want to keep my left column for the info. So I can't have a 16: 9 aspect ratio in full height without distortion. (and the media distortion, nobody deserves this)

I understand your frustration and yes, 1080p VideoSnaps will be just perfect today.
In the meantime, you can try to tweak the theme. Sorry !

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Thx @Seroczynski?

I know I'm not very active here at the moment. A big project for my job ... bills have to be paid! ?
But I still have Colorful in mind and it will be maintained. No worry about it, just patience.
My development schedule:

  1. Complete the Vanilla Arcade Playlist Video.
  2. Finish my version of StartUp Video.
  3. Finish and release v.1.0 for the main theme.
  4. Work on Startup & Pause Theme.
  5.  .... To infinity and beyond !     (More and more platform video / new view for main theme / a new banner set /...)

?

  • Like 7
  • Game On 1
  • Unusual Gem 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I need you!
After my video set update yesterday  (see this post), I need your feedback on the color correspondence with the theme.
I dont use these Arcade Playlist videos myself. Impossible to test alone on my side!

So please, download this :      AssemblyConfig.zip
And unzip the 2 ".config" files here :       LaunchBox \ Themes \ Colorful - xxx \ Plugins \ Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a \ AssemblyConfig

This should add colors for the Arcade playlists, along with the new videos.
I await your feedback! ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, viking said:

I need you!
After my video set update yesterday  (see this post), I need your feedback on the color correspondence with the theme.
I dont use these Arcade Playlist videos myself. Impossible to test alone on my side!

So please, download this :      AssemblyConfig.zip
And unzip the 2 ".config" files here :       LaunchBox \ Themes \ Colorful - xxx \ Plugins \ Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a \ AssemblyConfig

This should add colors for the Arcade playlists, along with the new videos.
I await your feedback! ?

tenor.gif.95fc7acb73f2406b3aedaf5ae037bc12.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, viking said:

I need you!
After my video set update yesterday  (see this post), I need your feedback on the color correspondence with the theme.
I dont use these Arcade Playlist videos myself. Impossible to test alone on my side!

So please, download this :      AssemblyConfig.zip
And unzip the 2 ".config" files here :       LaunchBox \ Themes \ Colorful - xxx \ Plugins \ Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a \ AssemblyConfig

This should add colors for the Arcade playlists, along with the new videos.
I await your feedback! ?

It is looking awesome! 

I tested it(replaced the file above), and colors are showing all green for every console. I also noticed that the same thing (green everywhere) is also shown in your theme showcase: 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, viking leaving only the playlist name without the arcade, here in my setup it worked. Example of how I left it.
<add key = "Playlist.ATARI_CLASSICS" value = "Atari_Classics" />

<add key="Playlist.ATARI_CLASSICS" value="#f2cc47" />

The names of my classics systems are without the word "arcade", they look like this:
Unique Name: Atari Classics
Nested Name: Atari Classics
I tried to put the word "arcade" but it didn't work.

Edited by leocmp
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, leocmp said:

So, viking leaving only the playlist name without the arcade, here in my setup it worked. Example of how I left it.
<add key = "Playlist.ATARI_CLASSICS" value = "Atari_Classics" />

<add key="Playlist.ATARI_CLASSICS" value="#f2cc47" />

The names of my classics systems are without the word "arcade", they look like this:
Unique Name: Atari Classics
Nested Name: Atari Classics
I tried to put the word "arcade" but it didn't work.

For test by myself, I create Arcade Playlist, but your trick don't work ... I continue my research!

EDIT : OK; I found the problem.
Here a exemple =
<add key="Playlist.ATARI_CLASSICS" value="Atari_Classics|Arcade_Atari_Classics" />
<add key="Playlist.ATARI_CLASSICS" value="#edcf4d" />

Edited by viking
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...