JaysArcade 251 Posted July 24, 2020 Vertical Aspirations - A vertically oriented cabinet theme View File INTRODUCTION This theme was built for people who have vertically oriented monitors in their cabinets - 1080x1920. It is based off of the Bezel and Lay File how-to videos I found on Youtube by the user Chad Wedlake (https://youtu.be/NUTnWWlcL3A) and are used with his permission. The files he used are derivative of the VCabinet artworks by Antolin Aguirre ( http://www.vcabinet.es ). When I started this theme, I was well into creating vertical bezels for use in various platforms with RetroArch. I found it a challenge to set up each platform in a vertical fashion. I'm not sure when, but it was at least a couple months back when I discovered the Community Theme Creator and started playing around with it a bit. Wow, is it ever easy to use. Particularly if you know how layers work in programs like Photoshop or GIMP. Anyways, I started with just importing a bezel I had created and then added the video behind the bezel. Added the marquee view for the arcade games that have marquees and just used clear logos for the ones that didn't. Worked out pretty good I thought so I kept going. Then I thought, how about a view for the Pinball FX, Future Pinball and Visual Pinball tables I have? Well now I have it to a point that I feel like it should be shared. For best results, I suggest setting a hotkey within BigBox to allow you to scroll through the various platform and games views. Many popular console platforms have their own views, but all platforms will display just fine with the default wheel or text views. The special views for Pinball are full screen table video views that do not look good with regular console or arcade videos. This theme was not designed with second monitor support in mind for pinball backglass videos or other marquees. This theme was not tested with Platform Category Views, Genre Views, Playlist Views, or any other non-platform oriented views, but I assume they should work OK as long as your media is set up for those views. I do intend at some point to also release the vertical bezel files I've created for the various platforms. This theme and the bezel files work great together to add a more seamless transition between game and frontend. You shouldn't need anything special to get the theme to work as long as you have good media files. The theme mostly requires a good set of clear logos, box art, and game cart/cd media. You will also need a good set of videos as well as vertically oriented Pinball videos if you want to use the pinball views. I'll release updates as I refine the theme. If you discover any weird bugs or have reasonable requests, please let me know. CREDIT I would like to thank Chad Wedlake for the use of his bezel template. @faeran for permission to use some of the xaml code from his excellent Vertigo Theme for the options views in the backend. @SonicFan53 for the clear platform images that the theme uses. And @y2guru for the excellent Community Theme Builder. I couldn't have done this without the Theme Builder. Incredible tool for theme building in BigBox! Thanks as always to @Jason Carr. INSTALLATION Download the zip file and unblock it by right clicking the file, go into properties and check the unblock check box and click OK. Once the file is unblocked, extract the folder into ==\Launchbox\Themes\ THEME VIEWS In order to see the various games views for the different platforms, you'll need to change to each view. If you set a hotkey within Bigbox (Keyboard Mappings/Controller Mappings - Switch View) to change views, this makes it easy to change views without going into the settings each time. Main Wheel Spoiler Main Wheel Device View Spoiler Main Wheel Vertical Text Wheel View Spoiler Main Wheel Description View Spoiler Default Games View Spoiler Alternate Games View (Arcade platform only - I got next game) Spoiler Vertical Text Wheel Games View Spoiler Atari 2600 Games View Spoiler Bally Astrocade Games View Spoiler GCE Vectrex Games View Spoiler Mattel Intellevision Games View Spoiler TurboGrafx 16 Games View Spoiler TurboGrafx CD Games View Spoiler NES Games View Spoiler Sega 32x Games View Spoiler Sega CD Games View Spoiler Sega Genesis Games View Spoiler Sega Master System Games View Spoiler Sega Saturn Games View Spoiler Sony Playstation Games View Spoiler Super Nintendo Games View Spoiler Fullscreen Pinball Table Games View Spoiler If you are interested in using any of the Bezels/Overlays within RetroArch, you can find them here. Submitter JaysArcade Submitted 07/23/2020 Category Big Box Custom Themes 1 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankiefurter 1 Posted August 14, 2020 This is an amazing vertical theme. I have the 40 inch vertical cab from recroommasters. Your theme really shows it off. Any chance you also created cfg files for each system overlay to use as a platform default in retroarch? I'd love to play all my console games with the system overlays as a generic for each game. I dont see any vertical overlays for systems like u do for horizontal cabs. Thanks again 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted August 22, 2020 On 8/14/2020 at 4:10 PM, frankiefurter said: This is an amazing vertical theme. I have the 40 inch vertical cab from recroommasters. Your theme really shows it off. Any chance you also created cfg files for each system overlay to use as a platform default in retroarch? I'd love to play all my console games with the system overlays as a generic for each game. I dont see any vertical overlays for systems like u do for horizontal cabs. Thanks again Thank you! This is the first feedback I've received, and its good to hear someone likes the theme. I would LOVE to see a picture of your cab with the theme running. I built the theme with the intention of building my own copycat Rec-Room masters vertical cabinet, but other projects got in the way this summer and I haven't gotten around to building it yet. I do have the overlays and cfgs for several consoles. I've made different variations of each one. One variation with bezels and one without so you can use someting like the HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader with the overlay. I highly recommend that shader if your system is beefy enough to handle all that. I'll try to release what I have soon. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted August 22, 2020 OK, so I went ahead and posted my overlays. You can get them here. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted September 15, 2020 This looks great! I'm using a 43" portrait mode TV. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted September 15, 2020 3 minutes ago, bionictoothpick said: This looks great! I'm using a 43" portrait mode TV. That's great to hear! Let me know if you run into any issues. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Onslt69 1 Posted September 18, 2020 I appreciate the time and effort put in to developing this theme. Running it on the Rec Room Masters vertical cab and it works great so far (especially like the pinball view you added in for... well... Pinball FX3). Thank you and let me know if you update it! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted September 20, 2020 On 9/18/2020 at 4:51 PM, Onslt69 said: I appreciate the time and effort put in to developing this theme. Running it on the Rec Room Masters vertical cab and it works great so far (especially like the pinball view you added in for... well... Pinball FX3). Thank you and let me know if you update it! Glad its working well for you. Let me know if there is anything about the theme you'd like to see improved upon. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted September 21, 2020 I'd like to add a picture of my controller with an overview of what each button does in the navigation menu... Can you direct me to how to do that? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted September 21, 2020 13 minutes ago, bionictoothpick said: I'd like to add a picture of my controller with an overview of what each button does in the navigation menu... Can you direct me to how to do that? I'm not sure I'm following what you mean. I understand the image of the controller and overview part, but where specifically are you wanting to see it? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted September 22, 2020 Something like this... https://forums.launchbox-app.com/uploads/monthly_2020_09/image.png.f88fed30e873c384f5745e09f9e3ae71.png Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted September 22, 2020 44 minutes ago, bionictoothpick said: Something like this... https://forums.launchbox-app.com/uploads/monthly_2020_09/image.png.f88fed30e873c384f5745e09f9e3ae71.png 387.32 kB · 0 downloads Yeah I could probably add something like that. I would need to add a generic controller in that space and (in the theme folder) you could replace the image with your own. Are you looking to replace the joystick graphic altogether? The one that moves back and forth? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted September 22, 2020 (edited) JaysArcade, I'd leave everything as you have, but could you add a spot for a user created transparent png to cover the full screen? Edited September 22, 2020 by bionictoothpick Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted September 22, 2020 9 hours ago, bionictoothpick said: JaysArcade, I'd leave everything as you have, but could you add a spot for a user created transparent png to cover the full screen? Is this something you'd need for all views including the various console views, or just the main view? There are quite a few views I would need to alter, which would be OK, but if you don't use those other views, it would be easier for me to just make the one change. I would likely not release this into the wild and just share it with you unless there is demand for it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted September 22, 2020 Main Wheel and Default Games View I guess would be sufficient, as long as Default Games View will still work when there is a known system like Atari 2600. Thanks in advance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted September 24, 2020 I'll try to get to this in the next week or so. I work and have a long commute so I don't have a lot of free time, but I do intend to whip something out on this soon. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted October 3, 2020 Thanks again JaysArcade! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JaysArcade 251 Posted October 3, 2020 Looks good! You could delete the joystick gif in the theme folder if you would prefer to use the regular wheel. I might try to incorporate something like this in a future version of the theme. Give the user the option to create their own controller graphic. The inclusion of a graphic of the controls right in the frontend would be a good thing to have as it is missing in most themes. Especially considering how much space is available on the theme. Some pause menus show a controller configuration, but being able to see what the controls do in the frontend would ba a welcome addition. Thanks for the image. Let me know if you need anything else customized. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bionictoothpick 5 Posted October 3, 2020 Thanks, I just need to spend time with big box and find out what its button capabilities are so I can maximize the use of my controllers. Thanks again. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
P-chan 3 Posted October 13, 2020 This is awesome! I have a silly question - I have a portrait-oriented TV in my cab but the lower quarter is hidden below the control panel (see attached, the green is the TV and the blue line is the visible portion. I have custom bezel art that I created and .lay files for each game in MAME, but I'm getting around now to configuring Bigbox and I'm using a vertical theme but I don't know how to modify it to only use the right 75% of the screen (roughly). Any ideas would be appreciated. I'm comfortable with XML although I haven't started messing around with BB Themes yet. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
