Pulse Theme

[Dan Patrick]

On 4/8/2021 at 11:00 AM, thimolor said:

I will leave them for now

I'm not sure why it's happening for you @Dan Patrick Are the assets in the theme folder? Did you try to open the assets, if they are corrupted or something. Are you using Windows? I could share the Community creator Files with you, so you can compile it yourself.

Theme works correctly after compiling the creator files myself. It surely was on my end. Theme looks super good. Can't wait to see the wall views!

[thimolor]

Thanks to you Dan! I'm still doing little tweaking and cleaning the views. Also decided to do all the views because this might be my last theme for BigBox. Building my ultimate htpc setup in Lazer3d CG7 case and when that is finished I'm all done. 

[thimolor]

I used to think less is more. Now I'm doing all the available views for my new theme. Here are few new views that are still in testing phase (hard to get those big videos and screenshots looking good). Still using default assets and no custom banners/images.

This uses gameplay screenshot that fades in when game selected. This works quite well already.

Focus on background video. Not quite happy with this yet

Focus in on the box art here. Using also background video. This still needs some adjustments.

One more platform view that uses video/fan art.

Edited April 11, 2021 by thimolor

[thimolor]

Adding more screenshots to my developer diary. Few changes. These are the current views for console games. I will do one view with wheel aligned to the left also + the wall views. Made simpler animations, so it will be way more easier to do changes to the layouts if someone wants to.

 

Box Art Wheel with 5 items visible. Screenshot during selection. Video loaded when item selected.

Box Art Wheel with 7 items visible. Screenshot during selection. Video loaded when item selected.

Only Box Art. Large Box Art fades in when wheel item selected.

Video background, fallback to screenshot. Box Art.

Fan Art Background, fallback to screenshot. Small video.

 

[virividiann1198]

On 4/6/2021 at 5:32 PM, thimolor said:

No, I don't want to use my time adding stuff to those anymore. Actually I would like to remove them completely after I finish Pulse. I know you didn't want to hear this, but I just don't want to revisit my old work because it looks bad now

that's fine, hence my "cursed".

But why would you delete them? ? if anything, just make them public domain or release them on github so people can keep working on them! I learned a lot from customizing these themes, and I think a lot of other people will too. Shutting down such a good source like your themes help no one

Edited April 14, 2021 by virividiann1198

[thimolor]

3 hours ago, virividiann1198 said:

that's fine, hence my "cursed".

But why would you delete them? ? if anything, just make them public domain or release them on github so people can keep working on them! I learned a lot from customizing these themes, and I think a lot of other people will too. Shutting down such a good source like your themes help no one

Don't worry. I'm not removing the Community Creator Files, just the themes.

[thimolor]

One more view in development. I'm thinking of drawing an arcade cabinet for this one to display the screenshots/videos. I will add arrows for this view also.

[thimolor]

 

And this is from BigBox, This view actually works quite well and feels fresh. Not for large gamelists.

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by thimolor

[thimolor]

More!

I think this is now my favorite platform/playlist view. Again, no custom banners needed (Uses clear logo and device image). Responsive layout.

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by thimolor

[thimolor]

Made some changes to TextGamesView. Good or bad?. Should be more inline with the new views. This maybe my best execution on this monster view to date.

[Aiwer]

Is it possible to download it?

And can you share the files from theme creator?

This theme is amazing good job 

[thimolor]

7 hours ago, Aiwer said:

Is it possible to download it?

And can you share the files from theme creator?

This theme is amazing good job 

Not yet. Yes I can. Thanks.

[thimolor]

Still making this. Now testing with tv and making changes mostly to the graphics. I used to dislike the clear logo wheels, but I'm kind of proud with this one and surprised how much I use this wheel, although it shows only one game per view.

[Dan Patrick]

Take your time man! Looks good!

[Whatscheiser]

On 4/18/2021 at 3:43 PM, thimolor said:

Made some changes to TextGamesView. Good or bad?. Should be more inline with the new views. This maybe my best execution on this monster view to date.

This looks absolutely fantastic. I find myself wondering if there is a way to shoehorn fan art background into this, but the presentation here is already so good that I don't know if you'd want to pick at it. ?

I'm still using Dirty Old by the way. I don't know if you'll recall me from that thread where I started to offer some suggestions and nitpicks before I had really dug into it deep enough. I basically found out that skin does everything I want it to, I just hadn't fully wrapped my head around properly setting up all of my image and video files. So, thanks again for that by the way.

 

Will this skin still have an option to play video previews for categories, or will that be handled exclusively with images now?

[thimolor]

2 hours ago, Whatscheizer said:

This looks absolutely fantastic. I find myself wondering if there is a way to shoehorn fan art background into this, but the presentation here is already so good that I don't know if you'd want to pick at it. ?

I'm still using Dirty Old by the way. I don't know if you'll recall me from that thread where I started to offer some suggestions and nitpicks before I had really dug into it deep enough. I basically found out that skin does everything I want it to, I just hadn't fully wrapped my head around properly setting up all of my image and video files. So, thanks again for that by the way.

 

Will this skin still have an option to play video previews for categories, or will that be handled exclusively with images now?

Hi there, thanks and your welcome. I have already made some changes to this text view. It's going through some changes because it was too boring to look at and the focus was in the wrong elements. So I was not quite happy with it when I actually tried using it. Hopefully I can find a way to make this view look and feel great.

Pulse will have lot's of different views, some views will support  the videos. It shouldn't even matter what aspect ratios you use. I'm waiting for the new Coummunity Creator Tool, but I think I will publish this theme without the new wall views. I'll just add those later.

[thimolor]

So this is the new text filters view now, In testing phase. I just had to drop the box art. Too much stuff is not good.  Box art will be included in most views, so I thought I can drop it from here. This uses fan art, no fallback because box art looks bad when cropped.

 

Here is the big video view

 

Logos and Device images (125 included)

[Whatscheiser]

Well if you're after opinions I'm a bit torn. I do like the fan art backgrounds, but I really did think that three column TextGamesView I quoted earlier looked pretty damn slick. I liked the box art being displayed next to the video.

I assume you're concerned with the UI looking busy but I didn't think the TextGamesView with box art came off that way. It all seemed pretty well defined. Honestly thought it made a great use of the space available in 16:9.

 

Again though, I do like the fan art backgrounds and this new view does give us that. So, like I said. I'm a bit torn on it.

Regardless of any of that, all of the options on offer there still look great. I like the over all style for sure.

[bundangdon]

That newly updated text filters view looks really nice! I'd give a little more room for the fanart and other artwork, with a little less room for the games list, but that's probably just me

[thimolor]

11 hours ago, Whatscheizer said:

Well if you're after opinions I'm a bit torn. I do like the fan art backgrounds, but I really did think that three column TextGamesView I quoted earlier looked pretty damn slick. I liked the box art being displayed next to the video.

I assume you're concerned with the UI looking busy but I didn't think the TextGamesView with box art came off that way. It all seemed pretty well defined. Honestly thought it made a great use of the space available in 16:9.

 

Again though, I do like the fan art backgrounds and this new view does give us that. So, like I said. I'm a bit torn on it.

Regardless of any of that, all of the options on offer there still look great. I like the over all style for sure.

I know the feeling being torn :) But I have made up my mind and going to drop the box art from here so you don't have to worry that anymore :D What I have learned when designing these is that you need the empty space for eyes to rest. If the views are filled with irrelevant stuff it becomes exhausting to scroll through the games. This is the mother of all BigBox views and the hardest to get right. So things can still change when I have done testing.