13.0 Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hey everyone,

LaunchBox 13.0 beta 1 is out with a heavy focus on the new 3D Box Models in Big Box (#4 on the last community poll). They currently work with the images you already have in your collection, along with a new spine image type.

In this first beta you will notice:

• Any view that used the old Cover Flow wheels will now show 3D Box Models in its place. This includes Fullscreen CoverFlow and CoverFlow with Details views in the default theme, and is also backwards compatible with any theme that ever implemented that type of wheel.
• The selected item in the wheel can be rotated via the flip box mapping, or the new Rotate Model mappings for both keyboard and controllers.
• Any theme that uses the Game Main Image Transition element will now display the 3D box model of the game where applicable. You can also use the flip box mapping, or the new Rotate Model mappings on them.

Future betas will focus on providing UI management options for the 3D Box Models, and expand on their functionality.

Full changelog for Beta 1:

• New Premium Feature: Big Box now supports 3D models for boxes! They are available in most existing themes where boxes are displayed and can be rotated with the right stick on a controller (or bound to something else). We've worked hard to make these 3D boxes work well even with the images that you already have in your collection.
• New Premium Feature: CoverFlow views in Big Box have been overhauled to be completely 3D, and selected items inside of CoverFlow views can also be rotated
• New Premium Feature: Big Box theme developers now have full control over how to present 3D boxes in wheels and in CoverFlow, including angles and animations
• New Premium Feature: Big Box now has a global "maximum speed" setting for wheels
• Improvement: New image types have been added for Box - Spine (for the spines/sides of boxes) and Box - Full (for DVD-style wraparound scans)
• Improvement: Big Box's Flip Box feature now rotates the model 90 degrees instead of just showing the back of the box
• Improvement: Big Box's animation backend has been improved, which should require less processing power and provides more options for 3D box models
• Improvement: Big Box's performance has been improved when loading game details
• Fixed: Some bindings in LaunchBox's WorkingViewModel weren't updating correctly in some circumstances (for theme devs)
• Fixed: Big Box's TopBoxesViewModel and BottomBoxesViewModel bindings weren't always notifying on update in platform views (for theme devs)

Beta 2:

• New Premium Feature: LaunchBox now supports 3D models for boxes as well; they are available in most existing themes in the Game Details panel and can be rotated with a mouse or a controller
• New Feature: 3D model settings are now available as platform-specific settings under Tools > Manage > Platforms in LaunchBox. Each platform now has a new "3D Model Settings" tab that lets you customize everything from what type of box to use to the sizing and coloring of the boxes.
• Fixed: The Big Box Theme Manager should once again be accessible (introduced in 13.0 beta 1)

[Retrofrogg]

Playing around with the 3D box feature in BigBox...looking good! Please let this come to Launchbox, for those of us that don't use BB much!

[Mr. RetroLust]

Wow guys, the 3D Box Models are awesomely done! Love what you've done with them, kudos!

[Rincewind]

Perfect implementation of the 3D boxes, the way the splines take on the average colour from the front image to the way the user can rotate them to see the rear. Really great work to all involved, it's exactly what BigBox needed and at no cost to performance either.

[TheNewClassics]

Great work as always LB team. Regarding these:

• Improvement: New image types have been added for Box - Spine (for the spines/sides of boxes) and Box - Full (for DVD-style wraparound scans)

Are Spine and Full going to be added to the LB database, so users can add them? I know for a long time users have been submitting spines for console games as "Banners".

[DemmyTree]

I definitly would prefer full as an option however if that should occur however i think there would need to be a notice rule on the platforms perhaps for this to occur for scaling purpose. Much as the 3d box's are ok and probably can be modified as the beta suggests can occur, something like a DVD case compared to Nintendo 64 box should have rules applied as default perhaps unless added otherwise.

I will enjoy seeing custom 3D views made and will probably have a go for fun should this end up being implemented into community theme creator futher down the line rather than the immediate future, kudos for the implementation.

[dreamy]

Thanks to all the devs for adding spine and full box support and the new 3d modeled boxes. It works really well. However there seems to be a problem with n64 boxes. I use the spines from emumovies but they won't show on the US and Europe boxes. Japanese boxes work fine. They also don't show when i try to turn the us and europe spines vertically. And it is the same with Super Nintendo boxes.

Edited November 6, 2022 by dreamy

[The Papaw]

Does or I should say is the Update Retroarch feature in LB update the RA cores? If so is it working for anyone else?

I just tried it and LB took a couple minutes for the bar at the bottom to go away, but when I looked at the file creation date of my core files, they were old. I ran it through RA and it updated them all just fine

[C-Beats]

On 11/5/2022 at 11:19 AM, TheNewClassics said:

Great work as always LB team. Regarding these:

• Improvement: New image types have been added for Box - Spine (for the spines/sides of boxes) and Box - Full (for DVD-style wraparound scans)

Are Spine and Full going to be added to the LB database, so users can add them? I know for a long time users have been submitting spines for console games as "Banners".

I don't have any ETA but we do plan to get them added to the database as supported image types.

[C-Beats]

On 11/5/2022 at 4:30 PM, DemmyTree said:

I definitly would prefer full as an option however if that should occur however i think there would need to be a notice rule on the platforms perhaps for this to occur for scaling purpose. Much as the 3d box's are ok and probably can be modified as the beta suggests can occur, something like a DVD case compared to Nintendo 64 box should have rules applied as default perhaps unless added otherwise.

I will enjoy seeing custom 3D views made and will probably have a go for fun should this end up being implemented into community theme creator futher down the line rather than the immediate future, kudos for the implementation.

We will be supporting the "full" scan image types and you should be able to use them in the next beta release. They require some more logic to procedurally render on boxes correctly, we will be focusing on getting that type of logic resolved before next beta release.

[C-Beats]

23 hours ago, dreamy said:

Thanks to all the devs for adding spine and full box support and the new 3d modeled boxes. It works really well. However there seems to be a problem with n64 boxes. I use the spines from emumovies but they won't show on the US and Europe boxes. Japanese boxes work fine. They also don't show when i try to turn the us and europe spines vertically. And it is the same with Super Nintendo boxes.

NA SNES/N64 spines are intended to go on the top/bottom of the box, not the sides. Rotate the box the other direction and you should see them.

[C-Beats]

15 hours ago, The Papaw said:

Does or I should say is the Update Retroarch feature in LB update the RA cores? If so is it working for anyone else?

I just tried it and LB took a couple minutes for the bar at the bottom to go away, but when I looked at the file creation date of my core files, they were old. I ran it through RA and it updated them all just fine

RetroArch's updater grabs the nightly versions of the cores. We grab the stable. Because of that RA cores will always be newer, but may or may not always work with your version of RetroArch due to versioning mismatch.

[C-Beats]

On 11/4/2022 at 5:52 PM, Retrofrogg said:

Playing around with the 3D box feature in BigBox...looking good! Please let this come to Launchbox, for those of us that don't use BB much!

We would like to get these into LaunchBox in some fashion. Exactly how we want that to happen though is still a bit up in the air and will probably be determined by what progress we make working on the beta 2 release.

[dreamy]

1 hour ago, C-Beats said:

NA SNES/N64 spines are intended to go on the top/bottom of the box, not the sides. Rotate the box the other direction and you should see them.

I did not know that we can rotate the boxes on all sides. I will try it when I get home. Thanks @C-Beats

[C-Beats]

56 minutes ago, dreamy said:

I did not know that we can rotate the boxes on all sides. I will try it when I get home. Thanks @C-Beats

Yep you can. You can change the bindings in the Keyboard or Controller mapping sections of the Options menu.

[Retrofrogg]

4 hours ago, C-Beats said:

We would like to get these into LaunchBox in some fashion. Exactly how we want that to happen though is still a bit up in the air and will probably be determined by what progress we make working on the beta 2 release.

Sounds great. If we have accurate 3D models for games, perhaps all the other static box views (front, back, 3D) could be generated by Launchbox from the 3D model? That would negate the need to download multiple images, for those that would prefer. I suppose that might require some sort of cache to save resources. 

The models would have to be support different dimensions so that the original box dimensions for a particular system can be used. I guess that the models should also be allowed to be made in an external rendering program and then exported to Launchbox. I’m thinking in particular or cassette based games, which would have to appear in a jewel cassette case, single or double depending on the original format.  

I haven’t looked at the boxes in detail, but the user should be able to make/submit to the Launchbox database the 3D box using scans for all sides of the box, as far as possible. If no scan exists for a side then Launchbox could auto-generate that side, as I think BigBox does just now for spines. 

How to get them into Launchbox….I guess they could appear in the carousel, and also in the image list when you maximise the game artwork. 

Ideally we could freely rotate and zoom in/out of the 3D box model in Launchbox using the mouse. The sides would need to be of sufficient resolution to be able to read the small text on the big box games. There’s a good example of this online where some guy made a bunch of PC big box 3D models. Just some food for thought! 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Retrofrogg

[Timber-eXoProjects]

2 minutes ago, Retrofrogg said:

Sounds great. If we have accurate 3D models for games, perhaps all the other static box views (front, back, 3D) could be generated by Launchbox from the 3D model? That would negate the need to download multiple images, for those that would prefer. I suppose that might require some sort of cache to save resources. 

I haven’t looked at the boxes in detail, but the user should be able to make/submit to the Launchbox database the 3D box using scans for all sides of the box, as far as possible. If no scan exists for a side then Launchbox could auto-generate that side, as I think BigBox does just now for spines. 

How to get them into Launchbox….I guess they could appear in the carousel, and also in the image list when you maximise the game artwork. 

Ideally we could freely rotate and zoom in/out of the 3D box model in Launchbox using the mouse. The sides would need to be of sufficient resolution to be able to read the small text on the big box games. There’s a good example of this online where some guy made a bunch of PC big box 3D models. Just some food for thought! 

wow, that sounds awesome !!

[dreamy]

15 hours ago, Retrofrogg said:

Ideally we could freely rotate and zoom in/out of the 3D box model in Launchbox using the mouse. The sides would need to be of sufficient resolution to be able to read the small text on the big box games. There’s a good example of this online where some guy made a bunch of PC big box 3D models. Just some food for thought! 

I guess you mean this website?

https://bigboxcollection.com/

It would be really awesome to have boxes like this in Launchbox/Bigbox. Also it would be nice if the boxes could have odd shapes like the one from the Dos version ofPrince of Persia 2.

Edited November 8, 2022 by dreamy

[Surfdeign]

Wow, color me impressed! This looks really good, including boxes that don't have all the right media! It even worked in a theme I created in CTC using the presenter code without having to change a thing!

 

Since this is so new, it would be nice to have spines, full and box-back added to the games missing media section in Launch Box.

 

Really nice work, this is great!

[The Papaw]

Since adding "Box - Full" and "Spine", should not LaunchBox be creating new folders for them to download into? I found them, they are saving to the default folders, my bad

I am not seeing them under the Folder tabs to change their location though, shouldn't I be?

I do see them in the Tools > Option > Media section

Edited November 8, 2022 by The Papaw