Marquee Video Auto-creator

[Aussiesil80]

I needed marquee videos for my build but couldnt find enough in 1920x360 as I run an wisecoco 28" 16:3 screen.
I've now created a tool which will creates Marquee videos automatically for you. This will create them for platforms, games, categories, etc. basically everything you have the appropriate media in the launchbox subfolders, and puts them in the correct folder for launchbox & bigbox to see and use. It's basically a set and forget script for your entire launchbox/bigbox build. 

WHAT IT DOES EXACTLY:
A command prompt will show you what this is processing as it goes. It runs through your Videos folder, one subfolder (platforms. categories, etc), at a time, grabs all the gameplay videos (ignores Theme videos), looks for a matching Clear Logo in the same platform folder in Images, e.g. "Videos\Mame\arkanoid-01.mp4" and "Images\Mame\Clear Logo\arkanoid-02.png". (It ignores the numeric extensions like "-01" just in case video is -01 and clear logo is -02 for example).
For every matching pair it finds, it uses FFMPEG to make a 10 second video using the gameplay vid as the background, and darkens and blurs it, then it takes the Clear Logo image and places it as a static foreground. The video created gets places straight into the correct Marquee folder so Bigbox should pick it up automatically.

Video output spec: 1920x360, 60fps, MPEG2 codec (i ran into WMP compatability issues with mp4 h264 30fps videos).

HOW TO INSTALL & RUN:
Download "create_marquees.bat" from this post, and get the "FFMPEG" program online (google it, heaps of places you can grab this from).
Place "create_marquees.bat" and "ffmpeg.exe" in your Launchbox install directory, and run the "create_marquees.bat" file. The command prompt will tell you about any issues it encounters. if any videos it finds are missing the corresponding clear logo file, or any other issues it encounters. It'll also create a txt file at the end listing those with issues.
I also recommend installing the klite codec pack if you dont have it already, just to avoid any issues (google this one, easy to find).

I've found this works really well along-side the static marquee images bigbox automatically makes, so its nice and smooth transitions for all those games your missing gameplay vids for that the script misses.

You can always modify the heck out of this script for any tweaks you need, resolution, fps, format, how dark it makes the background vid, how the clear logo is displayed, etc. The world is your oyster with this. AI is really good at helping too, so I highly recommend it. If you make some cool changes, be sure to upload the updated script in here so we all benefit! 

Here's a vid i made giving a little run down.

 

create_marquees.bat

Edited 6 hours ago by Aussiesil80