Topic: Wide Icon Project (Read 1778 times)

Horscht · « **Reply #15 on:** April 14, 2009, 04:51:00 PM »

This is what a .cut file looks like

CODE

   f:\emulators\final burn\default.xbe
   Metal Slug
   f:\emulator icons\neogeo.png

         mslug

the name of the thumbnail does not matter, as you can define it in the .cut file.

Anyways, sotu:

do you happen to have that PSD?

Horscht · « **Reply #16 on:** April 14, 2009, 05:22:00 PM »

Sorry, can't edit:

I found it. It's available on Cospofego's site: http://fancyxbox.info/index.php

BillyBobX · « **Reply #17 on:** April 14, 2009, 05:55:00 PM »

ressurectionx · « **Reply #18 on:** April 14, 2009, 06:36:00 PM »

QUOTE(Horscht @ Apr 14 2009, 06:27 PM)

The name of the thumbnail does not matter, as you can define it in the .cut file.

So the image can be png, jpg or tbn?

This pack I'm putting together is great. Do me a favor Ultimate509. Let me know the list of icons that you created on your own with the border. I don't want to piss anybody off by having your name on other peoples banners that you put a border on. I'm sure you understand.

I'm going to have to try to hunt down more stuff now that I put this much together. I'm not doing any movies or TV shows, just XBox releated stuff here. It will be named right so you can just dump the file into your folder and FTP it over.

No worries on the borders on your stuff BillyBob. I don't want to use them on images for the cut files for games anyways. Are those mostly arcades you're doing?

Horscht · « **Reply #19 on:** April 14, 2009, 06:45:00 PM »

QUOTE(ressurectionx @ Apr 15 2009, 03:12 AM)

So the image can be png, jpg or tbn?

yes, probably anything that XBMC can display as well (bmp etc.)

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #20 on:** April 14, 2009, 06:58:00 PM »

Note that files saved in PNG format are in "perfect quality", while JPG images are not. A TBN file is simply a renamed PNG or JPG file.

Horscht · « **Reply #21 on:** April 14, 2009, 07:03:00 PM »

Yes, png should probably be the filetype of our choice.

ressurectionx · « **Reply #22 on:** April 14, 2009, 07:20:00 PM »

Yeah... I am aware of the differences between the filetypes, in at least a basic understanding.

I also notice that XBMC reads a PNG file even if it's named JPG.

Right now, for the "Emulators" wide icons I have every icon nested like this:

Emulators/Nintendo - NES/Sotu/default.png
Emulators/Nintendo - NES/Sotu/default.tbn

Emulators/Nintendo - SNES/Guybird/default.png
Emulators/Nintendo - SNES/Guybird/default.tbn

This way, when you're viewing these in Explorer it shows up in "Filmstrip" mode so you can see what the icons look like with the PNG files. If you just have TBN files in there Explorer won't show you what they look like, even when you put "show thumbnails".

For Folder icons, such as the company names like "SEGA" and "Nintendo" I just put a lone jpg file in there named "folder.jpg" since that's the format the Box likes and Windows will allow you to preview.

Ex:

Companies/Nintendo/Sotu/folder.jpg
Companies/Nintendo/Ultimate509/folder.jpg

I just need to work with BombBloke to find out the ideal set up for the individual game icons you'd use .CUT files to load. Might just have to have them all in one folder with the game name.

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #23 on:** April 14, 2009, 07:58:00 PM »

My setup is this:

I have a folder called "EmulationCuts" that I put in my XBMC UserData folder (though it could go anywhere, really).

In this are a number of sub-folders. The first, called Emulators, is filled with shortcuts pointing to each of my emulators. The thumbnail files for these are called "default.tbn" and stored in each emulator's folder.

All the other sub-folders are named after a given system (Eg GameBoy), and are filled with ROM shortcuts. The thumbnails for these match the shortcut filename but with a TBN extension, and are stored in the same folder as the shortcuts they belong to. They could go anywhere really, but I see no reason to put them anywhere else.

The reason I use TBN is because that way, if I have a mixed set of JPG/PNG/whatever images, I don't need to worry about what format they're supposed to be in. I just set them all to TBN and be done with it. Using the same extension for everything makes it a heck of a lot easier to work with my shortcut generator (which is now linked in my signature).

But if ALL your thumbnails are PNGs, then you might as well forget about the TBN extension and stick with that.

Anyway, I then set the EmulationCuts folder as a source in XBMC's Programs menu (I call it "Emulation" or whatever it is MC360 expects you to call it, it's either that or "Emulators" - Keep in mind that the folder name is only the source name by default), and that's that.

Note that XBMC's File Manager can view/preview TBN files.

ressurectionx · « **Reply #24 on:** April 15, 2009, 10:00:00 AM »

Sounds like a good setup BB. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

So putting the pics for the games in the folders for the consoles they belong to, with the same name as the .CUT file and the rom is the best way to do this? I just want to make sure that the way I set these up will work with your .CUT file program. I haven't tried that out yet, so I'm kind of flying blind here when I put these together.

(Note to self, if this is the case we'll have to determine which systems the wide icons belong to).

So.... anybody else interested in making wide icons for individual NES, SNES and Genesis games? Plenty of artwork available for them I'm sure.

I could get this pack set up so that you just drop the folder for the emu you want wide icon/cut files for and run BombBloke's program to get them set up on your box. Just need to get the icons now.

Later,
~Rx

EDIT: No worries on the borders for emulated games. Since none of them have them now, none need to have them in the future. I've decided that on my box no emulated games or XBox games will have borders, just the rest of the stuff since there isn't one good set to work with otherwise.

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 15 2009, 05:02 PM

FrankMorris · « **Reply #25 on:** April 15, 2009, 11:55:00 AM »

844x125 pix.

That's the size of the icon, when viewing "Big wide" in 720p. (PM3)
Just for inform.

Bomb Bloke · « **Reply #26 on:** April 15, 2009, 07:17:00 PM »

QUOTE(ressurectionx @ Apr 16 2009, 12:36 AM)

So putting the pics for the games in the folders for the consoles they belong to, with the same name as the .CUT file and the rom is the best way to do this? I just want to make sure that the way I set these up will work with your .CUT file program. I haven't tried that out yet, so I'm kind of flying blind here when I put these together.

The "rule" is that all the thumbs for use with a given type of ROMs need to be in the same folder. Where this folder is doesn't matter. I just use the same folder as the associated CUTs because I consider anything else to be messy, but it really doesn't matter where they go technically speaking.

Er, you might just find it easier to run the CUT generator and see for yourself.

ressurectionx · « **Reply #27 on:** April 19, 2009, 11:54:00 AM »

Hey BB... any chance you could create another DOS script for me?

I wanted to be able to put all of my boxart for any given system in the same folder to use with your cut program. Unfortunately, my boxart is all named "0001.png" and in individual folders that have the exact rom name.

I was hoping you could make something that would copy these "0001.png" files into one folder for each system, but change the image name to the name of the folder they were originally in so the image name would match my rom names perfectly. This would be an easy way for me to create full boxart packs for use with your .CUT maker by easily converting all the work I've already done into another format, instead of having to spend countless hours converting these things by hand.

Thanks,
~Rx

Heh... thought I might try my own hand at it but that code is definitely a foreign language to me.

EDIT: Icons that still need to be created or upgraded:

Companies:
NeoGeo

Consoles:
SarienX (Sierra Games Player)
Apple Macintosh Plus
Thomson To7-70

Homebrew:
XBomberbox 2
XPong

Categories:
XBox Games
Other Emulators
Multi-Player Hombrew Games

Thanks a ton for working on these more obscure ones Sotu. Love what you did with Chip 8 for instance.

Question: Is there a difference between the roms that FMSXBox and BlueMSXBox plays?

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 20 2009, 02:30 AM

ressurectionx · « **Reply #28 on:** April 19, 2009, 07:36:00 PM »

I'm going to try to get a beta pack out tonight or tomorrow. I still have a lot of "attributing to artist" work to do, and for some reason a lot of the images I had of Sotu's were much lower quality than those he re-uploaded recently, so I have to fix all of that as well. Plus, I fubared the way we should be doing individual games a while back, so I have to fix that area of the pack as well for use with BB's CUT maker.

I'll keep you updated...

EDIT:

Hey Sotu,

Any chance you could tell me how you make that cool effect on your wide icons... the one where it's kinda split down the middle horizontally?

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 20 2009, 02:29 PM

ressurectionx · « **Reply #29 on:** April 20, 2009, 12:01:00 PM »

Okay... this is starting to look (and work) great now.

I've separated the categories like this:

Categories (Various "folder" icons to distinguish Emulators, Homebrew, Apps, etc)
Companies (Various Company Name icons for folders. For example a Nintendo one for a folder with all emus by Nintendo in it)
DOS Ports
Emulators
Homebrew

Each of these are broken down in easy to follow directories, and have the artist credited for the work in the folder which contains the artwork. Inside these folders, there is 3 files.

1) default.png
2) default.tbn
3) folder.jpg

This way, you should be able to easily move one of these images by FTP or copying in Windows, no matter what the format has to be for that particular type of Wide Icon.

Example:

Emulators\Nintendo - NES\Sotu (1)\default.png
Emulators\Nintendo - NES\Sotu (1)\default.tbn
Emulators\Nintendo - NES\Sotu (1)\folder.jpg

I still have about 100-150 images at least to go through and format for this part of it. BombBloke is going to make me a batch program to convert my Xtras Boxart to the correct format for easy use with the CUT file maker. When that is made I will add these images to the pack (This pack may end up being too large for one download (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) )

The emulated games will be set up as follows:

Emulated Games\Nintendo\Gameboy\Tetris.png
Emulated Games\Nintendo\NES\Final Fantasy.png
Emulated Games\SEGA\SEGA Genesis\Toejam and Earl.png

They will match the rom names in the Xtras perfectly, so when you correctly set up BombBlokes CUT maker, it will create perfect cuts for you with the Boxarts for the games. (Still haven't decided what to do about games that don't have boxart now).

I should have a "beta" pack ready for release sometime tomorrow.

~Rx

EDIT: I just thought of something else cool about the emulated game portion of this. If you decided you only wanted 100 or so of the roms, instead of the full pack, this would make the cuts for all of the games you had and work with the artwork perfectly. If you don't mind having the space taken up by having the whole artwork pack for a system, you don't even have to bother purging artwork you weren't going to use because it will work just fine having them in there.

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Apr 20 2009, 07:37 PM

Author Topic: Wide Icon Project (Read 1778 times)