Community Project

[amchine]

The community is growing, and with that growth comes potential. We've already seen some amazing themes coming out from some very promising users, however there are more ways to help out than just building themes for your favorite games. Sure, the most exciting part of HyperSpin is the themes, but there is grunt work to be done also.

I'm looking for volunteers to help me work on the home systems. Everything ranging from the simplest of tasks such as renaming images to full on restoration of box art needs to be covered for many of these systems. XML databases need to be finished, box art needs to be located, wheel images need to be created, default themes designed, you name it! It's far too much work for one person to take on! In the past we split up the work between the team, however as each of us moves into our specialties and the community grows we are left with less free time to work on huge projects like this. You guys want BadBoyBill making HyperSpin function better and have new features, not cutting out wheel images all day. And so we are passing some of the workload onto those of you who want to contribute in ways that are less glorious than theme building, but are none the less very important to make this a complete FE.

In order to organize the workload I'll be using this thread to keep track of progress made on the various projects that are in the works. I'll start by opening the Sega Genesis project to the public. I'll list the tasks that are complete, those that need to be completed, and their progress so far. If you would like to work on one please post in this thread and I will PM you a with specific instructions and we can go from there. You will be credited for the work you do.

This is my first attempt to organize an effort like this so we can see how it goes and if a ton of people volunteer I'll open other projects that need to be completed. Some of the following tasks have multiple steps, I've broken them down in this way to give the less computer savvy a chance to complete tasks that don't involve image editing, database editing, etc.


Sega Genesis

Artwork


Wheel Images-
Files named using no-intro naming (Not Started)
Title screens resized and placed into button style wheel image (Not Started)

Box Art-
Box Art named using no-intro naming (Not Started)
Box Art Resized (Not Started)
Box Art Restored (Not Started)

Default Theme
Default Theme (WIP - amchine)

XML Database
XML file (Complete - joebells)

[mildanti]

how about snes and N64 videos i got them all, not sure where i got them from i think it was a torrent, all i have to do is convert them

[Aabra]

I'll probably be renaming the Sega Master System box-art as I promised Circo that I would. After that though I'm not sure.... I like making themes so I'll probably stick to that.

[BadBoyBill]

N64 set is almost redone in High quality by circo, check this page for status

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pf8vUprHj-u-8has-2LdHKw

[sp33dy]

Originally, during the Beta testing, I put a lot of initial effort into a CBM64 set. I got the impression that there was no call for this and gave up. I'm willing to start the CBM64 and Amiga sets. Also, I've had a great idea (and have a lot of the artwork) for a great PSX set too... Thoughts????

Regards

Sp33dy

[cathaldub]

I'll help

[The Loafer]

Originally, during the Beta testing, I put a lot of initial effort into a CBM64 set. I got the impression that there was no call for this and gave up. I'm willing to start the CBM64 and Amiga sets. Also, I've had a great idea (and have a lot of the artwork) for a great PSX set too... Thoughts????

Regards

Sp33dy

There's interest in every system and I'd vote for a CBM64/Amiga for sure. But those sets are huge, it's not like a console with a limited amount of carts, there are thousands and thousands of releases for these computers. Would it be better to just select a "top 250" games or something like that?

[sp33dy]

Would it be better to just select a "top 250" games or something like that?

Oh for sure, top 100 or top 250 is exactly how I was going to tackle the problem. However, there just didn't appear to be any interest during beta. I'll resubmit the top level Commodore 64 theme and the two games (Uridium and Thing on a Spring) I'd created themes for.

I personally think a generic type layout for these systems would be better than the one theme per game. I also had issues with media games were released on. I.E. Tape versus disk. I.E. Have a highlevel Cbm64+tape and a cbm64+disk top level theme or just have the different medium shown on the game theme. It's a hard choice........

Right, I'm sold. I'm going to work on CBM64, top 100.

[joebells]

what kind of controllers do those amiga systems use? I have the whole no-intro set so I have all the amiga games but I went to use them one time and it seemed that there controller was a keyboard? If so do they all generally use the same keys and its enough to map to just a few keys?

I know nothing about the amiga stuff but it does seem interesting as I hear about it a good bit.

[sp33dy]

The amiga had two joystick and mouse ports (if memory doesn't fail me). Therefore games would be joystick, mouse or keyboard. I'd recommend setting up the top 100 games that were joystick (although my cabinet has a pull out keyboard and a trackball for mouse type games!).......

The amiga in this frontend would rock.

[amchine]

Something that I just thought of. The no-intro screenshot collection is named using the CRC number. Is there a way to batch rename these to the no-intro rom name?

[amchine]

Originally, during the Beta testing, I put a lot of initial effort into a CBM64 set. I got the impression that there was no call for this and gave up. I'm willing to start the CBM64 and Amiga sets. Also, I've had a great idea (and have a lot of the artwork) for a great PSX set too... Thoughts????

Regards

Sp33dy

Go for it Sp33dy. The more supported systems the better right?

[sp33dy]

Renaming ROMS...

Right.. Now my cabinet is built and I've only got the wiring and putting new machine in. I've now got the incentive for writing the tool I've been designing for the past few years.

Not sure how many people have followed/used the TOSEC renaming tool called TIM. It was very very good, but also very beta. It's major benefit was being able to look at a file and decide whether it fitted any of the CRC/MD5/SHA codes for renaming.

Well, that tool died the death. Being a professional JAVA developer, I've put some initial code together to prove I can write a tool to do a renamer. However, what I'd like to do is make it generic enough to be able link games, roms, artworks, pdf's, screenshots, etc, etc, etc together. Thereby creating a database of related information. Further to this, I'd like to be able to link game systems to others. I.E. If I wanted to know what systems Gauntlet was released on, it would have that information. It would achieve this by tagging games (in the same way flckr provides tagging). I've got many many ideas for this tool, but haven't really had the incentive, until now.

I'm wondering whether there would be a couple of other java developers out there who would like to embrace the tool with me? What have I already done:

1) Initial SWING layout of tabbing etc.. However, this needs reworking
2) Skeleton layout of the proggy
3) Incorporated an open source java database library for fast SQL access
4) Developed an XML format for describing different DAT formats. I.E. TOSEC, CLRMAME, ROMCENTRAL etc
5) Have the basic code for file CRC32, SHA and MD5 calculations

I just have to sit down and flesh this out. If there were other interested parties who are experienced JAVA devs, we could bring this together.

Thoughts?

*As I say* This has been pie in the sky in my mind for the past 6 years (the cabinet was 10years in the making!!!). Now that the cabinet is nearing completion, I know I will be more focused in making this happen......

[The Loafer]

The top 100 thing: I wouldn't want to limit to "arcade" type games because of my own preference but the following is something to consider before people waste too much time on the wrong type of games.

Question: Would you want to create a theme for an adventure game like "Secret of Monkey Island" when you know most would never bother playing it through hyperspin/arcade cab? Even if you want to play it, is it something someone would use a multi-system front end like HyperSpin to do so? So if the answer is yes, does the "100 top Amiga/C64/whatever system" list of games only include those types that fit within an arcade mentality?

Amiga controls: Some games may require other keyboard keys such as press of "F1" to start the game, etc. but last time I used winuae I beleive it allowed remapping to any keys you want on a per game basis (each game had a cfg file that provided the entire various configuration of your amiga for chip/fast memory, etc) and I think you could associate whatever keys to whatever you want. So one for example could remap the F1 key to the game "Stunt Car Racer" to whatever you use as a keyboard map for your existing cab (like the mame keyboard maps). This, if my memory is correct, also means the best way for HyperSpin to support Amiga through WinUAE would be to use the config files on a per game basis, so load the config file for game "x" loads all the keymaps you need and launches WinUAE. Boy, I should shut up and test it before they've totally changed everything...

default themes vs "one theme per game". Personally, I totally agree. Naturally, there's a few games that if someone were to put out a kick ass theme, I'd add it in there, but the point is, the default theme first is more important, then those who want can concentrate on their personal favorite after. Outide of the Mame games, I plan on sticking to the default theme for most other systems, with maybe a few exceptions here and there.

[billpa]

Totally agree with that last statement. Consoles fit a default theme better than MAME...its a no-brainer IMO. The goal should be to get default themes for every console and then you can start making custom themes if you want.

Default theme gets a bad rap imo...makes it seem like its not interesting enough. Amchine and BBB have done a great job of making the current default themes visually interesting...and these default themes blow every other custom FE theme out of the water!

[sp33dy]

Loafer/Billpa,

Agree with you both about the default theme. For the cbm64 default, I planned to put the tapes in as the wheel artwork. It looks very very neat. Have the box cover as one piece of artwork, etc, etc...

As I say, the problem then comes if I have a disk cbm64 game. The problem is, do I put the disk as a wheel image (looks naff), or suddenly I have to create a cbm64-tape and a cbm64-disk main wheel entry. It's a shame there are no submenuing options/facilities available (this would also solve problems with different regions etc, etc).....

As for the Amiga.. Yes, you are right. You can have a cfg per game for WinUAE. copy that in to the right directory with bat file and then start up. This is why my rename tool would come in to it's element. You'd link these files to the roms. Suddenly the problem of managing all these files disappears... I must get on and put it together.

[joebells]

Something that I just thought of. The no-intro screenshot collection is named using the CRC number. Is there a way to batch rename these to the no-intro rom name?

yep theres a tool, well two really, on their website that will rename them to whatever dat you have. Thats the beauty of the system. The names of the roms can be updated, changed whatever and the pictures will still work as long as the crc value is still the same.

Here's the link
http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main.php?modulo=descargas&contenido=tools&lang=1
you want the "No-intro Screenshot Archive - Image renamer" and the "No-intro Screenshot Archive - Update Pack Extractor" The first one is for the main packs and the other is for the updates of course. There's also a snap folder watcher that is nice. It'll take a missing images list from the image renamer tool and then watch a folder and you can pop the missing images into that folder in the order that it shows and it'll take whatever pictures you put in that folder and give them the crc value of that game.

Nice little tools and definitely the way to go I think.

[amchine]

Thanks joebells. I might give that a shot when I have a chance that way the Genesis title screen images will all be named correctly for use in wheel images.

Unless anyone else wants to jump on that...

I'm back to school this week since I'm over my cold so it might take me a while to get around to it.

[sp33dy]

Just a quick one before bed time. Just used HyperTheme to put the original Main Menu Commodore 64 theme back together. I need to tidy up the keyboard and monitor...

Thoughts?

Do these get posted to the main theme's forum or somewhere else?

[BadBoyBill]

You could trim up the inside of the monitor, lots of white fragments

[sp33dy]

Wow BBB, that was a quick response.. As I stated, I need to tidy up both keyboard and monitor.. Lots of white jaggies. Quickly did this before bed time here.. Just to give a flavour of what I had in mind...

Night night

[BadBoyBill]

Oh, didnt read enough I guess, looks cool.

[joebells]

Thanks joebells. I might give that a shot when I have a chance that way the Genesis title screen images will all be named correctly for use in wheel images.

Unless anyone else wants to jump on that...

I'm back to school this week since I'm over my cold so it might take me a while to get around to it.

I have them all renamed myself here. I could send them to you, but it really takes just a couple of seconds to download one of their packs and then run that tool. They rename very quickly. Its very simple and quick.

[amchine]

Well, I gave it a quick shot yesterday and got some interesting errors. I have the dat file from here:

http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main.php?modulo=juegos&sistema=31&lang=1

and the Sega Megadrive screenshot pack from here:

http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main.php?modulo=descargas&contenido=packs&lang=1

am I missing something? (still a noob to some of this).

[joebells]

ok what you have to do is open the No-Intro Screenshot Archive - Image Renamer and choose the CRC -> ClrMame tab. Then under renaming options make sure just titles and snaps are checked. Then of course browse for the dat file for clrmame and then browse for the images folder. Now this is probably where you are getting tripped up. You have to select the parent folder of the folders containing the crc named images. So it should be a folder named whatever you want with two folders inside named CRC_Snaps and CRC_Titles. You need to makes sure and select the parent folder not one of those folders. Thats the kind of weird part and it tripped me up the first time. Once you get that down you'll be fine.

[amchine]

Oh yeah, that's the problem. I'll fix those up when I get home. Thanks!

[amchine]

Hmmm nope. I still get an error. Could you maybe zip and upload them?

[sp33dy]

I've created a new theme thread for the commodore 64...

[joebells]

Hmmm nope. I still get an error. Could you maybe zip and upload them?

sorry somehow I missed this post, I can upload them but I am curious as to why it won't work(I don't want to have to upload all the sets so probably best to nip this in the bud now)
Are you sure you are clicking on the folder that contains the two folders named named_snaps and named_titles and not those folders themselves? are you using the no-intro dat and not the xml file that I made, the tool wouldn't know how to read the xml file I made? Do you have the crc -> clrmamepro tab(page whatever that is) selected? Whats the error its giving you?

The tool works really nicely and very quickly.

[ChrisPatrick]

I'd be willing to work on the wheel images, renaming the files and such.

Is there a collection of wheel images and title screens or do those need to be captured?

[joebells]

well if you look above you will see links to screenshot packs and tools to name them correctly as well as instructions to do it :D


here is the site with the screenshot packs

http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main.php?modulo=descargas&contenido=packs&lang=1

and here is the tool to do it
http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main.php?modulo=descargas&contenido=tools&lang=1
you want the no-intro screenshot archive image renamer and the update pack extractor. The dats can be found either here http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main.php?modulo=descargas&contenido=dats&lang=1 or http://www.no-intro.org/datset.htm there are a couple of weird things about the tool but the use is explained up above, just read it as your doing it and make sure to follow the instructions about the parent folder.

[asmiller08]

I have A-F done of the Snes wheel art... maybe you could put me on that spreadsheet so people know theyre getting done?

-andy

[bent98]

I will be updating that spreadsheet soon. I will make a note of it

[BadBoyBill]

That page is updated for official art, not user submitted stuff for now. This way the users know what quality stuff is out there, just because a user makes a theme for the main menu for a system doesnt mean that its "done" per say. This way we maintain some quality standard.

If I see the snes images are good then I can update it, but I'm very picky so you know.

[ACE]

I thinking about hitting the atari 2600 somehow.... xml, or themes?

[~M.o.M~]

So, all we need to do is get all the title pictures of Sega Genesis, rename them from CRC and then resize them to fit the HS wheel image standards? =)

[SophT]

no it's a bit more complicated than that. I think what they are (were?) trying to do was pull the title from the title snap and put it onto a wheel template.

similar to the way it was done for the NES wheels.

it seems like this hasn't been done yet and I think i'll try to tackle it after I finish the sega genesis / mega drive box art maybe. I'll throw a few templates out and let people vote...

[~M.o.M~]

Well, that's what I meant. =)
I've got the pictures already renamed, but that's the easiest part that almost everybody can do, I think.
Cutting the titles off the images should be time wasting, but not hard. =)
The only thing I fear is that I may need to use some techniques to make the titles look "clean" and not blurry after resizing.
Some kind of sharping technique. Dunno.
At least it doesn't look good when you use tools to automatically do it.
Anyway, I can just try pulling the titles for now, and let somebody else who has the knowledge do the rest.

[BadBoyBill]

Its called nearest neighbor resampling, in photoshop its set to bicubic resampling by default, go to your preferences and change it or when the resize dialog pops up theres and option at the bottom there to.

[SophT]

the NES title's aren't resized I don't think b/c the snaps are about the right size to fit into that template so it didn't need to be resampled

[SophT]

what would you think of something like this?

still using the NES style 2/tone image with the snap. the problem with the genesis is that a lot of the titles are more graphical than the nes ones.

[~M.o.M~]

Hmm... I don't really know...
By the way, I started cutting the images, and I'd like to know if this is what we want.
Here's the RAR with the ones I cut so far:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mmz5rt2ij00

[EDIT]
Here's one example: (attachment)

[Jochitko]

N64 set is almost redone in High quality by circo, check this page for status

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pf8vUprHj-u-8has-2LdHKw

Sorry it this is OT. But, is the N64 set really almost redone? I can only find 6 redone vids in circos folder on the ftp? And a lot of games do not have video previews to my knowledge... I'm missing a bunch in HS :( Anyone know anything I don't?

[Thepriest]

they are probaly working on it atm and they will up this to the FTP once they are done
but great job all :)
if u need a theme creator or something just ask :)
i'll help

[shimoda]

I've mentioned helping before in areas, but haven't really gotten around to it. I know there are themes to be made, etc, though many great ones already exist for the popular games. I'm pretty quick with cutting images, manipulation, etc. in Photoshop, so if someone could point the way? Are there a host of images already ready to be clipped somewhere or do they need to be trolled for? I'll try to keep an eye out here as I'd like to contribute some bit to this process.

[THK]

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