Messages

1

General / Re: Mame 0.225 Roms Filtering - Best of the best

« on: November 06, 2020, 08:15:04 AM »

Yes, correct. I don't remember which ones off hand have the word prototype in their title, but genuine "prototype" games are denoted by prototype and possibly another word in parentheses e.g.: (prototype), (1992 prototype)

Parentheses are a special character in the regex engine, so you need to escape them with \

Whether they are worth playing is debatable, but they are proper released games.

2

General / Re: Additional import files

« on: October 23, 2020, 03:55:44 AM »

I have never used the bestgames.ini or series.ini. I just looked at them and think you could do a simple cut-and-paste from these to manually create tag files in AM.

I know everyone has different preferences but the series.ini seems to be every version of a rom which most people wouldn't want to see. The bestgames.ini seems to rate every game so I don't think most would want all these games either since it includes games that they say are very bad.

You could make a script to use these files but a cut-and-paste makes more sense to me unless you really want these usually filtered and removed roms.

My feature request would be a good use (IMO ) for Series.ini https://github.com/mickelson/attract/issues/636

3

General / Re: Mame 0.225 Roms Filtering - Best of the best

« on: October 15, 2020, 05:29:51 AM »

Since you ultimately filter on being a "favorite" wouldn't be easier to just change your load order and include/exclude the "playedcount"?

That isn't what's being done here. Favourites are a separate filter to "BotB"

Hi guys,

What do you think of this Best of the best filter ?
Am I missing something great or noticeable that shall be included ?

You can simplify it a little (Status).

You may want to expand the Title rule, I know there's a couple of games that have "prototype" in their name you don't want to filter - see here: http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=3387.0

Similarly you may have some duplicate games (same game but different rom set) showing - is that intentional? Example: you have dkongf in your exceptions but you're not explicitly excluding the main parent set dkong, so you'll have multiple copies of Donkey Kong showing

4

Themes / Re: SMP HD Theme with Retroarch 1.9 v4.3

« on: October 01, 2020, 01:32:03 AM »

why not add a shader to the videos to make them look more curious

It will make AM crash while running in Linux system. I don't know it is AM or shader issue   

It'll be the shader - check out the shaders in Verticools Deluxe, I've adjusted them to work with Linux (older version of OpenGL).

Running AM from the commandline shows the crash detail and you'll be able to narrow down what the problem is.

5

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: July 28, 2020, 04:05:12 AM »

It's by design because the video is being used as background art. Most games have the score/lives text surrounding the screen, if those are displayed underneath the text that is on the layout it makes the screen very busy and hard to read. I did try using unstretched video with a darker gradient mask but that didn't work as well. The background is to add motion and colour rather than clearly display the game. I experimented a lot with even bigger zooming/rotating/panning but settled on the simple 20% zoom - some games look amazing with more stuff going on and others look awful, especially on a low resolution screen, this was the best compromise.

I don't use in-game artwork (snaps, videos, titles, flyers) at all on my own cabinets, just the wheel logo. I found the more I see of the game in the frontend the less likely I am to think "I wonder if this is any good"!

6

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: July 23, 2020, 01:29:47 PM »

I've been working on some better background shaders and having 2 variants of the theme (for square / non-square pixels) has been driving me mad, as well as seeing just how badly fonts were being displayed on a 1080p screen.

So I ripped out all the layout sizing and assumption making hacks, and added pixel aspect ratio calculation based on your chosen display aspect ratio. Works with a rotated desktop as well as however you fancy rotating AM.

7

General / Re: jagged edges on higher resolution wheels

« on: June 26, 2020, 08:36:33 AM »

      m_obj.alpha = wheel_a[slot] + p * ( wheel_a[slot+1] - wheel_a[slot] );
      if ( my_config["wheel_logo_aspect"] == "Yes" )
         m_obj.preserve_aspect_ratio=true;

Change to:

      m_obj.alpha = wheel_a[slot] + p * ( wheel_a[slot+1] - wheel_a[slot] );
      m_obj.mipmap = true;
      if ( my_config["wheel_logo_aspect"] == "Yes" )
         m_obj.preserve_aspect_ratio=true;

8

Scripting / Transitions and tick callbacks

« on: June 24, 2020, 02:50:31 PM »

In my theme here:
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=3387.0

The conveyor module is used and updates on certain transitions. There's a configurable transition speed.

I'm also using tick callbacks to update the "time" for a background GL shader.

The conveyor (wheel spin) transition affects the tick callback - the longer the transition the more the shader slows down as well.

I don't want this. I want the shader to animate independently of any transition animation, exactly like a video plays.

Could anyone give me a hint what I need to be doing, as I've been stumped with this for a couple of weeks 

9

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: May 29, 2020, 03:12:08 AM »

Yeah mipmapping the wheel images doesn't look great on a 25" CRT. Disabled.

10

Scripting / Re: How to get attract-mode config values from within plugin?

« on: May 15, 2020, 04:43:33 AM »

That sounds more like an AM bug to me, have you reported it?

11

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: May 11, 2020, 02:17:58 PM »

Retrofitted the original Verticools list as an option for use without any wheel artwork.

And added multi-line text shading, reducing overall shader count by quite a few.

12

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: May 05, 2020, 12:52:57 PM »

Thanks! Yeah there's been lot of time invested that probably isn't obvious even from the code. It's intentionally simple and "feature"less because I personally never use anything more on my cabinets.

The gradient text I'm really pleased with, its an essential look of the games I've tried to channel. I stopped a little short, the effect doesn't work on multiline text, but I think that could be achieved adding in another uniform to control the repeat rate.

Thank you for the wheel code too. Took a lot of bending into the shape I wanted but without it I'd never have started!

13

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: May 04, 2020, 12:28:42 PM »

Fixed the initial wheel glamour flash by using a different animation routine to achieve the same effect.

Added in an optional shader for the background image along with some starfield shaders I've converted and tweaked from ShaderToy (comments added where changes have been made). They look nice but I still prefer the game video.

Hopefully I'm now done forever.

14

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: May 02, 2020, 05:34:51 AM »

Welcome! Tbh in my constant testing I've been using a horizontal monitor and pressing toggle rotate every time!

15

Themes / Re: Verticools Deluxe

« on: May 01, 2020, 05:41:26 PM »

Updated with a rotation setting and game style text throughout.