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Messages - YellowBirdAZ

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31
Themes / Re: Vertical CRT layout 0.2
« on: March 09, 2018, 12:21:21 PM »
It looks very nice, good job.

I love shooters and really was tempted to go vertical, but the cab I have is multiplayer so I felt like it needed horizontal for games like The Simpsons and TMNT.

32
Themes / Example of My Lo-Res CRT Layout
« on: March 08, 2018, 02:35:26 PM »
99% done messing with this.

Again, much credit to keilmillerjr as this is based on his "Flavors" layout. I am posting this just as another example of what can be accomplished with AM, but this time from the low-res end of the spectrum.

https://youtu.be/a0ttZVRUkk0

33
General / Re: InstantSheller in Win7 - Need to Hide Batch Command Prompt
« on: February 20, 2018, 06:05:50 AM »
Another possible solution... this works on Win 10 and I imagine Win 7 as well.

I have one AHK script that launches everything I need to have running at startup: it starts up my control panel (I-PAC 4) with the appropriate profile, it sets 320x240 resolution for CRT and defines hotkeys to switch resolutions (mostly for troubleshooting), and it launches Attract Mode itself. (I run the non-console version 2.3.)

The script is compiled as an EXE, and I put it in the registry instead of explorer.exe. So on start-up this script runs instead of Windows explorer, and in turn it launches Attract Mode.

It works pretty well. You see the Win 10 load screen briefly, then it just jumps straight into my intro.nut. Also, it seems like it helps with issues of quitting games and returning to Attract Mode with the front end in proper focus.

I use a lot of Autohotkey scripts on my cabinet to manage resolution changes for non-MAME games and various other tasks. I also use it to assign functions to certain buttons, like if you hold pause for 3 seconds I have AHK treat it as a quit game input (so I only need one physical button for pause and quit). It is also handy for dealing with configuration popups for games like Slain, where it asks you to choose your preferred resolution every time you start the game up. AHK can hide those and make the appropriate selection without the user ever seeing them. Anyhow, I highly recommend it, especially if you are mixing MAME and non-MAME content.

34
Scripting / Re: Help needed! I'm having a problem with slowdown on my theme
« on: February 11, 2018, 06:31:26 PM »
I really like Liquid8d's animate2 module. The syntax is nice.

To the extent I got it working it seemed to run really fast too. I would like to use it, but I was running into all sorts of crash-inducing errors. I'm not doing anything fancy either, mostly all property-based animations.

Is it documented elsewhere, beyond what is on the Github page?

I know it's a WIP. It looks promising.

35
Scripting / Re: Global settings
« on: February 10, 2018, 11:21:51 PM »
Thanks!

I copied yours. The only difference is I only need to store one boolean in there.

if (!fe.nv.rawin("jukebox")) fe.nv.rawset("jukebox", false);

In jukebox mode you get music from whatever era of games are displayed (80s, 90s, etc) and the audio for all videos is turned off (Vid.NoAudio).

In non-jukebox mode you get the opposite (no music, but audio for videos is re-enabled).

The Custom1 input toggles between the two modes.

With the NV variable I can have these settings persist even when the screensaver is active.

36
Scripting / Re: Global settings
« on: February 10, 2018, 11:04:54 AM »
Might this be what the fe.nv table is for?

37
Scripting / Global settings
« on: February 10, 2018, 10:54:29 AM »
Is there a way to set a global variable on launch that can be referenced (and changed) from any layout or plug-in?

So whatever you set it to (say true or false) would stay the same no matter where it was referenced from (layout, plug-in, screensaver, etc.). And likewise the value could conceivably be changed from any of these places.

38
Scripting / Re: Help needed! I'm having a problem with slowdown on my theme
« on: February 08, 2018, 01:12:12 PM »
Quote
i now use liquids new animation module on GitHub.

I can't find this... do you have a link?

EDIT:
Nevermind, found it...

https://github.com/liquid8d/attract-extra

39
General / Re: Snap Art Without Fade-In?
« on: February 05, 2018, 09:01:52 PM »
This pretty much solves this issue...

Trim first 1 second from every video using this command:

Code: [Select]
ffmpeg -ss 00:00:01.0 -i ORIGINAL.MP4 TRIMMED.MP4
There are other ways to do this, but I think this is the best to avoid issues with the screen going blank because you trimmed off vital frame data.

This shaves off the fade-in.

Then apply a 1 second audio fade-in to all the trimmed videos using this command:

Code: [Select]
ffmpeg -i TRIMMED.MP4 -filter:a "afade=in:st=0:d=1" -c:a aac FADED.mp4
The results are pretty good. I am picky so I shaved off a few extra seconds here and there, but 90% of the snap vids work fine like this.

Anyhow, good idea Keilmillerjr.

40
General / Re: Snap Art Without Fade-In?
« on: February 05, 2018, 11:22:27 AM »
You mean trim the video, then add an audio fade in? Not a bad idea, especially if there aren't no-fade videos available.

Yeah, I think Handbrake can probably do that, and I think ffmpeg can too.

41
General / Snap Art Without Fade-In?
« on: February 05, 2018, 08:29:40 AM »
Does anyone have a source for MAME game snap art without the fade-in effect? Progetto's stuff all fades in, and in Emumovies I haven't been able to find any without it either.

Yes, you can trim the first couple seconds but I don't want the sound to cut in abruptly. So I would prefer to have clean, no fade videos, and if I want a fade-in or -out I can use the front end to do it.

42
Scripting / Re: Enable/disable plugins on-the-fly from script?
« on: January 30, 2018, 06:31:48 PM »
That is a great question re plug-ins vs modules. I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure exactly what the distinction was between them.

I have a music plugin that I'm starting to think might be better suited for a module.

43
Scripting / Re: Enable/disable plugins on-the-fly from script?
« on: January 29, 2018, 06:13:17 AM »
I would like to know too.

In the meantime, what was your work-around? I'm wondering if it would work for me.

44
Scripting / Re: Particle Animation and Z-Order
« on: January 27, 2018, 09:12:53 PM »
OK, this is clunky but it works.

I added this loop to the screensaver.

Code: [Select]
foreach ( o in fe.obj )
{
if ( o.texture_width < 100 && o.zorder != 1 )
{
o.zorder = 1;
}
}

This goes through and scans everything in the front end's draw list. Since my star PNGs are the only things smaller than 100px across, I look for anything smaller than that size and set it to an arbitrarily small zorder value (1). All the big objects I put on the screen are assigned larger zorder values.

This makes the snap-vids appear opaque as they move across the screen. The stars scrolling behind them disappear as they pass behind the snap-vids.


45
Scripting / Particle Animation and Z-Order
« on: January 27, 2018, 03:08:28 PM »
So I made a custom screensaver, it displays game snap-vids scrolling horizontally over a parallax scrolling starfield in the background.

The only problem is the stars aren't in the background, they appear over the top of the snap-vids.

Does anyone know how to force particles into a lower z-order, or some other way to force them to the background? I may be missing something obvious.

I think each new particle is a new addition to the draw list, therefore they are almost always on top of anything else on the screen (since stars are being drawn far more frequently than anything else on screen).

I did see a property for "particlesontop" but it is not implemented. I tried setting it to false, and it doesn't even look like the property is part of the particle object yet.

EDIT
I just thought of the hackiest thing ever, which would be to screencap the star field and make it into a loopable video to just play in the background. Still, I would rather use the animation, so I would prefer to figure out how to fix this.


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