Arcadeflow theme v 17.5 [Release] Updated 17 December 2024

[zpaolo11x]

Future steps... So I've been thinking of the issues most people have with Arcadeflow...

Someone mentioned cropping of videos in box art mode, I'll see if I can think of something, but at the moment I think the worst issue is the cropping of (artwork box arts or snaps) in the main UI. Currently all displays are adapted to 4:3, 1:1 or 3:4, but this means a bit of cropping for Lynx or Game Boy Advance for example.
As mentioned, it would be great to add proper AR independence, but that might need huge rewrites or compromises. At the moment I plan to just add _more_ ARs, so that many displays won't be cut at all, and less cutting will be needed.

I've come down to select 7 AR: 1:1, plus 3 horizontal and 3 vertical. The horizontal ones are 4:3, 3:2 (GBA) and 10:9 (Game Boy). I've done some evaluations of ARs of many system and it seems this would be a good fit for many box arts too... The chart shows dots for the real AR, crosses where the new AR are. Pretty close to many solutions, to the point that maybe I could even use "non cropped" box arts...

[markoattract]

Hello Paolo and congrats for your work as always !!

one question: i don't want the Arcadeflow's display menu to appear, because i have another theme for the main display of AM, and Arcadeflow overrides it when i press esc or the "back  button on the arcade stick...

how can i do that ??

thank you and have a nice holyday

[zpaolo11x]

how can i do that ??

Hmm you are right this can be a problem. There no easy way to do it at the moment, but I’ll add an option to disable the display menu completely in the next version...

[markoattract]

Thank you Paolo !!!

It would be great !  

[verion]

Someone mentioned cropping of videos in box art mode, I'll see if I can think of something

I'm not 100% sure if this is the same problem that you want to solve, but you may want to see my approach for auto-generating boxart-like "sets" using videos

Basically it's:
1. crop the video a little in width
2. add a gradient to the top
3. add a game logo on top to fill the space at the top

Here is a video:
https://www.facebook.com/ONYXarcade/videos/883129301862589/

[verion]

other approach is to add an overlay looking like a box/case over the video



here is the hi-res version:
https://www.facebook.com/ONYXarcade/photos/a.562943047214551/886013561574163/

[tvsht]

please don't, or only as an option, I love cleanliness of Arcadeflow that you are able to achieve

[verion]

I'm not talking about steering towards skeuomorphic pseudo-realism.

I'm talking about a procedurally generated boxart - from snaps or videos + wheel/logo.
It can be in a clean Arcadeflow style.

[zpaolo11x]

That’s a good idea, everyone stay sure I won’t ever do radical changes to AF that are not just options (because everybody loves options ).
Actually the whole point of Arcadeflow was to generate a box art looking artwork for arcade games that usually have flyers that are not so beautiful (my personal opinion of course). If you set AF to “cropped” thumbnails you’ll get exactly that look: square portion of the screenshot faded with title overlay.
For systems that have proper box arts I like to use box art artwork and I don’t want to generate pseudo box art that’s too similar to the “snapshot” version. Actually if no box art is present, a fake one is generated using category artwork and custom colo schemes.

But I digress... the thing I’m trying to fix is that, at the moment, if the box art is vertical (genesis for example) the game video or snap is severely cropped. I’m almost ready to implement a way to smoothly cross transforms fon one aspect to the other, but I’ll dive deep into coding this after this weekend:D

Also the idea to generate fake box art that resembles real box art (with SNES or genesis template) is intriguing...

[tvsht]

But I digress... the thing I’m trying to fix is that, at the moment, if the box art is vertical (genesis for example) the game video or snap is severely cropped. I’m almost ready to implement a way to smoothly cross transforms fon one aspect to the other, but I’ll dive deep into coding this after this weekend:D

Also the idea to generate fake box art that resembles real box art (with SNES or genesis template) is intriguing...

Yeah, I've mentioned that before, cross-transform is what I've meant, Ambience HD does it like that doesn't it? Genesis, Saturn, some early PSX, Wii/U, Amiga... verticals.

btw. Is that of any use for the theme? https://github.com/mickelson/attract/commit/afbfc96435df45cd487d2caf89e7b60b285bd3f1

[zpaolo11x]

Yeah, I've mentioned that before, cross-transform is what I've meant, Ambience HD does it like that doesn't it? Genesis, Saturn, some early PSX, Wii/U, Amiga... verticals.

btw. Is that of any use for the theme? https://github.com/mickelson/attract/commit/afbfc96435df45cd487d2caf89e7b60b285bd3f1

Ambience HD is a smart theme: it uses snaps that are cropped square and then "uncropped" to the original aspect. It does it in a very smart and smooth way running around attract mode limits without smashing into them.

With Arcadeflow I'm trying to morph a vertical box art into an horizontal snap or video, i found it requires a deeper code rewrite that I originally thought but I think it will be worth it. If the routine is good enough it could also enable smooth transition when you switch from box art to snaps... Maybe

The problem with my layout is that tiles are overlapping when scaled, an headache which Ambience HD avoided, and that puts limitation on how easy I can do things.

And yes I think background artwork loading will help a lot in making my layout smoother

[zpaolo11x]

August is not a month for relaxing, but for working hard! Here is a sneak preview of what the new Arcadeflow will bring: free aspect ratio of _everything_ (no more cropping) and smooth morphing of box arts into videos. No artwork stretching, with proper glow and shadow following the morph...

https://youtu.be/jnS8-g5jE2Y

[dark1973]

bellissimo e fluido!

[Yaron2019]

Aspect ratio freedom is the purpose of democracy!! 
Looking forward to seeing it in action

[hedergim]

I noticed a small bug,

when you add a game to a favorite, you will always be a favorite.

no matter how many games you add to favorites, when you take them out, there will always be 1 in favorites, the last one never goes out of favorites.