Found some nice arcade skins and created my newest theme TRI-Cab

[omegaman]

Hello All!

So, I found some really cool arcade cabinet skins and with a little tinkering this is what I came up with. I will probably make about 5  iterations of this if enough people like it. Feel free to give any suggestions for enhancements as feedback is always appreciated. 

[verion]

the good
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I like the design - clean and straight to the point
Those blue borders look nice
Square display window is a good move - since it will work equally good for horizontal and vertical games


the bad
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you don't know which game is selected
ok - it's probably the one in the middle - I know
But there is a room for improvement here.
My idea is to add some glow to the center one and dim the others - see attachment.
I can upload .png overlays if you want to use it.

With all left-right layouts that I've tried you have to use UP/DOWN buttons to change game scrolling to left or right.
This is fundamentally wrong - it should be left/right.
And I don't know if this can be changed per layout (not globally) - if so it would be great if you could do that.


the ugly
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the snaps are stretched - I NEVER looks good.
But unfortunately there is not enough space to stretch snaps horizontally without overlaping.
And you cannot "crop" images - right?

[omegaman]

Verion-

For the selection, I might do something with animation or color. If you have some nice overlays you want to upload that is copacetic too.

I get your point about the controls but that doesn't really bother me much. The snaps are always going to be stretched to some extent and this snapshot makes it look that way more than it is.

There is no image "crop" attribute far as I know. Anyway, I have some more skins that I'm working on too, so stay tuned.

Thanks for the feedback... 

[nitrogen_widget]

How about static images for the game preview as you scroll & the game you are on switches to video preview?

[verion]

I'm attaching my .png overlays in zip.
I've also attached a preview where to place this overlays.

[omegaman]

Nitro-

I could certainly do that too. As of now, I just decided to make an animated arrow that points to the selection since I'm playing around with the animate module. Video coming soon with different skin preview.

[omegaman]

Verion-

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[omegaman]

Version-

Ok, I fixed the stretch problem with a lot of padding But, I almost wanted to pull some hair out of my head during the process. It
is done now though, so I can rinse and repeat.

Alright, here is a another skin with some improvements. The pointer is animated, so need to upload a video later showing everything in action. Anyway, eyeball everything for me. I didn't use the overlays yet, I tried the middle one but I felt like I was being hypnotized.   

[verion]

That's great.
And the vertical snaps are also squared? And fill a whole square "monitor"?

---

Now there is a little too much separation between snap and game title for my taste.

[omegaman]

Verion-

Yes, I have the aspect ratio turned off. I totally agree with the marquee spacing. I'll change it back like the original.

[omegaman]

Video of first theme in action...  https://youtu.be/ueEvvU-Umg8

[liquid8d]

Hey.. pretty cool!

I'll throw in my two cents:

Center the text vertically at the bottom (my OCD!)

Do you plan on putting some minimal info like maybe the year/category under them?

I'd like to see the selected one highlighted in a better way than the blinking arrow - maybe a slow pulsating overlay around the monitor? You could also maybe fade or use a semi-dark overlay on the ones that aren't selected, something so the focus is on the selected game but you can still see the others.

I'd recommend throwing the scanlines that verion provided on there
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=198.msg1300#msg1300

What's the Video Sonic thing at the top?

[verion]

You could also maybe fade or use a semi-dark overlay on the ones that aren't selected, something so the focus is on the selected game but you can still see the others.

This is exactly what I've proposed in 2nd post.
Or maybe you're talking about something different than this?

[liquid8d]

This is exactly what I've proposed in 2nd post.
Or maybe you're talking about something different than this?

Yeah I think so.. I didn't realize that's what you were showing with the overlays there.

[omegaman]

Guys,

I definitely plan on implementing some of your suggestions. The title info will be centered on the bottom with the Italics turned off. In the user_conf, I'll put an option to turn on more game info etc.

I'm going to implement the overlays today and see how it turns out. I tried the middle glow overlay briefly but I wasn't satisfied with the look. In my layouts, I usually try to guide the users eyes to a focal point - that is definitely lacking in this case. 

Anyway, all great suggestions. And, the great thing about WIPs is they are just WIPs..