At-The-Arcade Multi-Cab [Release] - Updated 20 February 2021

[Yaron2019]

correct me if I'm wrong the search method works the default one?, I don't see the one with the letters?

I haven't changed the search code. Not sure what you mean with letters so I uploaded a video of how it behaves in the latest version:
https://youtu.be/a-74dHSB8m8

[manzarek]

Here's what I mean, I also made the a video, in fact when I click on the custom button 1. it comes out search for default and it's not like yours in the video.
https://youtu.be/uZxzjdIaUuE

version. At-The-Arcade Multi-Cab theme v10.3.9

EDIT:
I understand where the conflict lies, if you enable the plugin
KeyboardSearch, shows as shown in my video, when you turn it off you see the one shown in your video.
but then there is a HUGE drawback IN OTHER STYLES THAT YOU CAN'T USE THE KeyboardSearch if it is not set in the theme itself, what a shame, so you would have to modify all the themes to see the KeyboardSearch as shown in your video?
Many of the themes I use are cosmo-arcade

[Yaron2019]

I have both keyboard search methods working on my setup - I just assign them different custom buttons.
Custom button6 for the built-in AM keyboard search plugin, and custom button1 for my layout's built-in keyboard search.
I just tested it to see if something broke with the latest versions but it all works excellent together.

See demo here:
https://youtu.be/sa0VMyBoH28

[manzarek]

and so, maybe I had set a custom key on the joystick, now I set it on the keyboard and it works, friend sure that I bother you too much.
anyway thanks for your time and your work, I appreciate it.

[Yaron2019]

and so, maybe I had set a custom key on the joystick, now I set it on the keyboard and it works, friend sure that I bother you too much.
anyway thanks for your time and your work, I appreciate it.

You are welcome.

[Yaron2019]

Small update:
+ fixed a bug in the music Shuffle mode playback

Download from original post:
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=3874.msg26957#msg26957

[Beto72]

Hi
Yaron2019, thank you for the amazing work.
How do i enable bezels for vertical games?

[Yaron2019]

Hi
Yaron2019, thank you for the amazing work.
How do i enable bezels for vertical games?

There are three things you need to do:
1. download the bezels from the original post:
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=3874.msg26957#msg26957

Then copy them to your attract\menu-art\mame\bezels folder.

2. Add the bezels path to your mame.cfg emulator file (in attract\emulators folder).
artwork    bezels          C:/attract/menu-art/mame/bezels

It should look similar to this:
# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.6.1
#
executable           C:/attract/systems/mame/mame64.exe
args                 [name]
rompath              C:/attract/systems/mame/roms
romext               .zip;.chd
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
exit_hotkey          Escape
artwork    wheel           C:/attract/menu-art/mame/wheel
artwork    snap            C:/attract/menu-art/mame/snap
artwork    boxart          C:/attract/menu-art/mame/boxart
artwork    cartart         C:/attract/menu-art/mame/cartart
artwork    marquee         C:/attract/menu-art/mame/marquee
artwork    bezels          C:/attract/menu-art/mame/bezels
artwork    flyer           C:/attract/menu-art/mame/flyer
artwork    fanart          C:/attract/menu-art/mame/fanart
artwork    cabinets        C:/attract/menu-art/mame/cabinets

3. Launch AM, press Tab->Displays->Mame (for example)->Layout Options.
Then set 'Enable game snap aspect ratio' to 'Yes'
and set 'Enable game snap vertical bezels' to 'Yes'

[tsaylor]

Hi @Yaron2019,

Many thanks to you and all the others who had a part in this theme... I've adopted your amazing theme but I had a few special requirements, stemming from the fact that I decided to add pinball games to my cab. As part of that project, I added things like solenoids, flippers, and a plunger. More importantly I also ended up changing my monitor and its orientation, ending up with a vertical 1200x1920 screen (after some other more physical challenges with cutting and mounting). Amazingly this theme did work at that resolution, but it wasn't as perfect as I desired so I embarked on a long project of making improvements. I've learned a lot about using Attract Mode, squirrel, shaders, and finally I have the results I wanted, and good enough to present publicly.

My initial goals:

• Support any resolution but retain all features of the original theme
• Allow an alternate type of cabinet presentation (for pinball, but in theory for other uses as well)

I ran into some challenges, and ended up changing far more lines of code than I expected, but I wanted to present this version back to you, if desired. Sort of a massive "pull request", if you will. I hope you don't mind. Basically there are a few approaches we can take now, and I'm fine with any of them:

• I provide my updated files to you and you include them in your official version
• I treat my version as separate, releasing this "any resolution" version myself
• I keep my version to myself, as my own modified version (in case you prefer not to have a modified version of your work released)

Now on to the details of all the changes I made:

• First, add the ability to display the theme at any aspect ratio - this was critical to my goal of supporting all resolutions, letting me test everything at 16:9, 16:10, 4:3, 1:1, 3:4, 10:16, 10:9 (which is hopefully all typical resolutions)
• Add a hotkey option to reload at the "next" resolution, allowing me to quickly cycle through examples of all the different aspect ratios
• Change most everything to rely on formulas instead of hard-coded numbers/percentages
• Render all components of the cabinet/snap/marquee/etc at a standard size internally, and then resize the entire surface afterwards
• Use a configurations table to drive the positioning and rules of the various components (important for supporting another type of cabinet, for pinball)
• New images for a pinball cabinet, with different positioning of cabinet/snap/marquee and sizing
• Allow cabinet to be horizontally "squeezed" up to a point, to make things fit better
• Beyond that point, resize the cabinet smaller (so a mix of some squeezing and some shrinking) -- this means for vertical screens the cabinet is no longer full height, which presents some challenges...
• Added "topper" image to place above the cabinet when it isn't full height -- definitely an imperfect workaround, needed because the cabinet images don't go all the way to the top (it looks good for typical cabinets but for odd-shaped cabinets this isn't going to look right, so this solution might need further adjustments)
• Rework the "wheel" to be formula based too (finally a reason to use my high school trigonometry) -- BUT this introduces a problem, as it's nearly impossible to match the exact curve and position when using the shaded background image, so...
• Solution: Learn all about GLSL shaders, and write a shader that draws the shaded background curve for the wheel (and another shader for the rectangular version)
• Bonus: Now we can choose the color of that shaded region too, so I added an option for color
• Reduce wheel height for vertical screens, so we see the entire height of the curve in that case
• Rework bezel rendering, now processing the left/right sides separately and using horizontal compression to show the entire bezel (for vertical games). Note: I did also work out a simple change to support the original logic, cropping the outer edges of the bezel rather than compressing, but I like this result better
• Fix to not show the scanlines effect over the bezel sections
• Disable scanlines for vector-based games
• Show the game information on two lines when the screen is vertical
• Position box art at the top for vertical screens (as the cabinet is not full height in that case)
• Rework the screen glow effect to work for any screen size (this one had me confused for a long time)

Here are some examples (this only includes one horizontal and one vertical example of each cabinet type, but I can provide other resolutions/configurations/etc.). I'm sure I've missed some things, but it should now be easier to make any needed changes in a resolution-independent way. 

[Yaron2019]

Holly crap, This looks amazing!!!
Sorry for not answering earlier, I am pre-occupied with other stuff and check the forum only once a week or so.

It sounds like you did an unbelievable job, please do post it here so I can check it out - I would love to.
We can either place it as the main theme or just add it as is to this thread. Whatever we like.

So please post a download link here 

PS - better to join the AM discord channel, all the action is there mate

[jedione]

is their a DL link for this,    i need it....i too have pinball.....great job bro

[tsaylor]

Thanks Yaron2019 and jedione! I had no idea about the discord channel (I suppose I saw a reference to it somewhere but never checked it out to see what was there).

I'm attaching a file which should include everything I changed in the "At-The-Arcade Multi-Cab" folder, so it can just be dropped there (overwriting the layout file). Of course most of the work is in the layout.nut file, but there are also two new shaders, a pinball cabinet image, and the little "top" image that is placed above the cabinet when it isn't full-height. I'm open to suggestions. I feel like things are all holding together pretty well now, but it's never been tested outside of my PC, and I've probably missed an option or two somewhere.

As for pinball, the layout switches to those alternate cabinet settings whenever the name of the Display includes the word "pinball" (not case-sensitive). Let me know if you can think of a better way to know that. For pinball it will use the included pincabs.png instead of cabinets.png, adding the snap/marquee images to the appropriate regions of that cabinet. Snaps are assumed to be vertical; I've noticed a lot of pinball snaps are horizontal so we may need a way to detect and rotate somehow (I tried this once but didn't have much luck so far). It will also look for a "pincabs" setting in the display's .cfg file, in case you have specific cabinets for each game (as I have for the Pinball FX3 tables). This mirrors the "cabinets" setting that is used for arcade cabinets.

Let me know how it goes, and I can make corrections as needed.

[tsaylor]

I've updated the enhanced "multi-resolution" version, mainly to fix some issues with the shaders, but also to rework how the cabinet top image is built when the cabinet is not full-height (that logic is now shader-based as well). New download is attached.

* Edit * Updated this file again with a few minor fixes.

[Yaron2019]

I've updated the enhanced "multi-resolution" version, mainly to fix some issues with the shaders, but also to rework how the cabinet top image is built when the cabinet is not full-height (that logic is now shader-based as well). New download is attached.

This is excellent! Well done 

[minkage]

1st this is an exellent addition to attract mode and looks beautiful.

I have an issue with regards to getting any of the cabinents to work at all. I followed the instructions but am left with the default cabinent.
This is my cfg file currently and all the paths are absolutely correct.
I tried putting the cabinent content into the boxart folder and end up with mini sized cabinent pics where the box art normally goes.

# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.6.1
#
executable           F:\Attract\mame\mame.exe
args                 [name]
workdir              F:\Attract\New Folder\.
rompath              F:\Attract\Roms\Mame
romext               .zip;.7z
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
exit_hotkey          Escape
artwork    boxart          F:/attract/attract/menu-art/mame/boxart
artwork    flyer           F:/attract/attract/menu-art/mame/flyer
artwork    marquee         F:/attract/attract/menu-art/mame/marquee
artwork    snap            F:/attract/attract/menu-art/mame/snap
artwork    wheel           F:/attract/attract/menu-art/mame/wheel
artwork    cabinents       F:/attract/attract/menu-art/mame/cabinents

I am at a complete loss why this wont work :/