Topics

1

Scripting / Good conventions

« on: August 21, 2020, 08:12:23 PM »

Starting to slowly have some of my work merged into the official attract repo. Conventions will be the death of me. I would like opinions on good conventions we could adhere to. Feel free to read the issue and make a comment on it. Once settled, I can revise a lot of my work and shoot pr's quicker. I tend to fall down a hole for hours over formatting. Could also be a help to others and create uniform code across the repo.

https://github.com/mickelson/attract/issues/648

2

General / attracmode fork

« on: October 12, 2019, 03:35:09 AM »

I started a fork of attractmode.

• Encourage more pull requests, especially with modules and responsive layouts
• Create member permissions
• Actively update a separate wiki
• Continuous Integration to automatically build all platforms and wiki
• Explore premake

I am hoping we can form a small team. Get a better understanding of attract (which is full of things I never noticed until recently) and improve it.

For anyone interested, feel free to view the following links and discuss here or on discord.

https://gitlab.com/attractmode/
https://attractmode.gitlab.io/wiki/

3

Emulators / mame-diffs (patches and binaries for Linux and Mac OS X)

« on: July 11, 2019, 04:57:44 AM »

mame-diffs

Patches

• d38d
• d39ex
• groovymame
• suppression
• various fixes

Compiled Binaries

• Mac OS X
• Linux

See readme in GitHub repo for more info.

4

Scripting / Shuffle v2.2.0 - Loop feature now added

« on: June 09, 2019, 04:47:22 AM »

Looping of the list can be enabled or disabled. This feature works as intended, but there is some what if scenarios that might have to be covered in future bug fixe releases.

https://github.com/keilmillerjr/shuffle-module/releases/tag/v2.2.0

5

Scripting / attract-history-parser

« on: May 30, 2019, 11:11:37 PM »

Looking for a better way to integrate history.dat into my layout. I am hoping that Info.Overview and text.first_line_hint is the answer. To generate the needed overview files from history.dat, I created a multi-platform python script. I still need to add filtering based on romlist or just arcade/softlist in case some one doesn’t want all 65,378 files to be generated.

Thoughts? Speed an issue with all the files? Worth using the data as an overview, or should we fork the history plugin and modify it? I think the commit changing the location to „scraper“ was a weird choice.

https://github.com/mickelson/attract/commit/88595c811b2ebe717d1c9ea116373531b92cc6cb

Here’s my boring video explaining why I created the script and using it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8d_mK9nUY&feature=youtu.be

6

Scripting / PreserveArt - trigger? fe.Image parameters texture, subimg, and origin?

« on: May 07, 2019, 03:47:37 AM »

Does the PreserveArt module have a way to set trigger to Transition.EndNavigation?

I thought about implementing something similar myself, so I can have things positioned on the same axis. We now have fe.Image parameters pertaining to texture, subimg, and origin. I don’t really understand what they are. Can anyone give me a rundown of them?

7

Themes / PICKnMIX - unibios neogeo inspired layout

« on: May 05, 2019, 08:01:20 AM »

https://youtu.be/SzBT8XTnB4s

Just sharing a preview of the theme I have currently been working on. It’s design is based on the unibios PICKnMIX option for the 161-in-1 multicart on neo geo. On screen menu disappears after a short period of inactivity. Games cycle after video snap is finished playing, similar feature to the real unibios. Menu pops up after automatic cycling games, which I will prevent. Not done but was too excited to not share. I also implemented features such as the OSD menu fading out or collapsing, but remove the bit of code as I felt like I had to get the theme solid and bug free first. Should be cool when I reimplement it. Collapse looks almost like the video picture when you shut off a crt. Need to look into making the wheel logos that are utilizing the preserve art module work with the fade module.

8

General / Display menu brainstorming

« on: May 02, 2019, 01:28:19 AM »

I struggle with how to handle designing a display menu (platforms). Looking for opinions.

My current displays are:
* Arcade
* Neo-Geo MVS
* VS. Unisystem
* Turn off arcade option

I believe either hyperspin or emumovies had platform videos. Did not include the unisystem. They were just previews of games, and i might not even have the game in my romlist after global filters applied.

Assemble my own preview video? Without access to other lists, i cant easily cycle through artwork for selected display. I could do a generic logo background or something? What are others doing? This is the reason ive kind of stayed away from a display menu and just have a key cycle displays.

9

General / Compile windows: error pkg-config command not found

« on: April 22, 2019, 03:13:31 PM »

I have a friend trying to compile attract from source on windows. I help remote using teamviewer. I never compile on windows so its new to me. We install msys2, successfully update the system and I confirmed all packages up to date. It seems like a stripped down version of arch.? Installed the required packages according to the wiki. Cloned and run make on attract, i get an error pkg-config command not found. I installed it manually from pacman. Still same error. Has anyone encountered this?

10

General / PC not working

« on: February 27, 2019, 06:41:47 AM »

My PC inside my arcade machine is not working. Perhaps some one can confirm or help diagnose? It’s only 3 years old with minimal run time as I spend more time coding on my iMac than playing games.

PC was working with windows 10, crt emudriver, hd5450 OEM bios, jpac.

Video sometimes flickered when I touched pc/cable/jpac. I never really narrowed it down.

Removed PC to install new hard drive to setup for my friend. Connected vga on hd5450 to lcd. No video. Tried vga on mb as well. Also hdmi. No video. Reconnected old hard drive that was working in my arcade machine. Figured I would at least get bios. Nothing. Reconnected it to jpac and arcade machine. Nothing.

Connected new hard drive and lcd again. Removed power, battery, and moved jumper to clear bios. Perhaps my fast start setting was messing things up. Held power button for half minute while off. Turned on. Held power again. Removed power, put jumper back, reinstalled battery, powered up again. No video any ports (except dvi, didn’t try no cable). Removed video card. Tried again. No video.

Does this sound like a symptom of a bad motherboard? Perhaps physically moving it out the arcade machine and it not working was a coincidence?

Asus p8h61-1 r2.0

11

Scripting / zorder

« on: January 15, 2019, 04:47:25 AM »

zorder - Get/set the Text's order in the applicable draw list. Objects with a lower zorder are drawn first, so that when objects overlap, the one with the higher zorder is drawn on top. Default value is 0.

Code: (Layout) [Select]

local gameInfo = container.add_text("[Year] [Manufacturer]", -1, -1, 1, 1);
setProps(gameInfo, config.gameInfo);

local gameInfoBR = container.add_text("[Year] [Manufacturer]", -1, -1, 1, 1);
setProps(gameInfoBR, config.gameInfo);
gameInfoBR.set_rgb(0, 0, 0);
gameInfoBR.set_pos(config.gameInfo.x+(overscan*0.25), config.gameInfo.y+(overscan*0.25));
gameInfoBR.zorder = -1;

printL("Game Info zorder: " + gameInfo.zorder);
printL("Game Info BR zorder: " + gameInfoBR.zorder);


Code: (Terminal) [Select]

Game Info zorder: 0
Game Info BR zorder: -1

I have two objects. I would like the second object placed under the first. A negative integer does not change the zorder.? Changing the zorder of the second object to 1 places it under the first. Actually, I have no idea. I get whacky results. Does this make sense?

12

General / Raspberry-Pi-MAME-Setup-Guide

« on: January 12, 2019, 12:04:56 PM »

I used raspbian lite. Guide covers configuring the operating system, compiling attract-mode, MAME, advancedMAME, and auto booting to a binary. For those who want a slimmed down mame setup, this guide is for you. For those who want to boot directly into a single game to use the pi as a board replacement, this guide is also for you.

Guide is unfinished, but would be considered a „working" status. Will make edits to the readme on next day off. I am considering creating an image or possibly an installer script.

https://github.com/keilmillerjr/Raspberry-Pi-MAME-Setup-Guide

13

Themes / Introducing: randtro-intro

« on: January 06, 2019, 10:47:59 PM »

I just released my first official version of mvscomplete. Then I thought about a feature requested by some one here - having the intro select random videos. Well, I implemented it. I then decided to split the feature off and make it a stand alone project. It currently only supports 4:3, but will add full screen soon on my next days off and will tag it as a versioned release. Shaders are supported. Some default videos are provided.

Take it as a working proof of concept pre-release. It’s currently styled very biased to my mvscomplete layout. Will make it more universal.

randtro-intro

14

Scripting / shader-module: First official release

« on: January 03, 2019, 12:57:12 PM »

This is Shader’s first official release. Shader will now used versioned releases. Please update your layouts to the latest release and make note of the version used to prevent the breaking of your layouts.

Updated and new shaders. Shaders folder path accessible from a global variable. Shaders create shader variable and use set_default function to set default parameters. Updated readme. This commit will break existing usage of the module, and layouts must be updated.

Bloom();
BloomMultipass();
crtCgwg();
CrtLottes();
crtLottesMultipass();
RoundCorners(radius, imageWidth, imageHeight, [subImgWidth], [subImgHeight]);

If you are using my existing shader module, the latest commit will break existing layouts. I am sorry. Please either update your layout, or link in your readme to a previous specific commit. I am now using versioning, and it should prevent issues like this in the future.

Currently, all of my themes have to use a previous commit until I have time to update them. mvscomplete is almost ready. Playchoicecomplete and Flavors will need time.

Big thank you to luke jones and oomek for converting or creating these shaders. Will be adding more by both of them as well as zpaolo11x, when time permits. Thank you guys! Wrapping these up into a module helps myself, and perhaps others too.

15

Scripting / shuffle-module: First official release

« on: January 01, 2019, 07:51:20 PM »

This is Shuffle’s first official release. Shuffle will now used versioned releases. Please update your layouts to the latest release and make note of the version used to prevent the breaking of your layouts.

I know some people are using my shuffle module. The latest commit will break existing layouts. I am sorry. Please either update your layout, or link in your readme to a previous specific commit. I am now using versioning, and it should prevent issues like this in the future.

Expect to see versioning in use slowly as I update other modules/plugins/layouts. I accomplished some attract coding on my holiday break. Still need to polish a few items, update readme, and push to GitHub. Might be a few days for other releases like an updated shader module. We will see how my new work schedule of 12hr nights works out. Good news is I will have random days off during the week with a 2 on / 3 off / 3 on / 2 off schedule. Not excited.