[Theme] Hitchhiker 1920 x 1080

[Zero Dreams]

Still new to the community and how everything works but I wanted to show my theme. I am notorious for not completing projects and wanted that understood immediately. My system has approximately 100 systems attached to GameEx with this theme and alternate backgrounds for a few. The standard is 1920x1080 backgrounds with system logos as well. The background originate from Crylen, Gibbawho (HyperSpin), and any other HD realm I could find. In the video, it glitched up on me pretty bad in windowed mode but I was still able to show my theme a little. I would still need many many pictures to represent it fully. I hadn't really thought of a name for a theme so I'll just call it "Hitchhiker".

Here's the demo and hopefully something more can "evolve" from this.

*Sorry about my music

btw...yes, my Steam collection is bigger than that. I'm still under construction.

[Draco1962]

Great for a first attempt! Much better than some of my earlier attempts. Glad to see another theme maker in our midst! Be sure to zip and upload it either here in our forum Downloads section or the Upload Theme Here link at GameEx.com when you are ready to release it and share with the community!

[stigzler]

Wow - like that - very clean. Like the subtle use of system backgrounds too....

A theme dev to watch..

[Panja]

Looking great mate!

I'll be watching this thread closely.

Keep up the good work!

[Zero Dreams]

Really appreciate the positive feedback and I'm a little surprised as I wasn't able to showcase too much in the video. I'm always tinkering with this theme and it's artwork so input is good. To be honest, I want total domination as this theme works in GameEx, HyperSpin, & appropriately in HyperLaunch. I just need to process my psd into artwork that's usable in the various formats and naming conventions, which I've already started on.

If I could record it properly you would be able to see how much progress I've made with the logos and backgrounds which would highlight anything I should add, remove, or replace. Still working on that one too but I might give Action! a go to get some results.

There's no way I can come close to Crylen's talent but I'm workin' on it and hoping it will be glorious.

Also, I'm always open to alternate backgrounds and logos as this is the theme's driving force.

[tthurman]

Looking good, and I really appreciate seeing more 1920 x 1080 themes.

.....that theme music needs more cowbell though

One of these days I'm going to try my hand at theme creation

[Zero Dreams]

Couple questions you guys may know the answers to. Do the system themes have more than two image layers? My only understanding is that there is a "Theme_Background" layer and also a "Theme_Background_system name_foreground" layer. Not quite sure what my options are for layering images. I've got a breakdown of a solid three layers but I only know of two.

Edit: Is it possible to go back to Lurker status once it changes. I want to have at least 500 post before it changes.

[Draco1962]

At present there are only two layers. Any file you see in the \gameex\themes\THEMENAME\Media folder that has "bak" in the file name is the background file and those with bac_foreground will be in the foreground. Usually the latter is used either to mask over something in the background or overlay it with a semi-transparent foreground element.

As for your status, you can change that to whatever you want.

[Zero Dreams]

Great info! I tried out "startbak_foreground" and got another very useful layer added to my project. In your Smoked Glass thread you mentioned being able to swap out backgrounds so I've set my theme up to swap out backgrounds, system logos, start logos, and I have two sets of folders for backgrounds with and without the overlay. I also threw the overlay image in there to make it easy to merge other backgrounds in the scheme. Wish I could have my theme media folder containing only background images and the overlay on a separate layer cause it darkens the video too much on the foreground but it's cool.

My theme's approx 45% complete and I had a question as I just snatched your Smoked Glass.zip and browsed the artwork. Is there anything wrong with me adding in backgrounds and stuff to my theme from your Smoke Glass theme or let's say KRC's theme? Don't want to pull any no-no's.

[Draco1962]

Use what you like. I am fine with that. I tried to find basic backgrounds that look good with the foreground images and had more or less a consistent flow. For the templates I included with my theme, you can decrease the opacity for the Menu Bar, List, Image1, and Info Bar elements as needed and save to the appropriate bac_foreground file. Of course, you will notice that some of the text will not show as well in contrast against brighter and/or busier background images.

[uberpubert69]

Good stuff man, looking forward to seeing this progress Much love for 1920x1080 resolutions in GameEx

[Zero Dreams]

I've been managing two FEs and never really used either of them to play games as per their purpose. I did this while also trying to build a magical bridge between two communities through this theme but I didn't want to release it here until I had their consent. I feel I spoke to the right people and did the right thing and I'm good to go here. The theme setup was based on the parallel functions of HyperSpin & GameEx so as to unify everything. I released HyperSpin Dex which was to be an index for every viable game system that we can emulate but in my opinion it wasn't really embraced as the type of thing people are looking for. I pondered that and I realized that I've been creating things for years for other people and not strictly myself which leads me to Aeon Nox.

The Hitchhiker files from the video are what make the theme. Backgrounds & logos are all that's really needed to make a batch if you throw in a good overlay. The theme in the video is basically a Confluence overlay I made and batched over the background images. When I actually sat down and used Kodi and started to adjust the menu items to include GameEx, I found it was pretty much limited and I needed a lot of blah blah to get things working. Over to Aeon Nox and we are easily customizable so I went ahead and did a screenshot of the system information page screen and tried to duplicate it in Photoshop as a theme.

Question: Can the listnum be outside the boundaries of the list as it disappears when I place it any further?

Side thoughts:

You stumble across your first rom and emulator and get it working and think about how awesome it is and how awesome you are. Naturally you get more of the same roms, then different roms and emulators until you're in shortcut hell. Then you stumble upon your first FE which manages all that and think you've hit the big time then. Then you naturally want to max that out too until you find out there are many FEs out there. When does it stop until you realize that you shouldn't max out and can't max out with as many games are possible to have but the MOST important thing to remember is THE GAME. I forgot it but I'm focused on it now and not forums or recognition.

I never truly sat and used XBMC/Kodi but I thought it was cool and someday I would use it. Someday has to die so I've decided to buy an Alienware Alpha i7 as I've already got the NAS, use Kodi as it's the newest development from the creators of XBMC, and GameEx because it's the perfect application for everything I'm looking for and designing for. In the meantime before the Alpha appears under my TV I figured that I get Kodi up and running with GameEx and a skin.

[Zero Dreams]

Alright Draco I went and uploaded Hitchhiker Beta in the downloads section all zipped up so I hope I did that all right. I hadn't planned even attempting to upload anything because it's in so many pieces with so much I can add and tweak but I guess something is better than nothing. I hope it works cause I really didn't even do any testing on it. I'm quite sure anyone who might use it will let me know if it's broken or not.

Hitchhiker Beta

[Draco1962]

I ran through it a little and so far, so good. I would recommend creating a still image of it in action to accompany future uploads. Overall, I like where you are going with it.

[tthurman]

Spot on post Zero Dreams! I focused long ago on sticking strickly to my old school arcade favorites, and so far I've not ventured into consoles, even though it would be all so easy to give in to the dark side

Heck, I don't have enough time to play what I already have!

As for the FE's, we're lucky to have so many choices, and a community that welcomes having such a vast selection to choose from. They obviosuly all co-exist quite well

[u-man]

Question: Can the listnum be outside the boundaries of the list as it disappears when I place it any further?

Hah, I have finally found a person who has the same problem as me with my own theme. I never could solve that puzzle, if you ever found a solution for this, please let me know it. PM me or post it here, I would be so happy, if this thing can be solved. The problem with this is, that other people doesnt have this weird bug, but we both should have something similar in the setup or whatever, what causes this bug. There was a time, where this worked and I could place the listnum field wherever I wish, but this was years ago. Now I am forced to live with it , cause no one could ever recreate this problem, but at least I am not alone now and maybe we could find out together, what is causing this .

PS: I am really hooked with the Confluence Skin and my classic Xbox. With CoinOPS 7 Massive it is a really big arcade weapon with native 15khz support, right out of the box. My Xbox with a 2 TB HDD contains now nearly every NTSC title that was made for the Xbox and the awesome CoinOPS 7 and this at a cost of 120 Euros. It is silence modded and the only thing I hear from my Xbox is the HDD from time to time .