New Theme WIP Questions

[firebrand_X]

I just want to run a few Qs by you guys regarding a theme I'm making.

First question: Does anybody know of any 'game icons' for the Atari 2600, Atari Jaguar, Intellivision, and the Sega Master System? And by 'iconic' I mean something like Nintendo's Mario or Sega's Sonic.

Why do I need to know? ...Well, maybe it'd be easier to show you what I'm trying to do:

Here's the screens for the SNES, N64, and Genesis pages (so far):

[Nologic]

2600...hmm Pac Man or Mrs Pac Man

Jaguar...Alien vs Preditor

I'd really just take a look and see what was the top game for that system and see if it was on other systems.

Like for 3DO it was mainly Gex...but that was on a lot of other systems...so maybe some thing like "The Horde" or "Shockwave"

[night]

i can see you have the same idea as i did when i started making my first theme by taken a known charater out from each system what i love as well

tho i soon found out what a pain that is to find high res pictures to all systems and make them..

its really a time consuming thing but the result are worth it

I have cut out alot of high res chars from differents systems i never used i can send you well give me a PM and we can talk if you like ...

anyway your snaps looks really nice

Night

[headkaze]

I just want to run a few Qs by you guys regarding a theme I'm making.

First question: Does anybody know of any 'game icons' for the Atari 2600, Atari Jaguar, Intellivision, and the Sega Master System? And by 'iconic' I mean something like Nintendo's Mario or Sega's Sonic.

Quality themes there firebrand, keep up the good work. As for finding game icons, I would recommend using Google image search, just type in the the names of the systems or related words and you should be able to get some good images from there. Look forward to your end results

P.S You have done really well with the transparancy in the character images, shows you have some good Photoshop skills there. If I didn't know any better you're using an inner our outter glow to make a nice black strip around the edges. Cool trick that one especially for doing logo's in GameEx.

[amos_82]

Nice one firebrand_X,

have to admit i was keeping an eye on this one from GameEx live Great work!

[Nologic]

headkaze -

You mean stroke?

Didn't look close enough to see if there is any diff in boarder quality in his vs my console icons...tho mine are still kind of loose as I have yet to standardize.

Any ways what firebrand_X gots going is looking sharp.

[headkaze]

headkaze -

You mean stroke?

Didn't look close enough to see if there is any diff in boarder quality in his vs my console icons...tho mine are still kind of loose as I have yet to standardize.

Any ways what firebrand_X gots going is looking sharp.

Outter glow works much like a stroke but can often be better for some images like logos when your trying to change a logo's background from white to black for example. The edges might be anti-aliased to white and you want to make it look like it's anti-aliased to a black background it can help with that. For example, I used it for the GameEx logo which came from the website with a white background and changed it to look anti-aliased to a black background.

[emphatic]

It does look very nice. About the corner down to the right, you could create some sort of date/time area there.

Looking forward to using your theme soon.

Emph

[Nologic]

headkaze -

Well maybe I'll toy with it, later on this week when I get around to monkeying around with my console icons again...as is I just pen out a work path and copy paste to a new layer and then put a 2px stroke of RGB 17,17,17 which can give a half ass cell shading look.

Basically having a bitch of a time getting rid of the jaggies.

[firebrand_X]

Wow, didn't expect so many kind words. Thanks a heap everyone!

Nologic - Bingo! AvP for the Jaguar. How could I forget that? And here I was about to use Bubsy or Rayman scary thought. I'm still iffy about Pac-Man, though. If I was going to use him, it'd be for the MAME section.

Night - Yeah, finding a popular character for each system is a pain in the arse. I haven't seen the theme you're working on yet (I'm new to the forums). Can I get a link? No worries, I don't copy. If you wanna share ideas though, that'd be cool.

Headkaze - Google Image is what I've been using to find some decent scans, but it's hard when you don't know what to look for I type in "Master System" for instance, and all I get are low res screenshots of the console, that's why I was asking for suggestions

As far as using Photoshop, the entire project is pretty much done in layers (Ex: for the borders, two overlapping rectangles, both semi-transparent). I did use Image Blending for shadows in the header text, but not so much in the textboxes or characters.

Any other ideas for that bottom-right corner?

Anyways, thanks again for the comments. I'll put up a Beta Theme in a day or two so you guys can play around with it.

Until then, here's a teaser

[Nologic]

Hehe how about ET for the 2600...thats got to have burned its self into every ones mind that ever played it on the 2600.

Bottom-right...how about a shot of the console its self...I got a fair collection of source images...and a few of them in PSD format with working paths and such, which your welcome to...just if you come up with any new source images that are decent I ask that you return the fav and let me use them for my projects.

[Rustynutts]

keep up the good work, it looks soouuupperrr.

very nice, hope to see it soon.

Rusty :)

[firebrand_X]

Hehe how about ET for the 2600...thats got to have burned its self into every ones mind that ever played it on the 2600.

Bottom-right...how about a shot of the console its self...I got a fair collection of source images...and a few of them in PSD format with working paths and such, which your welcome to...just if you come up with any new source images that are decent I ask that you return the fav and let me use them for my projects.

Sounds good. Right now I'm actually putting in console pics, and I need good Sega Genesis, Sega 32x and SegaCD console pics. As for my own source images, I can give you Photoshop files and raw images of anything you'll see in my theme.

To everyone else, I've spent the entire day playing with my 'Valhalla' theme, and there's a really good chance I'll have a Beta run available soon.

So far I have the following consoles made:

NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy, GB Advance, PSX, SMS, Genesis, Sega 32x, Sega CD, and Atari Jaguar.

Latest:

Great Idea, Nologic

[night]

i tryed to PM you but its disabled

but to answer you question for the right corner i would say the system or sure as you did with the "jaguarbak" snapshot ...

the link to the themesite are : http://themes.gameex.net/

there you can see some examples i made under : Night`s Themes section

and feel free if you wanna use some of it or wants some of the layers

i have as said before alot unused as well ...

Night

[firebrand_X]

i tryed to PM you but its disabled

but to answer you question for the right corner i would say the system or sure as you did with the "jaguarbak" snapshot ...

the link to the themesite are : http://themes.gameex.net/

there you can see some examples i made under : Night`s Themes section

and feel free if you wanna use some of it or wants some of the layers

i have as said before alot unused as well ...

Night

Thanks Night, great sets! Still need a better Genesis and 32x, though.

And my PM is turned on now.

[Nologic]

Okay here is a link to my current work files. (RapidShare.de)

Some images in the PSD's have been resized with an unsharp mask applied...these you may not want to use...as constantly applying an unsharp mask will damage the image...ideally down size once then apply an unsharp mask.

Some have also had thier levels adjusted...or been edited to remove glare or dirt or just speckels...but here they are all the same.

You can also find some more possible helpful resources here. (CPViewer)

Arcade Flyer Archive

kawaii Art Zone

Artwork Wallpapers

Screenshot Archive

Retro Covers

The Sigil of Slateman

Sonic Hurricane

Local Arcade

vectorlib

Oscar Controls

Arcade Collecting

Gif Maniacos

The Game Manual Archive

[Adultery]

I love this community!

I been working on the same idea for a while now and I had the same problem as you. These suggestions are great! Thanks!

I dig the theme by the way.

[firebrand_X]

Okay here is a link to my current work files. (RapidShare.de)

Some images in the PSD's have been resized with an unsharp mask applied...these you may not want to use...as constantly applying an unsharp mask will damage the image...ideally down size once then apply an unsharp mask.

In your Consoles.7z I found the 32x picture I've been needing. Thanks!

I been working on the same idea for a while now and I had the same problem as you.

Looks like everyone has the similar idea. Haha, but everyone's putting their own spin on each.

Adultery, you found a good Yoshi pic! Bah, a month ago I was going to use him for the GameBoy section, but then decided on Pikachu Oh well...

Anyways, Valhalla won't be up until maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm still playing with it and adding the Game Gear and Dreamcast emulators.

P.S. Does anybody know how to get the MAME background to change???

[Nologic]

Your welcome

[amos_82]

P.S. Does anybody know how to get the MAME background to change???

Unfortunately we cant change it at the moment, i think Tom is aware of this, so hopefully it will be done in the future. So for the moment i would just make the MAMEBak.png & hope a fix is coming

Or you could use the startbak.png, or bak.png i forget which one, but the mame will appear in unwanted areas if you do this.

[Adultery]

bak.png is the one that MAME uses as far as I know... Or at least when I open MAME it displays bak.png for me.

One pain in the arse though is that emubak.png comes up after exiting a game - so I had to make a generic emubak screen. Wonder if that can be fixed?

[Rustynutts]

HI guy's, dont no if this helps but you might find some good images here

http://www.localarcade.com/arcade_art/cate...es.php?cat_id=1

hope I could help.

[firebrand_X]

bak.png is the one that MAME uses as far as I know... Or at least when I open MAME it displays bak.png for me.

One pain in the arse though is that emubak.png comes up after exiting a game - so I had to make a generic emubak screen. Wonder if that can be fixed?

emubak.png will show up after you exit a game??

... hmm... might be kind of cool to make a Game Over screen

[headkaze]

Unfortunately we cant change it at the moment, i think Tom is aware of this, so hopefully it will be done in the future. So for the moment i would just make the MAMEBak.png & hope a fix is coming

Or you could use the startbak.png, or bak.png i forget which one, but the mame will appear in unwanted areas if you do this.

As far as I'm aware the features on the drawing board at the moment are TV support, Setup Wizard, Search and Theme Editor which will possibly include Mame background support and emulator layout support and perhaps CP layout support. That's my general gist on whats on the adjenda for the next few releases. Of course it's up to Tom as to what gets done and in what order.

[firebrand_X]

As far as I'm aware the features on the drawing board at the moment are TV support, Setup Wizard, Search and Theme Editor which will possibly include Mame background support and emulator layout support and perhaps CP layout support. That's my general gist on whats on the adjenda for the next few releases. Of course it's up to Tom as to what gets done and in what order.

Tom's a busy guy. Thanks for the work, Tom! It's a great program you've built.

I'm expecting 'VALHALLA Beta' to be finished tomorrow at this time. Anybody have any ideas of where to host the +25Mb file? 'RapidShare.de' maybe? Or is there a GameEx page for it?

night could add it to his site if he wants since he sounded interested in his PMs.

And just to make you all a little more anxious, I brought presents:

See you tomorrow!