Customizing blueglass theme, wanna have your opinions

[kicker75]

UPDATE: Here is the finished theme, I would like to have some comments and thoughts about it. If everything runs fine on others system, what to change, add, improve.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZFD0ZZVV

UPDATE #2: If you are too lazy to scroll down, here is the new theme here (again I would like your comments please

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=88IJ8IYN (Version 2)

UPDATE #3: For the lazies....

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8QPZNOJZ (Version 2.5)

Hi there,

First of all, again, I cant repeat it enough time, I love GameEx! Ok and I love black themes. Unfortunately there arent many for GameEx, and even less that looks real good, no pun intended. Monochrome is okay, but I dunno... and since I only use GameEx mostly on my 24" widescreen lcd, but also when I wanna go the extra efforts and run it on tv to get real good looking street fighter action. So I cannot have a 1920 theme really, but that's okay, there is only 1 so far, wish to see more of them tho, I wouldnt mind having a real good one and switch theme to run on tv.

Matter of fact, is it possible to run gameex with a parameter to change theme on startup and for this time only?

So, get back on track The theme that really got my attention for my monitor/tv usage was blueglass, but didnt found the blue really good, and I just kept on seeing this theme black, so today I went and learned to use the theme maker and duplicated blueglass and made blackglass

Here is a few screenshots, its not done yet, about 75% I'd say.

Well not really screenshots but the background image used for the specific windows. If you ran blueglass, you'll have an idea, the layout is the same, I only fixed a few alignment problems.

Main Screen

Generic Emulator Screen

Mame

Playstation

Atari 2600

To showcase the selection bar, here is a real screenie

Tell me what you think, if enough would like to try it, I will submit it here when I'm done

[chriss]

i love black themes as well! it looks quite good!

to be honest for my taste it's a bit too much like windows media player! But I'm sure there are a lot of people who'll love that look!

Way to go man!

[kicker75]

Yes I know, blueglass looks like wmp. But quite frankly, on a computer, I hardly see any 800x600 themes or less 1024 is the very least, and what I like about blue glass is the video and image size is the best imo. Most others are either too small for my liking, or full screen. If i were to put my GameEx only on TV, i might opt for a fullscreen video layout, but on a 24", even an "HQ" 640x480 videos snaps looks really bad. So I found the features of blueglass perfect for me. I got many "HQ" videos so they look really good on this theme, and even normal videos looks okay, not too blown up.

What I would like to do tho, is take my current theme and bump the res to 1920x1200, keep the layout pretty much the same, keep the video same size or so, but I would display the marquee above the video, and on the right of the video in the blank space between the game list, I would put the title screen and the game box or something like it to make use of the gained space. But I tried to create a new theme and base it on my current one, and put a custom res of 1920x1200. I even modified the background and made a 1920x1200 one, but for some reason, gameex refuse to start when I choose this theme... my guess is that I only created the bak file, so probably its reading all the others files that are 1024x768 still.

But I wanna finish this one first, and then I'll look more deeply into the 1920 version.

Happy to know you liked it tho, even tho its wmp alike

[bkenobi]

You can launch GameEx with different ini files with the command line. So, your best bet for loading a different theme for different launches of GameEx is to set up a second copy of your gameex.ini file with a different theme specified. You could have two icons for loading GameEx (one default, the other with the extra command line argument added).

[kicker75]

My theme is finished, well I would guess, I would like if a few could test it and see if it runs nicely on their computer too. To set-up the custom emulator background, you need to select the backgrounds in the emulators config, or in the theme.ini by associating the emulator number to the background name.

However, it is 33M in size, so how do I upload it in the forum where it has 2MB max upload size?

[kicker75]

Here is my theme in 7z format, it is 33M because I've included a sweet intro movie, and also I left all the psd I saved in place, so if you wanna make your own color, you will have a much easier time than I did

Here is the link, tell me what you think.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZFD0ZZVV

[celly]

Very nice Kicker!

[amos_82]

Hi Kicker,

It's funny people think it looks like wmp, that's what it was based it on

If there was one thing i regretted about the blueglass theme, it was that i was going to update all the icons to have a wet floor effect.

I though it looked good, but got a bit sidetracked with work.

You've done a quality job, im quite partial to black theme's too.

I you wanted to have a go with the reflections, you can use this file: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9P0SBP8E

there's some logos premade, plus a photoshop file.

Amos

[rlswick]

Here is my theme in 7z format, it is 33M because I've included a sweet intro movie, and also I left all the psd I saved in place, so if you wanna make your own color, you will have a much easier time than I did

Here is the link, tell me what you think.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZFD0ZZVV

I love it,THANKS

[kicker75]

Hi Amos,

Thanks for the comments, always feel nice to know you havent done all this work for nothing, well I like it, but if others like it too, even all the better

I will start work on the reflection effect right away, and will send in the updated theme when I'm done! I love the effect too, thanks for the file!

Be back later with the update.

Hi Kicker,

It's funny people think it looks like wmp, that's what it was based it on

If there was one thing i regretted about the blueglass theme, it was that i was going to update all the icons to have a wet floor effect.

I though it looked good, but got a bit sidetracked with work.

You've done a quality job, im quite partial to black theme's too.

I you wanted to have a go with the reflections, you can use this file: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9P0SBP8E

there's some logos premade, plus a photoshop file.

Amos

[celly]

Kicker, I noticed there is not SegaCD emulator background. Any chance of that and a Wonderswan background in the new update?

[kicker75]

Hi there everyone,

I tried to blend in the reflective icons in the black theme, but it wasnt looking as good as in colors, so I finished and polished up the theme even more, and I'm pretty amazed at what I've come up with, considering I'm not a wizard at photoshop.

(If you can send me the action or filter for the reflection, I could probably work something out)

Celly: SegaCD must have slipped out of my attention, as I have sega cd roms too I dont have wonderswan tho, but I created a theme for it + the nice high quality logo for it.

I got a few other things on my mind I will improve and change over time, but I feel that there is enough change for me to call it v2 (or more likely v1 really, but still.. ) Again, there is all the psd I had to create and saved them all inside the theme directory. The theme psd I'm working on is blackier than ever + ref (for reflections), I included all the reflective icons inside my theme, but have yet to figure a way to blend them as good as they are naturally. If someone wanna have a crack at it, feel free, I left all in for this purpose.

I think I created some nice emulator and random logo, you tell me what you think. Plus the little logo in the general emulator theme.

Well here is the newest and greatest version so far (If you like black theme, this one is a bit blackier than the one before, and lot more polished)

First the screenshots (In full 1920x1200 glory, it is still a 1024x768 theme, I have still to figure a way to port the theme to higher res)

Random Theme

Emulators theme

Logoff

Here is the theme

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=88IJ8IYN

Please again, tell me what you think, and anything you'd like improved or added. There are some logos in the main menus that I would like to change the favorites, media, search and mostly played.. If someone can think of something nice that would go well with the rest, else I'll just fiddle and try some stuff

Hope you like it as much as I do.

[amos_82]

It looks a lot cleaner now that the colours are closer to pure black.

Nice one Kicker.

[kicker75]

Thank you for the comment, its always appreciated to know that we're improving and not the opposite Here is a little update for something that was bugging me.... the low res gameexlogo image... it became way too pixelated when zoomed out at the end of the animation. So here is a brand new one.

[bkenobi]

Any chance this will be released in 4:3? 1024x768 would be great!

[rlswick]

Hi there everyone,

I tried to blend in the reflective icons in the black theme, but it wasnt looking as good as in colors, so I finished and polished up the theme even more, and I'm pretty amazed at what I've come up with, considering I'm not a wizard at photoshop.

(If you can send me the action or filter for the reflection, I could probably work something out)

Celly: SegaCD must have slipped out of my attention, as I have sega cd roms too I dont have wonderswan tho, but I created a theme for it + the nice high quality logo for it.

I got a few other things on my mind I will improve and change over time, but I feel that there is enough change for me to call it v2 (or more likely v1 really, but still.. ) Again, there is all the psd I had to create and saved them all inside the theme directory. The theme psd I'm working on is blackier than ever + ref (for reflections), I included all the reflective icons inside my theme, but have yet to figure a way to blend them as good as they are naturally. If someone wanna have a crack at it, feel free, I left all in for this purpose.

I think I created some nice emulator and random logo, you tell me what you think. Plus the little logo in the general emulator theme.

Well here is the newest and greatest version so far (If you like black theme, this one is a bit blackier than the one before, and lot more polished)

First the screenshots (In full 1920x1200 glory, it is still a 1024x768 theme, I have still to figure a way to port the theme to higher res)

Random Theme

Emulators theme

Logoff

Here is the theme

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=88IJ8IYN

Please again, tell me what you think, and anything you'd like improved or added. There are some logos in the main menus that I would like to change the favorites, media, search and mostly played.. If someone can think of something nice that would go well with the rest, else I'll just fiddle and try some stuff

Hope you like it as much as I do.

It keeps getting better,I love it,Keep up the GREAT work

[kicker75]

Any chance this will be released in 4:3? 1024x768 would be great!

It is already 4:3 and 1024x768 Only the screenshots are in 1920x1200, that's the resolution I run this thing on. I kept it 1024 because of the occasional tv output.

[kicker75]

We're getting near completion, or almost

All the main logos are in the main menu are done, except for multimedia and more games and programs. I still have to figure out something for those. But everything else is done, all the different mame logo are done too, vertical, horizontal etc..

I hope this theme will be picked up in the gameex installation

Hope you still enjoy it as much as I do!

Here is the link

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8QPZNOJZ

Lazy for the new screens, just get it, you wont be disappointed

[bkenobi]

It is already 4:3 and 1024x768 Only the screenshots are in 1920x1200, that's the resolution I run this thing on. I kept it 1024 because of the occasional tv output.

Cool beans! I'll definitely check this out when you release the final. Thanks for all the effort (even if it is primarily self motivated ).