Super Famicast theme concepts

CyberMick · Post by **CyberMick** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:55 am

Great work mastakilla its great how every one has come together to add to the project and some great themes have been designed here.

I only wish i could use Photoshop or PSP but alas im no artist.

Looks good so far.

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:46 am

my photoshop skills are self taught. With a little determination and a truck load of patience almost anyone can design worthwhile art so dun be so harsh.

Mikey242 · Post by **Mikey242** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:12 am

Yeah im self taught aswell (im sure it shows lol)
Damn i really need to get the internet at home, I have missed so much since i last logged on. Im really impressed with all the other themes being made. I also just took note of the menu specs so I will have to do a lot of changes to my menu. This is my work so far, and im aware that it needs changing, but I would like some suggestions (including what I would need to do to it so it would work with the xml file).

Also this one WIP (just ignore the layout of it for now i know its a bit messy, suggestions on a possible layout would be good, I just lost all my inspiration recently for some reason)

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:25 am

hmm, i like the second one a lot
just create a see through pane (like the light blue in mine) for the menu and youre set and you could put a large image in the background (behind the screenshots) and mke it really light almost transparent. now that would look cool

Mikey242 · Post by **Mikey242** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:44 am

You said the first one lacks balance (or something to that effect) what should I do?
Yeah I like the second one aswell, but I worked so much on the first one. I remember scherzo saying something about not using round buttons (or menu items), wouldnt circles be programmable in xml?

Also for the P,R and O buttons in the first, I wouldent be able to make them a seperate txt file only the rest of the words.

Maybe my super famicast logo in the second picture can be used for the logo in the ip.bin file (where the sega logo comes up for each game)

Hey I like your idea for the menu in the second one, I was trying to think of something like that thanks, and good work with your work, looks like you got this one

CyberMick · Post by **CyberMick** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:48 am

I agree the second also very nice.

breachless · Post by **breachless** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:54 am

I really dig the whole "It's still thinking" thing: very cool.

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:56 am

as hard as it will be (after investing so much time) i say just dump the first one and enhance the second one. your first design is usually done to probe and see what does and doesnt work (like my first collage type splash).
my recommendation on the second one is you should change the color of the lettering to something more suitable to the palette (i.e. make the color of the DC's power light)

good luck with your design

Mikey242 · Post by **Mikey242** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:14 am

Yeah I see what your saying, im starting to not like the first one myself. You mean change the Super Famicast logo to a ligt reddish-orange colour? If thats what you mean then I think you might be right there, would look a lot less harsh and would be able to match. Thanks for the advice.

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:22 am

i was afraid you wouldnt get what i wrote but youre right on

Strapping Scherzo · Post by **Strapping Scherzo** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:24 am

Mikey242 wrote:You said the first one lacks balance (or something to that effect) what should I do?
Yeah I like the second one aswell, but I worked so much on the first one. I remember scherzo saying something about not using round buttons (or menu items), wouldnt circles be programmable in xml?

Also for the P,R and O buttons in the first, I wouldent be able to make them a seperate txt file only the rest of the words.

Maybe my super famicast logo in the second picture can be used for the logo in the ip.bin file (where the sega logo comes up for each game)

Hey I like your idea for the menu in the second one, I was trying to think of something like that thanks, and good work with your work, looks like you got this one

Hey great. I guess I'm with everyone else when I say that the second one is sweet. The biggest problem with the first one, programming wise, is that the menu items follow the curve of that red area. I haven't programmed anything to handle a menu like that yet. The menu items are one on top of the other, left justified. I plan on having the justification configurable at least so that you can have the menu on the left, right, or possiblely middle. I'm working on a way for each menu item to have an optional icon that could be on the left or right of the menu text. Your P, R, and O buttons could work as these icons, and the text for the menu could be like "lay", "oms", and "ptions". The main menu has more than three items so far. Here's what they are in order:

* Resume Play (only shown if a rom has been previously loaded)
* Select Game
* Options
* Configure Controllers
* Save Settings
* Credits

Later on, I will probably replace "Save Settings" with "VMU" or "VMU Manager" where you'll be able to do more than save settings.

I would like some suggestions (including what I would need to do to it so it would work with the xml file)

Here's what the XML looks like so far for the theme I've put together with mastkilla's stuff:

Code: Select all

<THEME>
	<MAIN_SCREEN background="Splashc320.bmp">
		<MENU font="comic.txf" x="20" y="36" max_width="620" max_height="464" color="FFFFFF" selected_color="FFA147" font_size="48"/>
	</MAIN_SCREEN>
	<OPTIONS_SCREEN background="optionsnt.bmp">
		<MENU font="comic.txf" x="160" y="38" max_width="434" max_height="400" color="FFFFFF" selected_color="FFA147" font_size="48"/>
	</OPTIONS_SCREEN>
	<ROM_SCREEN background="rlnt.bmp">
		<MENU font="comic.txf" x="20" y="36" max_width="620" max_height="464" color="FFFFFF" selected_color="FFA147" font_size="36"/>
	</ROM_SCREEN>
</THEME>

As you can see, for a given screen you can set it's position and maximum space taken up before it starts scrolling. For the text colors you can use the same hex values that you would use in HTML. NO named like "red". All fonts will be drawn with a black border around them to guanrantee that they are visible on any color background. I make the border optional later.

A note about the XML. It's parsed using my own code and it's very strict in the format it expects. For instance, all attributes must be like so: name="value". No spaces between the name, equals sign, or value. Value must be in quotes. All self terminating tags MUST end with /, which you don't have to do in HTML. For example, the <br> tag in HTML is self terminating. If HTML were like strict XML, you would write it like this: <br/>.

As for the font, if you don't provide one, Handel Gothic will be used instead. It's the same font used for the official Super Famicom logo. The font needs to be in txf format. These can be generated from any TrueType font using a console utility called ttf2txf. You can get the windows compile of it here on my website:

http://www.sch3rz0.com/superfamicast/do ... tf2txf.zip

It depends on opengl32.dll and glu32.dll in order to run.

Good luck guys.... ah, you don't need luck. It's obviously all skill for you!

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:32 am

hehe looks like ol'sherz is using my splashes

Mikey242 · Post by **Mikey242** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:35 am

Thanks a lot scherzo, that clears up a lot of grey areas as far as the menu goes. Looks like its pretty obvious I should just stick with the second one and dump the first design. Thanks again, and great job so far with the emulator.

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:50 am

hmm, i think ill start making some icons to go with my theme :cya:

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:01 am

well, here are my icons, feel free to critique

Strapping Scherzo · Post by **Strapping Scherzo** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:17 am

Nice and simple, but I think I'm pretty sure I'm going to use sheng's icons for the first release. I might not even use icons. It looks pretty sweet as it is right now. What I do need is a couple of "loading..." screens. One would serve as the true splash screen and would be shown while all the other images for the theme are being loaded into memory. The other is for when the rom is being loaded from disk.

I just implemented a nice eye candy feature that I saw in xSnes9x for XBOX: a scaled version of the currently emulated frame on the main screen (of course, only if a game is loaded). This feature is configurable through the XML so that you can place it and size it however you want. If you leave it out of the XML, the feature is disabled. A release is coming really soon. There's just a couple more tweaks to make.

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:21 am

YAY a realease is coming our way soon

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:53 am

here ya go scherzo my idea for this is that you will be able to add your own text to the pane on the left like FIRST FULL SPEED SNES EMULATOR!!! (

) and put some screen shots of the options screen or actual gameplay

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:03 pm

Sweet! Mastakilla, that CD label was just what I was lookin for! I lined it up in the Afterburner software, and it looks just about perfect.

mastakilla · Post by **mastakilla** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:17 pm

thats spectacular especially due to the fact that i never lined it up or measured it