The Dynamic Skins For All Xport Emus, Updated often, so come back to see what's new!!! Options

[madmab]

Roma is an incredible beautifull city with even incredible monuments: Colyseum, Vatican (HQ of the pope Benedicto 16, church st pierre is the most amazing church in the world all this work for the only love of god, we won't see this nowaday, only grey buildings...),chapelle sixteen with michelange paints, pantheon,pasta, pizzas, trevi fountain (launch a piece of money and make a wish)
if you can go here it's a wonderfull city and romantic
France and Paris are great touristic locations too
Eiffel tower, triumph arc, louvre museum, joconde, french cheese and french wine are still the bests!
yeah i know, off topic but it's trully 2 wonderfull city
madmab have you tryed the new DYNAMIC ATARIXL skin?
edit: next dynamic skins, snes, master system
but the 100% definitive version of each of the dynamic skins will come with the madmab's releases

Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip!

Sorry, I had not looked at the skin yet. Busy cranking out Colecovision videos for RessX.

[gilles9999]

I haven't posted the good DYNAMIC atari 5200 yesterday
please use this new one, 24 bugs fixed (2 in each config )
Now the gameselect is way better, because the text appear after 0.5 s(i have adjusted the animation delay in each config);
so, the rombrowser animation appears first, then the text appear
in the previous version, the text appeared first wich is bad
the 14 splash screens are also fixed
i have added an "extra sprites folder" with new sprites and new background in it

Dynamic_ATARI_5200_pm3_by_Gilou9999 19-10-08

1)Madmab, i've read you will release the new atarixlbox soon;
will you put the dynamic atari 5200 skin the default one?

2)Since there is also a DYNAMIC atari800xl skin,will you put the 2 skins in your next release, or do you prefer to put all the sprites and background in only one skin?

[madmab]

1)Madmab, i've read you will release the new atarixlbox soon;
will you put the dynamic atari 5200 skin the default one?

2)Since there is also a DYNAMIC atari800xl skin,will you put the 2 skins in your next release, or do you prefer to put all the sprites and background in only one skin?

1) Yes the 5200 skin will be default since most people associate atarixlbox with the 5200.
2) I'm not really sure. Have not decided. I just thought it would be nice to have alternates for people who think 800xl when using atarixlbox. Now if only we could find a screeny of the Atari XEG and box..

On a side note I have about 70% of the synopsis code done. Then I need to test it. For some reason the formatting on your synopsis text file was messed up. So I had to go in and add carriage returns and line feeds.

For now I'm gonna display it like a normal dialog box. But I was wondering if you had some special formatting in mind? (for example header font different from the text font, etc). I'm not very good when it comes to visual stuff like that.


This post has been edited by madmab: Oct 19 2008, 11:32 PM

[madmab]

Well I got this done real quick this morning. Turned out easier than I thought it would be.




I was gonna originally wait till I got the synopsis stuff working, but to make it easier to get started renaming for you I'll send you the latest if you wish.

The directory format is follows...

1_sprite name
2_sprite name

etc...

Basically just take the original naming. Add an underscore, and then the sprite name. Make sure that you do NOT use an underscore as part of the sprite name. The code uses underscore as a delimeter.

[ressurectionx]

Hey guys,

I grew up on the 5200. I even remember my parents playing pac-man and galaxian on it when I was like 3 or 4 although I don't remember them ever once playing games at all really afterwards when I grew up. They went and got a divorce like kids do and went all drama-like and started pretending like they were adults afterwards. Still do to this day..... and at times they're even pretty convincing to the average un-Monk-like-folk like me.

I really do think there must have been something hypnotic in the music for Wizards and Warriors III on NES though. Years later I remember my old man watching me and my younger bros (well.... mostly me) playing that one for quite a while when we rented it one weekend and I don't ever remember him just sitting there watching us playing a game for hours before or after that. But than again I was a dumb kid who thought that it was my fault they got divorced too, so Occam's Razor says it's probably more likely that my mom told him that he couldn't see us on one of our birthdays or some other tit-for-tat crap that women scorned do... prolly just wanted to spend some time with us and chill for a while instead of going to the Museum of Science and Industry or the Planetarium like we all went a lot when we were kids... (It was free back then ya'all).

My parents were good people...... They just really hated the phuck out of each other z'all.

TILT!

Back on topic.... sorry.

I never even saw one of the Atari computers except for one time in my teens when I was at somebody's house, who I can't even remember today. Ugly looking thing, wasn't it?

Still trying to find that 800 conversion to 5200 for Turmoil. If I were to make a top 10 list of 2600 games, I think I would be hard pressed not to choose Turmoil as the number one game on the system. Break neck action which just got faster and faster as you go. No other game on that system ever seemed so intense at the time. All those multi color flash screens between levels and that music that went d... du.... duuu.... duuuuummm..... Dummmmmm....... DDDDUUUUUUMMMMMM.... DUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM until it kind of screamed and went immediately silent in that early-80's-video-game-robot-tone. The machine gun blasts that were sent both ways, and those fucking star things that would start bouncing around the screen faster than anything you'd ever seen in slower times like the early 80's if you didn't catch them before they started moving. Pure fucking awesomness, the likes which maybe only Quinton Tarentino and 2-Pac may have achieved in mainstream culture from 1979 on...... (I thought Whitesnake reached it with "Here I Go Again, until I see how commercial it was.... and then realize the sad thought that I would probalby think the same thing of 2-Pac or Kurt Cobain today if "I Love the 90's" on VH1 were disrespecting their entire works of art by ridiculing them like they were Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer when they're at gigs doing that shit when they're 40 today.... or 60 tomorrow....)

They don't make shit like that anymore, 'cept maybe Castlevania I on Nintendo. Too many "save games" or cheat codes or even passwords were available in years afterwards, letting somebody leave the game behind without that feeling of resentment to whoever tore you away when you were pwning the 20th level of Turmoil. There was no fucking cheating on Turmoil in 1984.

You either had it, or you were owned by it. Period.

Nothing I've ever played quite captured the adrenilne rush of that game and stomping your best friends teeth in at it like Edward Norton curbing a theiving thug in a 2 hour, black and white hate-crime flick.


But anyways.....

Loving this work guys, even on the older systems. I'm one of them, in-between-generation-types that really understands the best of both worlds. It was weird when my half-bro didn't know what an Atari even was, but even stranger when my bosses kid, back in 1999 didn't even know what a Nintendo was. Too busy playing Super Metroid and taking for granted the fact that Samus was a girl without Justin Bailey spilling the beans, I guess.....

I never saw a pong system in "real life", but I did kick the teenagers' asses at Frenzy when I was 4 years old standing on that blue milk carton. (look up "milk carton" on wikipedia kids)

What we have here fucking rocks, and I'm fucking glad to be a part of it. You guys are great and I hope the world someday appreciates what we're doing right now. The people who control all the shit would never do it for us or even themselves. On the shoulders of giants before us we stand, who have lain out the groundwork and made this all possible, and like Bill Gates did when he gave us all Windows (love it or hate it, use it or don't, however stolen it may or may not have been), we're making something so multi-generational-encompassing so plug-and-play for noobs and experts alike, that it's probalby going to piss a lot of people off it it ever became mainstream... (and hopefully it's easily portable to the next system when all of the XBoxes start self destructing in some sad day in our future).

I don't think there are many who could ever appreciate what they really have when the end product comes out..... absolutely free of charge.... with total love for the art that is the video game and what it's meant to all of us, no matter what our first memory of the genre is.

Let's get 'er done before some laws might make it really hard for something so great to be done out in the daylight.

Peace ya'll.....,
~Rx

The directory format is follows...

1_sprite name
2_sprite name

etc...

Basically just take the original naming. Add an underscore, and then the sprite name. Make sure that you do NOT use an underscore as part of the sprite name. The code uses underscore as a delimeter.

Nice.......

So we can add whatever the hell we want to add as our name in the future, I take it? That'd be awesome. If the end user wanted to totally re-create things from the ground up at some point, they would be able to do it with just an FTP program and the emulator instead of having to know emu-code.

If so, what? Do we just name the folder whatever we wanted with the 1_ or 2_ etc, behind it?

~Rx

[gilles9999]

Miracle!
I have found a (quite) good quality pics for the ultra "vintage" atari XE!
in it's super collector box

the main menu (the system in all it's greatness!

So, the DYNAMIC ATARIXL skin is complete
madmab, contact me for any special touch you want on it?

Well I got this done real quick this morning. Turned out easier than I thought it would be.
I was gonna originally wait till I got the synopsis stuff working, but to make it easier to get started renaming for you I'll send you the latest if you wish.

The directory format is follows...

1_sprite name
2_sprite name

etc...

Basically just take the original naming. Add an underscore, and then the sprite name. Make sure that you do NOT use an underscore as part of the sprite name. The code uses underscore as a delimeter.

Ah!! finally you have succeed!excellent!All the users should easilly modify the DYNAMIC skin with their own tastes(the best solution finally)

for the game synopsis, look at the "legend of zelda synopsis pic" of the synopsis thread (1st page)
I think only the full name should be in a bigger font, looks more nice

And, oh, yes i'm waiting your new beta with impatience

This post has been edited by gilles9999: Oct 20 2008, 08:00 PM

[madmab]

Miracle!
I have found a (quite) good quality pics for the ultra "vintage" atari XE!
in it's super collector box

the main menu (the system in all it's greatness!
So, the DYNAMIC ATARIXL skin is complete
madmab, contact me for any special touch you want on it?
Ah!! finally you have succeed!excellent!All the users should easilly modify the DYNAMIC skin with their own tastes(the best solution finally)

Wow! Way to go! I was beginning to think it'd be impossible. For some reason even the Atari "centric" sites carry very little info about this little piece of equipment.

Yeah the sprite naming is pretty neat. It still keys in on the number, but you can still name it so the user knows what they have selected in the sprite menu. Pretty neat. Backwards compatabile and now with names!!

I finished up (on paper, so to speak) the synopsis code. All I have to do is get it to compile and work. I don't think it will be too hard, but then the sprite names was just a teensy bit more difficult than I thought. Although it only ended up in about 7-8 line changes. Compared to the many more that I thought it would be.

Hey RessX if you want I can point you in the right direction concering Turmoil. Tt was released for the 8-bit systems (as a cart I believe). Which pretty much qualifies it for a RessX Xtra.

Yeah I grew up in the era of the Atari 2600/Odyssey 2 on up. In fact Arcades were pretty common place so I also grew up on the likes of Pac-man, Space Invaders, and Asteroids. The atari 400 was my first "real" computer. Which pretty much explains my fondness for Atari. I kinda skipped the whole NES era, but I did pick back up around the SNES, Genesis and then later on the Dreamcast, N64. So I'm a bit of a nintendo fan (mostly SNES) as well.

This post has been edited by madmab: Oct 20 2008, 09:06 PM

[justgoonies]

Hi I cant find
"simply go to "configuration/video-skin configuration/skin configuration/select skin configuration"
and choose one of the following pre-made configs if you have a good old standard TV"
on any of the skins.

So on my 61" tv on neogenesis the screenart looks all squished and in a square instead of a rectangle. When i try to stretch the art out the icon in the game select settings where you stretch is not where it is in the actual game select screen so i pretty much have to guess how big and where it is. Please Help

[SHMUP3R]

I have already released the 2600 DYNAMIC skin on page 3, post 34

THis is Awesome!!!!! Thanks allot!

Is Mameox an Xport release? That would too insane to have a Dynamic for MameOX..

[madmab]

Hi I cant find
"simply go to "configuration/video-skin configuration/skin configuration/select skin configuration"
and choose one of the following pre-made configs if you have a good old standard TV"
on any of the skins.

So on my 61" tv on neogenesis the screenart looks all squished and in a square instead of a rectangle. When i try to stretch the art out the icon in the game select settings where you stretch is not where it is in the actual game select screen so i pretty much have to guess how big and where it is. Please Help

That option does not exist yet on any "released" emulator yet. But you can go into the skin directory and rename the appropriate skin configuration you wish to use to "settings.ini" and then re-"load" the skin.

[madmab]

Finally got to looking at the new and improved Atarixlbox Dynamic Skin. Schweeet!! Thanks for doing those mock computer and XEvgs boxart images. Here is a pic of a game select screen I threw together real quick.





Now I just need to update my miner2049er skin to dual preview.

I was wondering. Would it be possible to somehow animate the "madmab edition" text? Have the letters wobble back and forth a little. For example the "M" is titled left. Kinda have it alternate between being titled left and normal. Do this for all letters. Maybe add a little blur.

ok. After having to go thru all the trouble to "update" atarixlbox to the latest commonfuncs to see if I could figure out the "filter issue". I got to thinking that when we start releasing these suckers I might as well do the full "madmab changes" treatment.

Really the only two things that need to be checked is record/playback and netplay. The first is fairly easy to do. Upgrading them should only take 2-3 hours each from my experience. Give or take an hour with all the recent movie, dual/preview and media streaming changes. But typically the more I do it the faster I get.

Gilles9999.. As far as the main menu "Title Text" I was thinking of going with something like. "AtariXLBox Main Menu v7 (mm)" or just plain "AtariXLBox Main Menu v7". That should solve any lining up issues.

Oh and now that I've thought about it. I think including all the "sprites" in the sprite directory will be good enough. The alternate emuloadbkg and main can just be renamed differently (for example) "emuloadbkg_XEvgs.jpg" and "main_XEvgs.jpg". For now we can just leave it to the user to decide to change them. I'd rather not overload them with to many configuration.ini files.

Actually I do have an alternative idea. Just have to decide if it is worth trying.

Later guys... got some videos to record, and if I'm up to it some synopsis code to tinker around with.

This post has been edited by madmab: Oct 22 2008, 12:08 PM

[gilles9999]

yep,yep,yep...
In fact, i was thinking the same thing,the DYNAMIC ATARIXLBOX skin must be.... DYNAMIC!
So, yes, i'll rework one "maxi skin" to put all the "atarixeg,atari5200,atari comp sprites and background" in it
So the user will see the full potential of the dynamic skin,he will be able to change almost all with only one skin

actually, the "madmab edition" text font is animated from right to the left
i just have to create a .png animation, and let the sprite effect on it...
ok, we just have to be agree about the final form of the dynamic skin
especially for a "3 in 1" emu like atarixlbox

p.s.: madmab, i see you prefer to see the controller on the gameselect screen...
that's the liberty of the dynamic skin
my preference, in all dynamic skins is:
-the specific system controller appear in the config menu
-the system itself appear in the gameselect screen, one exception is adamx:controller in the gameconfig, and "system with controller" in the gameselect screen
if possible, i would prefer to see the system itself in the atarixlbox gameselect screen in the default skin
but you are the boss , and afterall, a user can set the banner he wants in few seconds

p.s.2: you will notice, i have worked to have all the sprites in the correct aspect ratio (even new sprites for the hd users), so it is 4/3 for the movies/screenshots, and the specific atari 5200 cart format.
I don't even know if there is only one skin specially designed to display the systems boxarts
I never said it's the most beautifull skin, but the more usefull, certainly yes

later, gilou9999

This post has been edited by gilles9999: Oct 23 2008, 07:57 PM

[ressurectionx]

Hey Gilles,

When you get your sprites folders set up on one of your skins (preferably Colecovision), you mind posting a new skin with it? I want to test that emu out with madmab's new fixes including the sprite directories. What I saw looks great so far, but I haven't looked too deeply into it.

Thanks,
~Rx

[gilles9999]

of course rez,
the work is already done,
we are just giving the "final touch" on the dynamic skins
i listenning your suggestions you and madmab (and the xbox scene members)
since you have generally good ideas
to developp the dynamic skin idea as far as i can

for the moment, i'm testing 100% the new adamx beta with the dynamic colecovision skin
to check any problem

for the moment everything seems ok, even for a newbie, all is possible, without 20 skins in the skins folder
hd user, sdtv user, boxart only, video only, videos with boxarts, big videos with big boxarts
i check and re check all the configs
i'm perfectionist too in fact

all suggestions are welcome about the dynamic adamx and dynamic atarixlbox

[ressurectionx]

Sure man. I'd love to see your Colecovision (Adam) skin where it's at (sometime tonight maybe?) and I'll test the emu-skin and tell you guys if I have any final suggestions.

What do you think about having the ability within the emulator to view the TV commercials for the games within the system Gilles? Madmab?

I was thinking that I should be able to convert the videos to .xml and then we can add them to the "Commercials" folder in the emu. Then there could be a pretty prominent option to view all of the TV Commercials for the console and games/accessories that we can find.

I've already got an idea now to make empty zipfiles for the games in a separate "TV Commercials" folder within the roms that will play the .xml of the commercial when it's highlighted, but the problem there is the emu might bug out if you accidentally press the A button and select an empty rom. Plus, you'd be limited to watching the commercial in the preview window instead of being able to watch it full-screen.

It would be much better if there were an option that would take you to the commercials folder and let you view the commercials there.

Let me know what you think,
~Rx

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Oct 23 2008, 11:55 PM