Generic Boxart/cartart Project Options

[ressurectionx]

Hey guys (especially my man Gilles),

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in creating generic artwork for all of the systems we're making artwork packs for. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of Generic Boxarts and Carts that could have displayed on them somewhere phrases like "Prototype", "Pirate", "No Boxart Available".

Now that this Enhanced Artwork thing has come along, it would be great to have something dipslay for every rom, even if we can't find the boxart/cart or there wasn't one available as in the case of many prototypes or pirate carts.

I was thinking about starting with NES, Atari 2600 and SNES.

What do you think?
~Rx

[madmab]

hehe... You must have been reading my mind...

Also at some point we are gonna have to discuss differences between box sizes (USA/EU vs JP) and in some cases cart art and boxes. Example for cart-art vs boxes would be the SMS, although the carts are not exactly anything to look at.

I'm thinking lazy here... So I figured let the skin definition have four size/locations for this stuff?

1 and 2 would be for Box art definitions.
3 and 4 would be for Cartridge art definitions.

The skin author could define how each size definition works.

Use Boxart size/location 1 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)
Use Boxart size/location 2 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)
Use Cartart Size/location 1 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)
Use Cartart Size/location 1 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)

So what do you all think? Gilles?

[ultimate509]

Yeah good Idea, funny I had something similar on my rig but havnt applied it yet so I dont know if it looks good on the Tv,


Wouldnt mind seeing what Gilles could do..

This post has been edited by ultimate509: Jul 8 2009, 10:00 PM

[ressurectionx]

We're not talking 2 new directories, right? It would be two different ratio definitions for each directory (boxart/cartart)?

If that's the case I think it's a GREAT idea.

[madmab]

Yeah it would just be one directory and the skin author can create two locations to display the cartridge art and specify where to put it based on whether the width is greater than the height, etc. Kinda like a customizable option.

Right now the cart location/size is shared with the boxart location/size..

[FrankMorris]

The skin author could define how each size definition works.

Use Boxart size/location 1 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)
Use Boxart size/location 2 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)
Use Cartart Size/location 1 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)
Use Cartart Size/location 1 when (width>height, width=height, width<height)

Sounds genius in my mind too.

[ressurectionx]

Yeah good Idea, funny I had something similar on my rig but havnt applied it yet so I dont know if it looks good on the Tv,


Wouldnt mind seeing what Gilles could do..

I do like that image, but I was thinking for each system to have something stylized to look like the standard boxarts for each system. I know with NES there may not exactly have been a standard, but if you look at SNES boxarts or Master System boxarts it's really easy to see what I mean. (I figure for NES, it would be cool to use the Super Mario I, Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley black boxarts)

I've changed my mind on the carts though. Even on systems I wasn't able to collect much boxart on, it looks good having the Action/Title alternate with just the box displaying. I think it would look pretty stupid to alternate to a "no Cart Available" image when you could just have the Boxart up there the whole time. I know I wouldn't like that.




Sounds great Madmab. I was actually going to bring that up to you at some point but I figured you had enough on your plate now. Glad to see you don't think it should be too hard to implement.

~Rx

[gilles9999]

Yo my pals, i'm on a 3 days trip in great britain (in france we call the british guys the "rosbeefs"). So i answer shortly;
In all the dynamic skins i have created a "missing boxart" sprite for each system, and for each system, if you don't have any boxart, the skin will display the "missing boxart" (if you are using a pre made config with "boxart" in its name), the missing boxart is always a sort of "neutral" boxart, i was aware of this problem before making the skins.

p.s.: the good news in all of this is i have finished the work on the nes synopsis! Now i can go back with my first love, the skin creation! I m working on the next series of dynamic skins (i know there is a lot to do to complete the pm3 ones!). What is cool is the "rombrowser", "boxart" and "screenshot/movie" squares are transparents! (.png pics), so the users will be able to set them where they want, plus they will be able to choose themself wichever 640*480 background they want (in this case i chose a metroid background).
We will be able to bring some really cool stuff with the new dynamic skins system.
Example of my future metrid dynamic skin for snes9xbox (rombrowser square on the left, screenshot/movie on the upper right, boxart on the bottom right; boxart and screenshot are at the correct pixel ratio)



This post has been edited by gilles9999: Jul 10 2009, 06:40 PM

[ressurectionx]

Sweet looking skin man. Castlevania and Metroid always make for the best game skins in my opinion.



Unfortunately, the boxarts in the skins won't work for us Gilles. In order to use them, you have to have Boxes and carts that are identical in size all across the board. If by chance the artwork isn't all the same (and by certainty when madmab makes the 2 ratios per boxart/cartart for japan games and carts that don't match the boxart size), then when the box isn't completely covered by the artwork you will see the edges of the images you've created behind the artwork.

Anyways.... I'm going to see if I can come up with a crappy rendition of what I'm talking about. Think it would be cool to have images for each category such as prototypes, hacks, etc. using a Boxart type theme for each system.

Later,
~Rx

[ressurectionx]

Anyways.... this is kinda along the lines of what I was thinking. I suck at this stuff, so the end result would look a lot better.

[ressurectionx]

This was originally just an email to Gilles, but I want to keep it here so this stuff is transparent. I'd like to see what ideas if any the community comes up with.....

Hey Gilles,

You ever think about what I posted in the thread for the missing Boxart project?

I'm really thinking we need something like this for all of the systems because there are certain categories that just don't have any boxart and a very small amount of licensed games that there just is no boxart for.

I was thinking having boxart that is generic as possible, with the style of the system's boxart like this:



I think it would be even better if we removed the Mario picture and just had a white border with a black background with the words inside of it.

I was thinking that we need boxarts that say the following for most systems:

"Prototype"
"Unlicensed"
"Original Homebrew"
"No Boxart Available"


We wouldn't need one for "Hacks" because I've been using the original game's boxart for all hacks.

I would then add the appropriate image to every game in the Xtras so we never have a blank space while scrolling through our roms. I would then update the Boxart packs one final time with these new images.

We really need something like this because it will greatly improve the look of the Xtras sets. I know you made those images in the skins, but with the different sizes of the images, we'll see that background on the edges of images that don't take up the entire box (example: The Japan SNES boxart).

Thanks man. I hope you agree and come up with something great like you always do.

Later,
~Rx

[ressurectionx]

Trying desperately to get this back into the forums instead of IM

FROM GILLES: Ah! ok resX! i just didn't understand immediatly!
ok, good idea, it's clear now, it will be boxart for the homebrew/prototypes, etc... for the Xtras!
I think a size of 400 pixels height or widht max would be great for them.
I will work with photoshop to provides some good ones for all the systems.
Excellent idea and totally agree now, some pearls need "at least" a blank boxart!

Great to hear you're on board man!

Very important thing, I think.

Right now, I am looking for the following systems since the artwork is either done or very near completion:

NES
Atari 2600
SNES
Atari 7800
Lynx
Genesis
Atari 5200/800

Prolly in that order would be best too.

Thanks a ton and hope to see your work soon.

Later,
~Rx

[gilles9999]

Here are the "system specific" boxarts to complete your Xtras,Have i understand right what you wanted?
Don't hesitate to leave comment if you want some changes, etc...

[cbagy]

they look brilliant

[ressurectionx]

Damn dude.... you're a genius!

That's better than anything I was even considering.

Could you make one for "No Boxart Available" as well since occasionally for these systems there is actually some licensed games that no boxart can be found for? That would probably be the least used one, but there would be a use for it on rare occasion.

Now I have a dilemma....

It's always been my policy to use the original title's boxarts for rom-hacks. Every Xtras release has this. Now I'm wondering if I should keep them the way I have them or use your rom hack image.



I'm thinking that when you make the SNES and Atari 2600 ones that you could use the exact same images for the different categories and just drop them into SNES style boxes and 2600 style boxes. You could actually do that for every system, but those are the next two we'll need.

Great work man,
~Rx