Yeah - I was thinking there should be a thread where the community could chime in on what they'd like to see in the image, and the first post could contain all of the links/important info
I had a different opinion on the naming/versioning though and don't see a need to include ARTAX or V4 in the name, as it will soon evolve into something quite different
TTX 3/4 COMMUNITY MULTI V1 <-- Thoughts?
This, 100%, but i wouldn't use artax v4 as a base for everything if you can get hosting. I mean, use it as a base, but make a fork of it to call it v1. Add a bunch of things, change a bunch of stuff, remove the nags etc, and then put out community multi v1. Otherwise you will just confuse the ecosystem...Shove a tile on the utils menu which says it's a community edition with the version number on the tile so it's clear what you are running. Make a logo or something and that way it's easy for people to know what it's running.
Personally, i think the way it is now with groups is the way to go, of course no one has to listen to me, but i think having things grouped by system is the best, providing there is enough games for a system. You don't want to clutter the menu with 100 different systems that might only have 2 or 3 games in each. For the larger ones you make a group on the frontend, like for example STV/ SYSTEM16/32/Model2/3 etc, anything like that which will have a decent amount of games, you give it a group, other stuff that doesn't, you just add it to the genre groups, like fighting, shmups, beat em up.. etc.
It's nice to have mame as a single tile if you want, but i think a big part of what makes this multi frontend as good as it is, is having each game on it's own square on the tile, with the controls info and the video playing, and you can see the next 3-4 games either side on the wheel.
In my opinion, just add every game from a system to it's group, and then if a person wants to remove stuff to customize, you just hash the line out of the romlist and it'll be gone next time the menu loads. Everyone's customization will be different, if you add all games and just let people remove what they want to remove, I feel it's better. Don't want a group? Just remove it from the filter and the whole group is gone.
This is where community help will come in, you have to tell people what you need, exactly, with specifics. You have people here who are tech idiots (and some who definitely aren't), that are willing to help, but they don't know what to do. Get the lemmings to work. You could smash out the artworks and info for the whole mame set in a few weeks if enough people contributed.
MAKE WHEEL ARTWORKS!!
Make lines for the romlist.txt
If people made the romlist lines, and the put together the artworks... doing the rest to add stuff to the multi is the easy fast part. If you want to pull the romlist and split them all, go for it, but if all the line info and artworks are available, doing just about anything else is pretty quick really.
Pick an arcade system.
Say STV
Document the lines, you need one line per game for the entire.
1. Download MameUI (you don't even need roms)
2. Goto the filters on the left and select SOURCE, then goto STV, this will show you all the Sega STV games.
3. Make a line for the romlist for each one of these to match (only do the parent roms, not the 32 different child versions that sometimes exist) (you can auto generate the whole set if you add mame to attract mode the normal way, i cbf detailing this, just google it, it'll auto generate lines for the entire set, but you will still need to edit some stuff.) You don't need the japanese title at the end, if you can't find the japanese title, then just add the same english title there again.
astrass;Astra Super Stars;STV;;1998;Sunsoft;Fighting;2;1.0002;2;;;;STV;アストラスーパースターズ;;
Look at my picture about this line from here, it will show you what it all means. It's basically
https://www.arcade-projects.com/thr...cade-pc-game-emulator-etc-how-to-guide.20875/
Make the entire list for Sega STV system, GET ON IT.
For arts, you need the wheel tile, they are easy to make, get my photoshop psd template ATTACHED TO THIS POST
Goto laucnhbox and search game.
https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/#s (tip, if you right click open in new tab on the launchbox icons, it will get around their anti right click thing)
You should be able to get the flyer and the logo for most games. Use the flyer as the background, save the logo, and then throw the logo over the top of the flyer to get a nice wheel tile.
Here's the one for Astra Superstarts, the example i gave.
https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/images/28108
So, i have the photoshop border (that nice blue border around the outside.
I have the flyer for hte game, which i got from launchbox
I have the logo which i got from launchbox
I paste the flyer layer behind the border layer, and i shrink it down to make it look sort of cool (keeping in mind the very middle graphics will be covered)
And then I paste the logo on top of that and resize it accordingly. DONE, wheel art
So for each game you need
- Wheel Art saved as png
- Logo (png with transparent background, all the ones on launchbox are already that)
-Video snap, for anything mame, it's already done and you can just download it. I have HQ versions of all of them.
- Line item for romlist.
So here is the completed things you need for each game (minus the video. )
These 3 things, line for romlist, wheel artwork and logo.
astrass;Astra Super Stars;STV;;1998;Sunsoft;Fighting;2;1.0002;2;;;;STV;アストラスーパースターズ;;
If you guys make these packs for arts, this multi will grow very very fast. If you leave it to one or two people to do it... it's going to grow much much slower. Try and use the game flyers for arts if you can, it just adds that nice retro touch and lots are available from laucnhbox already. Try not to use super low res shitty versions of graphics.
Don't beg for shit to be added, if you aren't willing to contribute.
If you get stuck with something about arts or the romlist line, just ask in this thread (or the new thread that gets created).
If you can't do the arts, just do the romlist., if you can't do the romlist, then maybe just get the logo icons ready, or even just make a game list for that system.
Regardless of what decisions get made going forward about how things are done, these lines and artworks are still going to be needed.
