Arcade Overlays

Your job is impressive! I also work on my own overlays, now working in 4k ones. I like your bezels, but on my overlays I try to use as much screen as possible for the game

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I have also appart from lots of arcade overlays a couple that I love, One for playing 16 bits -32 bit consoles

and another for older ones

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Impressive @Armandorev

Any eta on a release?

They are allready finished… but did not think on release them of people like i will do. Ive been allways scared about people attributing my work. Also dont want to ruin them with watermakrs. I think ill release them truating people. (Ive suffered something publishing photographs and finding them on other aites saying were made by them) :slight_smile:

Well that’s sad to hear. Still that’s what open-source is all about. Sharing ones passion with others.

There will always be people ripping of others when it comes to Open-source sadly.

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Hi there! I’m new here, and i wanted to ask for some help how to activate the Overlays above in Launchbox/retroarch/ Somehow it dont work for me, i can select them (example 1943 png) in retroarch and the shader, but it is not visible in the game, hmm i miss something somewhere ;p

Have you checked the opacity of the overlay is not set to 0%?

Hi Arnandorev, yes its not 0%, i think i have to copy some game specific cfg to the rom folder too?

Hello again me, it works now, sorry for the inconvenience!

Hi John, dear all, thanks for this tremendous achievement - just to let you know that I started working on MAME-only Artwork based on your bezels. They work out nicely - see also https://mameonmacs.blogspot.co.at/2017/02/porting-retropie-artwork-to-official.html

Update 15 February 2017: I now updated the Layout File in a way that you can switch between a Clear Screen (without scratches and reflections) and a Scatch Screen (with all the scratches and reflections). No Artwork duplication! Download Link updated. This is exiting!

DOWNLOAD LINK - any feedback on usage in MAME would be much appreciated!

PS: The combination of your Artwork with the Attract Mode frontend is simply spectacular :slight_smile:

Clear Screen:

Scratch Screen (posted in the reply - I am limited as a new user :slight_smile: )

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And here is the Scratch Screen:

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Apologies for late replies, lost password, didn’t read the text at the top asking to make a new password until now.

I have converted all my overlays to the MAME lay format, much easier and nicer to use than the often awkward Retroarch way. I even have multiple machines, sit-down and standing, in the same zip file along with animated gear sticks where available - Outrun, Turbo Outrun, Outrunners, etc…

Some pics taken on my 55" LED TV, these are meant for a large TV, not a small monitor.

The overlays are a new design. I have tried something different for a change. Instead of the usual “Pristine” looking machines I have tried to add character and aged-wear and tear to them, making them look more like 30+ year-old machines with cigarette burns, smears, finger prints, dirt and dust. I haven’t added scratches and other stuff over that actual play area this time, so the games are easier to see, with less distractions.

The artwork has had some effects done to them to make them look more like worn cardboard overlays, rather than paper-thing pristine artwork. Along with a texture to give them a cardboard look.

Will put up a video soon.

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Hi John the Photos looking really great! I also use a LED 55" TV for this. (but still prefer to play on my original monster CRT’s Mitsubishi XC3725C 37" i have 3 of them! XD ) I’m new to Retroarch and just discovered displays and shaders, i started to use your work, but what does it mean now, the .lay format in combination with retroarch’s shader? Its a different setup?

Nedo

Again amazing, congratulations! I am a bit sad that there are no screen scratches this time but anyways am very much looking forward! I will continue working on your scratch screen versions because they add so much character and reminds me of my own past :grin: - still with the option to switch them away, which is just so easy to achieve in a MAME layout work. I will see whether I can make a note at Mr. Do’s Artworks, the official MAME repository, because your artwork is just that brilliant!

The scratches can be done separately to the main artwork in MAME, like this.

“element name=“screen_mask” image file=“horz_screen_mask.png” / /element”

The scratches would be a separate png called “horz_screen_mask.png”, or anything you like, and used like so.

<overlay element="screen_mask">
  <bounds x="362" y="92" width="1200" height="900" />
</overlay>

You can then, using the coordinates, position the scratches where you like, and different for each machine. I may add a option for another machine in the main zip file.

Thanks for the comments.

John! Those look beautiful!

Hi John! Do this mean that these are not longer compatible with RetroArch anymore?

Any news about the Vectrex overlays that you started to work on last year?

Hi John, if you look into my zip file, I took a slightly different approach: I took your png file with the scatched screen and isolated the screen within GIMP into a separate layer, then saved both parts in full screen. Advantage: I do not have to fiddle around with coordinates of the screen, but set both layers over the entire screen. Additional storage requirements are negligible. Again, such great work!

You, or in my case Me, would need PNG overlays for every machine, twice. One for scratch effect, one without. My Outrun zip would have 6 fairly large PNGs. But make a separate scratch PNG and you only need 4 PNG overlays, 3 for the machines and 1 small one for the scratches. Then, you can use the scratch PNG on ALL overlays without extra Photoshop work. At the moment, I would need to edit over 150 overlays to add a scratch effect layer, save them out and re-do the lay files and archive them to zip. The other great thing about a separate PNG is you can make up loads of effects without touching the original overlay. For example, I have made refection, light reflection, and arcade reflection PNGs that can be added to the lay without the need for Photoshop. Bring up the MAME menu and you now have a whole load of machines to choose from with different effects.

Rion, they may work in Retroarch but the user would need to do all the cfg files themselves, and the lining up of the emulated image. The beauty of MAME is the shaders auto rotate with the image for horizontal or vertical. So, scanlines auto-rotate without having to do separate configs. You don’t need to worry about Integer on or off, the scanlines just work.

The Vectrex ones are finished in MAME only, and I doubt I will return to Retroarch because the vector shaders are night and day better in MAME.

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Thank you John.

I have no problem with creating the cfg files themselves, and lining up of the emulated image. Because i use Retropie so editing cfg files is something i do often.

Is this the case with Vetrex to? If so no problem just glad to be able to use them with Mess in RetroArch.