I’ve started looking into vertical overlays and found a mame.lay that has an animated gear stick. ( VCabinet) but I wanted to convert or redo for retroarch. Just wonder if anyone knows how or if there is one vertical or horizontal, I just want to see how it’s done. Maybe any other game with some animated parts linked to input?
Or is there a way to use the lay file?
You can use a lay file through the “video layout” option, but it won’t be animated because it doesn’t have any of the required hooks into the program state.
I’ve tried to think of a way to do an animated gear shift using the regular input system but just couldn’t come up with anything good. You could potentially have it sit in a neutral position and then “animate” when you press the upshift/downshift buttons, but that’s about it, AFAIK.
Ok, I’m still getting my head around retroarch, so could you tell me how to use the MAME.lay files? I found the option in the menus but can’t get anything to show up. I tried different video drivers and switching off the overlay.
Thanks
It only works with GL and I know it works with the zipped layouts. I haven’t personally used any bare lay files, so dunno if they work or need to be zipped or what.
Yes, I have one. The animations were done by a friend who helps me out named, MQC.
yes I have seen this and Vcabinets vertical running and animating in Mame, but not in Retroarch, not sure if it’s even possible. Does it?
I got the .lay to work (random rom not outrun) in Retroarch but then i don’t have the shader working in GL. and I believe that this function only works in GL, also still need to test if it will animate this way with outrun.
Now I don’t need the realistic bezel to work so, ?? Can you have a video driver set to a specific game? just that I am trying to get my head around all the different config files, not that mame is much better with it’s ini’s and lays and configs, but it seems a bit easier to trace.
You can set a game override to switch to a different driver, yes.
It can be done in Retroarch as well. Just make a MAME folder in the system directory of Retroarch. It behaves like the regular MAME directory. Add things like artwork, roms, samples etc. MQC has made a few for me with animation that run in Retroarch. I just haven’t shown or released them yet.
hmmmm interesting 
, will give that a try tonight, have a few questions in my head now, but will see how that goes, before bugging.
(and when you mean make a MAME folder, it’s just an empty folder or a full install of mame folder?)
@hunterk ahh ok, so much to learn or is that what can of worms am i opening?
Ah, yeah, that’s true. You can load them directly through the MAME core, though I think they will be very low-res/pixellated unless you enable the “alternate render” core option to make it render at a higher res.
@Briball It’s not too crazy. If you have a core/game that runs better with a different driver (or, in this case, there’s a driver-specific feature you want), just change the setting, go to quick menu > overrides and ‘save core/game override’ as is appropriate. That’s it.
sorry haven’t been on my cab for a while, but i tried the system folder and that work. But like @hunterk said it’s low res. I tried the alternate render change and set rez to 4k, but it does’t use the hirez image(you get a small game running on a large black screen), I tried changing the scale in video options.It scales the game to full screen, but it’s even lower rez than not using alternate renderer. Am i missing something? Also if i exit it over rides the settings?
But the mame artwork worked with the animating gear stick, so for so good.
so anything more I can do? or am i nearing a dead end?
@MQC I heard you might be able to help, as I don’t know how to convert Vcabinets outrun bezel to retroarch.
Where’s the Vcabinets Outrun bezel?. I want to take a look to the .lay to see if it’s possible to convert.
At first, and without having seen anything yet, I think that the bezel made for Vcabinets needs some changes before convert it to Retroarch.
@MQC i have put it here, Thanks for having a look, really curious how it could work. I want to get my head around retroarch, but find it a bit hard to follow. If you also know of good ducumentation or vids that explains overlay/bezel, I want to learn too 
(as an example I was also looking at the Space invader Bezel which has a background layer in it(MAME has background) But I could find how to do that In RetroArch, I though having the background layer in the PNG with a transparency, but didn’t quite get it there, so still thinking on that one) anyway Learning as I go so any tips or info
When Retroarch load the MAME core, it works in the same way that a standalone MAME. If you use a bezel whit animations, its going to has the animations also on Retroarch (same thing for a background layer for the Space Invaders ones).
The only problem is if you are using a shader, retroarch will apply that shader after the mame bezel, and the shader will also affect to the bezel.
I don’t know any method in order to make Retroarch works with animated overlays and multiple layers without the mame core. I’ve seen some videos with very simples animations (using a specific shader for it, I think), but I never try it.
OK, I get you, so can you use the mame shaders in the mame core then? well, I’ll give it a try tonight if I can get behind my machine. I have been having other issues with my normal configs recently, which has been confusing the hell out of me, shader been disabled, interger scale on or off, I think i am getting it stable again, but don’t know what i did to set it off on this crazy train.