Cartridge art displayed instead of CD for MegaCD games

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Open GenPlusGX
Load Game > MegaCD

When a valid image is selected, the preview is a cartridge frame instead of a 
CD.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by olivier....@gmail.com on 6 Jan 2013 at 12:52

[GoogleCodeExporter]

if you find a way to fit a game screenshot inside a CD, please tell me :-)

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 6 Jan 2013 at 1:02

• Changed state: WontFix

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ok I will tell you.
genplusgx uses images in PNG format which handles transparency.
it is then very easy to resize any rectangular screenshot into a square and 
apply a transparency mask to give it the shape of a CD-ROM.

If you have any other issues like this, feel free to ask you are welcome ;-)

Original comment by olivier....@gmail.com on 6 Jan 2013 at 10:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ok, fare enough, maybe i should have express this differently.
Obviously i know how to fit a square or a rectangular shape inside a circle, 
the problem was more to make it look not like shit, like you know, a screenshot 
within a circle that looks like a random CD.
If you can give a practicable mockup that actually looks good, i might 
reconsider it but otherwise, i'd say it's not worth the effort. That's not as 
if it prevented you from playing CD games....

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 7 Jan 2013 at 7:38

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks for your reply. Sorry for my clumsy message, my english is rusty and i 
didn't mean to be rude. The rest of the software is far more complicated so I 
had no doubt you has the skills to do it, but as you said it needs some efforts 
to have a good looking result.
I will try my best to provide you a clean small piece of code that can turn a 
4/3 TV screenshot into a nice CD mockup.

Original comment by olivier....@gmail.com on 7 Jan 2013 at 8:23

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I am currently trying different styles, because for JAP, US or EU the layer 
might be different. But I don't know exactly which style would be the most 
generic.
I was very lucky to find a website discussing on this subject.
http://timewarpgamer.com/features/art_disparity_sega_cd_discs.html

I think the main template I made should be OK (see a draft version attached) 
but I need your opinion for the color conversion (full RGB, monochrome+one 
color, B&W+dithering, etc.)

Original comment by olivier....@gmail.com on 8 Jan 2013 at 12:19

Attachments:

• template.png

[GoogleCodeExporter]

the difficulty is not really to find a generic cd art but more to make a 
screenshot fits nicely inside it
i could indeed use your photorealistic image (which looks very nice alone) and 
simply display a screenshot image over it but it would not look good anymore 
and very weird instead
a good mockup would be something where the game screenshot would be perfectly 
integrated inside the template

also keep in mind that wii resolution and memory is limited so you don't want 
to use huge template images with too many colors but rather something already 
dimensionned for the 640x480 TV screen and  black&white with maybe a single 
color (similar to existing cartridges templates - you can grab them in the 
source trunk under /gx/images i think)

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 8 Jan 2013 at 7:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 8 Jan 2013 at 7:21

• Changed state: Standby

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 8 Jan 2013 at 7:22

• Added labels: Type-Enhancement, Priority-Low, GUI

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I totally agree about Wii memory limitations. I realized too late I posted a 
2.3 Mb template (what a moron x_X).
I plan to implement "on-the-fly" CD mockup rendering to preserve the snapshot 
feature and get rid of the memory allocation burden.

I started to make 3 different types of rendering.
- A full color version with the wide black bottom label
- A B&W+ 1 color dithered version with no MegaCD label
- A one-color dithered version with small mention of MegaCD + CD-Rom logo

I think monochrome versions could look much better with a slight color tuning.
The name of the Rom file could also be used to render the title in the 3rd 
version.

If the result is not good enough, a simple solution would be to display only an 
empty template of the MegaCD support (like the one I posted first) without 
using any screenshot.

Original comment by olivier....@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 1:08

Attachments:

• soniccd-draft.png
• soniccd-B&Cdither.png
• soniccd-monodither.png

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ok, i see now what you meant. The problem is that what you can easily do with 
photoshop is not so easy to do with C code and basic pixel manipulations we can 
do on gc/wii, if not impossible because of the way the different layers and 
graphics in general are displayed. Honestly, i do not see how you would adjust 
then crop the screenshot over the background, within the circle limit, while 
still applying the cd template over it...

Also, don't bother with the dithered versions, off course the screenshot is 
supposed to be in full color (that is how it is done with cartridges, right ?), 
there is no point to do this if this looks ugly.

 Similarely, about your simple solution, what would be the point of displaying a blank CD image when the whole purpose and only interest of  this is to show a screenshot of the game ? That makes no sense... i would rather have a screenshot inside a md cartridge than no screenshot at all...

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 4:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 4:38

• Changed state: WontFix

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Last remark, about using the file name to print it over, i do not see how this 
would be good:
- displaying the internal title as text over a screenshot would be ugly
- having external images for every existing game titles ? good luck with that

The point of the screenshot is that you can use it to identify the game, used 
cleverly (hint: at title screen), you can easily have the game title art 
displayed.

I am closing this as i have the feeling it won't lead to anything possible or 
usable

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 4:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

>The problem is that what you can easily do with photoshop is not so easy to do 
with C code and basic pixel >manipulations we can do on gc/wii, if not 
impossible because of the way the different layers and graphics in >general are 
displayed. Honestly, i do not see how you would adjust then crop the screenshot 
over the >background, within the circle limit, while still applying the cd 
template over it...

Uh... actually I didn't photoshop at all except to have clean templates. The 
three images are fully generated from a screenshot of the game, and without 
using any extra imaging lib but old school C code.
Cropping with clean edges and merging png images is not a big issue since you 
know how to manipulate them.

I understand you are reluctant to modify this part of the code as the result 
would not be as good as for cartridge labels. You can leave the code as it is 
and close the subject, I will not be offended at all. 
It was an interesting exercise anyway.

Original comment by olivier....@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 8:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Issue 341 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 6 Jun 2013 at 6:36