Bezel shading different

[thrust26]

I started checking out your bezels. There I noticed that the bezels are shading games with a black background differently.

E.g. in Asteroids, asteroids which are at the border blur into the bezel, while in Cosmic Ark the stars do not.

IMO Asteroids is wrong. Is there a reason for the different behavior?

BTW: Would you mind if we use the bezel images for Stella?

[thebezelproject]

Nice catch on the Asteroids png. I have uploaded a new one. You can either install the whole 2600 pack again, or just download that one png file from the Github repository and overwrite the old one.

Feel free to use any of these as you want. An attribution would be nice, but not required.

[thrust26]

Thanks, but I think there are more bezels affected. E.g. Thrust+ platinum has a similar problem.

And of course you will get credits. How should we call you? "thebezelproject"?

BTW: How should the bezels be overlayed to the game output?

[thebezelproject]

Not surprised there may be others. We are glad to correct any you find. Just list them out. I wish there was an automated way of checking which png are affected, but can't think of any way at the moment.

Sure, thebezelproject, is good enough.

Not sure I understand your final question. Can you provide more detail?

[thrust26]

Will do.

Regarding my question: We are overlaying two images here: the output created by the emulator and the bezel. So we have multiple options.

1. Which image comes first, bezel over output (which seems correct) or vice versa?
2. How is the blending done?

Stella uses SDL2, which has the following blend options: Here I suppose alpha blending is what you do, right?

Now, bcause the bezel has a rounded border, the blending is a bit more complex. I suppose you want the border to fully hide the output? Plus with some small shading area inside the border. Is that correct?

Then I wonder why the shading is darkening in e.g. Combat (which looks nice) but brightening in Asteroids (which looks odd, IMO). IMO the shading area should always darken (RGBA = 0, 0, 0, something..0). This is what the Combat bezel does. But Asteroids is (still) like (something..0, something..0, something..0, something..0, something..0) and therefore effectively brightens the shaded area.

I hope that makes sense. 😄

[thebezelproject]

Sorry for the delay. I will attempt to answer your questions.

1. Bezel over output is the design intent.
2. Alpha blending is the intent. These files are intended for use in Retroarch using its 'Overlay' option. The 'TV' surround is used in all but one bezel set and was intended to be used with the 'crt-geom' shader which mimics the round corners of old tv sets.

I double checked the updated asteroid png file and the alpha shading areas are the same as the combat png. I have no idea why you are seeing a brightening effect. Here is what I see here.

[thrust26]

Thank you for your reply. Looks like I got the wrong (old?) Asteroid bezel when I tested. Now it looks fine. 👍

I briefly looked through the bezels and it seems that quite a lot (~50%) have the brightening shading ([x, y, z, a] vs [0, 0, 0, a]) bug (same as with the old Asteroids bezel). Maybe the bug is not obvious in Retroarch due to the geometric shader you are using, but in Stella we have rectangular output, so there it shows.

[thebezelproject]

Thanks for the info. As soon as the current group project is finished, looks like a rework of the 2600 bezels will be required. I'll update here when this is complete.

[thrust26]

Question: Do you plan for other bezel sizes/aspect ratios? E.g. 16:10 or 21:9?

Or maybe even variable size bezels? I guess you would need 3 images per bezel then (left, center, right), and overlay them accordingly.

[thebezelproject]

Honestly hasn't been discussed with the team. We still have a few 16:9 sets to finish. If we do them, it will be announced on the group Facebook page.

[thrust26]

I don't use F*book, but I will somehow notice nevertheless. 😃

[thebezelproject]

All the png bezel files have been updated with a new TV surround border w/correct shading.

[thrust26]

Great! Thanks for the info!