[Rufoo]

I believe that always shows up in the log. From what I understand, I think they are undocumented / incomplete features of AL. The 'extrafanart' it mentions there I think differs from the Extra-Fanart you can specify in Edit Item > Advanced Settings. Might look into it more.

I checked into this further and sure enough it does it for every title. On launchers, it also looks for an extrathumb. This are unused and AL does this by itself, seems harmless. There doesn't seem to be any meaningful way to harness it and it also is largely redundant under Windows setups as it looks for a path based upon the title name, so if your game has a semi colon in the title, you could never make a folder to it. Long story short, forget about it.

Thanks! I'll do that next time I add a console.

Which kinds of metadata can AL handle? I'm using snaps as fanart for now.

thumbnail images (png/jpg), fanart (most image formats), studio, year, plot, title, platform, trailers (most video formats), etc... No native logo support. Spend time exploring. Depending on the system you're looking to get art assets for, general rule of thumb, the older it is, the less somewhere like TheGamesDB will be able to help you beyond box art. You'll have to go hunting yourself.

[Zpectre87]

Thanks again.

Another problem is the "incompleteness" of TGDB. They miss quite a few relatively known games for each system.

You said you have a nice setup yourself, I suspect it was a painstaking process to create it.

[rdyott]

http://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com Is still in alpha. But it has a lot of good images of you're going the route of hosting local images

[Zpectre87]

http://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com Is still in alpha. But it has a lot of good images of you're going the route of hosting local images

There's also the brute force method: EmuMovies. You DL the whole pack. You can manage the bandwidth cap between HyperSpin and EmuMovies to get what you need from both.

As for infos, TGDB does have all the games, but the API is horribly buggy. A search via AL won't get some games despite them being in the TGDB database. It's not the only program that does this, so the problem is on TGDB's side. A search via game ID will always work, though.

So, Rufoo, I'm not sure if it's within your field of expertise, but modifying the TGDB scraper to allow manual search by ID would be really great.

[chrisism]

Nice job Rufoo, really looks nice. Switched to Cirrus now just to go and try out your new views.
You really got to get this on the github for Cirrus so it can be merged with the regular skin updates. Would be nasty if the skin got updated and I lost all the new views.

On a sidenote, how did you configure the multiple fanart images/screenshots in advanced launcher for these views? I scraped all the thumbs/covers for all my roms, but to finish the job I like to add the fanart/screenshots and trailers where possible.
I used a little script I build myself to update all the entries in my launcher.xml based on a TGDB data and a Emustation xml created by another scraping script. If I look at my launcher.xml I got something like this:

Code:

<rom>
          <id>d7edd1e76104e5fd234745f8419057f7</id>
          <name>3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA)</name>
          <filename>PATH/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).zip</filename>
          <thumb>PATH/3 Ninjas Kick Back (USA).jpg</thumb>
          <fanart> </fanart>
          <trailer> </trailer>
          <custom> </custom>
          <genre>Action</genre>
          <release>1994</release>
          <publisher>Sony Imagesoft</publisher>
          <gameplot>3 Ninjas Kick Back follows 3 young ninja....</gameplot>
          <finished>false</finished>
          <altapp> </altapp>
          <altarg> </altarg>
        </rom>

So is it one filepath for fanart, one for trailer and one for custom, which is the screenshot? Any help in how I should insert all the data for each rom so your view can use the most of it would be nice.
THNX

[Rufoo]

Thanks again.

Another problem is the "incompleteness" of TGDB. They miss quite a few relatively known games for each system.

You said you have a nice setup yourself, I suspect it was a painstaking process to create it.

Yah! TGDB always seems in a state of flux when it comes to the titles there. I could be dead wrong. But it seems like things vanish all the time and it isn't attributed to the API (although AL could do with improvements) as searching directly on the site yields the same results. Not sure why. Maybe the quality of the content is questionable or something.

Indeed, it did take me a while. But as I said, I may end up sharing a copy of it as a Google Drive folder where people can take what they want.

Nice job Rufoo, really looks nice. Switched to Cirrus now just to go and try out your new views.
You really got to get this on the github for Cirrus so it can be merged with the regular skin updates. Would be nasty if the skin got updated and I lost all the new views.

On a sidenote, how did you configure the multiple fanart images/screenshots in advanced launcher for these views? I scraped all the thumbs/covers for all my roms, but to finish the job I like to add the fanart/screenshots and trailers where possible.
I used a little script I build myself to update all the entries in my launcher.xml based on a TGDB data and a Emustation xml created by another scraping script. If I look at my launcher.xml I got something like this:

So is it one filepath for fanart, one for trailer and one for custom, which is the screenshot? Any help in how I should insert all the data for each rom so your view can use the most of it would be nice.
THNX

Thanks, mate and welcome.

There is no tag for secondary fanart natively in AL. It does use the custom tag (under Advanced Options > Extra-Fanarts Path in the GUI). This is where secondary fanart and other wonderful extras come from.

Code:

<custom>G:\Projects\Kodibox\kodibox_current\RESOURCE\EXTRA\PSP\Grand Theft Auto - Vice City Stories\</custom>

That is an example directory of where I stash my extra artworks for the PSP version of Vice City Stories. You can place an image called 'fanart2' which can be either JPG or PNG (not both) or place a folder in there called 'extrafanart' and have that used as a multi-image directory. Fanart2 is slightly broken at the moment but will post a fixed version this weekend along with the Galleria Series. This will be Wave One Plus.

[Zpectre87]

Yah! TGDB always seems in a state of flux when it comes to the titles there. I could be dead wrong. But it seems like things vanish all the time and it isn't attributed to the API (although AL could do with improvements) as searching directly on the site yields the same results. Not sure why. Maybe the quality of the content is questionable or something.

Indeed, it did take me a while. But as I said, I may end up sharing a copy of it as a Google Drive folder where people can take what they want.

Actually, like I said in the previous post, they do have it all, but their search engine is horrible! Example, Half-Life the PC game, I clearly type "Half-Life" in the search box and it only returns me the PS2 port when there's clearly an entry for Half-Life PC version in the database.

I wonder if anyone has pointed it out to them, because it ruins an otherwise solid database.

I know more work on fanart support is coming, but is it possible to have a "default" fanart as background for all games and the specific one in the small window beside the game's info? I'm using Advance Poster view and it would be fantastic if you could have a default fanart for the system and then the game-specific fanart in the small windows.

What I'm doing to get the bulk of my image metadata is to manage my EmuMovies downloads. I clean my image folders of everything I don't need, then I download the HyperLists for each system and use Don's HyperSpin Tools to rename both my ROMs and my image files. Since AL requires matching filenames, this works beautifully, as it ensures everything has the same filenames and is also much faster than scraping manually inside Kodi.

[Rufoo]

I know more work on fanart support is coming, but is it possible to have a "default" fanart as background for all games and the specific one in the small window beside the game's info? I'm using Advance Poster view and it would be fantastic if you could have a default fanart for the system and then the game-specific fanart in the small windows.

Way ahead of you. This feature already exists in SexyCirrus. It's called 'Persistent Backdrops'. I created it when I only wanted the one BG to repeat on certain views.

Go to the SexyCirrus system menu and configure it from there. Place JPGs in the nominated persistent backdrops directory that have either the name of the platform as Advanced Launcher calls it (eg: for SNES this AL calls it 'Super Nintendo Entertainment System' so a JPG would be called Super Nintendo Entertainment System.jpg) or you can have an image called user.jpg as a custom one.

Once setup, go back to your games library, and the Persistent Backdrops will now be available in the side menu for you to enable on the views of your choosing.

[Zpectre87]

Thanks a lot! I'll try it.

[Rufoo]

Coming in Wave One Plus will be the Galleria Series which uses fanart as the navigation instead of boxes like other views.. It can cater to images in 16:9, 4:3, 8:7, 3:2, and more. Pretty much the most commonly used aspects for images across devices both handheld, console, and contemporary. Boxes can be optionally added in per view and can be any one of several shapes (poster, square, wide, slim, blu, and steam). To sweeten the deal, the Galleria 16:9 HD view will have a media version included too - Galleria X Video. Coming VERY soon.

In development screens. Elements may be subject to change prior to release.

[chrisism]

so I got it working and it looks beautiful! the trailers are really cool. Maybe wait a little longer before might be better, but it could be just me since I was so focused on that part.
You said you were copying some of the views to other media. if so I really would love to see the trailer playing in my movie collection with the fanart view. you would be my hero, although you are already with the current stuff.

now I only have to wait with the emustation limits and get the rest of all the trailers and artwork.

[Rufoo]

so I got it working and it looks beautiful! the trailers are really cool. Maybe wait a little longer before might be better, but it could be just me since I was so focused on that part.

I presume you mean the delay time before the trailer plays? I could look at adding the option to switch between different delay times for a future wave. Currently is 2 seconds (2000ms). Would 5 be enough?

You said you were copying some of the views to other media. if so I really would love to see the trailer playing in my movie collection with the fanart view. you would be my hero, although you are already with the current stuff.

Haha! High praise indeed. The media crossover views should be thought of as more of a "bonus". Stuff like trailers being displayed in a similar manner to how they get displayed in games isn't as straightforward as it would appear. Right now, things like that aren't high up on the priority list but at a later point, we can revisit it.

[chrisism]

Ahh too bad, we'll see. Or I might pick up my kodi-coding skills again and try it out myself, although in the past in the beginning of XBMC I only created addons, never skins. There is still also some stuff I like to see in Cirrus Ex myself like more customizations for the menus like it was possible in Media Titan skin. I want to be able to set the order of menu items and be able to edit each submenu, not the only ones it offers now. Maybe bug Parallex about it or just try it myself and add a pullrequest in github.

I presume you mean the delay time before the trailer plays? I could look at adding the option to switch between different delay times for a future wave. Currently is 2 seconds (2000ms). Would 5 be enough?

That would be a good solution. If users can set the timeout themselves everybody is happy. But as I said I might be happy with the 2secs later on when I use it more. Just was so happy yesterday evening to see it in action and was not using it in a way that would be normal.

These cool mods of yours is what brings the whole Kodi experience to a next level. Try to get to learn to use Git, its easy, and push your stuff out there so we can see your stuff as a part of the Cirrus skin itself. Many thanks for all the hard work.

[Rufoo]

This is an open question to any SexyCirrus / Cirrus users, what are addons besides Advanced Launcher (and can be any type) that are commonly used in your setups but are lacking support or would like to see more visual support for?

[rdyott]

I only really use advanced launcher. For gaming.
I use HDHomerun app for livetv. Cause I can't seem to get a backend to run constant without issues. Haha.
I do not use any pirate streaming addons.