TinyLauncher 3+ released

[Retro-Nerd]

Gibs uploaded the current v3.1 to the Aminet.

3.1
- Screenshots support (Copy your IFF [all ECS Screens are supported] into S:TinyLauncher/Covers/
Files must be named this way:
NameOfTheSlave + _SCRx + .IFF
x is a number between 0 and 9
I recommend using:
0 for the Coverbox
1 for the TitleScreen
2,3,4 for the Ingame screens
…followed by posters

But then it’s up to you!

Example : BarbarianPalace_SCR0.IFF

Screen will cycles and loop after ~3 flash on the item. (~6 flash when you enter the browser)

As examples my BarbarianPsygnosis Sshots (coverbox, ingame, poster) you have seen on my YT video.

coming soon: ready2use screenshots.

http://aminet.net/util/misc/TinyLauncher.zip

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

coming soon: ready2use screenshots.

Will this include all cover, titles and screenshots for the whole whdload game set?

[DamienD]

Nice work Gibs

...moved the thread to "News", thanks for posting the information Retro

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

Will this include all cover, titles and screenshots for the whole whdload game set?

Gibs converted titles+screenshots from the in Igame pack made by OddbOdd years ago. It's not the complete set, but for 1500+ games iirc. For covers: There is no pack yet, we'll see. Maybe the Exotica cover collection could be converted to IFF.

http://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/Amiga_Game_Box_Scans

[lolafg]

I think that Gibs will make the ones he did avalable for all of us as he anounced it in the readme "coming soon : ready2use screenshots".

[Retro-Nerd]

Gibs doesn't have a covers pack yet, he just asked me. I know Frode has a big archive for the FS-UAE launcher but with cryptic SHA1/MD5 file names. HOL probably something cryptic too.

@Frode:

If you read this. Would be nice to have the FS-UAE covers pack, renamed to the WHDLoad slave file names.

[FrodeSolheim]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

If you read this. Would be nice to have the FS-UAE covers pack, renamed to the WHDLoad slave file names.

It wouldn't be much work for me to export a cover for each WHDLoad variant in the OpenRetro.org database. Would you like the covers scaled to a particular size? Also, covers only, or also a title and/or action screenshot?

[Retro-Nerd]

Thanks for the fast reply Frode. Unscaled and in the original size (with the black borders intact for the ingame shots) would be nice. Scaled stuff would look bad on real Amigas in Hires (640x256). If it's not too much work.. well then covers, and title+ingames shots too.

The slideshow looks pretty amazing on a CRT TV.

[ Show youtube player ]

[StatMat]

Funnily enough my FE builder can pull all WHDLoad title box art and screenshots from Frode's excellent OADB and convert to 8bpp or 4bpp IFF images whilst retaining aspect ratio. Maybe I can put two sets together if anyone's interested.

[Retro-Nerd]

With the correct slave file names? Would be great. Well for the covers (640x512 and with 16 Colors) he put the box scans in a black image. Scaling for the cover would be ok i assume, but NOT for the ingame shots. They have to be pixelperfect.

[StatMat]

Indeed, the slave names come directly from Frode's database, so I should be able to generate the filenames to match Gibs naming convention. I'll try to get something up shortly. And yes, the there would be black bars at the side of box art automatically.

[Retro-Nerd]

Great. So 4bpp for the covers and 8bpp for the screenshots in native game resolution. No AGA colors. OCS/ECS compatibilty is mandatory.

Are the cropped black bars for the ingame shots a problem? I assume the Amiga would generate them by default anyway, for shots smaller than PAL full screen resolution.

For the cover IFFs: We probably need them in 640x400 too. I guess NTSC users would try TinyLauncher too.

[StatMat]

So with a bit of testing I've realised it would actually be 4bpp (16 colours for the boxart and therefore double resolution) and 5bpp for the screenshots (32 colours). Haven't implemented dithering at this stage for the boxart. I may well add this (I hadn't needed it before because my builder was always working in 256 colours for AGA machines . But screenshots are only resized if they are some odd doubled size from the dababase (of which there are a few).

Tested without the black bars and no, it's not centreing the image vertically without them (this is important for games like Mercs too). So I i'll probably opt to have the bars included.

And yes, to be fair on everyone, we're probably going to have both PAL and NTSC sets at different resolutions. This will need additional resizing in places, but I'll avoid wherever possible. Hopefully I'll have something to show later today.

[Retro-Nerd]

Great, looking forward to test it on my A1200+Sony PAL CRT TV.

[StatMat]

Well, as the core of my builder code was pretty much there, I decided to see just how big the resultant set would be (I'd only focused on single screenshots before without boxart). Amazingly it came out just shy of 20,000 images and around 700mb in size even with lowly RLE! Not sure how many would allow that much of their HD space for screenshots alone on their rigs.

Anyway, this is just a first cut as I still plan to do the dithering and other packs, but this should get things started. It's now in my upload folder on the FTP for those that would like a preview (271mb - TinyLauncher-Screenshots-v0.1.7z).

Many thanks to Frode Solheim and all of his contributors. The Openretro database is an amazing resource for the community.

Oh, and we must let Gibs know certain files that seem valid (i.e. they load with MUGiff on both an emulated A500 and A600), but they cause a guru in TinyLauncher. For example the 1st Division Manager boxart seems to give problems for some reason.

[Retro-Nerd]

700MB is still ok. Let the people decide if they want to use that much space.

For the non working iffs: Have you tried to load them into Deluxe Paint and just resave the image? Mostly this works fine. Thanks for the preview pack. I will test it later.

edit: I guess you didn't add black bars to the screenshots yet? Most of them are cropped. The covers doesn't look good enough without proper dithering, indeed. Some shows artifacts (e.g. Turrican 3). We need the dithering quality like the above cover from Operation Thunderbolt. Check the attachment for images Gibs already converted. This is what we need.

[StatMat]

Indeed, as I said, this is the first cut. Adding the dithering and centreing shouldn't be too difficult now and I'll post an updated pack soon. Whilst the screenshots are real size, they should be of a decent quality anyway.

[Retro-Nerd]

Whilst the screenshots are real size, they should be of a decent quality anyway.

Yes, they should look like the real games in pause mode (at least the OCS/ECS games).

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by StatMat

Well, as the core of my builder code was pretty much there, I decided to see just how big the resultant set would be (I'd only focused on single screenshots before without boxart). Amazingly it came out just shy of 20,000 images and around 700mb in size even with lowly RLE! Not sure how many would allow that much of their HD space for screenshots alone on their rigs.

Anyway, this is just a first cut as I still plan to do the dithering and other packs, but this should get things started. It's now in my upload folder on the FTP for those that would like a preview (271mb - TinyLauncher-Screenshots-v0.1.7z).

Many thanks to Frode Solheim and all of his contributors. The Openretro database is an amazing resource for the community.

Oh, and we must let Gibs know certain files that seem valid (i.e. they load with MUGiff on both an emulated A500 and A600), but they cause a guru in TinyLauncher. For example the 1st Division Manager boxart seems to give problems for some reason.

Thanks a lot guys, i will test the pack too on my A500.
No problem for the 700MB size for 4Gb CF owners. In my case all will fit in it as Aga games are excluded.

[StatMat]

I've taken the original 0.1 archive off the FTP as I will be releasing the 0.2 version for PAL users with dithered boxart and centred screenshots very shortly.