Homebrew Cover Collections for Emulators With Cover Support

[Wiimpathy]

i may have done something absolutely unhinged in the form of making a python script that scrapes boxart components and another python script that assembles them into useable boxcovers for WFL, to generate an absolutely ridiculous number of viable boxarts for Amiga and MSX. No idea if they look any good and they deffo require some curation (every game has multiple boxarts generated depending on what components were available and some are way better than others).

So uh, look forward to that, eventually, i hope.

Not so crazy :
https://gbatemp.net/threads/cover-collections-for-emulators-with-cover-support.324714/post-7933718
https://gbatemp.net/threads/cover-collections-for-emulators-with-cover-support.324714/post-7865885

Shell scripts + ImageMagick. It's really a great tool and available for most platforms/programming languages.
Mastershoes and others never had time to sort the latest packs I've posted. They're overall average quality to be honest.

 

[chrondelta]

It feels crazy for me since i only learned Python like a month ago or so XD

It actually worked out well but i have to sort through the results, BUT! There's on algorithm i still need to do, and that's "converting the spine in a 3D boxart image to a flat rectangle." The biggest challenge there is figuring out how to do a little bit of light image analysis, to figure out if the 3D Boxart even has a valid spine (one way i imagine this would work is by checking if the "shape" of the transparency in the PNG is a hexagon with two parallel vertical edges), and then once i have determined that, snagging the relevant portion of the image for just the distorted spine, and then using Photoshop's perspective tool via win32com.Client to flatten it into a rectangle.

aahahahahahaha what am i doing @_@ lol but it's kinda fun.

 

[Jochte]

It feels crazy for me since i only learned Python like a month ago or so XD

It actually worked out well but i have to sort through the results, BUT! There's on algorithm i still need to do, and that's "converting the spine in a 3D boxart image to a flat rectangle." The biggest challenge there is figuring out how to do a little bit of light image analysis, to figure out if the 3D Boxart even has a valid spine (one way i imagine this would work is by checking if the "shape" of the transparency in the PNG is a hexagon with two parallel vertical edges), and then once i have determined that, snagging the relevant portion of the image for just the distorted spine, and then using Photoshop's perspective tool via win32com.Client to flatten it into a rectangle.

aahahahahahaha what am i doing @_@ lol but it's kinda fun.

if you haven't seen or tried the downloadable tool at skraper. net yet you should really check it out. It lets you specify length and width for spines of multiple systems and would maybe solve your spine issue.

 

[chrondelta]

if you haven't seen or tried the downloadable tool at skraper. net yet you should really check it out. It lets you specify length and width for spines of multiple systems and would maybe solve your spine issue.

i mean i already scraped things, but i'll check it out in the hopes that it has a tool for auto-adjusting 3D spine images.

Or i could code it myself because programming challenges XD

 

[Jochte]

i mean i already scraped things, but i'll check it out in the hopes that it has a tool for auto-adjusting 3D spine images.

Or i could code it myself because programming challenges it

i dont think it will modify your already scraped things. If it were me I would rescrape the spines with the length/width i wanted for the system i wanted. It should do the whole system in a few dozen minutes all at exactly the size you want (and the spines as flat rectangles already) and then you'd maybe be able to python it in.

 

[chrondelta]

so to be clear, you're telling me it has the functionality to automatically take an image like a) and output b)?

 

[Jochte]

Not quite.

you place all your .zip files in a folder. You tell the scraper what you want -- spine, or 3d cover, or screencap etc -- and specify that folder. Then tell the scraper what specs you want each item at. For example say i wanted just the flat square spine at 61width and 680length for all the .zip files I have. It will scan their database to see what files in my folder they have and If the art is available it will scrape the spine and give an output folder full of available output B.png files at 61, 680.

In other words, they would either already have output B.png for a game or they dont. They will scrape it if you have that file in the folder you route them to and its something they've got.

EDIT: It sounds like maybe you were looking for spines of obscure covers that no one has anywhere. If that's the case this would only be useful if they've already got the boxart components in their database that you're just trying to make a certain size for your python purposes.

 

[chrondelta]

im confused what you mean. I'm trying to get the spine data in the first place because not every game has a spine scan, but many games have the 3D boxart that a spine exists on. That's how i grabbed the pokemon mini spines already (manually, though). If it doesn't have the functionality to get a spine image from a 3D boxcover, then it's useless to me at the moment. Unless it knows the Secret Good Places to find video game box spine art that you can't just find with google searches? (which i already tried)? Because the end goal is turning them into boxcovers for WFL.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say though.

 

[Wiimpathy]

A lot spines are impossible or hard to find. Only front & back are available.
Creating a 3d box automatically with a generic spine was better than nothing.
Oh, and I repeat but ImageMagick is made to manipulate images(rotate, resizing, cropping, compose etc).
Anyway, good luck.

 

[chrondelta]

well the algorithm is Complete, it was mostly some very simple math that i didn't have to think about but the computer handled. I mean, affine transformations are "simple" right? Anyway, obvs the next step is curation. I'll get around to that eventually.

 

[chrondelta]

Gonna be a bit dramatic and show off how the process has started. Hoping to come away from this with a shit ton of viable coverart for Amiga.

 

[chrondelta]

https://www.mediafire.com/file/tuxi9qp56k49r3u/MSX+Boxart.zip/file

Alright, here is a relatively curated collection of MSX boxcovers. These were mostly mass-produced using python scripts and assets scraped the launchbox website, plus some pre-processing of some assets. It's kinda inconsistent and spotty in quality because of the variety of assets, and as my curation skills improved throughout the project i tried to do some fancier pre-processing towards the end, that the games earlier on in curation may not have received. Still, these are the best results of the script generation + light pre-processing. The only games i didn't include should be games that are missing either an appropriate spine image or an appropriate front image; those are the two "required" components imo for a boxcover to be valid to publish for this. My script did generate boxcovers for those games as well, but i don't consider them that useful. There may be some issues with readability of game logos on the spine for *some* (not many) games. My script uses my own algorithm for finding either the most common or average color from the edge of either the front or the back cover as a basis for filling any background for logos on the spine, or the backcover color where backcovers are missing. There's some quirks of my routine i don't quite understand (like, why some things with missing backs have different colors on the spine and back), but i don't think they're significant enough to care much about. This is mostly quick and dirty, good enough to provide *something* for your MSX games. The filenames all have junk at the end that was part of my boxcover generating script.

Covers are separated by MSX version and how many components are used to make it. I also have some folders of Alts i can upload. Actually this set includes a few regional alts where needed. @mastershoes Lemme know if this is in a state where you'd be willing to rearrange it properly or publish it as is; OR if you want me to do more work on it before 'committing' it.

Assuming I didn't accidentally skip over a game (and i'm gonna make a python script to verify whether i did or not tomorrow), this should have covers for: 873 MSX1 Games, 246 MSX2 Games, and ... 9 MSX2+ games i guess? There may be overlap between the consoles. I'm not too knowledgeabl about the MSX to know for sure which to prune in each console. I'll upload the alts pack soon.

Next up: Commodore Amiga. ... That'll be a little while before that's ready.

 

[chrondelta]

Okay so, having sat on this a few days and doing a bit more work to collate some MSX boxcovers: the thing i posted isn't 100% complete yet, but i will say: the covers that already exist, should be kept. If it gets merged, keep the MSX covers already published, overwriting mine where applicable. I must reiterate, the quality of my work is "Good Enough" by my own standards.

 

[ToddofWar420]

New SNES Shrunken Spine set released! Over 1,500 HQ covers.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/cover-collections-part-2.559649/page-15

 

[mastershoes]

And they look killer! I've replaced my set with this new one, and couldn't be happier!

 

[Dull]

sad that they removed everything from Nintendo. if anyone has made a backup send me the link by message, I will be eternally grateful.

 

[RunningSnakes]

@Dull

Check out Covers 2 thread started by @Tetsuo Shima, maintained by @AdamCatalyst. The Nintendo covers are available there.

 

[locomia]

Congrats for the nice work with these cover, I can imagine how long and tedious it may be!!

I am having an issue, covers for plug-ins are not showing in wiiiflow. I tried with neogeo covers. I've put them in: sd:wiiiflow\boxcovers\fba\neogeo AND sd:wiiiflow\boxcovers\fba\neogeo\covers

I clicked on reload cache but it takes less than one second and gives 100%, and the covers does not appear. (The pack has about 200 covers and I have around 30 roms)

I also tested with mega cd covers.

Double checked the extensions and filenames, it's everything matching (.chd.png and .zip.png)

What can I do now?

I am using wiiiflow lite with rhapsodii Shima and wiimpathy's database

 

[mastershoes]

Congrats for the nice work with these cover, I can imagine how long and tedious it may be!!

I am having an issue, covers for plug-ins are not showing in wiiiflow. I tried with neogeo covers. I've put them in: sd:wiiiflow\boxcovers\fba\neogeo AND sd:wiiiflow\boxcovers\fba\neogeo\covers

I clicked on reload cache but it takes less than one second and gives 100%, and the covers does not appear. (The pack has about 200 covers and I have around 30 roms)

I also tested with mega cd covers.

Double checked the extensions and filenames, it's everything matching (.chd.png and .zip.png)

What can I do now?

I am using wiiiflow lite with rhapsodii Shima and wiimpathy's database

Open up each's plugin .ini file, and verify the cover folder they should be in, or change it to match yours.

 

[O2777]

I cannot download the mame covers