[MQ3] CDart Issue

Hi, wondered if someone could help?

Just switched to Aeon to give it a go, all looks very nice so far. The only issue I seem to have is with cdart. On Aeon I get a square box around the cd image, shown below;



Whereas on Transparency, the cdart image is perfect;



I haven't cut around the image, as I realised that with Transparency, at least, I didn't need to, I didn't realise that other skins would show it in a different way.

Is there any chance of having the xml file (if that is what is needed to be altered?) changed, or can I do it myself (with someone's help)?

Many thanks

Not sure if anyone would be interested in this, but with much help from Ronie on the Transparency thread, I've changed a bit of the code on the various xml files, so that cdart doesn't show the background square as in the first image above.

The bottom line is that if someone were to download a cd image from the various sources on the web, it will often have a white square around the image. To show properly in most XBMC skins the cd image has to have a transparent layer on it and be cut around so the white background doesn't exist anymore. Using a program such as GIMP makes this a pretty easy process, but if you're planning on doing quite a few, it still takes a while to do.

Most, if not all, the cdart images that are downloaded fron the cdart manager addon or from the fanart.tv website will already be perfect, but if, like me, you're trying to have cdart for every album you have, then you will have to look elsewhere for these images - http://www.cover-paradise.to is my favourite, but it is from these other sources that will often have a background that would need cutting out.

With the diffuse image code that Ronie uses on Transparency, this process doesn't need to be done, therefore vastly speeding up the time it takes to add cdart images to your folders that will show correctly in XBMC.

Many thanks again to Ronie for pointing out what code needs to be in the files, if anyone else wants my amended xml files (for Aeon MQ3) or know which code to change, let me know and I'll be happy to help out where I can.

(2012-04-27 16:41)Buff Wrote:  Not sure if anyone would be interested in this, but with much help from Ronie on the Transparency thread, I've changed a bit of the code on the various xml files, so that cdart doesn't show the background square as in the first image above.

The bottom line is that if someone were to download a cd image from the various sources on the web, it will often have a white square around the image. To show properly in most XBMC skins the cd image has to have a transparent layer on it and be cut around so the white background doesn't exist anymore. Using a program such as GIMP makes this a pretty easy process, but if you're planning on doing quite a few, it still takes a while to do.

Most, if not all, the cdart images that are downloaded fron the cdart manager addon or from the fanart.tv website will already be perfect, but if, like me, you're trying to have cdart for every album you have, then you will have to look elsewhere for these images - http://www.cover-paradise.to is my favourite, but it is from these other sources that will often have a background that would need cutting out.

With the diffuse image code that Ronie uses on Transparency, this process doesn't need to be done, therefore vastly speeding up the time it takes to add cdart images to your folders that will show correctly in XBMC.

Many thanks again to Ronie for pointing out what code needs to be in the files, if anyone else wants my amended xml files (for Aeon MQ3) or know which code to change, let me know and I'll be happy to help out where I can.

I'm interested! Please do tell.

Are you alive?

Alive and well thankyou mattzane - looks like you've got this sorted now?

I've had a couple of PMs about this - sorry didn't see them until this morning - so thought I'd copy my reply in here for all to see. As mentioned before, I have to thank Ronie from Transparency for his help with this, I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise!

You need to alter the home.xml, includes.xml and musicvisualisation.xml files – these are located in appdata/roaming/xbmc/addons/skin.aeonmq3 – If you’re doing this to a different skin then the file names may be different but the location should be the same, I believe.

For each file you need to change the texture fallback code for the CDart to include a diffuse image. For safety, best to backup the three files before playing with them.

You also need to add this disk_mask.png file into the media folder of the skin. I’ve also put in there this disc.png file – not sure if you need that one or not but it can’t hurt.

If you open each document in notepad and then use the Find command to find “CD Overlay” - a few lines later you will see the texture code.

If you change this;

<texture fallback="cdart.png">$INFO[Player.FolderPath]cdart.png</texture>

To this;

<texture fallback="disc.png" diffuse="disc_mask.png" background="true">$INFO[Player.FolderPath,,cdart.png]</texture>

On the includes.xml file I also had to alter the size and position of the cd image, as it was slightly larger than the folder image – this is the code just before the texture code and I changed the size from 56x56 to 50x50 and the position from 22 x 3 y to 33 x 7 y – not sure if you’ll need to do this, see how it looks first maybe and then play around with the numbers.

I’ve also changed the size of my folder image on the home.xml and musicvisualisation files, as I use a slightly different cd case image – my folder images are slightly smaller because for the past few years I've used a program called stark covers to add a sheen to the image and round the corners and as a result of this the image is slightly smaller so looks better in a different cd case.

This was a program I found whilst using WMC Media Browser (pre-XBMC days!) – as I’d altered my entire music collection folder images, it’s hard to go back now!!

Hope this helps a few people.

Hi Buff

Well explained and working 100%. I think alot of people can benefit from this and saves alot of time.

You should defnitely write Marcos an email and see if he cant get this included into MQ4

Thanks again

Rgds
Manuel

Hi,

I have a related question which hopefully someone could help me with.

I'd love to have the the CDart be the generic CD for sources from CDs and a generic vinyl for sources from vinyl.

If there cdart.png is there then to continue to use that as normal.

Anyone help?

(2012-05-05 14:08)rdonohoe Wrote:  Hi,

I have a related question which hopefully someone could help me with.

I'd love to have the the CDart be the generic CD for sources from CDs and a generic vinyl for sources from vinyl.

If there cdart.png is there then to continue to use that as normal.

Anyone help?

Hi rdonohoe,

I think you can only have one "fallback" cdart i.e. one that shows if you haven't got the specific cdart for that album. But you could create a vinyl one for all the vinyl albums you have digitised and copy and paste that file into each album folder calling it cdart.png

Or download the actual vinyl art for each album from somewhere like http://www.dicogs.com or http://ecover.to - they've got a fair bit on there.

Hope that helps

tried to find that string of text on AOEN NOX, but couldnt find it. does anyone know if it exists or what has to be done because manually searching for and changing over 1000 albums is killing me at the moment!