What's new

Switching from themes to backgrounds

cy

.
Joined
Sep 3, 2020
Messages
158
Likes
469
Portables
7
It's about time I've done some sort of update for all the themes I've created. A long while back, Aurelio made it so you could easily make any 640x480p or 800x480p image your background or "theme" for RVLoader (depending on if your portable's screen is 4:3 or 16:9). After this update, my themes became obsolete, and not long after that, they became outdated. Nowadays they're so outdated that they kinda break RVLoader. For this reason I recommend against using my old themes, although I will be leaving them up for preservation purposes.

With all this said, I won't be updating the themes themselves since they're just going to break eventually anyways. Instead, I'm going to release the backgrounds for each one of them and in this thread, I'll explain how to update to just using backgrounds instead. I'm going to assume you already have the latest version of RVLoader installed, and you're already using one of my old outdated themes. If you don't have the latest version of RVLoader installed, then step 0 will be to update RVLoader which can be found here.

First, you're gonna want to connect your portable's file system to your computer and navigate to the "rvloader" folder. Within that folder there should be another folder titled "themes" (the "/rvloader/themes" directory). In this folder you'll probably have a folder named "main" along with folders named something else such as "Zelda Theme 1 - By Cyframe" - you'll want to delete all the folders in here except for "main".

Now, if you want to update the background or "theme" you were using before, download the archive I've attached, and navigate through it until you find the background image you want to use.

Back out of the "themes" folder, go into the "backgrounds" folder (the "/rvloader/backgrounds/" directory), and copy the background(s) you want to use into there.

When you're done, you can disconnect your portable, turn it on, and navigate to the settings menu in RVLoader. From here go to the "Loader" tab, and then under "Background image:" toggle through the background image you want to use. Once you've found the one you want to use, go down to "Save config" and press A. RVLoader will automatically set the image you selected as your new background.

Congrats! You've now updated to using a background! Backgrounds don't have the same set of visual features that themes did. But they're much easier for people to put together, and are a future proofed version of the themes of yesteryear.

Since backgrounds are much easier to make, I'll probably be posting backgrounds for RVLoader more readily. It really is just a matter of resizing an image you find on the internet to either 640x480, or 800x480. So feel free to make your own background images compatible with RVLoader!

Below are the pngs I ripped from the old themes as well as some new backgrounds I made. You can click on the preview for each of these and download them for your own use:

Mario backgrounds(No 16:9 support):
SMG Theme 1.png
SMG Theme 2.png
SMG Theme 3.png
SMG Theme 4.png
SMG Theme 5.png


Zelda backgrounds:
Zelda Theme 1.png
Zelda Theme 2.png
Zelda Theme 3.png
Zelda Theme 4.png
Zelda Theme 5.png

Zelda Theme 1.png
Zelda Theme 2.png
Zelda Theme 3.png
Zelda Theme 4.png
Zelda Theme 5.png


Steins;Gate backgrounds(No 16:9 support):
Steins;Gate 1.png
Steins;Gate 2.png
Steins;Gate 3.png
Steins;Gate 4.png
Steins;Gate 5.png


Here are some extra backgrounds I cropped for this:
16x9_BB_Traces.png
4x3_BB_Traces.png
4x3_Neptunia_VII.png
16x9_PD_Riding_A_Taco_Through_Space.png
4x3_PD_Riding_A_Taco_Through_Space.png
4x3Stars.png
16x9Stars.png
4x3PurpleSpace.png
16x9PurpleSpace.png
4x3WaluigiDab.png
16x9WaluigiDab.png
4x3CramSchool.png
16x9CramSchool.png
4x3Railgun.png
16x9Railgun.png
4x3SNES.png
4x3SNES.png
 
Last edited:

cy

.
Joined
Sep 3, 2020
Messages
158
Likes
469
Portables
7
or this is really amazing man, thanks for sharing with the community, and by the way great work!
Thanks I guess? I wanna make it clear that I didn't do hardly any work at all here though. Aurelio added the background feature into RVLoader many moons ago, all I did was take the backgrounds out of my old themes, make a few new ones, and make a guide on updating to the background system (for people who can't computer), and post it all to the forums.
 
Joined
Apr 23, 2024
Messages
1
Likes
1
Thanks for the detailed instructions cy.
I really like the galaxy and the green circuit board backgrounds, I can't wait to add them to my Ashida.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cy

cy

.
Joined
Sep 3, 2020
Messages
158
Likes
469
Portables
7
Glad this is helpful. A few people still use some of the legacy themes I made and I wanted a place to point them whenever I see them using one of my themes since they tend to break things in newer versions of RVLoader. I went ahead and updated the original post here so that instead of a file archive, there is an image preview for each of the backgrounds I converted and uploaded. This should hopefully make things more clear to people and make downloading the backgrounds you want easier.
 
Top