Revision as of 03:11, 18 May 2019

Artwork

The use of artwork will transform your mundane media player into a showpiece to be proud of, especially when teamed up with your favourite skin. Kodi will allow you to display Movie Posters, Fanart, Album Covers, Actor and Artist images to name a few. Install the Kodi slideshow add-on, and you will have a constant display of video or music fanart to brighten your entertainment room.

The Kodi scrapers automatically download artwork with little input required by the user. These pages are for those users that want greater control over their artwork by saving artwork locally or creating their own.

As the topic covering artwork is comprehensive, it has been broken down into smaller and more manageable pages for ease of reading. Make use of the Table of Contents and the NavBox located at the top right of the page. Information common to all categories is located on this page and the Artwork Type page.

Be aware that artwork is skin dependent. Not all artwork types are used in all skins.

Obtaining Artwork

Artwork contents
	Artwork Main Page Artwork Types; Creating Artwork; Changing Artwork; Album Artwork; Artist Artwork; Live TV Artwork; Movie Artwork; Movie Set Artwork; Music Video Artwork; TV Show Artwork; Season Artwork; Episode Artwork; See also: Artwork Cache; JSON-RPC & Skin Access ; Artwork Dump (v19↑); Artwork Beef (v18↓); Import-export library; Return to: Music Library Portal; Video Library Portal;

Movie, TV Show and Music artwork can be obtained using a variety of methods. The most common method is via the Kodi scraper.

Scrapers

The default sources for information and artwork that are used by the scrapers are:

Movies- The MovieDB
TV Shows- The MovieDB
Music- The AudioDB
General- Fanart.tv

Artwork from these sites can be downloaded manually by visiting and searching the sites and saving the artwork locally as described on the linked pages.

Media Managers

There is a range of software that can create nfo files and download artwork and save them to the correct location and correct naming. They perform the same process and function as the Kodi Scraping operation does natively, but they do not add any entries into the Kodi library. Instead they create what is known as NFO files. This file holds all the metadata for that particular movie, tv show or music. The software will also download associated artwork from the scraper site. Kodi can then read this file and scrape it into the library along with the artwork.

Although these programs are quick and easy to use, they are more suited for use where a movie or tv show is not listed at the scraper site. You are then able to create the metadata from scratch. You would normally use this for, say, home movies, sporting events or other items that are not listed at the scraper site.

It is always best to use Kodi for the normal mainstream scrapes and the Media Managers for the non-listed movie, tv show and music scrapes.

See also: NFO_files

Web Search

Using an online search engine can help you discover individual artworks, or additional sites where artwork is hosted. When downloading, check that the resolution is of an acceptable standard. Also pay respect to any copyright notices that are attached to the artwork.

Once downloaded, they must be named and saved correctly for the artwork to be visible to Kodi.

Create Your Own

Main page: Artwork/Types

So you are not happy with the artwork the scraper downloaded? And you just can't find that perfect artwork by manually searching the internet. Then, you will just have to create your own. For those who are artistically minded and can easily navigate around image editing software, then you should be able to easily create your very own user-defined artwork on your computer. Only your imagination is the limit, but be mindful that the artwork needs to remain true to the movie or tv show it represents.

If you are unsure where to start, the following links may prove useful. Especially if you plan to share your masterpieces. If this is the case, it is best to stick to the posted guidelines.

Fanart.TV- The premier repository for all things artwork. They have an in-depth guide for artwork requirements

see : Fanart.tv- Image Creation Guide

The MovieDB- The go to movie scraper site for Kodi. In addition to metadata, they also hold a large repository of artwork that are created and uploaded to the site by people just like you. Read their easy to understand artwork creation guide.

see : themoviedb- Image Creation Guide

The TVDB- The go to TV Show scraper site for Kodi. In addition to metadata, they also hold a large repository of artwork devoted to TV Shows. Read their easy to understand artwork creation guide.

see : theTVDB- Image Creation Guide

IMDB- A comprehensive listing of ensuring artwork is appropriate and suitable.

see : IMDB- Image Submission Guide

TheAudioDB- The go to scraper site for all things music. They hold metadata on Artists, Albums and Songs with a large collection of music artwork.

see : TheAudioDB- Image Creation Guide

Importing-Scanning Artwork

This section does not apply to the Kodi scraper or any other add-on scraping process. It only applies to artwork you have manually sourced and saved.

When performing an Update Library Kodi will always use local artwork first. If there is no local artwork, Kodi will obtain the artwork from online sources.

It is important to note that once a movie, tv show, artist or album has been scraped into the library, Kodi will ignore them on subsequent scans. If you have made changes to either artwork and/or metadata (in the form of a nfo file), you must instruct Kodi to update using one of the following methods...

If the Library has not yet been created, or the source has not yet been added
- Ensure your artwork is named and saved correctly. Add the Media sources to Kodi and allow to update. Artwork will be cached
This Movie/TV Show/Album/Artist is new and has not been added to the library yet
- An Update Library will scrape and cache the artwork, or
- For Videos, navigate Videos>Files, navigate to the item and call up the Information page. This will start an automatic scrape for that single item
- For Music, navigate Music>Files, locate and highlight the new artist or album. From the context menu select Scan item to library
I added new artwork for Movie/TV Show/Album/Artist already in the library
- For videos follow instructions for Kodi- Choose Art below
- For music follow instructions in Kodi- Choose Art below
I added new artwork for a lot of Movies/TV Shows/Music already in the library
- Update each Movie/TV Show/Music manually using instructions in the previous option, or
- Remove the Source and clean library. Re-add the source and allow the Update Library

See also: Update Video Library

See also: Update Music Library

"Available" artwork

Scrapers and NFO files can include multiple images for a single type of artwork. The first image will be assigned to the media item for skins and other interfaces to access for display, and the full list will be saved for the "Choose art" dialog, where you can select a new image for any art type.

Kodi- Choose Art

From within Kodi, you have the ability to manually change the artwork at any time by following these directions.

Note: The following is based on the Video Library. Music Library follows the same process, but the screenshots will be slightly different for Choose Art- Artists and Choose Art- Albums

Highlight the media item whose artwork you want to change.
Call up the Information page, (Image 1)
- For seasons and movie sets the "Choose Art" option is in the Context menu.
Select Choose Art. (Image 1)
From within this page, you will be given the option to select which type of artwork you would like to change. (Image 2)
- If the type of artwork you would like to change is not listed, use the Add art type button to add it. An onscreen keyboard will be displayed. Enter the new type of artwork and select Ok.
- Examples of artwork type are those listed in the following pages- eg clearlogo, clearart, banner etc...
Once selected, you will then be provided with a list of available artwork at the scraper site, or you can navigate to a local or network location. (Image 3)
Once you select the desired image, it will replace the existing image. You will be returned to the screen displayed in Image 2
If you do not intend to change any other artwork types, simply Esc or Back out of the screen

Image 1- Choose Art on the Information Page
Image 2- Select which type of artwork to change
Image 3- List of available remote artworks from the scraper site, as well as the ability to Browse local and network sources
Image 4- Using the Refresh Method

An alternative method for Music and Video library:

Choose Refresh as seen in Image 1.
You will then be asked Locally stored information found. Ignore and refresh from Internet? (Image 4)
- To scrape local artwork and metadata - Select No note- If you have no local nfo file, Kodi will scrape metadata from the online scraper site
- To scrape online artwork and metadata - Select Yes

Add-ons to display artwork

The following add-ons allow you to display your movie, TV show and music artwork.

Screensavers

Want to do more with all that wonderful fanart? Install this Kodi screensaver. Just like a screensaver on computers from yesteryear, the Kodi screensaver will produce a slideshow of your Movie and TV Show fanart, or set it to display your Music Fanart. Don't like either of those? Then setup a directory with your own pictures and it can produce a screensaver from your selection of photos.

See also: Add-on:Picture Slideshow Screensaver

Managing Artwork

There are a number of ways to maintain and improve Kodi's handling of the artwork.

Cache

Kodi maintains a texture cache on local device storage for all artwork displayed in the GUI, whether from an online source or the local file system. These textures are optimized and stored locally for faster loading.

When media is added to the library, Kodi initially only has a URL or path to the artwork. The artwork itself is downloaded (if from an online source) and then cached.

See also: Artwork/Cache

Recovering Disk Space

After years of use, it is expected that your system will gather some clutter- that being either orphaned artwork files or corrupted artwork which will not display.

See also: HOW-TO:Reduce disk space usage
See also: Artwork/Cache

Texture Cache Maintenance

Texture Cache Maintenance utility is a python script created by MillhouseVH, that can do a number of artwork related maintenance on the Kodi library. The script can be used to pre-generate thumbnails, clean up old thumbnail files, find corrupted files, and much more. The script can work on any OS that can run Python 2.6 or higher.

See also: Texture Cache Maintenance utility

Import/Export

Kodi has the option to Export and Import the library databases. These options may be used for a number of reasons including the following more popular ones:

Perform database backup and recovery
Reorganization of data or eliminate database fragmentation (export, clean/remove database, re-import)
Move data between Kodi databases on different platforms (eg Widows to Linux)

See also: Import-export library

Accessing with skins and JSON-RPC

The primary usage of artwork is to be displayed, and to that end, they can be accessed by name in skins and over JSON-RPC.

See also: Artwork/Accessing with skins and JSON-RPC

Troubleshooting

There are certain scenarios where attempting to replace existing artwork with new artwork, you may experience Kodi refusing to load the new artwork. This occurs when replacing one artwork with another artwork having the same name. eg replacing poster.jpg with a new poster.jpg.

Rest assured that the new image has been accepted, but due to the same filename, Kodi may take upto 24 hrs to check the image hash, realise the image is different and clear out the cached image and replace it with the new one. This is intended behaviour. Further reading available in the following link

See also: Artwork/Cache

Artwork: Difference between revisions