Movie artwork

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ Artwork ▶ Movie artwork


Movie artwork are images directly related to a movie, preferably of high quality, that are displayed when viewing the movie entry in the library. The movie section in Kodi has the impressive ability to display up to 14 types of artwork.

It is important to note the following:

  • Artwork is totally skin dependent. This means that some skins display a small number of artwork types, while other skins will display most of the available artwork types.
  • In previous versions of Kodi and in older wiki pages, the term Thumbnails was used to describe Artwork. Kodi has now moved away from referring to thumbnails due to the amount of confusion and concern it caused users.
  • The base line for all artwork is the default skin Estuary. By default, Estuary displays the Basic artwork. Estuary can display the Extended artwork via additional add-ons.
  • While high resolution do look glorious on HDTV's it is important to be aware that the increased artwork size can negatively affect low powered hardware


Basic Movie Artwork

The artwork in the Basic section is the minimum artwork displayed by the default skin Estuary with a standard install.
Note the following:

  • The following naming schemes apply only to the artwork you have manually sourced and saved. It does not apply to the Kodi scraper or any add-on processes


Fanart

Artwork-FanartView02.jpg

Fanart can be defined as images, depicting iconic scenes in a movie, that have been created by fans.

For Kodi, it means digital images, of high quality, that are used as full screen backdrops or wallpapers to enhance the user experience.

The image to the right is a typical example of Movie fanart. It is specifically designed to match the 16:9 ratio of current generation televisions and monitors. This allows the screen to be completely filled by the image.

The standard resolution of fanart is 1920x1080. But with the rise in popularity of 4k televisions, there is a slow but steady shift to 3840x2160 sized fanart.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: fanart.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\fanart.jpg/png
Single movie in Directory: fanart.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\fanart.jpg/png
All movies in single Directory: <moviename>-fanart.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\Big Buck Bunny (2008)-fanart.jpg/png


Poster

Artwork-PosterView01.jpg

Also known as Cover Art and Folder Image. The Poster Art used in Kodi replicates the movie posters often seen in cinema complexes.

The image to the right is displaying poster images of four movies in the Kodi library. They are portrait, high quality images which use a small portion of the screen allowing movie information or other items to be displayed alongside.

The aspect ration of the poster is 1:1.5 with a resolution of 1000x1500. With the rise in popularity of 4k televisions, there is a slow but steady shift to 2000x3000 sized Posters.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: poster.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\poster.jpg/png
Single movie in Directory: poster.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\poster.jpg/png
All movies in single Directory: <moviename>-poster.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\Big Buck Bunny (2008)-poster.jpg/png


Actor Image

Artwork-Actors02.jpg

The Actor artwork is a portrait of an actor for easy identification. The image is named as follows <FirstName>_<LastName>.jpg

The image to the right is displaying the Actor Images of five actors along the top row. They are portrait, medium to high quality images.

The aspect ratio of the Actor Image is 1:1.5 with a normal resolution of 1000x1500. With the rise in popularity of 4k televisions, there is a slow but steady shift to 2000x3000 sized image.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay Structure: <FirstName>_<LastName>.jpg eg f:MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\BDMV\.actors\Amy_Adams.jpg
DVD Structure: <FirstName>_<LastName>.jpg eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\VIDEO_TS\.actors\Amy_Adams.jpg
Single movie in Directory: <FirstName>_<LastName>.jpg eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\.actors\Amy_Adams.jpg
All movies in single Directory: <FirstName>_<LastName>.jpg eg f:\MyMovies\.actors\Amy_Adams.jpg


Video Folder Artwork

Artwork-VideoFolder01.jpg

The Folder Artwork are landscape images that can be used to replace the standard folder icons when browsing your movie sources in the Video menu. You will not see this artwork in the Movies menu. This image is located directly within the Source directory.

To enable the image, navigate to Videos>Files in the menu system. Highlight a source and call up the Context Menu. Select Choose Thumbnail. If you have saved in the image in the correct location, it will be available to select immediately. If not, you will need to navigate to locate and select it. The image must remain in its original location once selected. Deleting the image will remove it from view in the folder icon.


The aspect ratio of the folder artwork is the same as per Fanart. As the image will always be a small icon size, you can reduce the resolution.

How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
Folder Artwork: folder.jpg eg f:\MyMovies\folder.jpg
Alternative name: <foldername>.jpg eg f:\MyMovies\MyMovies.jpg


Extended Movie Artwork

To display the Extended artwork, an add-on will need to be installed to extend the image handling capabilities of Estuary and other skins. Once this is installed, it will insert extra artwork fields in the Estuary Skin. The downloader can then be used to either automatically scrape the extra artwork or, due to the newly available artwork fields, you can manually search and insert your local artwork. One example is The Artwork Downloader add-on which can be installed from the official Kodi repository.

See: Add-on:Artwork_Downloader

Note the following:

  • The following naming schemes apply only to the artwork you have manually sourced and saved. It does not apply to the Kodi scraper or any add-on processes
  • If using the Artwork Downloader add-on, it is important to note the following
    • The add-on will ignore your locally saved artwork and will only download from the on-line sources.
    • The add-on will ignore movies when more than one movie is in a single directory. Each movie needs to be in it's own separate directory.


Artwork-Banner02.jpg

Also known as Wide Banner Icons. The image to the right shows the Movie Banner view on the Aeon Nox skin. They are images that normally contain recognisable characters or moments in the movie. The banner image normally displays the movie logo which is of a size that is clearly legible. There should be no written advertising of Actors, Studios etc.

The Banner uses an aspect ratio of 1:0.185. The standard resolution is 1000x185.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: banner.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\banner.jpg/png
Single movie in Directory: banner.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\banner.jpg/png
All movies in single Directory: n/a Movie must be in it's own movie directory


ClearArt

Artwork-ClearArt01.jpg

ClearArt are images that are saved on a transparent background. This allows the image to be overlayed on another image or playing video. The images normally include the movie name or logo, along with an iconic prop or scene from the movie, or an actors image.

The image to the right is displaying ClearArt at the bottom right corner of the image.

The image has an aspect ratio of 1:0.562 and the normal resolution is 1000x562.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: clearart.png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\clearart.png
Single movie in Directory: clearart.png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\clearart.png
All movies in single Directory: n/a Movie must be in it's own movie directory


Artwork-ClearLogo.jpg

This is the basic movie logo or movie name on a transparent background. The logo uses the movies distinctive font. There are no movie or actor images incorporated into the logo. The transparent background allows it to be overlayed on other images or video with minimal impact.

The image on the right is displaying the ClearLogo movie names across the bottom of the image.

The image has an aspect ratio of 1:0.388 and the normal resolution is 800x310.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: clearlogo.png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\clearlogo.png
Single movie in Directory: clearlogo.png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\clearlogo.png
All movies in single Directory: n/a Movie must be in it's own movie directory


Landscape

Landscape used to be an option with some skins and is still a hangover from earlier versions of XBMC. Unfortunately, the removal of the option may affect (and annoy) many users. Landscape is the same as Fanart.




Thumbnail

Artwork-Thumbs01.jpg

Thumbs and Movie Thumbs are a source of confusion for many people. The term Thumbs tends to convey the impression of a very small and low quality image. This is not the case. Movie thumbs are just smaller versions of Fanart. Most times it is the same image.

Thumbs are a setting within Kodi that will produce a thumbnail without access to the web. It takes an image from (n)th time in the video and applies it if there is no poster as an example an episode image. Old versions of XBMC did support thumbnail.jpg instead of poster.jpg in that aspect

This is also hangover from earlier days, when computer processing power was not powerful enough to manipulate a high number of images at a very fast rate. These days, thumbs can be ignored, and fanart used in it's place.

The image content of the Thumb is the same as for Fanart. The image properties have an aspect ratio is 16:9 with a usual resolution of 1000x562.




Skin Dependent & Other Artwork

The following artwork requires a skin that supports that type of artwork.

See also: Add-on Search


Disc

Artwork-DiscArt01.jpg

DiscArt requires the use of a supporting skin. It replicates the picture on the physical DVD and Bluray disc. Although the disc artwork is round, the image itself is square and the disc image is placed on a transparent background.

The aspect ration of the image is 1:1, and the usual resolution is 1000x1000.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: disc.png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\disc.png
Single movie in Directory: disc.png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\disc.png
All movies in single Directory: n/a Movie must be in it's own movie directory


The Logo has the same qualities and properties as the ClearLogo. These two items can be easily interchanged. Although, there are logo's with a solid background rather than a transparent background and these should not be used to replace the ClearLogo.


Extra fanart

Extra fanart is reliant on a supporting skin. You are able to download and save additional high quality Fanart which the skin can display, usually in a slideshow.


Movieset Fanart

As of v17, Kodi does not automatically recognise and scrape the Movieset Fanart. It needs to be manually selected.

This artwork is used for movie Collections or Sets. For example, the Superman collection consists of five movies. Kodi has the ability to display these as a Box-Set. When viewing the box-set, rather than displaying a fanart that is associated with only one of the movies, it is preferable to display a fanart image that has a connection to all the movies.

The properties of the movieset fanart are exactly the same as for Fanart.

It is possible that this artwork will be included in future versions of Kodi. But at this stage, the artwork needs to be manually applied.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: movieset-fanart.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\movieset-fanart.jpg/png
Single movie in Directory: movieset-fanart.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\movieset-fanart.jpg/png
All movies in single Directory: n/a Movie must be in it's own movie directory


Movieset Poster

As of v17, Kodi does not automatically recognise and scrape the Movieset Poster. It needs to be manually selected.

This artwork is used for movie Collections or Sets. For example, the Superman collection consists of five movies. Kodi has the ability to display these as a Box-Set. When viewing the box-set, rather than displaying a Poster that is associated with only one of the movies, it is preferable to display a Poster image that has a connection to all the movies.

The properties of the movieset poster are exactly the same as for Poster.

It is possible that this artwork will be included in future versions of Kodi. But at this stage, the artwork needs to be manually applied.


How to save your own manually sourced artwork
Saved movies as File Name Save Location
BluRay & DVD Structure: movieset-poster.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\movieset-poster.jpg/png
Single movie in Directory: movieset-poster.jpg/png eg f:\MyMovies\Big Buck Bunny (2008)\movieset-poster.jpg/png
All movies in single Directory: n/a Movie must be in it's own movie directory


Obtaining Artwork

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


Scrapers

A scraper is a Kodi core function which, in combination with the relevant metadata API add-on, will preform an automatic online search for movie information and then retrieve all relevant metadata and artwork and import it into the Kodi Library. The most common source for movie information is The MovieDB. There are many other sources, but most are specialist listings for foreign language movies, or Disney movies, for example.

The entire scraping process is reliant on your local directory and file names being named in accordance with the title listed at the scraper site. To ensure correct naming, simply visit the website, search for your movie, and copy the title from the site and paste into your directory/filename.

Kodi will then match the movie and download all relevant metadata and artwork. It is important to note that if you already have correctly named artwork in the movie folder, then Kodi will scrape the local artwork and ignore the online source. Metadata will still be downloaded though.

If you subsequently locate artwork that is preferable, it is possible to replace the artwork by calling up the Information page of the movie and selecting Choose Art, then navigating to, and selecting, your preferred artwork.


Manual Search & Save

There are three methods to manually search and save your artwork.


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.


Kodi- Choose Art

From within Kodi, you have the ability to change the default artwork.

Simply highlight the Movie whose artwork you want to change. Call up the Movie Information page, then select Choose Art. From within this page, you will be given the option to select which type of artwork you would like to change. Once selected, you will then be provided with a list of available artworks at the scraper site, or you can navigate to a local or network location.


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 what Kodi does natively, but they are unable to update Kodi's library. Rather they create what is known as a nfo file. This file holds all the metadata for that particular movie. The software will also download associated artwork from the scraper site. Kodi can then read this file and scrape it into the library the next time an Update Library is performed.

Although these programs are quick and easy to use, they are more suited for use where a movie is not listed at the scraper site, as you are able to create the movie metadata from scratch. You would normally use this for, say, Home Movies 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 scrapes.


Create Your Own

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 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. They also have artwork creation guides.
see : themoviedb- Image Creation Guide
  • IMDB- A comprehensive listing of ensuring artwork is appropriate and suitable.
see : IMDB- Image Submission Guide


Managing Artwork

Online

Cache

Editor note: Current Artwork Cache wiki page too large and comprehensive to incorporate here. Leave as separate page. Update page.

Local

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=315806&pid=2599318#pid2599318 https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=316396&pid=2604751#pid2604751