Alchemy: Video Pinball Shmup Table

[mcseforsale]

The black has really brought the dimensions into place.  I don't think the udders will be noticeable at all.  You could always decorate around them.

But, this machine will have to be seen from both sides.  Not sure how that works into the master garage plan.

AJ

Thanks. I figured I need to turn up the dial and get serious about getting this done.



Its definitely the weirdest thing I've built. After all the whole point of this box is to just to hide all of it's tricks as best as it can and let the screens do all the work. Its kind of an anti cabinet

[Maximus]

There's no room for the speakers in the backbox so I wanted to do something cool with them.

[Maximus]

Adds a little attitude and fun without increasing the height too much

[CraftyMech]

I am loving this build, but I am also distracted by that sweet looking Ikari Warriors cab in the background!

[DGP]

I'll admit to not being a big Pin fan but this build is just off the wall incredible. 

 
Jason

[Maximus]

I am loving this build, but I am also distracted by that sweet looking Ikari Warriors cab in the background!

What Ikari Warriors? I dont see anything

[Le Chuck]

I am loving this build, but I am also distracted by that sweet looking Ikari Warriors cab in the background!

What Ikari Warriors? I dont see anything

I told you to be careful with that camo - that stuff is wicked good at hiding things.  Now you'll just have to walk around until you bump into it. 

[TopJimmyCooks]

how are you going to handle flipper buttons?  use something shallow like gold leaf's/japan stuff, or will regular ones fit below the PF monitor?  don't put them in a nonstandard place. 

[mcseforsale]

Foot pedals.

AJ

how are you going to handle flipper buttons?  use something shallow like gold leaf's/japan stuff, or will regular ones fit below the PF monitor?  don't put them in a nonstandard place.

[Maximus]

Yeah i'll get the flipper buttons in there somehow.

Seems I'm a little cursed with all things electronic at the moment. Looks like the power board on the ultra wide monitor has taken a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. It came on for a short while this morning but then started dropping out a lot now it won't come on at all.  Getting a sporadic fizzing noise from the board.

[TheShaner]

You and your chronies sure do seem to be cranking out some machines.  Are you guys doing something like building an arcade?  Or are all of these just personal machines?

[Maximus]

You and your chronies sure do seem to be cranking out some machines.  Are you guys doing something like building an arcade?  Or are all of these just personal machines?

All my gear is for my personal collection. Fizgig is building 200 all original cabs and pins for a business he is opening.le Chuck is just insane

[Maximus]

Measured the cab today and its very close to stock dimensions.  55" deep, 68" high and just 1" wider than normal at 30" for the back box would have to come off for normal doorways.  Fortunately I won't have to deal with that as its going from one garage to another.

I'm pretty happy that I've managed to fit all of these almost impossible sizes into a regular sized cab

[Maximus]

Getting ready to warm up the creative juices and dive back into this build.

A few things stopped me in my tracks, the house move being the main one, but also the ultrawide monitor decided to crap out and that really bummed me out. The power board was making a bunch of fizzing and crackling sounds, so I took a risk and bought a replacement one for about $60 and dropped it in.... nothing. So now I was into this older 720p monitor for about $330 total and it still wasn't working, needless to say this dinged my enthusiasm.

Fortunately, 2.9:1 displays have started to become a little more common place, and I managed to find a really good deal on a 29" Dell U2913WM 29 INCH Ultra Wide Monitor over at the Dell factory outlet, $380 inc tax and shipping gets me much newer tech, basically the same size and it's a 1080x2560 LED IPS display so hopefully it has a long and healthy life.

Any hoooooo, it's on it's way. I'm about 3-4 weeks out on my workshop being completed so then I'll be able to fully migrate all of my gear and projects out of the garage and focus on getting back down to business.

Also I've managed to recruit the super talented SJaak to help out on the software side of this build, he's going to take a bash at creating a custom front end that will support up to 4 monitors with the ability to show separate art/movie files on each of the four screens, so that's exciting too.

[mcseforsale]

So, what are you doing here?  Get back to work!

Re-subscribed.

AJ

[Maximus]

So, what are you doing here?

Well, there's still a big blob of nothingness where my workshop should be...

[mcseforsale]

That looks good, though.  Doing those properly is A LOT of backbreaking work.

AJ

[Maximus]

Yep it's going to make an awesome foundation for the shed, I want this thing to last, so learning from the three little piggies I decided that building this thing on brick was the best way to go.

[PL1]

Yep it's going to make an awesome foundation for the shed, I want this thing to last, so learning from the three little piggies I decided that building this thing on brick was the best way to go.

I thought they used concrete. (3:53)   




Scott

[Maximus]

Now we are getting somewhere

[mcseforsale]

Before you get much further, you should cut a hole for an A/C unit....right there in the back.  Nothing's better than an air conditioned workspace.

Also, if yer keeping tools in there, I'd do a vapor barrier around the outside and on the floor.  That way, your tools won't rot and it'll stay nice and dry in there.

You gonna do some dust handling?  Or are you gonna cut outside?

AJ

[TKW4rr10r]

Also I've managed to recruit the super talented SJaak to help out on the software side of this build, he's going to take a bash at creating a custom front end that will support up to 4 monitors with the ability to show separate art/movie files on each of the four screens, so that's exciting too.

Is there a separate thread about this SW development? I was just asking about something like this on a thread in the SW section. My build wouldn't be anywhere nearly as complex, but was also looking for a way to play vids on a second screen and/or have the game selection on a separate monitor than the game play.

[Maximus]

Is there a separate thread about this SW development? I was just asking about something like this on a thread in the SW section. My build wouldn't be anywhere nearly as complex, but was also looking for a way to play vids on a second screen and/or have the game selection on a separate monitor than the game play.

No not yet there's nothing to see for now. The pre alpha will be built around this actual VPin build and we'll see how it goes from there.

[Maximus]

Before you get much further, you should cut a hole for an A/C unit....right there in the back.  Nothing's better than an air conditioned workspace.

Also, if yer keeping tools in there, I'd do a vapor barrier around the outside and on the floor.  That way, your tools won't rot and it'll stay nice and dry in there.

You gonna do some dust handling?  Or are you gonna cut outside?

AJ

You may be right on the AC, I need to go through a summer with it first, it really doesn't  get much above 85 here in the summer and the shed also has quite a lot of shelter from the surrounding trees. Same with the vapor barrier, we'll go an average of 170 days without rain in the summer months, and overall we average about 11" of rain a year.

As for dust I refuse to cut inside any more, it's makes a huge mess and just sucks ass, so I'd rather not cut anything if I cant cut outside, again fortunately the weather here means you'll never need to wait long for a suitable day to work outdoors.

[Maximus]

Dell monitor arrived today to replace the ultrawide. They are almost identical in size but the dell has a much much better resolution and screen in general.

This thing is heavy , must be all those pixels

[Maximus]

OK peoples, this has been sidelined long enough!!!!!

I've finally got my workshop built and finished, I'm all moved in with power and lighting and have cleared a large part of the garage out so that I can really get some breathing room and be able to see where the barcade is going. All that being said, I really need to pull some focus and get back to this build.

I keep getting mentally overwhelmed by all the different parts of this build that sit outside of the norm and I think I've been letting myself get stuck in mental blocks.

So to get around this I'm going to break the project out into goals so I'm not trying to think about everything at once.

Goal 1. - GET IT WORKING!!!!!
Hyperpin is a bit of a pain in the ass itself, add into that the quirks of Virtual Pinball, FUture Pinball and then the different .exe releases of those that are matched to certain tables and not others and it all starts to get a little annoying. So I'm just going to configure Hyperpin to run a few tables and use those for testing, TAF, TZ and MM will be enough.

Goal 2. Hardware & Lighting
I have all the gear I need to control my motors, gears, shakers, contactors, strobes and LEDs so I just need to get in there and do all the wiring and get things configured properly, I think once I feel all the thuds, whirrs and other gizmos it will really get me excited and feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Goal 3. - Bezels, glass and dressing.
I really want to build a 3D bezel that runs along the inside of the cabinet and under the glass around the playfield. Also I'd like to incorporate some RGB lighting within this bezel so the entire sides of the playfield react to the lighting events. For the glass on the back box I want to do some paint masking and I really wanted to have some kind of subtle generic pattern in the masking so it didn't look so boring and black. Maybe I wont need it as it may take up so little space that it won't really matter.

Goal 4. - The rear projection sides.
I've decided that I want the sides to be solid pieces of acrylic that cover the entire side of the cab. They need to sit flush against the shape of the legs and also the side rails, so I'm going to need to make some kind of routing stencil to do that. Either the acrylic itself needs to be a frosted white with a matt, semi translucent finish, or I need to treat clear acrylic with a rear projection paint to get the quality of image I am looking for. I know how to do both, but it will come down to my ability to execute this properly and of course cost, some of those acrylics can get insanely expensive as they are so specialized. Also, mounting the acrylic on the side of the cab so there are no visible screws etc is going to be a challenge.

Goal 5. - Software, head tracking and FE configuration.
SJaak is helping out in the dept, but it's going to take us quite a while to nail it down and get it working just the way it needs to in order to really unleash the potential in this build. Done right, the whole cabinet will transform as you flip through the tables in the FE and of course when you launch the game, it should hopefully be the most convincing VPin you've ever seen showing full cabinet side art to match the play field and back box area. I also want to make use of the BAM system to really take the experience to the next level using head/face tracking to change the view of the play field as you move from side to side, see here...



Goal 6. - Nudging
First I have to work out if the machine is up to the abuse of nudging, especially with the dual projector configuration. If it is then I can decide which way to go and how to implement this properly.

Goal 7. - Lock down bar and likelihood of being able to still pull off the shmup controls.
Jamming such a large screen into a normal wide body pinball space has left me with basically zero space at the front of the cabinet, so I decided I would wait until I have the cab performing it's primary function properly and THEN decide if I can pull of the shmup controls in an elegant way, if not, then so be it.

If I stick to this list in this order then I should be able to make good progress at a decent pace, I just had to break it all out as all of this has been spinning around in my head, each section with it's own unknowns and problems, so hopefully this is my way through.

[mcseforsale]

Personally, I think the SHMUP should be abandoned.  This thing will be a masterpiece without that.  I think the SHMUP controls will look like an afterthought on what it otherwise an inspired piece of engineering.

YMMV.

Oh, and 

AJ

[yotsuya]

Personally, I think the SHMUP should be abandoned.  This thing will be a masterpiece without that.  I think the SHMUP controls will look like an afterthought on what it otherwise an inspired piece of engineering.

+1.

[BadMouth]

Personally, I think the SHMUP should be abandoned.  This thing will be a masterpiece without that.  I think the SHMUP controls will look like an afterthought on what it otherwise an inspired piece of engineering.

+1.

dedicated shmup cab! dedicated shmup cab! dedicated shmup cab! dedicated shmup cab! dedicated shmup cab! dedicated shmup cab! 

[rCadeGaming]

Personally, I think the SHMUP should be abandoned.  This thing will be a masterpiece without that.  I think the SHMUP controls will look like an afterthought on what it otherwise an inspired piece of engineering.

Have to agree.  Won't shmups work well on the MvC Evolution cab?  The monitor rotates and everything.

[opt2not]

The people have spoken!
Ditch the shumppin' on this thing. 

[Superfrog]

another thing maybe to look at is just to undo the body of the projector for more room to got the projector box right under the cabinet and not stick outside of the cabinet.

Or did you already look at that option?

Great to see this starting up again 

[Maximus]

another thing maybe to look at is just to undo the body of the projector for more room to got the projector box right under the cabinet and not stick outside of the cabinet.

Or did you already look at that option?

Great to see this starting up again 

Yep already looked at that and it wouldn't really give me anything, it would expose voltages though and be a dust magnet

[Maximus]

Finally this project has started moving again. Replaced the dead screen with the new Dell monitor and spent a few hours reconfiguring everything. Got the Sound wired properly and it is amazing, such a difference.

[Maximus]

Buttons in and programmed using a Kade controller. I got to play my first proper game which was pretty awesome.

[wp34]

That looks really good.   

[Superfrog]

There is no room for the lockdown bar.... or will it add later.
It's a big beast  nice to see some progress.

I'm almost ready to start with my mini pinball bartop.

Greetings

[Maximus]

Yeah the lockdown bar is going to be fabbed custom, if I ever finish this dang build 

[spoot]

Yeah the lockdown bar is going to be fabbed custom, if I ever finish this dang build 

What width?

[Billy_Goatfeet]

  Amazing concept!  I am a bit late to the party but I can't wait to see how this turns out.  I think the SHMUPS joystick is a great  idea.  I was directed to this thread when I posted regarding doing the same thing for my upcoming build.  The obvious problem is finding the space for it, I think it would really add an exponential versatility to the project.  Following with great interest!

 

BG.