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Control Panel Mock Up
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Jehde:
I've been thinking about either building my own control panel or purchasing a kit to use with a computer hooked up to a TV, and maybe one day building a cabinet around it. I made a mock up of what I think I want the layout and the design in general to look like:



In the centre is a 2.25" trackball and to the left and right of the buttons at the top is a push/pull spinner and a topfire 8-way stick respectively.

As for buttons on the sides, there would be primary and secondary flipper buttons for pinball, and on the left side of the panel would also be escape, reset, save, load, and options buttons. On the right side of the panel would be volume up and down buttons, and the front of the panel would have coin buttons for each of the 4 players.

The main games I'm planning on playing with it are fighters (MK1-MK3, KoF94-2002), brawlers (Sunset Riders, Simpsons, TMNT), Neo Geo games, NBA Jam, Smash TV, virtual pinball, Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command,  Tron, and Tempest.

Anything I'm overlooking? Any suggestions in general? Too much skittles? :dunno
DGP:
Just an honest observation...

Button layout in relation to stick is not very functional (or comfortable), but this is just in the planning phase so I like the look of it (has sort of an Xbox360 controller feel to it).

Best of luck,
Jason
keilmillerjr:
What is going on with players 3 and 4?! Your control panel is shaped for 2 people. That is an awkward location. You also have every admin button imaginable. There is no need. The curve for ABCD doesn't seem right. Place your hand on a table. C and D should be at more of an even height.

Just my opinion.
Afterburner:
Yeah, if you are a big MK fan, its hard to not end up with a Frankenpanel with a ton of buttons.

Add the trackball, topfire, and spinner and you definitely end up with a big panel.

Looks like you should pretty much have controls for most everything except driving games.  And you can manage those with the spinner if you ever wanted to play one.

Maybe make your primary joys rotary for some additional controls without adding more hardware to the panel.

Any desire for lightgun games?  Maybe build a couple of slots to store Aimtraks?

I definitely recommend you mock it up with cardboard to make sure you are happy with button placement and layout.  its cheap and will tell you a lot about your design.
Jehde:
Thank you for the quick replies and honesty!


--- Quote from: DGP on August 08, 2013, 06:28:10 pm ---Button layout in relation to stick is not very functional (or comfortable)

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: keilmillerjr on August 08, 2013, 08:13:43 pm ---What is going on with players 3 and 4?! Your control panel is shaped for 2 people. That is an awkward location. You also have every admin button imaginable. There is no need. The curve for ABCD doesn't seem right. Place your hand on a table. C and D should be at more of an even height.
--- End quote ---

My initial thought for the button layout was to emulate the MK3 layout and add a couple more buttons to make it more versatile. The layout is mainly designed for 2 player fighters and Neo Geo, but I still wanted to support 4 player brawlers, the best party games. I don't really have the room for a massive control panel, so I just fit the extra players onto a normal sized panel, resulting in player 3 and 4 controls being a bit cramped. I'm also kind of approaching this with a kitchen sink mentality, and I won't necessarily have every single feature on the first build, but I want to plan around expansion and eventually adding it to a cabinet. The recommendation to feel the controls out with your hand on the table is helpful though, and on revision I straightened things out a bit. Still not sure how to place the buttons for player 3 and 4 though...




--- Quote from: Afterburner on August 08, 2013, 08:21:06 pm ---Yeah, if you are a big MK fan, its hard to not end up with a Frankenpanel with a ton of buttons.

Looks like you should pretty much have controls for most everything except driving games.  And you can manage those with the spinner if you ever wanted to play one.

Maybe make your primary joys rotary for some additional controls without adding more hardware to the panel.

Any desire for lightgun games?  Maybe build a couple of slots to store Aimtraks?

I definitely recommend you mock it up with cardboard to make sure you are happy with button placement and layout.  its cheap and will tell you a lot about your design.

--- End quote ---

I think it's my love of MK and Asteroids that contribute the most to the frankenpanelness. :laugh: For driving games I think I would just temporarily attach a PC wheel set to it. I enjoy Ikari Warriors, so a rotary joystick is tempting, but would the rotary function be problematic in games that use standard joysticks? I love Time Crisis, so I might add a lightgun or two down the line, but they need to work on Time Crisis 2 emulation more first. :P
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