New cab for the back porch

[johnndeanna]

Well, I returned the Samsung TV I bought earlier today. Turns out I remembered I have a Sony 37" on the wall in my son's bedroom (my TV not his) that has been sitting unused for a while now. Since both boys are hiking the Appalachian Trail until the beginning of August I decided to use that one instead. Spent about 30 minutes tonight de-casing it and trying it out to see how it looked. Turns out it looks REALLY good. I took one pic of Ms. Pac Man with bezels turned on and I'm not sure I really like the bezels on. Without them on the game is really large and look superb. With bezels it really shrinks the games down a bit and I think I'll run with them off. I think this will work wonderfully.

[PL1]

You may want to look into MAMELayPlus. (screencap below)   




Scott

[johnndeanna]

I'll take a look at that tomorrow. Problem is I can't have the full TV length showing. In the pics below the image you see on the main MAME screen is all the area I can fit in the monitor opening. MA looks pretty good in a vertical setup, but I need to do something about that ugly skin its using. I need to come up with something a bit more pleasing to the eye for sure. Based on the screen size I will only have about 1.5" of black space all around (vertical games) which give me about the best viewable area I can get based on my screen opening size. Horizontal games obviously will have more space above and below.

     

I really need to look around tonight and get my DL 1&2 and SA discs out so I can get Daphne set up tomorrow. No more work tonight. I'm taking a dip in the pool in a few and heading to bed soon. Later all.

[Rick]

MA looks pretty good in a vertical setup, but I need to do something about that ugly skin its using. I need to come up with something a bit more pleasing to the eye for sure.

Mike Boss makes some kickass skins for MaLa. I'm pretty sure he'd be able to whip something up for MA as well.

[ChanceKJ]

Well after some prodding from you all and a bit of inspiration from Maximus' build, I have decide to forego the 19" LCD in favor of a 32" flat screen....

Internet peer pressure at its finest right there.

I'm loving the progress with this build. When you first mentioned the navy blue look and with your Forces background I was thinking a cool theme would be a jet bursting up through some white clouds at the bottom, pulling a long contrail behind it (for the side art).  Something classic like an F-4 Phantom, or SR-71. Then a basic navy colored CP top with the USAF roundel off to the upper side, with a chipping paint style texture. Dark navy blue t-moulding, and a cool marquee to match. Make it look simple, not too flashy. That way it could live among the furniture in the winter

[pbj]

That flat screen TV looks so much better than that tiny PC monitor it's unreal.

 

[johnndeanna]

@PBJ, I have to agree. I was concerned that it would be far too pixelated but I like how it looks.

@ChanceJK, That damn peer pressure is a heavy burden to bear for sure. I may consider doing some art for it in the future, but that will come later. For now I want to get this up and running, painted and ready to play. I was messing around with the MA theme editor a while ago and I think I can come up with a pretty good theme for this and then build some side panel and CP art from this. I can make tons of changes to themes without committing any money, only time.

Tonight I need to get some work done on sound and marquee. Not sure what I want to do speaker wise yet. My wife wants to be able to use the cab as our music source for the back patio in the summer, so I am tossing around ideas on that aspect. That is new territory for me. I am not completely PC illiterate, but we do not have a large music library so I am not sure which way is best to go. I am considering using MA to activate iTunes provided I can use a joystick to navigate songs and buttons to select them. If so I can just use MA to activate all of it and a single button to go back into MA's main screen.

I guess we'll have to see how that goes.

[Rick]

My wife wants to be able to use the cab as our music source for the back patio in the summer, so I am tossing around ideas on that aspect. That is new territory for me. I am not completely PC illiterate, but we do not have a large music library so I am not sure which way is best to go. I am considering using MA to activate iTunes provided I can use a joystick to navigate songs and buttons to select them. If so I can just use MA to activate all of it and a single button to go back into MA's main screen.

There are a lot of better options than iTunes, especially for a "jukebox" setup if you go for that. But if you do go that route, you'll have a pretty nice machine with which to do it on. Put in some nice speakers, and a good subwoofer, and even your gaming will benefit from that.

[johnndeanna]

I did spend a few minutes browsing the web and came across an open source media player called XMBC. It looks pretty cool and look as if this is what I am after. Now I will need to see how well it runs on the old PC in the cab. If it is too slow I will come up with another option. Boots easily from MA as well.

[Rick]

I did spend a few minutes browsing the web and came across an open source media player called XMBC. It looks pretty cool and look as if this is what I am after. Now I will need to see how well it runs on the old PC in the cab. If it is too slow I will come up with another option. Boots easily from MA as well.

XBMC is The Boss. I run it on multiple computers/TV's throughout the house.

[johnndeanna]

I decided on a cab color. I am going with a nice blue color that should look nice with the black t-molding. Here is a pic of the color. I'm not sure about using the red buttons but I have them so I'll use them. I may switch them out though. I'm still not sure how to decorate the CP overlay. I at least want to get it wired up and functional and then I can do the top.

[johnndeanna]

And here is a bit of work tonight getting the CP wired up. I need to get some bus bars to connect my grounds to and get the PC board for the TT2 spinner.




There are some marks in the paint I am not sure how to get rid of. Any ideas other that pulling all the buttons and re-painting?

[johnndeanna]

Well I had a bit of free time today so I decided to work a bit on my CP overlay. I say overlay but I will actually paint this on versus an actual overlay, except for letters which I will use dry transfers.



I like the overall look and feel its simple and effective. Has a sort of LCARS feel to it I think. On my screen bezel I will have a game list and labels on what each button does in each game so you can look at the bezel and figure out which button does what. Hopefully that will keep me from having to explain everything to every person that plays it.

Should I label the spinner and 4-way? Comments or concerns are as always appreciated.

[markc74]

Ace control panel!

I'm a big fan of simple designs and that looks really well balanced. Good stuff 

[ChanceKJ]

It kinda has an LCARS meets Blues Clues feel to it. I like the basic approach.

[yotsuya]

For consistency's sake, I would label the 4-way and the spinner. 

[ChanceKJ]

For consistency's sake, I would label the 4-way and the spinner. 

Agreed for the spinner. Like "Spin".

Not sure about the sticks tho, if you labeled the 4-way you'd have to do it to all the sticks.. I'd just put arrows. Basic white ones, thin, like the text of the labels. 4 and 8 depending on stick type.  Maybe smaller ones for the diagonals on the 8's if you want a more traditional approach.   

[yotsuya]

For consistency's sake, I would label the 4-way and the spinner. 

Agreed for the spinner. Like "Spin".

Not sure about the sticks tho, if you labeled the 4-way you'd have to do it to all the sticks.. I'd just put arrows. Basic white ones, thin, like the text of the labels. 4 and 8 depending on stick type.  Maybe smaller ones for the diagonals on the 8's if you want a more traditional approach.

He has "Player 1 Controls" listed, but the 4-way also functions as P1 controls. If you don't list it, I bet 99% of time if someone walked up to the cabinet to play, they'll just use the 8 way. I'd at least put "P1 4-Way Stick" or something identifying what it is. I'm not sure a casual play will "get" 4 and 8 arrows as clearly as if it said something.

[ChanceKJ]

Good call.

Whatever the label is, the less characters the better. Simple = better

[johnndeanna]

I labeled the remaining controls and adjusted the layout slightly to accommodate the new stuff. Here is a new image of the CP. If I have the time today I am going to work on a side art layout and see what I can come up with. Ignore the fact that some of the outlines look weird. I just need to set display order on my prints to have the right stuff on top

[Le Chuck]

I'd lose the word "button" because it's really really obvious.  Numbering them is fine.  Also your P1 B1 is offline with the other two by a space.  You can also lose P1 and P2 infront of Start.  You have the big label at the bottom letting people know what controls are for P1 and P2 so no need to list them again. 

[BGoulette]

Player 1's buttons appear to be right-justified with the "LCARS" lines, but it does kind of mess with one's perception.

The text you've added along the bottom appears to be a different weight than the other texts: maybe an uncondensed or extended version of what you used above? I'd aim for consistency there: you're probably well aware, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

[ChanceKJ]

Agreed with loosing "button" and I'd also say loose "controls"  so it just reads "player 1" etc.

[Malenko]

I dont think anything needs labeled. I'd suggest getting the vinyl stickers for P1 and P2 start and for the coin buttons. I think the 4 and 8 arrows explain what the controls do without having to put text on them.

I'd lose the text and make the lines meet up.

[jugger18]

XBMC should run well on that PC.  The only thing that can cause issues with "older" PC's is if you choose one of the newer themes that is more intense

[johnndeanna]

And here are some slight mods based on feedback. @Malenko, I kept the text since I like the look and felt the 4-way warranted a label. The alignment issues were just justification as pointed out.

[Malenko]

I was just muckin around in PS, killin thelast 15 minutes of my day. left extened the ines to the edge, the right was just messing around with depth tricks.

[johnndeanna]

Reminds me of a circuit board LOL

[ChanceKJ]

I don't know, Malenko's version looks cool, but I thing it's going a whole different way. I think both are good looking panels, the labels just give it something.

And here are some slight mods based on feedback. @Malenko, I kept the text since I like the look and felt the 4-way warranted a label. The alignment issues were just justification as pointed out.

I'd left justify the numbers and labels for payer 2's controls, something seems a bit off with button 1's label. Also, have a look at the labels on the two buttons with the spinner. Right justify those. Nice and clean.

I'd almost copy "4-way" and make "8-Way" labels. One to the left of player 1's stick, and one above player 2's

[BGoulette]

If you're creating these graphics in Illustrator or similar, converting the text to curves, then horizontally centering might help "smooth out" the way the "1" seems offset from the 2 and 3. And I like some labels, too, so long as they're not ridiculous!