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Author Topic: whats the best method to map out a control panel top for future artwork  (Read 950 times)

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aldub516

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Hey guys and thanks as always. Now that my wonderful pedestal is done, its time for a new build. And i am fully rehabbing my first cabinet that never saw any glory days. At this moment id like to start working on my control panel top. In the past ive had great success with both my cp builds and artwork on them. But for the first time id like to do it the "right" way. In the past on 2 builds i used artwork on the cp that really wouldnt matter where holes fell. One was just a marquee collage for a friend, and another was a sweet ambient mortalkombat artwork that just went down and i drilled wherever i needed to. My 3rd was more intricately done, where i had a lot of characters and different things placed around the artwork, ie: a lougi balancing on top of the spinner ball. I was able to roughly measure where buttons and joys would fall and it came out great but this time i was thinking of mapping out my cp in a 3d sketcher or something. I want to have all my holes perfectly placed in the diagram so i can do perfect photoshopping over it. Ive seen beautiful cps with colors or artwork perfectly surrounding joysticks, or arrows around the joys. So i guess to pinpoint a question, here it is. If i already have a control panel built with holes drilled and already finished, but want to do new more precise artwork, what method would YOU use?

I feel a good but long way would be to just create a pushbutton size black marker in photoshop, and measure the side and top of every single button, placing a marker over it. I would have to be very careful with measurements. It would be easier if things werent pre drilled because then i can lay them out myself in a sketch program. But since they are already there, im just trying to figure out the most productive way to go about mapping out my current holes to do some real nice artwork around them

also, one upside is since i have the original artwork already installed i can use it as a reference for where buttons will actual fall as a backup measurement
« Last Edit: May 28, 2015, 01:30:53 pm by aldub516 »

JDFan

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If using Photoshop - turn on the rulers and add guidelines at the measurements for the buttons on both the horizontal and vertical measurements so you will have the center line for the buttons at the intersection of the guides. 

For drawing the buttons make the brush the proper size (ie. if using 300 PPI for the drawing a 1 1/8 inch circle would be 300 + 37.5 pixels (300 for 1 inch and 300/8 = 37.5 for 1/8th inch) so make your brush size 337 or 338 pixels in size then using the guide lines place a single left click on the art to draw a 1 1/8 " circle and move to get lined up with the center guide (easiest to place 1 button per layer and place them individually and use Ctrl T (transform)and arrows to move it into exact placement - then once they are all in place by doing this combine the layers once all the buttons are in place.) -- USe this layer for working on the artwork so you can see the button placement but turn off the layer when printing so the artwork will not be printed with the holes drawn (just in case your placement is a couple pixels off you will not have stray black lines left when drilling the holes)

BadMouth

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My way would be to trace your current button holes & then scan them in.
Rather than tracing, it may be easier to tape a piece of paper on top the cp, then get your fingers dirty and run them around the edges of the button holes.
Copy the scanned image into your drawing program and resize it so that the button holes are the correct diameter. (EDIT: better yet, include a reference for scale on the page before it's scanned)
Use that layer to create a template.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2015, 02:49:49 pm by BadMouth »