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| First Time Build - "Chimera" (Completed... mostly) |
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| zeorangr:
--- Quote from: Groeneklodder on January 26, 2022, 03:06:37 am ---That's a great and very unique build right there! As you allready saw my build on FB i like your approach of the hybrid systemn very much. Keep up the good work !! --- End quote --- Thank you Groeneklodder! :cheers: Progress is still being made - Here's a picture from last weekend: 1/4" Acrylic in place over main screen and marquee screen (with vinyl bezel on the marquee 'glass')- still need to finish up the rest of the main screen 'bezel' (which will be about 1/2" of either cardboard, vinyl, or craft foam, just enough to cover the small gap between the 50" screen and the sides of the box, and also cover up the already tiny samsung logo on the right side in the center of the screen). Finishing up the 'false' back as well to cover the exposed cabling and rear of the backglass screens, but this is just almost ready to bring home and drop in place in the next week or two, depending on how much I can get done this coming Saturday. On the software side of things, need to finish the configuration and button mapping for LEDBlinky so that it lights the appropriate controls correctly per game, and ensure all the controls and related scripts are remapped from the ATGames panel (which is on the prototype) to the iPac, but I don't expect that to take more than maybe an afternoon once I actually get it up here. Other than that, I need to go back through the games list and either remove or hide a few more MAME games that I either don't plan to include or don't have a good 'random-person-friendly' control scheme for yet, add and configure a few more steam games (and create matching artwork for said games) that I bought during the winter sale (like Streets of Rage 4, among others), and maybe clean up the music videos section some more. I'm sure I'll find more things to tweak once I get in and start tinkering with the software too - still haven't had a chance to hook up the Sinden lightgun and mess with it much yet, so I've got that coming as well. So yay, progress! |
| javeryh:
This cab is coming out great. We don't see a ton of innovation these days but this definitely checks the box. You are also working quick - we could all use some lessons from you in that department! :cheers: How did you tell MAME to only use the top part of the display when you are in arcade mode? |
| zeorangr:
--- Quote from: javeryh on January 26, 2022, 11:50:20 am ---This cab is coming out great. We don't see a ton of innovation these days but this definitely checks the box. You are also working quick - we could all use some lessons from you in that department! :cheers: How did you tell MAME to only use the top part of the display when you are in arcade mode? --- End quote --- Thanks Javeryh! :) I think it just appears that I'm working quick. This has been built in blocks of time, 3-6 hours per week just about every Saturday for the last 12 months or so. It's definitely not as fast as I'd like, that's for sure! As for the display - on the 50", I'm running a custom windows desktop resolution of 1080x1080 (configured via the Nvidia control panel), which basically makes a square in the middle of this screen, which is what is visible when it's folded up into the 'upright' configuration - the top 1/4 and bottom 1/4 of the screen are hidden by the marquee and control panel, respectively. Mame (and DEMUL) will then use and 'fit' the game screen into this square area. For PC games, I've got most of them set (or forced with scripts calling third-party utilities for a couple that just wouldn't play nicely) to resize / scale and rotate / re-orient / otherwise fit into this 1080x1080 space as well. Pinball FX actually changes the resolution to 1080x1920 currently, and will be moving to a 4k vertical (2160 x 3840) resolution once I get the machine moved up here and get the GTX 1080 I've got reserved for the cabinet actually installed. |
| dir:
I came back into byoc looking for one thing, and an hour later, here I am reconsidering my next project to now be a telescoping vertical/horizontal cab. Argh! Great work, progress, and innovations. Just a quick question - did you consider having the console rotate down when in pinball mode, so that the controls rotate out of the way and allow the player to be closer to the pinball? I haven't worked out how that would work, but it seems a logical extension of the mechanical actions already there. If the console was on a pivot on the top side, nearest the screen, then when everything slides out, the buttons, sticks etc. would end up vertical (and, I suppose, sticking into the player's legs). I guess it comes down to how intrusive the large control surface is when trying to play pinball. Is the parallax affected or distorted? Argh, now I'm thinking about how to get head tracking working as well... Maybe I should finish my current project(s) first. This one could be huggggeeeee.... |
| zeorangr:
--- Quote from: dir on February 02, 2022, 06:28:16 am ---I came back into byoc looking for one thing, and an hour later, here I am reconsidering my next project to now be a telescoping vertical/horizontal cab. Argh! Great work, progress, and innovations. Just a quick question - did you consider having the console rotate down when in pinball mode, so that the controls rotate out of the way and allow the player to be closer to the pinball? I haven't worked out how that would work, but it seems a logical extension of the mechanical actions already there. If the console was on a pivot on the top side, nearest the screen, then when everything slides out, the buttons, sticks etc. would end up vertical (and, I suppose, sticking into the player's legs). I guess it comes down to how intrusive the large control surface is when trying to play pinball. Is the parallax affected or distorted? Argh, now I'm thinking about how to get head tracking working as well... Maybe I should finish my current project(s) first. This one could be huggggeeeee.... --- End quote --- Hey dir - Thanks! I considered several crazier options for doing this, but since this is the first cab I've ever built and I didn't really have a lot of woodworking or building experience going into this, I tried to keep it simpler. And yes, I realize the irony of what I wound up building being the 'simpler' option. I did consider having the main control panel somehow rotate or slide out of the way somehow, possibly via a second linear actuator, and then wiring up a second control board under the main screen with pinball flipper and launch buttons wired up within the main screen box itself, but I think that was going to get way more complicated than I was equipped to handle for this go-round. Maybe next time! ;D The larger control surface isn't too intrusive in my opinion, but these kinds of things are subjective. I haven't noticed any parallax issues, personally. Really, the only major thing I feel like is missing is a way to control the screen movement via a script. It's not a huge inconvenience to open the coin door and hit the button to extend it when you want to play pinball, but it would be definitely much higher on the 'scale of awesome' if it transformed itself when a pinball table was selected, and then folded itself back up when exiting the table... I'm still looking at possibilities for that and will definitely incorporate that once I figure out how to make it happen. There are some USB relays that have the ability to be controlled via batch files that look promising, but I haven't gotten off into that just yet - still have plenty of work to do to finish up what I've got now! :) As far as a progress update goes, last Sunday we took everything apart and loaded it all up in my truck - we've got the cabinet home now from the shop and I have started working on all the additional software and configuration stuff - more scripting for specific game controller mappings, custom LED Blinky animations for some games, more marquee images, adding a few more steam games, and stuff like that. When I get closer to 'finished' I'll post some final pictures and probably another video or two with it in action. I can say though that it's looking GREAT. More to come soon. |
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