4P CP Questions

[foomench]

I read the FAQ, actually multiple FAQs, and found a recent thread on the subject in the forum. These answered a lot of my questions. From that I concluded that I can't fit a four player panel in a standard cabinet width and that I want a wider panel with the outer two players angled. People vary on recommend width, but I can handle that. So I'm thinking of designing something like the Supercade (http://www.cybercoma.com/supercade/), but with a smaller four player lower level and a slightly larger upper level (or a rotating upper level). The sticks will be eight-way. But the FAQs didn't answer all of my questions, such as:

Button Color: I like the aesthetics of making player 1 all one color, player 2 all a different color, etc. But I think it would be easier for visitors if I used mix colors for each player, that way I could tell people "Red is attack, green is jump." What are the opinions on this?

Number of Buttons: O.k., from the FAQ I get that the most buttons in a four player MAME game is four for D&D. Some argue that you should have six for future games and other emulators. But why do some panels, e.g. the SlikStik Quad, have seven? I'm tending to six buttons. Why should I have seven?

Button Layout: Most of the panels I've seen lay out buttons with two rows of three and then the seventh button is down and to the left of those. I still don't know about that seventh button, but I guess the two rows of three matches many of the fighter games. I haven't played any arcade fighter games, so I'm not set on that arrangement, and I was thinking of an alternative. What about an extended diamond like in the picture below (where the seventh button is yellow to distiguish that it may not be implemented)? I figure the diamond is a common layout, and this extends it. Any thoughts?

Arrangement of Players: I presume it is easy (or at least possible) to configure MAME so that 4P games use players 1-2-3-4 left to right and 2P games use the center two controls (players 2 and 3). I read one of the threads on button layouts and it made me wonder--Is there a tool to automate setting up all the control config files for MAME? I'd like to do somthing like I mentioned for 2 vs. 4 player games, and also set up buttons so that when excess controls are not needed, they echo others, e.g. if only one button is used in a game, all buttons work for that button. If there isn't such a tool, maybe I'll make one.

Thanks for any and all opinions.

-foomench

[pointdablame]

Full disclosure: I'm not a big fan of 4p panels, but I do have opinions on your questions, so I'll try to help.  People who live for 4p panels may very well have different opinions.  

Ok... Button color:  I really like the look of one color for one player.  Your "hit green to jump" is easy to fix.  You can create a control panel overlay with numbers near the buttons and say "button 1 jumps" etc.  You could also just say "top left jump" or "bottom right" shoots.  I can't see how that would be too confusing.  If I ever did make a 4p panel, I would definitely have one color per player.

Number of buttons: I think it depends on what you plan to do with your cabinet.  If you think you'll be upgrading (or already using) a high powered PC and you would like to emulate say Nintendo 64, Playstation, or Dreamcast, then perhaps 6 buttons per player is worth it.  For me though, I think 4 buttons for P3 and P4 is plenty.

Button Layouts:  That 7 button layout you talk about is meant to emulate both a classic fighter layout and the NeoGeo layout.  The bottom 4 buttons *including that offset one you mention* emulates the NeoGeo setup, and the 2x3 setup is the fighter setup.  Most people double up an input so it actually is only 6 buttons.  Like this:

    456
    1234

There are MANY MANY ways to do this, depending on what side you put your 7th button, what you want your top/bottom rows to be, etc.  Your numbers can be differnent than my example, just realize you double up one button.

As for your diamond pic, it didn't show up so I can't comment on it.  Usually though, diamond layouts work well for 4 buttons... I'd think 6 or 7 would be too confusing and user-unfriendly, IMO.

Player arrangement:  To me, I would just set up the panel to always be 3-1-2-4.  Would it really matter where you were standing in a 4p game?  Like I said, I'm not a big 4p guy, so there may be games where 1p HAS to be all the way to the left, etc.  But most 4p games I can think of don't really care where you're standing.  

[foomench]

As for your diamond pic, it didn't show up so I can't comment on it.  Usually though, diamond layouts work well for 4 buttons... I'd think 6 or 7 would be too confusing and user-unfriendly, IMO.

Fixed the graphic. Still on the fence for layout.

Player arrangement:  To me, I would just set up the panel to always be 3-1-2-4.  Would it really matter where you were standing in a 4p game?  Like I said, I'm not a big 4p guy, so there may be games where 1p HAS to be all the way to the left, etc.  But most 4p games I can think of don't really care where you're standing.  

Warlords came to mind, but come to think of it, that doesn't seem too playable with a joystick or buttons, and 3-1-2-4 would work anyway. Can anyone think of a 4P game where on-screen player position is relatively static?
-foomench

[snekse]

Can anyone think of a 4P game where on-screen player position is relatively static?
-foomench

Not a huge deal, but games like TMNT and X-Men show your health gauges relative to where you are standing.

[Kremmit]

Posted by: foomench  Posted on: Yesterday at 10:11:09am  
Arrangement of Players: I presume it is easy (or at least possible) to configure MAME so that 4P games use players 1-2-3-4 left to right and 2P games use the center two controls (players 2 and 3).

Posted by: pointdablame  Posted on: Yesterday at 12:18:06pm
Player arrangement:  To me, I would just set up the panel to always be 3-1-2-4.  Would it really matter where you were standing in a 4p game?  Like I said, I'm not a big 4p guy, so there may be games where 1p HAS to be all the way to the left, etc.  But most 4p games I can think of don't really care where you're standing.

Not a huge deal, but games like TMNT and X-Men show your health gauges relative to where you are standing.

All the 4 player games I can remember didn't care which player you dropped your coin into, anyway.  I mean, you didn't have to play as player 1 if you were the only guy playing, or as p1 and p2 for two guys, etc.  If you had two guys playing, they each would pick the player they wanted to be and use the appropriate position.  I always played Donatello on TMNT, whether anybody else was playing or not, I put my coin in the Donatello slot and stood in front of the Donatello controls.  So you could leave things 1234 and it wouldn't matter, if you want to play two players in p2 and p3, then that's where you drop your coins.  That way the health/magic/score/etc. displays match up.  

Of course, I'm several beers down, so I could be missing something obvious.

[Robopede]

This might be overkill, but I made a crude 3-D rendering of my CP plans, and it has been very helpfull to help me decide on colors and control positions. http://home.mindspring.com/~grasshoppah/Controller.jpg

Also, I thought the Slick Stick website had an interactive color chooser that you may find usefull. But now I can't find it...

Regards,
Dave

[reebboy]

Here is my 2cents.
First,, I would figure out what games you plan on playing the most and then figure out a button layout that will encompass all those games the best.  When I designed my panel, I spent weeks figuring out a button layout that would encompass as many games as possible. I noticed that everyone seemed to use the street fighter layout i.e. 2 rows of 3 and I wanted to avoid this layout because it was so overdone. What I found out after several weeks was that the the Street fighter layout seemed to be the best and work for just about 90% of games out there. I would suggest you play around with as many different layouts as possible to determine which one feels and functions the best. Your diamond pattern looks good but I'm not sure how playable it is.

As far as the 7th button, I dont think it is necessary. As was stated previously, people used that button to simulate the Neo-Geo 4 botton layout.

For button color I made each player layout the same color just as you suggested but I made the 2 most common buttons white within that pattern.  I did this because most games use only 1 or 2 buttons and unless the game used more than 2 buttons or an unusual button layout your not going to use those other buttons very much. It was also easier for me to tell whoever was playing to "just use the white buttons."

[FoX]

I know I've seen this out there but does anyone have a "standard" distance for between buttons (and a standard distance from joystick to buttons).  Obviously I'll adjust for my own comfort some but I would like a good place to start from.

[hulkster]

I know I've seen this out there but does anyone have a "standard" distance for between buttons (and a standard distance from joystick to buttons).  Obviously I'll adjust for my own comfort some but I would like a good place to start from.

http://www.lusid.net/arcade/CPtemplates.zip  just take the template from this site and print it out and then lay it down on your cp and tape it.  that will give an exact idea of where the buttons need to be.  then if you want a seventh button for players 1 and 2, just print off another copy and cut out one button and tape it lined up with the others and there you go...everything will be all layed out right and you can drill away.  i did the same thing for my 4 player panel.  and dont let anybody tell you differently....4 player panels rock.  2 player smash tv is where its at!