Off-topic but this is the best place to ask...

[Howard_Casto]

I've taken a break from lazarus for a while and have decided to work on some models for 3darcade. Since the others are best suited for making classic cabs, I have decided to concentrate on the cabs from may generation, namely cabs from the late 80's to mid 90's.  Unfortunately I have come to alarming discovery.  The cabs from this era are virtually non-existant in their orignal form!  This pretty much verifys all of my fears that I have expressed in the past about mame-ing and refitting more modern cabs.  But anyway this is getting way off-topic.  

I want to make several models from this era and I have plenty of sideart but the problem is finding reference photos of the orignal cabs.  

What I need from you are reference photos of various cabs in orignal states(or as close as possible).  I have checked the usual haunts btw, and so far I can't find any useable photos.

Here is what I need....

a capcom cps1 cabinet (street fighter II preferibly)
a capcom cps2 cabinet with some sort of sideart applied  

an mk cab side view (any version, they all used the same cab)


If anyone has one of these sitting at home or knows of a local arcade that still has one of these lying around please pick up a camera and take some pics.

The classics are well preserved, but these newer cabs are becoming more and more rare.  Please if you have photos, artwork control panel overlays, ect, send them to me.  


I think that >p<'s unique interface is the last hope for preserving these cabs as they became the b*tch of the operator, and then the b*tch of the collector, finally resting as mame cabs after being converted numerous times by both.  

[Tiger-Heli]

Check you PM

[Lilwolf]

Also remember that there are a TON of cabinets with the same exact model... just different artwork and paint job.

make sure you label each part so you can swap them easily with just textures.

[tom61]

You do realise that most games nowadays come out as conversion kits as well as dedicated cabs? That's why you don't see too many dedicated cabs, it costs less to convert an existing cab. It's also why you see Street Fighter in an ex-Robotron cab.

I have a few pics on my site of a Dynamo HS-2 cab (what most 'dedicated' late 80's early 90's SNK games come in) with P.O.W. in it.

http://www.iland.net/~tom61

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I know.  What kills me though is the real early capcom games were sold largely as full cabs since none of the cabs of the day had a panel big enough to accomidate 6 buttons per player.  I guess none of the operators thought the original sf cab was worthy of being kept in tact.

Thanks for all the links guys this will be a big help.  

[anoon]

Are you talking about the Big Blue Monster Capcom cabinets with the huge "signpost" style marquees bolted on top? I have one at my parent's house with a Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo in it if you need a photo of it. It doesn't have any side art, but all of these cabinets I have seen in the field have just had "CAPCOM" stickers, 4" x 8". It may be a week or 2 before I get up there again though.

I can get a picture of the MK2 cabinet in our cafeteria if you need it. I'm pretty sure MK1 had a slightly different model cabinet. MK4 used the same model cabinet that we used on NFL Blitz and NBA Hangtime. I have a full black one in my office with the zinc coated sheet metal CP that I am in the process of Mame-ing, and another guy has the same that was built up as an MK4 prototype. I think his has Quan-Chi silk screened on the side, but it probably has the same sheet metal CP that our games go out with for initial tests. I could probably get a pic of it if you want.

[1UP]

There's what appears to be an original Centipede or Dig-Dug cab at a local store, that's been painted black and converted to some fighter game!  A truly sad sight for an 80's kid.  

BTW, I'm getting close to finishing my cab in the next few days, at which point I'll probably be pitching in to model some of my personal faves, like T2, DOT, Star Wars, STUN Runner, and a Space Ace texture for the DL cab.

[Howard_Casto]

Are you talking about the Big Blue Monster Capcom cabinets with the huge "signpost" style marquees bolted on top? I have one at my parent's house with a Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo in it if you need a photo of it. It doesn't have any side art, but all of these cabinets I have seen in the field have just had "CAPCOM" stickers, 4" x 8". It may be a week or 2 before I get up there again though.

No I have plenty of photos of those.  That is model #2 in the two styles of cabs that came out for the cps2.  The other model had full sideart and was closer to a standard dynamo shape.  You can find some sideart for reference's sake at www.arcadeflyers.com/strider/  Strider has sideart for the orignal street fighter 2, strider (of course)  and xmen cota, which is a cps2 title.  As you can see they are all the same dimensions, so apparently there is this uber capcom cabinet that was used for cps1 and cps2.  I thought it was a standard, generic cab, but the sideart doesn't align properly if you apply it to one.  What I really need is a pic of a cab with the art applied, so i can see how it's done.  It seems the the angle of the marquee is slightly odd too at least going by how the sideart aligns.  


As for the mk cabs....  have good photos to get the shape of the cab, and really good control panel pics, but what I really need are some straight on, high res pics of the sideart.  I can get sideart for mk1, but 2, 3 and umk3 are a bit harder to find.  I checked regarding the shape of the mk cabs.  There were two versions.... One was a boirng generic cab and the other was the generic midway cab like the mk2 is in.  I like the second, more unique design myself.

Oh another game I could use some help on..... it would be nice to get a scan of the sideart to the x-men 6 player version.  It seems that the sieart of it is slightly different than the 4 player model.  I have the artwork for the middle panel though and I can fudge the control panel as it's basically just one big repeating pattern.  

And as an update, thanks to the mamefans link I've been able to recreate the sideart and cpo of a neogeo mvs 4-slot cab.  It should be very easy to model.  I also have the graphics for robocop almost ready.  So we have neogeo and dataeast covered.  All that remains is capcom.      

Thanks again guys.  This is starting to shape up.

[Howard_Casto]

ugh... I think I may know why I had such a hard tiem finding a cabient shape that matched the sideart....




If you look at this pic that I found at mamefans... (which btw is only the second pic I've ever found of a cps game with sideart applied)  
you'll notice how embarrasingly small the sideart is.  

Can anyone verify that all of the cps games had sideart this small?  The reason I ask is the artwork I found here:  

 Would suggest that it's floor length as the pattern surounding the photo of ryu matches the pattern on the cpo and the marquee.  

It's looking more and more like capcom opted to sell smaller, kit friendly sideart, but I'll keep resaerching.  I might contact the source and see if capcom usa might be able to giv eme any info.  

Anyway thanks and if you find anything unusual please send it to me as I have quite a collection now.

[BombProofPlane]

yah most of its that small i saw a cota machine and its side art is dinky

its now a mvs a capcom machine becomes an mvs lmao

good games though garau mslug4 samurai showdown 2 and kof2001

[Tiger-Heli]

If you look at this pic that I found at mamefans...

Interesting, I thought the mamefans link was dead.  In Opera, when I click on a directory it returns me to the MAMEFANS homepage.  In IE, it works fine.

Any ideas why???

Thanks for the tip!!!

[1UP]

ugh... I think I may know why I had such a hard tiem finding a cabient shape that matched the sideart....

GAH!  It's another painted Centipede cab!  Blasphemy!  

[Howard_Casto]

ugh... I think I may know why I had such a hard tiem finding a cabient shape that matched the sideart....

GAH!  It's another painted Centipede cab!  Blasphemy!  

Actually there is no telling what kind of cab that is....  The "official" cps2 model A cab was this same shape as was ikari warriors, double dragon 2 ect.  Actually there are several hundred cabs that used this design.  Judgeing by the control panel layout and the current game in this cab.... it looks to be a reapainted cps2 cab.  Originally they are white, but most dealers hate it and either re-laminate or spray paint over.  Actually I believe they did come out with a balck version too  but for some reason it was harder to find.  

[james]

ive got a double dragon 2 cab, however absolutely no sideart, i think it was stripped when they converted it (badly) to mk...

anyways, its got the classic dd2 shape/cp/marquee/bezel....

if you need pics, im more than happy, just ask.

[Howard_Casto]

If I could get a straight-on pic of the side of the cab that would be very helpful.  I found all of the dd2 artwork, including pics of the sideart on mamefans, but when I apply it to my cps2 cab it is off.  Apparently my cab is a little off or the dd2 cab was slightly different than the cps2s.  Anyway I was hoping to whip this one up for you tonight and suprise you but I guess not.

[SirPoonga]

ugh... I think I may know why I had such a hard tiem finding a cabient shape that matched the sideart....

GAH!  It's another painted Centipede cab!  Blasphemy!  

Actually, Centipede was differnet
http://www.klov.com/C/Centipede.html

HC is right, alot of games used that cabinet.  I also have the double dragon 2 cabinet (hc, btw it is black).

[)p(]

I see fighters are going to takeover 3darcade just as happened in the real arcade  

(for those interested in 3darcade you can try this http://www.i-modernist.com/fe68beta1.zip should be much faster especially with lots of models and has mouse look...)

Peter

[Howard_Casto]

I just wanted to give a status report....
Thanks to your guy's help I have a cps2 model, xmen: children of the atom, and a neogeo mvs cab finished.  They need a bit of polishing but expect a release upon the end of the week.  I also have the start of the double dragon 2 cab, which will be very generic and skinnable too.  

[toilet]

Are you talking about the Big Blue Monster Capcom cabinets with the huge "signpost" style marquees bolted on top?

No I have plenty of photos of those.  That is model #2 in the two styles of cabs that came out for the cps2.

Hey Howard, do you have any models of that cabinet up anywhere?

[Howard_Casto]

No I haven't even started on it yet, but it should be an easy build.  The cab is very "sharp," which means I don't have to deal with bezier curves.

I will probably take a break from cps cabs after this batch to work on some more colorful,  multiplayer cabs like tmnt and tmnt2.  perhaps even the monster Xmen 6 player cab.  That thing is frikkin Huge btw.

[SirPoonga]

Hey, i may be huge, but htink if mame emulated that 8 player spint.


http://www.klov.com/S/Sprint_8.html

[Howard_Casto]

Another Update... the neogeo mvs cab is finished and available for download over at >p<'s 3darcade site.  The others are almost finished, I just need to adjust the monitor map so that the game displays correctly.  This is way off topic to keep in the general board so from now on I will keep you guys up to snuff over at the software forum.  For those of you that don't visit that section regularly this is a good excuse to start.  After one or two more lazarus releases I will probably put the ole fe aside for a while and work on cab models full time.