Looking for constructive criticism...

[Darkstalker]

OK, I've got a control panel overlay design pic that I'm considering using, but I'd like to get some feedback on it, as I'm fairly limited in the Photoshop skills...



You can definatly see a nod to madk's design for his panel in another post.  I liked the layout quite a bit, but obviously went with Samauri Showdown.  The joysticks and player buttons will be black, not white like they are in the pic.

I've always been my own worst critic, so hence the reason of asking others what they think....

[Dink]

Looks sa-weet.  Probably need to move the buttons a little closer to the joysticks and down a little. IMHO.

[mtd]

I think it looks great.  Just for your information. On my SF2 control panel the first button is exactly 2" away from the center of the joystick.  

Now I need you to make me one for my cabinet .  I suck at photoshop.  

[Darkstalker]

Yea, that's another thing I was looking at was the joystick/button layout.  It's kinda hard to judge the joystick layout since I don't actually have the joysticks yet, and the Visio template isn't exactly clear on what's above and below the board.  I'll play around with the spacing and see if I can match the HotRod config a little closer...

[HeadRusch]

Hell I'd love to just know how you managed to do that......I'm going to need some custom art for my own cab (both mini-mame and the big one)......and have...NO SKILLZ in dat' area

[Howard_Casto]

your joysticks are also a little low on the board for my taste... How I have mine layed out is so that the 7th "neogeo" button is slightly below and slightly to the right of the lower right joystick bolt.  This makes the buttons closer to the stick as hte others sugested and also slightly higher than centered with the buttons.  It feels more ergonomic that way to me.   I belive this is also how hotrod lays out their cp s but don't hold that against me.

[mtd]

I agree with howard -- on my first mame cabinet I made the entire control layout too low on the control panel.  You want room to rest your forearms.  You don't want your wrists on the edge of the control panel.

[Darkstalker]

OK, I replaced the above pic after some minor adjustments to the layout, and I adjusted the button colors to what they are actually going to be...

[SNAAAKE]

Just great.

Super cool genguru there.

BUT,get rid of the 7th button man.
I am telling you,that 7th button is annoying as hell.I got a friend who has hotrod stick and after I used it for a while I just ran away from there and started playing in my panel.

Just my $0.03

[mtd]

Where are you peeps getting these images in that good of quality.  And then how are you getting them to specific size? I have zero information regarding graphics -- the other department handles that.

[Darkstalker]

Where are you peeps getting these images in that good of quality.  And then how are you getting them to specific size? I have zero information regarding graphics -- the other department handles that.

I downloaded the pics from this website...
http://www.gamegen.com/fightgen/characters.html

...which SNAAAKE provided in this thread (Which has more links).
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=2903

As for the editing, the art was done in Photoshop 6, the control layout was done in Visio 2000.  I took the images I had, and rezised them to 14" tall.  I 'magic wand' selected the background, Ctrl-Shift-I to invert it and get everything BUT the background, then copied and pasted it into the new panel graphic which is 29"x14.5".

To get the back two "darker" images, I did the same exact method as above with two different pics, but I added an adjustment layer (The half colored circle button in the layers menu) and tweaked the settings until I was happy.  Then with the adjustment layer selected (It will have the paintbrush) I clicked on the second icon slot of the "background" pics of Haomaru and Genjuro (You should see little chains), then merged the three layers.  Finally, to break up the solid black background I had, I just chose two gray shades, and ran the Clouds filter.  Pretty simple stuff really  Next step is take the .PSD to Kinkos and have them print out the full size version of the artwork. (That comes much later...need to finish my cabinet plans and collect parts first..heh)

BUT,get rid of the 7th button man.
I am telling you,that 7th button is annoying as hell.I got a friend who has hotrod stick and after I used it for a while I just ran away from there and started playing in my panel.

Your telling this to the guy that uses WASD and HUIO for all his NeoGeo games on a real keyboard    Playing Samauri Showdown on a 'straight 4' would just feel too odd IMO...

[madk]

Nice art!  My only suggestion would be to get rid of that 7th button.  I was toying around with the idea and realized that it would just get in the way...especially during those intense Samurai Showdown matches!

Spacing and everything looks great!  Keep up the sweet work!

-madk

[Howard_Casto]

don't be so hasty to get rid of the 7th button... if used properly it can be quite handy... It's my special function button in my font-end and the enter button for pc games.   The trick to it is to map it to a key that will never be reused elswhere on your layout, that way if you accidentaly hit it, it won't hurt anything.   Also neogeo fighters are really hard to play without it.  But it's not crucial or anything.   If you do decided to remove it I would suggest moving the buttons even closer to the stick. Not much, but just a tad.  

[Darkstalker]

...The trick to it is to map it to a key that will never be reused elswhere on your layout, that way if you accidentaly hit it, it won't hurt anything....

I bought a KE72 for the project so I didn't have any risk of running out of seperate inputs.  That, and I like the fact that there are no ghosting problems with the KE72.  Since Samauri Showdown IV requires A, B, and C to be pushed simultaniously for Rage meter stuff, and two players possibly mashing 3 buttons a piece plus joystick movement all at once, I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be a problem.

Here's my planned layout:

   1 2 3
   4 5 6
 7

That way, NeoGeo games would use 4-7 exclusivly, and everything else would use 1-6 ignoring the 7th button.

[Howard_Casto]

you've got it man, that's the way to go

Good luck to ya!

[mravett]

Here's my planned layout:

    1 2 3
    4 5 6
  7

That way, NeoGeo games would use 4-7 exclusivly, and everything else would use 1-6 ignoring the 7th button.

So do you map NeoGeo's A or D to your 7 button?  

[Chris]

Is that dotted line along the top the true panel edge?  If so, be careful about getting your buttons too close to it... you need room for the microswitches and the quick disconnects...

[Darkstalker]

Here's my planned layout:

    1 2 3
    4 5 6
  7

That way, NeoGeo games would use 4-7 exclusivly, and everything else would use 1-6 ignoring the 7th button.

So do you map NeoGeo's A or D to your 7 button?  

A=7, B=4, C=5, and D=6, just like the actual cab/home version controls.  I'm only using the numbers for interface reference, they will actually be mapped to keyboard key signals of course.

I use NeoRageX for all the NeoGeo games since MAME tends to not run some ROMs with supposed CRC errors that NeoRageX runs just fine with no visible/audible errors.  If your only using one emulator like MAME, you'd set up the generic interface for the 1-6, leaving 7 unused since no games in MAME need more than 6 button inputs, and all the NeoGeo would get their own .ini setups that use 4-7.

[CthulhuLuke]

Looks good so far, but what you're gonna want to do to make it look nicer on the eye is give the character's a more in the front look maybe.  One thing I might suggest would be to copy the colored characters, and place a layer behind the original and give it a motion blur going towards the left if it's the left pic (Haomaru) and right if it's to the right (Amakusa)  This will really make the characters stand out and look dominating over the rest of the picture.  Another good idea is to add some design features to it, cheesy can be good sometimes, it can really make a picture not look so bland.  Lastly, for the background behind the b&w character portraits, what you might wanna try is first of all adding a nice black to some color gradient, then in the Effects look for Ocean Ripple, add a subtle ocean ripple, and it reallllly helps the eye look at the picture as a whole.
    -Good Luck, if you want some ideas for cheesy design type of things or just some help with photoshop in general, just PM me or contact me via AIM s/n: CthulhuLA
      -CthulhuLuke
PS: About the buttons, you are going to want to move the 7th neo geo styled button up, because otherwise you're going to find yourself moving your hand a lot more than you want to when you're playing Samurai Showdown 4 with the Neo Geo button style, I'll have my control panel pictures up sometime within the next few weeks, so that might give you an idea of what I'm talkin bout. (I'll probably have pics of my bro and I battling, doing those nice 14-hit combos, A B C, A B C mash mash mash.... etc) I'm a nerd

[Darkstalker]

Is that dotted line along the top the true panel edge?  If so, be careful about getting your buttons too close to it... you need room for the microswitches and the quick disconnects...

Actually no...I might end up having to resize the panel a bit, since I don't think it's going to match the cabinet dimensions.  I need to get a website up with more pics and the like, then I can just refer people to the site and all the hand drawn sketches I have so far....

[motorfish]

If I was designeg this control panel, I'd attempt to make it a little more SNK friendly to the User (It seems by your choice of graphics that you have SNK style games planned for this machine)



In the new config, you would be able to play all of your SNK games without breaking up the button layout, and also be able to enjoy Capcom style games as well, without having the fear of accidentaly hitting that seventh button under the joystick.

Also, perhaps applying a slight curve to the buttons might make it more comfortable for the User's hand when his fingers are resting on the buttons.

[Darkstalker]

In the new config, you would be able to play all of your SNK games without breaking up the button layout, and also be able to enjoy Capcom style games as well, without having the fear of accidentaly hitting that seventh button under the joystick.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, in MAME the 7th button will have no purpose.  You could push it all day long in any game, but nothing will happen as it won't be configured.  I use NeoRageX for NeoGeo emulation, so it will only be configured to use the bottom four ignoring the 'Capcom punch row'.

I see what your getting at with the layout you tweaked, but here's the problem:

x B C D
A x x

My prefered SNK style is to use my thumb for A, and the next three fingers for B, C, and D, which is actually very comfortable to me.  The only time I lift my hand is multiple simultanious buttons like ABC.  With that config, I might hit a dead button.

I've got a KE72, so there's not going to be any problems with having 7 button inputs per player:

8 joystick inputs (UDLR for two players)
4 joystick rotation inputs (CW and CCW for two players)
Exit game (That rouge button in the upper left of the panel)
2 insert coins (1P and 2P)
2 starts (1P and 2P)
14 buttons (7 per player)

= 31 inputs out of 72 available