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| Possible solution to Frankenpanel confusion |
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| erictrumpet:
Hi all, I am busy designing a Frankenpanel for my 2-player cab and I had an idea to help deal with the confusion associated with the myriad of controls on the CP. We've all heard it a thousand times: "Which sticks/buttons do I use for this game?" After my control panel is completely finished I would take some still photos of my hands actually on the controls in playing position for the half-dozen or so "standard" game positions: for example, left hand on player 1 8-way stick, right hand on player 1 button bank (fighters); or left hand on spinner, right hand on flight stick (Tron, DOT, etc); or right hand only on 4-way (PacMan, etc). Do this for all the positions necessary to play the games, then with Photoshop I would overlay the pictures with any explanations as necessary, which buttons fire/jump, etc. Then when a game is selected, before actually loading, the appropriate image for that game's hand position comes up full-screen and shows the hands actually on the panel, indicating quickly and easily where the player(s) is/are to put their hands for the game they are about to play. At the bottom of the picture it says Press any button to continue. Press any button, then the rom loads and off ya go. What do you think? Eric. |
| Bones:
I am new to the emulator scene and slowly working my way through the different programs (with average success I might add). GameEX has the function of showing controls before actually selecting a game. I don't know if the others emulators do or don't have similar abilities at this stage but it might be worth checking it out and see if this helps with your thoughts. So far I have found GameEX the easiest to set-up and get running quickly with limited software experience. |
| erictrumpet:
Thanks for the reply. How can you be new to the scene with almost 3,000 posts here? :) I have checked out the GameEX screenies and decided against it due to the look. But, I will give it try just as a learning thing, so thanks for the suggestion. I guess what I am really looking for is a FE (or add-on to any FE) that will let me put up a full-screen image that awaits a button press to bypass it. Then I can use it for controls, or informational text, or whatever I want. I think a photo of actual hands on the control panel would be much better than something that says, "Use 8-way and two buttons" -- which buttons? What's "8-way" mean? etc etc. I want my cab to be totally usable by a complete newbie without me standing over their shoulder, and that's tricky when there's ten thousand controls on the CP. The photo idea seemed like a good one. The main question is, can I set up an intermediate screen that comes up between loading the game from the FE and before the game actually loads up? Eric. |
| Bones:
--- Quote from: erictrumpet on November 24, 2005, 09:50:33 pm ---Thanks for the reply. How can you be new to the scene with almost 3,000 posts here? :) --- End quote --- Errr.... EE, the great time wasting black hole. |
| cdbrown:
I think you may want to look for threads that relate to Johnny 5 and CPViewer. These apps along with the controls.dat will provide an image of your cp (once you have created it) and then indicate what controls are used and what the button labels are (as taken from original cabinet labels). |
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