How's my Control Panel Design / Overlay?

[llars]

I have my panel design pretty much ironed out but I am still tossing around ideas for the overlay. The panel design is based on the slikstik quad. I am going to be using this panel for things other than Mame, so the extra buttons for players 3 and four aren't necessarily a waste of space (at least to me). The top row of buttons from left to right are: P3 Coin, P3 Start, Pause, P1 Coin, P1 Start, Escape, Enter, P2 Coin, P2 Start, Pause, P4 Coin, P4 Start.

I will be using the 3" Happs trackball surface mounted. The three buttons to the right will be connected to the trackball. There will be a Tornado spinner above the three buttons.  P1 and P2 sticks will be Ultimarc Mag-Stik Plus. P3 and P4 sticks will be Happs Competition.

For the theme of the cabinet, I am thinking about using screenshots from various games. I mocked up a quick and dirty representation of what I had in mind for the overlay. I will likely do something similar on the Bezel and Marquee. The sides would be blank or possibly have a MAME logo.

Opinions (positive and negative) and suggestions are welcomed.

Panel
http://www.ulink.net/crossroads/stuff/panel1.jpg

Overlay
http://www.ulink.net/crossroads/stuff/overlay.jpg

[hnugz]

that looks like on heluva cp.

as far as the design, personally it seems to busy for me to have all those screenshots.  everything seems to get lost in it.  of course this is all personal preference.

[llars]

I was thinking that too. It might be best to leave the CP black and so the theming on the Marquee and Bezel.

[MovingTarget]

I'm not a big fan of all the screenshots, it looks pretty cluttered.  Just my opinion though.  

I would move the 3 mouse buttons (from the trackball) above the spinner or trackball, if they're below you'll probably accidentally hit them with your hand when you're using the spinner.  I would also think about why you need all three of those buttons.

[davieboynj]

I'd have to agree with the busy thing.  also, you might want to consider lowering down to 3 buttons to the wings (players 3 and 4), as no game that i know of requires that many buttons for a 3rd and 4th player.  you might want to keep the locations the same, so that if you need to add them later (gauntlet legends) you'll be able to.  I'd also just use 6 buttons for players 1 and 2, as it's just as easy to remap the buttons as 4, 1, 2, 3 for use with 4 button neo geo games.  you can never remove buttons, and very few people would argue that you can never have too many.  

as far as using the screenshots, i'd recommend against it.  I've never seen the screenshots done tastefully enough that i'd vouch for putting them on the outside of a cabinet anywhere.  maybe if you made them really dark, or really light, and then put instructions or a logo in the foreground.   That might actually end up quite nice.  make it hidden detail, and i think you'll be much happier with it in the long run.  

all personal opinion.  i'm sure some people would consider my cabinet bland...

-dave

[rackoon]

The screen shots do look a little busy but who knows it might look totally bitchen when its all together.

    As for leaving the CP black, "My god don't do it man!" haven't you seen all those awesome CP overlays on the artwork forum.

     I like the one with electricity zapping around everywhere.

[motorfish]

The screen shots do look a little busy but who knows it might look totally bitchen when its all together.

    As for leaving the CP black, "My god don't do it man!" haven't you seen all those awesome CP overlays on the artwork forum.

     I like the one with electricity zapping around everywhere.

Indeed. There's a few people here who could design you a custom CP design (cough cough)

- Dan

[llars]

I got the idea for the screenshots from this Marquee I found on the main website

http://arcadecontrols.com/images/Cory_MarqueeSmall.jpg

I was going to do something similar for my mazrquee, but I wanted the Mame logo to be bigger.

http://www.ulink.net/crossroads/stuff/marquee1.jpg
http://www.ulink.net/crossroads/stuff/marquee2.jpg

As far as the extra buttons, as I mentioned, I plan on ousing the cabinet for other things. I will probably connect my Xbox to the cabinet too.

[ahofle]

Yeah as mentioned, the spinner buttons should probably not be under the spinner.  Also the placement of the spinner seems to be such that your hand/wrist will be hitting against the player 2 joystick while using it.  Maybe move it a little so it's not right above it?  Looks good though.

[Scott84]

Wow, that control panel has a lot going on with that overlay.

can you even get it printed with the clarity of that jpg? i bet it will look fuzzy or worse.

[llars]

It's a work in progress. I sized it down for the purposes of posting it here. The sourse file is something like 5000x2600

[xteeejx]

Hey,  just an idea. 

In photoshop you could add a semi-transparent layer of color (or texture) between the screenshots and the logo.  This would help unify the background, and make the logo more visible.  Try experimenting with the layer masks and different colors.

-TJ

[llars]

I've been playing around with marquees and I did a 50% transparecy on a black background. If it is dark enough, it might work for the CPO.