Fighting game and mugen focused cabinet

[fantoboy]

Ok so I'm only in the planning phase right now.  My goal is to build a mame cabinet with street fighter in mind.  I want a quad set up though so I can play 4 player games as well as a trackball.  Thinking about using a Ultimate Arcade II Cabinet from mameroom.com.

I'm trying to visualize the whole feel of the cabinet now, so I buy the right parts and keep a color scheme going.  My original plan was to have a mish mosh of street fighter art - kinda like the Mamecast project.  But now I'm thinking of going simpler- with just one main image on the control deck and on the sides.  Try to keep it simple and professional looking.  I don't appreciate some mamecabs with a billion screenshots and images plastered all over them.   My main idea is to use this chun li pic and throw a blue lit up trackball in her hands.  The pic is too narrow- so I will have to find a way to extend the sides.  Here's the original pic plus an idea of how to extend the image:






I think I wanna use HAPP competition sticks.  Any reason I shouldnt?  Are the 360s that much better?
Also I was thinking of these:
http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=83&products_id=238
Or can anyone recommend better lit buttons?

I was looking at the Powermame demos- they look really nice.  Has anyone here used powermame, or are there any reviews anywhere?  I cant really test it until a joystick is finished.  I dont wanna go through the hassle of building a joystick around the idea of powermame if it's not good.  Will powermame support lighting the buttons for players 3 and 4?  I guess I should be asking these questions in the powermame section?

I plan on including MUGEN in the project, of which I am a huge fan.  I've spent the majority of the past 7 years building a mugen that is my version of capcom vs snk. Trying to balance gameplay and not include some of the crazy overpowered and unfair original stuff you find in mugen characters. 
Also I need Capcom vs SNK 2 in my cabinet.  Does anyone here have experience with running it on Chankast?  Does it run well enough, or should I try putting a ps2 or xbox in there instead?  I might go with a ps2 so I can play the new samurai spirits and neogeo battle colliseum.
Does anyone here have experience running a home console and pc in a cabinet simulatneously?  Are there any tricks I should know as far as getting a joystick connected to both and switching back and forth as well as the video signal?

As far as player 3 and 4... I see some cabinets with 6 or 7 buttons.  Is there any point in having that many buttons for players 3 and 4?  All the 4 player games I can think of use maybe up to 4 buttons. 
I'm deciding against the 4 way dedicated stick- i can live with using the happ stick for those games.
Still considering a spinner for tempest and arkanoid.  I'm struggling with keeping the controls simple or just throwing everything on there.

I also need a name for my cabinet!  Still working on that...

[markrvp]

If you like fighters, Street Fighter especially, then you may not like the square corners of the Competition sticks.  The P360s have round restrictors and a round actuator which make fireball sweeps very smooth.

[fantoboy]

That's what I hear, but arent competition sticks the norm in street fighter cabinets?

I'm a Zangief player too...

[HaRuMaN]

I just switched from Happ Supers to Happ Competetitions in my Street Fighter II CE cab...  man what a difference.  I love the competition sticks for Street Fighter.

[fantoboy]

So one vote for the competitions, and one for the 360s.  Any other opinions?

I have the pc ready to go.
Athlon AMD 2600 xp with 512 megs of ram.
Gotta replace the video card and HDD.

Does anyone have some hi res versions of the street fighter power foil art like the chun li I posted?  Mine is pretty large, but higher res would be nice.

[escher]

Fantastic idea for the trackball placement and CP artwork.   I'm in the process of building a similar cabinet and I'm having trouble coming up with a theme.  I must admit, I'm quite jealous of yours. 

Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm going to go with P360's.  Not a fan of the notchiness.

[fantoboy]

thanks, the whole art layout has actually caused me to rethink placement of anything above the trackball.  I think it's amusing that I'm letting the design alter what controlls go on my deck.  Probably not gonna go with a stick, still trying to figure out spinner placement.  Might ditch it.

[The 414]

Dont have a high res version of that pictures but have this which is slightly different. I can work with this if you want .



UPDATE: Actually i am working on a high res version of that picture right now. it will take about 45 min to finish though. let you know.

[fantoboy]

Cool- lemme know how that turns out.

Escher, there's other pics you could use the same idea with, like this:



I'm sure there's a bunch with Ryu shooting a fireball forward, like in the intro of super street fighter 2 turbo was it?

[escher]

Thanks for the image!  I've been trying to find a picture of Glacius from KI holding his arms up, but not much luck.  I might end up going away from KI and back towards SFII.

[fantoboy]

Has anyone tried Sanwa joysticks?

http://www.coinopexpress.com/products/parts/joysticks/Sanwa_Joystick_818.html

I see that alotta home-made joysticks are made using them.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=sanwa%20joystick&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wi

[testicle187]

The P-360s are perfect for fighters.  I think people like Sanwas because of the balltops, but you can replace the P360s shaft with balltops as well.

[Gametreks]

Excellent choice on the artwork.  I often use the same Chunli art for my cabs.  Here are a few pic's to give you an idea of what it will look like. 

[MikeDeuce]

Excellent choice on the artwork.  I often use the same Chunli art for my cabs.  Here are a few pic's to give you an idea of what it will look like. 

Man, what a PERFECT choice of artwork for trackballs! You all are too clever.

[fantoboy]

dammit! Now mine wont be original! 
Looks great though- Now I know that the idea will work well!

[fantoboy]

I am currently waiting on a chun li lithograph I ordered from Club Udon which I will use for the control panel artwork.  I also just ordered a 300 gig hd.

In the meantime I wanted to show you guys the mugen that will be going into my cab.  For those of you who don't know, mugen is a customizable fighting game.  There is a fairly large online scene creating characters and stages that you can download and add to your mugen.  I have spent about 7 years on mine.  There are many fighting game enthusiasts who don't care for mugen.  It can be very choppy and some characters are ridiculous.  A fine tuned mugen can be impressive though.  Spend enough time on yours, and you can fool most people that it is a real game.  I've spent most of my time creating a mugen that is my version of Capcom VS SNK.  Basically including everyone from Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter 3, Capcom VS SNK, Capcom Fighting Jam, Darkstalkers, the Marvel series,  MOTW, Rage of the Dragons, PIM,  Last Blade, Samurai Spirits, Fatal Fury, KOF, NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, SVC Chaos, and more.  I've tried to balance the playing field: eliminating chain combos, high jumps, and launchers from the marvel characters.  My main project now is spriting run animations and roll animations for the Street Fighter Alpha characters so they play more like CVS and KOF characters.

here are some screenshots:




my custom running sprites:


(Thor was never actually playable in Marvel vs Capcom)

4 player simultaneous:




my Last Blade vs Samurai Spirits mugen edition:




fun with mugen:





I highly reccommend this program to fighting game fanatics.  It's like our version of pokemon.

[infiniteomega]

Any chance you'd make your versions downloadable for us to try out?

[fantoboy]

my mugen is about 4 or 5 gigs large.

[whatzcrackn]

my mugen is about 4 or 5 gigs large.

Any Chance I can send you a dvd or two to get a copy?  I am have never played it and I love the thor scene.

[walls83]

my mugen is about 4 or 5 gigs large.

Any Chance I can send you a dvd or two to get a copy?  I am have never played it and I love the captain america sceen.

Thats what Im thinking can I send you a DVD?  Or could you upload it as a torrent?

[nullb0y]

wow.... can i get a copy of your mugen tooo? i had a dbz builkd a while back alot of the chars were to powerfull or to weak

oh yeah for four player i guess i need 4 players with six buttons on my cab huh? ::drills some holes::

[fantoboy]

custom Iori, and Hinata was never in a 2d game:

custom wonderwoman and flash:






Captain America?  I think you meant Thor.  Well here's a cap screenshot and a couple more.
A torrent will never happen from me.  There's alotta weird ethics and respect issues in the mugen scene that I'm not even gonna get into on this board.
Perhaps I can send some dvds out.  I need some things and perhaps a barter system can be arranged.  PM me or shoot me an email.

[infiniteomega]

A torrent would be a perfect way to get this out.  Of course, getting it out to the first couple of people would eat your upload bandwidth, but after we get a few seeders it wouldn't be so bad.  Wouldn't mind sending off a dvd or two either, but a torrent is probably the easiest.

[whatzcrackn]

Opps, yeah thor  PM sent

[fantoboy]

The 4 player mode is sadly only playable with 2 players.  You can do 2 player co-op vs the pc, or 1 player and a pc vs player 2 and a pc.  You can also do 3 on 3 kof style.

A torrent won't happen because it would piss everyone off in the mugen scene.


Street fighter alpha's bison/vega fireball move given to cvs2 vega:

[nullb0y]

but mabey a byoac only torrent?

[infiniteomega]

As far as releasing a torrent of your mugen setup goes, how would that piss off the rest of the community?  Aside from people thinking the copiers are "lame" for not making their own, I don't see the big deal.

I haven't really ventured into the world of mugen, but it seems as though you would get the engine, and use the configuration files to modify game mechanics.  Then you'd add in the sprites you download from various places and things.

Would it be easy to put up your configuration files and then give us links to where we can get the rest of the stuff?  I guess that wouldn't be very practical.  But I'd still like to get my hands on your setup (as I'm sure others do as well).

[fantoboy]

Every character is made by a different author.  People don't like their creations spread without their consent.  Months if not years go into making a character.  So torrents and hosting games which include characters made by other authors is frowned upon.

here's some mugen sites if anyone is interested:

http://www.mugenguild.com/forumx/
http://fanaticmugen.free.fr/index_eng.php
http://www.mugen-infantry.net/index.php


3rd strike Akuma's super given to CVS2 Akuma:

[nullb0y]

 

[odysseyroc]

How does Mugen on Xbox compare to the PC version? I have a Mac, so Xbox would be my only way to play it.

[fantoboy]

mugen on xbox is just a stripped down version of linux with xbox controller drivers running linux mugen.  It runs pretty well, but my xbox has been modified with twice the ram.  I dunno how it runs on a regular xbox, but I heard it wasn't bad.  It is alotta work because most characters aren't designed for linux mugen.  You must convert them to be compatable.  Mugen was first released on dos, then linux.  Windows mugen is actually a leaked beta build that was then hacked to be fully operational.  My mugen is actually linux and windows compatable.

[Timoe]

I dont want to take up fantoboys thread but I have a ton of questions about these mugens

Can we start a new thread in the "Software" forums for this?


What is a mugen?
How does it work?
How can I get one?
How do you pronounce mugen?

[fantoboy]

what is mugen-
 a customizable 2d fighting game.  You can create characters and stages to add them to your own game.

http://fanaticmugen.free.fr/index_eng.php?page=mugen
http://www.mugen-infantry.net/index.php?pid=8
http://randomselect.i-xcell.com/mugen.htm

how does it work
mostly simple text file commands

how can i get one?
build your own- that's the beauty of mugen.  you can build the game you want
http://unofficial-winmugen.jpn.org/
http://www.mugenguild.com/forumx/

full game for download:
http://www.starwars-union.de/index.php?id=shownews&newsid=7809

How do you pronounce mugen?
i dunno - moo-gen?

[BobbyG66]

Excellent choice on the artwork.  I often use the same Chunli art for my cabs.  Here are a few pic's to give you an idea of what it will look like. 

The text around the trackball spells out M.A.E.M.

Is that a typo?

[tetsu96]

I'm gonna feed the fire and post some comments from my own recent experience of mugen.

I played with it a long time ago (had a really good KOF only build) and picked up a torrent recently just to see what it's like today - it can be good, but it's not the awsome greatness that it's made out to be.  I'd want to modify it (the engine, not just the characters) as well as my cabinet configuration before I threw it on a cabinet to show off and play with others.

Good points:

• There really is a lot that you can gain with mugen - things like transparencies which was not implemented in the original games are abundant here.  It's not the most "faithful" as it were, but it's definately an enhancement.
• Further, the huge ammount of characters and stages / music you can throw together enhances the variety quite a bit.  Some were recreated quite faithfully.
• And it does load pretty quickly on a good PC though there's lots of factors which influence that.

Bad points:

• Scanline support - it's either black scanlines or no scanlines.  No 50% scanline, which would do a lot to make things look good on higher res arcade monitors.  Worse though, it's hardcoded for 240 scanlines.  If you play at 640x480, scanlines are good.  If you play 768x448, they look like crap.
• This shouldn't be a problem, except a lot of sprites that were ripped for characters are per pixel rips.  This means a lot of the capcom characters look short and wide (remember - most Capcom fighters are 384x224, not 320x240).  Most of the SNK characters and some of the Capcom characters look fine, but some just look wrong.
• Control Mapping - It won't let you assign spacebar to a button.  This is a staple for cabinets using an IPAC or JPAC.  CNTL ALT SPACE by default assign to the 1st 3 buttons in MAME but you'll have to reprogram your boards as well as reconfig MAME (and whatever else you're using) to do mugen.  Maybe other people do frequently reconfigure their MAME and other emulators but I prefer to have it use the default controls.
• Amateur recreations - after all, they can't all be good.  There's frames where the colors on characters are wrong or missed, portraits missing, play changes.  It's not the original so it's reasonable to expect some variation, but the mileage on different characters varies greatly.  The same goes for stages though they don't seem to bottom out as badly.
• Huge amount of characters - the strength is also a weakness.  Primal Rage dinosaurs fighting KOF fighters can be cool but looks strange at best.  When you have decent SF3 characters fighting DBZ characters ripped from the SNES, there's a huge difference in quality just from the source material alone.  I doubt anything short of new artwork and programming would make that right.
• Stability - I didn't get the xbox version working yet so I can't pass judgement there but I did have the windows version and it did crash a lot.  Maybe sorting out and deleting a lot of the crap would help that, but be aware as your mugen grows you may have more problems with it.

I think the people that benefit the most out of mugen are going to be the ones that either get a great build to start, or take a lot of time sorting thru the trash and deleting / configuring until they get it the way they like it.  Still, I'd rather see something new come out since apparently there's projects out there like open mugen (but closed source???) which are trying to recreate what the original mugen makers created (and hopefully get everything right this time) but with a little more power / flexability.

[Negativecreep0]

ok i got a question on this mugen. I downloaded the full version and added one character  found, SPAWN. Are all characters speed,combo, double jumps, based on their own setting or the mugen enviornment. Like this spawn character was slow, no supers, and horrible combo ability.?


thanks for any info

[BobbyG66]

"Months if not years go into making a character."

Is this true?
I am pretty interested in this game, but if it's going to take that long...dunno.
I was hoping to make my own levels and characters based on my kids and let them have virtual fights.

I had drawn a Southpark version of my home for a background, but don't want to invest huge amounts of time on this. I don't have time for my other projects...ok I'll stop whining.

Any other alternatives or games out there like this?

Thanks
BobbyG66

[fantoboy]

yes, most character settings are in their own files.  Spawn is a work in progress, and barely has any moves. 

You can make characters faster if you're just making simple characters.  A complex character like an actual street fighter can take a long time.

Check out this complete game, a remade street fighter 2.  I think it's pretty sweet:

http://www.mugenchina.org/phpwind/read.php?tid=194&fpage=1

http://mugenchina.org/~enjuo/DEMO_08.zip

[nullb0y]

ok so after fanto boy wanted everything and a bag of bootleg chips for mugen i went and searched
i found a torrent
http://ts.searching.com/download.asp?id=530731
this torrent is win mugen and an awesome large setup there are only a few seeds but atleast this guy wont try to get u to pay him for mugen lol anyways its a 1.2 gig setup a nice place to start all the setups are pretty self explanitory. KEEP MUGEN FREE (win mugen is not copyrighted)

[fantoboy]

ok... I never asked for payment.  Nor did I ever ask anyone here for even a blank dvd or shipping fees!  I also gave you links to start a mugen yourself.   I even gave links to 2 mugens you can download yourself!  All I asked was for a simple trade if you wanted mine.  I wasn't even that specific to what I wanted.   Alotta time and effort went into my mugen so it doesn't look like a bootleg mishmash which most mugens I've seen online do.  I have a certain quality control which I am proud of, whereas most other mugens I have seen will throw in any character they can grab.   Bootleg chips?  Sorry If I don't feel like just handing over 7 years of work to some stranger online.

And then to top it off, the private messages you sent me weren't in english!

i have screen shots... movies would be redicilous plus theres alot of sets most people record their own for what they want them for... anyways id be willing to send it out if you sent me ur mugen dvd