Marquee & Control Panel Art

[GGKoul]

Just a couple of questions:

- What are the dimentions of a standard Marquee?

- Where can one download Marquee's that goes in to the Mame/Marquee directory

- I've seen a couple of peope have created there own custom artwork for there control panels.  Just wondering, how you did created this (What program did you use) and does any have a site where I can d/l or a place where I can view some custom Control Panel designs?

Thanks
-GGKoul

[Frobozz]

What are the dimentions of a standard Marquee?

Size of marquee varies, but a good "average" for early cabinets would be 6" x 24".  

Where can one download Marquee's that goes in to the Mame/Marquee directory

Look at Mameworld.net.  They have a link.

I've seen a couple of peope have created there own custom artwork for there control panels.  Just wondering, how you did created this (What program did you use) and does any have a site where I can d/l or a place where I can view some custom Control Panel designs?

I'm currently making a custom Marquee and some additional custom cabinet art and I'm using Photoshop 6.0 by Adobe.  It's very powerful, expensive and hard to learn for the beginner.  Adobe After FX is like a stripped-down, easier to use, less expensive Photoshop.  I'd recommend that ot PaintShop Pro.

If you're going to be printing these, or putting them on a CD for someone else to print professionally, remember, make them LARGE.  Screens are generally 72 dots per inch, and printers are 600 dpi +  What might be full-screen on your monitor could be the size of a postage stamp when printed at 1 to 1 resolution w/o stretching.  

Make sure you got lots of RAM and a fast CPU, working with 10,000 x 3000 pictures is time consuming.

[Carsten Carlos]

Unless you make nothing but black text on white paper, 300 dpi shall be absolutely enough. The Hp designjets I use at work e.g. have also 600dpi, but basicly they make a pattern for each color, so you don't need the full resolution. Of course, if you have a fast PC and you want to show him who the master is, use 600dpi But this way you end up with 4-times more data, and as Frobozz stated before, this could really do something to your system!

I know it is looser-software , but I just can handle CorelDraw much easier then the Photoshop. And, I even paid for Corel, if it only wouldn't have this XP-bug when looking in the printing properties, argh!

a good "average" for early cabinets would be 6" x 24

Sounds good, I currently got my plans with 7,8"x26", but I'm glad for any inch I could get free space above my head. Well, in the earlier days I never realized that this marquees are so low! But maybe I'm just to tall with 74". (sorry, have alwas problemls handling with foots, just got familiar with inches at least)

[Frobozz]

You're right Carsten Carlos, I couldn't believe it either.  I recently measured a Dig Dug cabinet my friend had, and I couldn't believe how low the marquee seemed.  (Dig Dug marquee was 5 1/2" x 24" in size, base of marquee 64" from the ground, 72" total cabinet height, control panel 40" from ground, screen at about 75 degrees off horizontal.)

The joystick was REALLY SMALL too.  Only 1/2" of shaft from the metal control panel.  

[Mike]

Just so you know back lit signs like marquees are usually printed at 406 dpi on a photo printer like a light jet. To reproduce the quality on a inkjet you'd have to print at 4000 dpi. So if you want a high quality crisp image I'd take it to a printing shop to get done. And expect the completed file to be about 500mb to a 1gb depending on the print size of the image.

[darkmanx]

i havent used photoshop much, but in paintshop pro you can specify size in inches...seems alot easier to me than figuring out pixel size. i would think photoshop could do that also..

[Mike]

i havent used photoshop much, but in paintshop pro you can specify size in inches...seems alot easier to me than figuring out pixel size. i would think photoshop could do that also..

Size in inches is not enough. You have to know ppi and dpi of your image. dpi is dots per inch on the printer. ppi is pixels per inch. I can do an 8X10 with a dpi of 72 or an 8X10 with a dpi of 406 and there is a huge difference in how they look. Basically my point was on your home inkjet depending on how picky you are it isn't going to look good. But this doesn't seem to be much of a concern because alot of the marquee images I've seen out there aren't cleaned up well and won't print nice anyways.

[Frobozz]

Yea, I learned my lesson from dating a graphic artist.  I built her a photoshop workstation with a gig of RAM (NOT CHEAP IN THOSE DAYS)  and to do a simple 8 1/2 x 11 print at the resolutions she was working with took almost an hour to load up and print.  

Very expensive printing systems will "stretch" pictures through hardware though, so you can print on larger mediums with smaller files (and nobody's going to be standing 2 inches from your sign scrutinizing the pixelation and jaggy edges it has), but marquees are something viewed close, so there's no alternative unless you use vector style art program such as Illustrator.  

Which brings up another point.  Most graphic shops use Illustrator because you can blow it up infinatly w/o loosing resolution.  But it's only for more simple geometries, and not photographic work.  I.e: You can make fonts, complex line-art, and fairly complex shapes, but photographs and complex color work are right out.  

[bob]

If you are creating original artwork that includes text, which will be printed at a print shop, Adobe Illustrator rules. If you are using mostly photos, or other "raster" images, and you're printing it at a print shop, Photoshop rules.

If you're doing graphics work at home, Corel Draw, Corel Photopaint, and JASC Paintshop Pro will all do excellent work.

All of these programs have free 30 day trial versions. I have never seen a marquee that would be more than a Megabyte or so in Illustrator.

[1UP]

Adobe After FX is like a stripped-down, easier to use, less expensive Photoshop.

[dgodwin]

Uhm... After Effects is not a scaled down version of any paint program.

[Frobozz]

I believe that the original author was thinking of Adobe Photoshop Elements, not after effects.

Yes, I was, thank you for correcting me.  After FX would seem pretty silly for marquee work!  

(must have been asleep that day)

Yea, I hear Gimp is really good too.  Havn't used it though, but I have a few Linux friends that do.