Yet another CP for you guys to see

[teacup]

Here is the first draft of the control panel overlay for my cab. Its fairly basic, with just two joysticks and associated buttons, no spinners, trackballs etc. The white dots are the button placements but these won't be printed, everything else will be.

I'm going to get this printed, and get a purple paint matched to the purple so that it matches as close as possible. I don't know what pattern to paint the cab tho. Should I paint the entire right hand side purple, left side black. Or do purple and black on each side panel with the lightning strike thingy seperating them?

Suggestions? Comments?

PS, thanks to motorfish for showing his cp design, of which I have drawn some inspiration.

[Luxury]

whats the ????? button for?

[Frostillicus]

looks good - I would lose the solid purple heavy bar on the left that go through the buttons, and the solid black bar that goes through the buttons on the right.  Or at least make them more even as they go through the button area - I like it overall though.  I would paint the cab purple on one side and black on the other, and add the lightning bolt theme to the marquee.  And you could have opposite colored t-molding - purple on the left side and black on the right - hmmm. that might be too much.

[SirPoonga]

Are you sure you want the buttons that low?

[teacup]

The ?? is just because I don't know what I want that button to be yet   I'm thinking of having it as a dedicated shift button but I dunno yet.

I was thinking about having black tmolding on one side and purple on the other. But I think it would be a bit tricky trying to find purple, and if it didn't match up just right it would piss me off.

As for the buttons being low, I've been a bit of play testing and its comfier with the stick higher up, you sort of lean into the machine on your left arm. I'm going to have lots of mdf spare so before its finalised I'm going to do a proper test of the layout with the control panel in the cab just to make sure it feels right.

[JamesMolloy]

Nice idea with the button layout. I'm going to go with something very similar. I think the downward slope as you go left is a bit exaggerated though. Playing Virtua Fighter on that could be pretty uncomfortable.

I've never been a big fan of the arrows around a joystick. I'd leave them out.

[SirPoonga]

Make it a dedicated exit button.  I used my pause button as the shift button.

[teacup]

Does it work ok with the shift button as pause? I was going to do that, but I thought it may get a bit annoying with the game pausing and unpausing as you try to use shifted functions. I don't want a dedicated exit button on the panel, too easy to hit the wrong button by mistake and quit the game.

The buttons are going to be wired up as:

456
1234

This will mean that capcom controls are upside down, but I think this is the best compromise as I don't want to have seperate ctrlr files for different games, and also keep the bottom left buttons as buttons 1 and 2.

thanks for the replys people

[OzStick]

Hi there Teacup,

Using your Pause button as Shift should be fine.

Unless I am much mistaken the Shift button is not detected until it is released, as MAME and/or the FE is 'waiting' to receive input from another button to perform a shifted function first. If it does not detect one, only then should it pause the action.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the way I see things!

[Blot12345]

I like your design however a few things look a little wierd to me. First off, it looks like your joystick isn't even with your buttons(looks uncomfortable). Also I would get rid of the stripe going through the buttons. Other than that I love the clean look of it. Have Fun.

[teacup]

Right, I've been doing some adjustments to the panel. I've straightened out the buttons a bit, and moved them a bit more inline with the joystick. I like the stripe through the buttons, but I've toned it down a bit, and lined it up with the buttons.

And I'm giving you all a choice, which graphic to go round the joysticks, 1,2 or 3? I like them all and can't decide between them, so I'm gonna let you guys do it

[Frostillicus]

I say 3 because it is the least intrusive design.

[Generic Eric]

Right, I've been doing some adjustments to the panel. I've straightened out the buttons a bit, and moved them a bit more inline with the joystick. I like the stripe through the buttons, but I've toned it down a bit, and lined it up with the buttons.

And I'm giving you all a choice, which graphic to go round the joysticks, 1,2 or 3? I like them all and can't decide between them, so I'm gonna let you guys do it

I agree with the rest, that the different colored stripes are a bit much.  Good luck on the testing of the position of the buttons, but I think that they are too low.  On that note, I think its fair to assume that the game companies did a fair amount of play testing themselves.  If the buttons weren't in the right spot to begin with, the game companies wouldn't have made the money that they did.

BTW, I like the 2nd choice for the joystick arrows

[hevnsnt]

My vote goes for 2.. Man I love this CP.

[Wienerdog]

I like 3.  I don't like the roundness of 1 but 2 is too much.  A very subtle directional arrow looks okay, unless it is build into the cp theme more than just plain arrows.

[CthulhuLuke]

I'd say the 3rd joystick graphic will look the best, although the 2nd graphic looks very cool, it will jump out at your eyes too much probably.  Another thing I'd change, but this is just me, is the placement of the last neo geo button, if you want to play your cabinet like a real neo geo cab, then you're gonna want to put the A button on the neo geo to the bottom left of the buttons, so you rest your thumb on it.  Here's how I did mine:

[teacup]

Good luck on the testing of the position of the buttons, but I think that they are too low.  On that note, I think its fair to assume that the game companies did a fair amount of play testing themselves.  If the buttons weren't in the right spot to begin with, the game companies wouldn't have made the money that they did.

That argument doesn't really hold, consider the NES and Sega Master System. I'm sure sega and nintendo did alot of play testing with thier joypads, and they sure sold alot of them. And yet they are awful by todays standards. Just because their is a standard layout for buttons, doesn't mean its the best layout.

But I am taking your views in, I'm going to be doing a lot of play testing before the final panel is completed.

CthulhuLuke: My original plan was to do that layout, but I decided I didn't want to have to use different ctrlr files for different games. This layout is kinda a tradeoff between the two.

[RetroBorg]

I thought I would show you a few I think would look good.
Give you some more options.