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Button Mapping Graphic Display

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SteveJ34:
Short of mapping LEDs to physical buttons, I've been pondering a graphic display for what buttons are used for each game.

Granted, you would still have the issue for those games that had been re-mapped and the different cp layouts that people have chosen.

I am quick to visualize an application/frontend/graphic file generation that draws against datasources of:

1. game database which provides buttons, joys, trackball, spinners, guns used by each game

2. a cp layout database which defines what controls are available.

For example, I have (2) 8 way with 6 buttons each, trackball in the center, and (1) 4 way with 4 buttons mounted above trackball in center. My 4 way and 4 buttons are mapped to the same keys as player 1 joy and buttons 1-4.

3. your mame key config

4. your custom configs for certain games

5. a set of generic graphics to piece together like a puzzle

I toss up these questions:

1. There was one fellow in the examples pages that was headed down this path but for the life of me I cannot find his example again....anyone? He had a plan similar to the above and sample graphics generated that he planned to use.

2. As I contemplated this idea and began to explore sortinfo as a starting point for the button layout database, I am confused by some of the output I see.....

For example, it shows galaga using an 8 way joy.

What's with that?

The task of documenting button layouts for 3,000 games doesn't frighten me....I have resources that can be applied to that if I can determine a method of acquiring this information....sortinfo seems to fall short.

I welcome any and all feedback regarding the pursuit of this concept.

Steve

neuromancer:
I just put an idea along those lines in your original thread. The 8way in galaga must be what the driver uses, as opposed to the game. Maybe there are clones that actually use an 8 way.

If you made the graphics .pngs, then you could store them in the marquees folder and mame32 would automatically show them. If you could make a list of controls in a regular format, like a tab delimited ascii file with the same things in the same places, you could load it into FileMaker Pro to generate all the templates. The catch is that you still don't know what the buttons actually do.

Consider Defender. The buttons are fire, thrust, hyperspace, reverse. MAME only knows player 1, button 1 through 4. I think you would need to play the games to figgure that out. Just knowing that 4 buttons are used is a little helpful, but not really enough.

Bob

Steve Johnson:

--- Quote ---
<snip>
..... The catch is that you still don't know what the buttons actually do.

Consider Defender. The buttons are fire, thrust, hyperspace, reverse. MAME only knows player 1, button 1 through 4. I think you would need to play the games to figgure that out. Just knowing that 4 buttons are used is a little helpful, but not really enough.

Bob
--- End quote ---


Good points, Bob.

I agree totally with the need for definition beyond "4 buttons", ie: what do the buttons "do".

I looked into www.klov.com as one resource that might be drawn against for controls that have been documented.

Granted, button 1,2,3,4 may not match up to the order that they have them defined in their database display.

I opened this thread to see if others had any interest and/or ideas and data resources that might be utilized in support of creating such a database documenting cp layouts.

Thanks again for responding.

I welcome any additional feedback you or others may care to share.

Steve

u_rebelscum:
Check out http://www.mameworld.net/emuadvice/controls/controls.html

I don't know if it's still being worked on, but it's a project on displaying the layout of control panels.  Pretty much what you are talking about.  I never have tried it, though, so I don't know how good it is.

Carsten Carlos:
I have though about adding a vertical mounted LCD/TFT-display somewhere in the cab which shows the instruction-card regarding the choosen game. Of course, it won't be that easy to find instruction-cards for 1500+ games (counting only unique games), but for the good ones they should be out there somewhere. For the others, you could make some of your own, one by one, no need to have them complete in one day, so you have always something to work on your cab -that's what hobbies are about! ;)

::) But I discarded this all, 'cause

- Color LCD's are very very expensive (industry style with a 6,4" e.g. costs about $290 +$170 for VGA-adapter)

- Might look very unauthentic (this is my personal preference, yours might differ)

- The worst of all - the viewable vertical angle is very very bad on these LCD-displays, you'd have to get the display near eye-height which just would look stupid. Never saw a instruction-sticker that height on a cab.

I guess I might display the instruction-card on the frontend for -well, 5 second- and let it skip by pressing any button. Best would be to show the instruction-card plus a controlpanel shot (half of the panel would be enough, 1up and 2up are the same anyway) explaining the additional buttons.

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