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Joy and button alignment and of other control panel questions
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Mr Kray:
Hi Everyone,

I'm redesigning my control panel and when looking through some other threads I started to question a couple of my original design plans.

I have a couple of questions but my main one is..

I did a few searches and read in a thread that you should align the joysticks so they point towards the monitor otherwise players trying pushing up but instead push diagonally. Just wanted a bit more clarification on this.. should up on the joystick be perpendicular to the monitor or should it point to the midpoint of the bottom edge of the monitor?

Also with the buttons, I like the curved layout where the middle buttons (on a standard 6 button layout) are slightly higher than the outer ones, I'm set on this but on my current design the whole set are angled to the left (kinda ergonomic for the angle of your arm); I read that this may end up feeling cramped if you have no space next to the other player and can't put your elbow to the side as much.

What are the opinions on this? My current design is 2 player and outlined below with my ideas and some other questions..

My control panel is currently 1000x400mm but I want to cut it down to about 840x350 (Although I don't mind keeping it at 400).

The current design is 2 players with 2 joysticks per play and space for a 3" trackball in the middle.

the 2 joysticks are one wico 8-way on the left of 7 buttons and one SNK rotary on the right.. This allows for normal games, dual joystick games and rotary games (but you have to switch hands)

I was thinking of adding buttons to the right of the rotaries so they can be used as 3 and 4 player joysticks but I'm not sure if it will make the panel to cramped or cause problems for using the trackball effectively.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks everyone,

Mr Kray
Fozzy The Bear:

--- Quote from: Mr Kray on April 23, 2008, 10:12:42 pm ---should up on the joystick be perpendicular to the monitor or should it point to the midpoint of the bottom edge of the monitor?
--- End quote ---

The sticks should be perpendicular to the monitor.... Otherwise they just feel wrong while you're playing. Up and down on the monitor should be in the same plane as up and down on the stick. If they're not set that way, it's not even obvious which direction is up and down on the stick, because from the top of a panel there are no clues to that. Even if you put a graphic design on the panel to indicate it, it'd feel unnatural to play them if they're not square on to the monitor face.


--- Quote from: Mr Kray on April 23, 2008, 10:12:42 pm ---Also with the buttons, I like the curved layout where the middle buttons (on a standard 6 button layout) are slightly higher than the outer ones, I'm set on this but on my current design the whole set are angled to the left (kinda ergonomic for the angle of your arm); I read that this may end up feeling cramped if you have no space next to the other player and can't put your elbow to the side as much.
--- End quote ---

Your first idea here is the right one..... DONT angle the buttons like that... Again it just feels wrong. Real arcade machines don't have them angled the way you suggest in the second part of that.


--- Quote from: Mr Kray on April 23, 2008, 10:12:42 pm ---the 2 joysticks are one wico 8-way on the left of 7 buttons and one SNK rotary on the right.. This allows for normal games, dual joystick games and rotary games (but you have to switch hands)
--- End quote ---

Absolute overkill..... Unless you're very set on and have very specific games that you must play on two sticks and must play on two sticks with two players at the same time then ditch this idea altogether. It's just needless excess otherwise.

Also ask yourself how many times you're going to be playing 4 player games. That is games that have 4 players playing at the same time. There are actually not that many games that even have four players.

90% of the time it's going to be just you playing... think long and hard before you build what kind of sounds like a Frankenpanel.

Just my 5 cents...

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
isucamper:
My CP goals are eerily similar to yours.  I started out thinking a 2 joystick CP would be enough, but both Ikari Warriors and Smash TV were big games for me and my brother when we were kids, so I've been struggling to come up with a design that would use 2 Ultimarc 360s and 2 Rotaries and include support for rotary games, 2 player dual stick games, and 4 player games... all while keeping the length small enough that the whole CP is not obnoxiously large.

Each iteration I've come up with is a bit cleaner than the last, but Fozzy's right.  Your gonna have to sacrafice some aesthtics and ergonomics if you want to get it to fit. 

When I get home tonight I'll post some of my design iterations in this thread.  My goal has been to keep it under 40 inches.


Stub:
  I also am going with 2 sticks for player one and two for smash tv and tank. I can still make it look nice enough, but it's there to be played. Dont listen to people down playing it. If you design it so that it is functional and does not cramp the useage of other controles go for it.

  I have been trying to decide on sticks. I was going to go your way, but with bender's adaption of the u360 for rotary I believe one way or another I will achieve that mod myself in time. So I am trying to find an analog stick with a topfire and trigger for the right. There are several out there, but I am looking for small ones that will not dominate my cab. The tron and most flight sticks are rather tall.
isucamper:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/isucamper/cp1.jpgAfter messing with several different design tools (thanks to arzoo for pointing me towards MS Visio and getting me started with his Arcade Addiction design), I came up with this design.  The two inner sticks are P1 and P2 and they are U360s.  These sticks are the focus of the CP as I will be playing a lot of fighting games.  The two outer sticks are rotaries.  It was important to NOT angle the outer sticks so they could also be used for 2 player dual stick games like Smash TV.  On the rare occasion that I would have enough friends over to play 4 player games, this CP would support it and players 3 and 4 would have the option to sit at the front of the panel along side players 1 and 2 (though it would be cramped and they'd have to reach behind their sticks to get to their buttons) or they could sit at the side of the panel.  If they sat at the side, player 3 (on the left) would have to play right handed.   A sacrifice to be sure, but 4 player games will be rare and they aren't the main focus of my cab.

I chose only 3 buttons for players 3 and 4 because, by my count, there are only two 4 player arcade games that use more than that; the two Capcom D&D fighters.  If I ever get 4 people playing those games, I figured I could come up with some clever button mapping using the admin buttons at the top of the panel for their menu buttons. 

It was my first try and there was a lot of stuff that bothered me about it so I kept playing around with it and came up with:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/isucamper/cp2.jpgBy pulling the track ball down I was able to remove a few buttons and get some more space in between player 1 and player 2.  Also, by this time I had decided on a TRON theme and added an 8 way topfire button adjacent from the spinner.  Now I was worried that the leftmost two joysticks were too close together, and I was completely out of room unless I wanted to sacrifice the symmetry of having the trackball directly in the middle of the panel, so I did this:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/isucamper/cp3.jpgHad to sacrifice having the two leftmost sticks being level with each other, which might make dual stick games a little weird, but I was able to get more space between the sticks and still give player 3 the option to sit at the side of the cab during a 4 player game.  There's still a lot about it I'm unsure of.  For instance, I'm worried about player 2 during Ikari Warriors using the rightmost stick... not sure what buttons he will use or how it will feel.  Also, the trackball is pretty darn crowded. 

So I'm not completely happy with where I ended up, but I've decided to wait until I can prototype some of these ideas and see how they work before wasting anymore time and energy thinking about it. 

I did all this with the free trial version of Visio which lasts like 2 months.  If anyone wants any of my templates send me a pm.  All of these CPs are 40 inches long.
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