Main > Project Announcements
Outer Heaven: Metal Gear Solid themed MAME cab *99% done - art, TV & controls*
Timstuff:
As I mentioned in another thread, a few days ago my mom spotted an old Ajax conversion cab on the side of the road that was scheduled to be hauled away by the dump. The owner was kind enough to let me have the machine, and he told me that it still works. I have not gotten a chance to test it as of yet because it's missing a power cable, but it came with a 19" monitor, and if that still works then I'll be happy as a clam.
The woodwork needs some repairs and the paint job is hideous, but it'll make for a dandy MAME cabinet I think. I don't know what kind of cab it was before it was converted to Ajax, but whatever it was, it would seem that the original artwork and such is long gone. My gut tells me that there's very little nostalgia attached to this machine as far as old upright cabs go, so I don't think I'd feel much guilt about MAMEing it.
I built a PC about 2 years ago with the intention of putting it in a BYOAC unit which never got built, and I plan to use it as the heart of this machine. The plan for now is to make a Metal Gear Solid themed cabinet, which I'm code-naming "Outer Heaven." I'm planning on painting the whole unit black, giving it silver T-molding and adding sheet metal over the kickplate (which I'll have to build, since the original kickplate is missing) to stick with the "metal" theme. And although I initially had some reservations about it, I think I'm going to cut into the existing control panel area on the cab to make room for a larger one.
Here's a better look at the side art that I whipped up in Adobe Illustrator, based on an existing MGS illustraton. I might tweak it a bit in the following weeks / months, but for the most part I'm pretty happy with it.
I'll keep you all posted on future developments. The next step for me is going to be replacing the power cable and / or power supply, and then testing the machine to see if the monitor still works. After that, I can strip out all the hard war and get to re-finishing the woodwork! This is going to be quite a summer project, I'm sure.
abzman2000:
those designs looks SWEET, I always imagined finding something other than the occasional printer ,or p3 in the trash; this would be a dream come true.
Timstuff:
Glad you like them! BTW, I've got an art update today.
Marquee
CPO
And finally, the cleaned up sideart. I actually have two versions I'm trying to choose between. One of them has kind of a sunset color scheme that seems to compliment the CPO. However, the other is a cooler blue color, which seems a little more inline with MGS's tone. I'm not sure which I should go with yet.
Franco B:
Wow, this thing should look awesome!!
The sunset and blue sideart both look awesome but I think I lean towards the blue.
My only critism is that from your CPO mockup it seems that the control panel will be much bigger than the original and the cab may look a little 'CP heavy' so to speak.
It may be an idea to try and condense your CP my moving your contols closer together to reduce its size. Its all about getting the balance between aesthetics and ergonomics right.
I would make a cardboard mockup of your CP and attach it to the cab to see what it looks like. You can attach your controls to it too to see how it will play. You can then mess with the CP size and control placement etc until you find something that you are happy with before you start cutting wood.
Timstuff:
Actually, I already have condensed my CP considerably from when I was planning to use the Lusid templates. The CP I have now is 28" wide, and the cabinet I'm working with is 22" wide, so there's actually only going to be a difference of about 3 inches. It's actually very compact, but it looks a little large right now because you can't see it with all the components on it. This thing is going to have 3 joysticks, a trackball, a spinner, and several administrative buttons on it, so I myself am actually surprised at how small I was able to get it.