New Layout - Old School 1024 -

[EmuMannen]

I almost gave up on this layout but I got so mad about the lack of alpha channel transparency (se my previous post: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=88601), that I refused to go to bed until I managed to make something decent out of the SVG/PNG graphics I been working on all day. It took a couple of hours extra because I had to fall back on GIF/JPG and it is impossible to get it to look the way I initially planned for but WTF. I now got my new frontend for my cabinet and I have attached the layout and some previews if this is something someone else would like to use. I am running a MAME only cabinet with a horizontal 4:3 monitor. I wanted to make use of my multisync monitor in something more than VGA so I made this layout 1024x768. It uses snap, marquee and flyer gfx and controls.ini based controls/buttons gfx (supplied as part of the layout).

Attached previews demonstrate different controls/buttons based on controls.ini and what it looks like with missing snap, marquee and flyer gfx...

Ps. Read the "readme.txt" file in the "./oldschool1024" directory for instructions...

[loadman]

Nice 

[cmoses]

EmuMannen,

Very impressive.  I really like the use of the controls showing up on the layout, something I think I have seen, but not done as nicely as yours.

I noticed a couple of things that you might want to add/tweak.  Not criticisms in any way, just some things I noticed when I tried out your layout.  I did not have a joystick show up in Galaga which uses a 2 way joystick, there is no joy2way graphic.  Easily remedied with copying the joystick and adding a left and right yellow arrow.  You may also want to add one for vjoy2way for vertical 2 way joystick games like Defender.  I would suggest adding arrows to your joy8way graphic to represent 8 way movement.  Also Space Invaders did not show the left right movement buttons.  I looked at the control.ini and it showed it as a joy2way, so it maybe that you can only have the joystick icon showing. 

Now a question.  I am not sure if this is a transparency question or if this would be a graphics question.  I am not real familiar with the use of transparency in the MALA program so maybe you or loadman could answer this.  Could you setup the controls to show a more similar 2 player control panel layout?  Meaning that when it was a 1 player game the left joystick and corresponding buttons showed up and when it was 2 player both joysticks and buttons showed up and when it was a trackball game the trackball would show in the middle of the control panel?  Not sure if this would have to be done with transparencies or with graphics that were bigger but had more blank spots.

Once again very impressive, I think I am going to try to do something similar for my MALA layout.

[EmuMannen]

Thanks for the feedback. I already got some issues I want to change my self and I will add your suggestions as well as soon as I get the time for it. I get where you are going with the 1 vs 2 etc player and corresponding gfx. I don't know (yet) if or how it can be solved but it would be cool! 

Ps. I was wondering what strings from controls.ini that needed corresponding gfx. I peeked in the MAME source (info.c) and it looks like these are the ones:

Code: [Select]

"joy", "doublejoy", "stick", "dial", "trackball", "paddle", "lightgun", "pedal", "joy2way", "vjoy2way", "joy4way", "joy8way", "doublejoy2way", "vdoublejoy2way", "doublejoy4way", "doublejoy8way"
Anyone know of any other or if these are the only ones?

[cmoses]

I have been giving it a little more thought and what I think I would like to do is have a graphic that shows the control panel layout with the joysticks, buttons, trackball and spinner but have them sort of grayed out.  Then when you go to a game have the corresponding controls turn on by changing to color versions.  That way you would always see the whole control panel, but only have the controls being used for each game on.  I hope that makes sense.

[EmuMannen]

I hope that makes sense.

Makes sense to me but it will be one crowded CP... Two joysticks (used for joy/doublejoy/stick/joy2way/vjoy2way/joy4way/joy8way/doublejoy2way/vdoublejoy2way/doublejoy4way/doublejoy8way), eight buttons, a trackball, a spinner (used for dial/paddle) and a lightgun (maybe a pedal too)...

Doable but crowded... Do you plan on a CP with controls for 1P or 2P (the later would be almost twice as crowded)?

[cmoses]

I plan to have a standard CP layout.  Player 1 joystick with 7 buttons, Player 2 joystick with 7 buttons, trackball in the middle.  By only strange items is that I may do dual spinners for 2 player racing games.  I have to test it out first to make sure it will work. 

Did you create those control and button icons or did you get them somewhere?  I will have ball top joysticks so I need to do some editing. 

[EmuMannen]

Did you create those control and button icons or did you get them somewhere?  I will have ball top joysticks so I need to do some editing. 

I did all custom gfx in Inkscape (some original elements imported as .ai files). I got it all scalable in SVG format. Adding a button on top of the stick would be easy. Are you running Inkscape? It's easy to export in PNG format from Inkscape and you can use Gimp to turn PNG into GIF if needed. That would be the Open Source path, Photoshop and Illustrator is another option but don't come for free...

[Deefish]

Hey EmuMannen, the zip file wont download. Can you reload it to this thread?

Thanks,
Deefish

[ivwshane]

So how exactly do you do that in mala (show a graphic for button layouts)?

[cmoses]

Sent Emumann a PM but it appears he has not been on in a long time.

Does anyone have this layout?  The zip file does not work when you try to click on it.

If so can you post or PM me.

Thanks

[system01]

I did this on my cocktail cab, and although not 2 player sticks, I put a "1" or "2" and "simultaneous" or "alternating" to show if 2 people could sit and play before starting the actual game up.

Take a look at the attachments here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=85969.msg915671#msg915671.  I changed the layout since I posted that, and there is now a box under the snaps where these show up.

What I did was used the batch image create function in CPWizard.  The template (both the pause screen and the controls on the FE) match my actual CP layout.

This is going to sound confusing but...

1) Running the batch creator creates an image with the correct buttons/joys for every ROM you have into a folder.  You specify what "fields" are what, CPW compares them to controls.ini, and it will highlight/dim what controls are used for that game.  You have to create/find all the control images you want to use (CPW come with a lot), including every directional joy image you want.

- You probably won't need to do the steps below unless you want text or other imgs.  If you wanted a simple 2nd joy (no directions) to signify 2-player, you would might do it this way.

2) Then using Romlister BAT files, I separated, from the new folder full of CP PNGs, 1-player games into a 1P folder, 2P games into a 2P folder, etc.

3) I then created txparent PNGs of "1P", "2P", "alternating" and "simultaneous", and used some trialware batch image merge the stack them all together in the appropriate folders.

4) Put them all back in the folder and point MaLa to it.

I did this over a year ago, so CPW might have this functionality now.  Hope this helps... 

[ivwshane]

That sounds extremely time consuming and hard:(


When you right a program that does it all for me let me know;)


:p

[system01]

The first, basic CPW, stuff is simple.  The other steps: It took me a couple hours to figure out how to get what I wanted, after that it's pretty quick.

I was setting up CPW for the pause screen already, so adjusting the template to a little CP image was no biggie.