javeryh's Woodgrain Cabaret Copy

[Mike A]

https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interfaces/j-pac-en/j-pac-jamma-interface/

I guess it is too late, but this is all you would have needed.

You could have wired your cab for JAMMA.

Then you could use your PC with the JPac or throw in an arcade PCB or a Pandora's Box, or other multi JAMMA board if you ever wanted to go that route.

[Arroyo]

The G07 works right?

[PL1]

https://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/vgm/d/huntington-station-arcade-machine-new/7153183111.html

Or talk to this guy. He butchers cabs and shoves LCDs in them. The CRTs have to be somewhere.

Sorry to disappoint any would-be CRT hunters, but AFAIK Josh (a.k.a. our own mrclean) isn't butchering classic cabs, he's selling all-new reproductions of classic cabs.


Scott

[javeryh]

https://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/vgm/d/huntington-station-arcade-machine-new/7153183111.html

Or talk to this guy. He butchers cabs and shoves LCDs in them. The CRTs have to be somewhere.

Sorry to disappoint any would-be CRT hunters, but AFAIK Josh (a.k.a. our own mrclean) isn't butchering classic cabs, he's selling all-new reproductions of classic cabs.


Scott

I think this is right.  His builds look incredibly clean and his website says everything is brand new.

[Mike A]

Except for where he says he buys and sells games. He says he PREDOMINANTLY sells brand new games.

I am glad his main business is ground up repros. He might still have CRTs laying around from stuff he buys and sells. It is worth a gander.

I will apologize completely for using the word butcher if he doesn't buy any games and stuff an LCD in them. Or he doesn't "upgrade" cabs for people that want an LCD in place of the CRT.

[Mike A]

• CRT to LCD Conversions
• FULL Artwork Restoration
• PCB Logic Board Multi Game Upgrades
• Trackball Replacement (Bearings/Rollers)
• Linear to Reliable New Switching Power Supplies

oops. Maybe you should fact check your fact checking.

Anyways. That is enough of that. Javeryh has a cab to build.

If you want to discuss further how people butcher cabs for profit and it pisses me off, you can start a new thread or PM me.

[jennifer]

 

[Mike A]

.

[javeryh]

Alright - let's get back on track.  Try not to laugh but this morning I spent 3 hours making this for Hyperspin.  It is a super rough draft.  I'm not really even sure what I want this to look like other than "simple to use".



I found a wallpaper of the woodgrain that I used on the sides and thought it would make an OK background.  Not sold on it but I don't think a solid color would work either.  Then I downloaded some "retro" 70s style font to make the "Press to start" text.  Not sure I like that either or if it is even necessary - I was planning on putting some instructions on the CP but most people will be staring at the screen so maybe it makes more sense here.

I set the "wheel" to vertical and to the right and I pointed that video window to a folder on my desktop that has a ton of these little movies in there.  Again, I'm not sure if these fancy themes work - an old fashioned video snap might feel better.  I was also able to make a border around the video (simple brown and black).  I also sized the video window to how you see it and set the transparency on the wheel to 1.0 (so no transparency).  Some people like the wheel to fade once you stop on a game I guess.

Anyone know how to remove the "1981, Namco | Galaga" text in the bottom left corner of the videos? It doesn't belong there and it is not embedded in the videos - Hyperspin is pulling this from an XML file somewhere, I think.

What do you think?  Criticism is welcome because I have no idea what I'm doing.

EDIT: Second attempt.  I don't like this one at all.

[javeryh]

Attempt #3.  I'm getting closer to... something?  Maybe?

I might try changing the brown border around the video to black and getting rid of the text.  What else?

[javeryh]

Attempt #4.  I didn't like the all black border (or the brown one in the first few attempts) so I'm trying yellow here.  I like it a little more.  I also ditched the "Press to Start" text.  I wish I was more creative - you could probably do something really slick given all the options.

I still can't figure out how to delete that text in the lower left corner though.

[Arroyo]

They all look good to me.  Nice personalized touch on the themes, now you got me thinking about my own build.....

[javeryh]

They all look good to me.  Nice personalized touch on the themes, now you got me thinking about my own build.....

Thanks.  It's not easy trying to come up with this nonsense.  I want it to be somewhat unique and not a copy of someone else's theme.  I also want the front end to match the cabinet overall and be self explanatory to operate.  I've seen a lot of examples on YouTube where someone builds a cabinet with 30 buttons and slaps Retropie inside with a completely generic theme that has nothing to do with the cabinet they built and the whole things seems disjointed.  I'm sure it is one of those things that I'll completely forget about once the cabinet is up and running.

I did figure out how to remove that text from the lower left corner...  I can delete it in mame.xml and it won't show up in the theme... but there are over 9000 entries in the mame.xml file.  I really don't want to go through it one by one.  Also, am I somehow screwing myself over for something else?  I know mame.xml is kind of an important file... I made a copy of it just in case.

Does anyone know a quick way to edit the xml?

[bperkins01]

I put Bigbox in extra stupid mode and people still can't figure it out.
You will be teaching people common sense for a while.

ex:  turn a game on.. they stare at it..  can't figure out how to start it.
I show them the coin door and then the coin button..
it take a little time for it to click in...

[javeryh]

I put Bigbox in extra stupid mode and people still can't figure it out.
You will be teaching people common sense for a while.

ex:  turn a game on.. they stare at it..  can't figure out how to start it.
I show them the coin door and then the coin button..
it take a little time for it to click in...

yeah I know.  It's amazing that people can't figure out what the quarters are for...

[yamatetsu]

I did figure out how to remove that text from the lower left corner...  I can delete it in mame.xml and it won't show up in the theme... but there are over 9000 entries in the mame.xml file.  I really don't want to go through it one by one.  Also, am I somehow screwing myself over for something else?  I know mame.xml is kind of an important file... I made a copy of it just in case.

Does anyone know a quick way to edit the xml?

You can do that with Notepad++. It's a free text editor that lets you make your own macros.

Let's say you want to remove every line that is similar to this:

<description>10-Yard Fight (World, set 1)</description>


- Open mame.xml with Notepad++.

- Go to one of the lines you want to delete. Mark <description>, click the right mouse button and copy it.

- Click on the Search menu, click on Find...  If <description> is inserted in the Find what: box, click on Find Next. If not, click into the box, erase the text, click the right mouse button, paste. Click on Find next. You should be teleported to the next <description> line. Close the window.

- Go to the beginning of the text, click somewhere into the first line.

- Click on the Macro menu, click on Start Recording.

- Press F3 (Find Next). You should get teleported to the first <description> line. Press HOME. Hold SHIFT, press END. You should end up having marked the entire line. Press DEL. This should delete the whole line.

- Click on the Macro menu, click on Stop Recording.

- Press CTRL+SHIFT+P (Macro playback). This should delete the next <description> line.

- If that worked: Click on the Macro menu, click on Run a Macro Multiple Times..., select Run until the end of file, click on Run.

- Wait a while... You're done. Save the file.

[javeryh]

I did figure out how to remove that text from the lower left corner...  I can delete it in mame.xml and it won't show up in the theme... but there are over 9000 entries in the mame.xml file.  I really don't want to go through it one by one.  Also, am I somehow screwing myself over for something else?  I know mame.xml is kind of an important file... I made a copy of it just in case.

Does anyone know a quick way to edit the xml?

You can do that with Notepad++. It's a free text editor that lets you make your own macros.

Let's say you want to remove every line that is similar to this:

<description>10-Yard Fight (World, set 1)</description>


- Open mame.xml with Notepad++.

- Go to one of the lines you want to delete. Mark <description>, click the right mouse button and copy it.

- Click on the Search menu, click on Find...  If <description> is inserted in the Find what: box, click on Find Next. If not, click into the box, erase the text, click the right mouse button, paste. Click on Find next. You should be teleported to the next <description> line. Close the window.

- Go to the beginning of the text, click somewhere into the first line.

- Click on the Macro menu, click on Start Recording.

- Press F3 (Find Next). You should get teleported to the first <description> line. Press HOME. Hold SHIFT, press END. You should end up having marked the entire line. Press DEL. This should delete the whole line.

- Click on the Macro menu, click on Stop Recording.

- Press CTRL+SHIFT+P (Macro playback). This should delete the next <description> line.

- If that worked: Click on the Macro menu, click on Run a Macro Multiple Times..., select Run until the end of file, click on Run.

- Wait a while... You're done. Save the file.

This worked and is super useful to know how to do.  Thank you!

I also learned that in the mame.ini file, I can make the following edits and it does the same thing:

game_text_active=false
show_year=false
show_manf=false
show_description=false

I'm not sure which way is better or if it even matters.

So now this is what things currently look like for me:



Not bad for a start... I'm not sure if I should add text/instructions on the bottom like "move joystick up or down to select game" and "press any button to launch" or if I should do that on the CP instead.  I know this is pretty basic stuff but I am trying to integrate everything...

[javeryh]

Still mucking about...

I like the black text should I go down this route... but the yellow text pops more against the background and might be a little easier to read.  Also, now that there is something below the video it seem like to balance it there needs to be something above it.  Like the name of the cabinet or something... but it has no name. Hmmm...

[javeryh]

Another revision...  I repositioned the video window and moved the text up slightly.  I'm getting closer - I like this one best so far.

Any thoughts?

[J_K_M_A_N]

I like the picture out of the way of the list more in this last one. The text looks good too. Easily readable.

J_K_M_A_N

[yamatetsu]

[Jimbo]

Are you having any "admin" buttons on the panel?  e.g. pause, exit, volume etc?

[javeryh]

I like the picture out of the way of the list more in this last one. The text looks good too. Easily readable.

Thanks.  I think this is the right direction.  It's less cluttered this way.

Brilliant!  This is what was missing.  I'm going to mock it up right now.  Thank you!

Are you having any "admin" buttons on the panel?  e.g. pause, exit, volume etc?

Yes.  I'm not 100% sure about the CP yet.  I was thinking P1 Start, P2 Start and Pause (with the same button doubling as Exit if you hold it down for 3-4 seconds).  I was also thinking of a volume knob as well.  All of the buttons will be labeled on the CP.  I bought 2 Atari Volcano buttons for P1 and P2 Start and I have the pot from the Amazon speakers I can connect for the volume knob.  With 18" to play with, I might be able to fit in a spinner of 2.5" trackball, which would expand the gamelist, but I do not want it to look cluttered or confusing.  I'm willing to sacrifice the number of playable games for aesthetic reasons.  First and foremost I want this to look like it could go in any room in the house.

[javeryh]

OK... this is final, I think.  I couldn't get the yellow/black borders to all line up because I'm piecing this together from a bunch of different .png files and don't really know what I'm doing.  I decided a black stripe on the bottom behind the text does the job nicely.  I actually had to make one black .png for the left side of the wheel and another for the right side of the wheel because they kept showing over the wheel and I do not know how to make things jump from layer to layer. 

Anyway, I think this looks pretty good now.  I like to iterate a lot until I get something I like and it helps me to see all of the steps.  I'm finally ready to install the monitor... when it gets here!

 

[yamatetsu]

OK... this is final, I think.  I couldn't get the yellow/black borders to all line up because I'm piecing this together from a bunch of different .png files and don't really know what I'm doing.

Why multiple .pngs? Can't you just make 1 pic that has both boxes and a transparent background?

Snall niggle: I would shorten the lines to

Move joystick up or down to select a game from the menu

Press ONE PLAYER START to start the selected game

The 'from the menu' part is redundant because it's fairly obvious that you will select the game that is highlighted in the menu. It's also pretty obvious that pressing 1P start will start the selected game and not some random game.

[Jimbo]

I reckon you can make the image of the joystick larger, put up/down arrows on it, and make it say "browse games" to the right of it.

Similarly, on the right half, an image of the start button and the words "play game" or "play selected" to the right of it.

[ pic ]  browse games       [ pic ]  play game

bigger icons and less text is clearer and less wordy/messy imo.

[javeryh]

Why multiple .pngs? Can't you just make 1 pic that has both boxes and a transparent background?

You vastly overestimate my computer skills haha.  My problem is that I do not know how to work on one area.  The background image is about 10x the size of what you are seeing.  The black stripes go off the screen in all directions by a lot.  Ideally, the whole thing would just be a background (one .png file) the exact size I need with the wheel and video window laid over the top but you are looking at 4 .png files mashed together.  I spent way too much time aligning the black bar under the text with the smaller black bar to the right of the wheel to make it look like one continuous stripe.

Snall niggle: I would shorten the lines to

Move joystick up or down to select a game from the menu

Press ONE PLAYER START to start the selected game

The 'from the menu' part is redundant because it's fairly obvious that you will select the game that is highlighted in the menu. It's also pretty obvious that pressing 1P start will start the selected game and not some random game.

I like this suggestion.  Simple = better.  Let me see what I can do...  it's not as easy as retyping it - I have to completely redo that .png.  It's not hard though.

 

[javeryh]

I reckon you can make the image of the joystick larger, put up/down arrows on it, and make it say "browse games" to the right of it.

Similarly, on the right half, an image of the start button and the words "play game" or "play selected" to the right of it.

[ pic ]  browse games       [ pic ]  play game

bigger icons and less text is clearer and less wordy/messy imo.

I don't think I am going to use icons in the instructions because I don't really have a way to make it look nice.  Hyperspin has some default animations for that but after playing with it for a while I turned all of it off.  Someone who knows what they are doing can really go crazy with the design if they want.  You can even customize all this stuff on a per emulator (or even per game) basis if you want! 

I made the changes yamatetsu suggested and I think it reads better - I was also able to slightly increase the font size from 20 to 22 to make it more legible.

[Jimbo]

On the flip side - have you considered not having any instructions?

I mean practically everyone will try to move the joystick and figure out immediately that it scrolls through games.

Then configure it so that *any* button (start or fire, etc) starts the game.

It'll sure make the interface cleaner.  Are instructions really necessary?

[yamatetsu]

The background image is about 10x the size of what you are seeing.  The black stripes go off the screen in all directions by a lot.  Ideally, the whole thing would just be a background (one .png file) the exact size I need with the wheel and video window laid over the top but you are looking at 4 .png files mashed together.

Hm, that shouldn't be hard to do. Can you post the 4 pngs and the resolution of the background picture? Using CorelDraw I can make a rectangle of that size, put the woodgrain pic inside and slap the boxes and the menustripe on.

[javeryh]

On the flip side - have you considered not having any instructions?

I mean practically everyone will try to move the joystick and figure out immediately that it scrolls through games.

Then configure it so that *any* button (start or fire, etc) starts the game.

It'll sure make the interface cleaner.  Are instructions really necessary?

I thought about it... and one of my mock-ups did not have instructions but I think I want something even though it means a little more clutter on the screen.  Almost all old arcade games had similar instructions somewhere so I don't think it goes against what I'm trying to do.  I may change my mind before it is all said and done.

I do like the idea of pressing "any button" to start... I'll almost certainly try and configure it to work like that.  Not sure if I should change the instructions though.

Hm, that shouldn't be hard to do. Can you post the 4 pngs and the resolution of the background picture? Using CorelDraw I can make a rectangle of that size, put the woodgrain pic inside and slap the boxes and the menustripe on.

The files I used are attached...  the monitor I'm getting is 1024x768 resolution so the background should be at least that I guess.  It works as is right now so no worries if you can't get it - I have no idea how you would even position the stripes unless you were using HyperTheme and could see exactly where the wheel and video box goes.

[javeryh]

OK last one...

I'm leaning towards my control panel being black and white only (white ball top and white buttons) to thematically match an Asteroids cabaret.  So to that end, I changed the yellow to white in the front end to match.  I could go either way here.  I liked the yellow border and text in the last version too.

I just downloaded Hypermarquee and EDS - this is the last huge hurdle for me on the software side (besides configuring the controls and getting it to launch on boot).  Monitor arrives tomorrow so I'm hoping to make good progress this week.

[Arroyo]

I’d agree that you could minimize the wording.  Visuals would help, I actually liked what you had before with the Atari player start icons. :

[yamatetsu]

Hope that these fit. Can't do the white version because I don't have the white text and also not the font.

[javeryh]

Hope that these fit. Can't do the white version because I don't have the white text and also not the font.

This worked!  Thank you!  Is CorelDraw hard to use?  Seems like it would be much easier to tweak one background image than messing about with all the different components...

[yamatetsu]

Is CorelDraw hard to use?  Seems like it would be much easier to tweak one background image than messing about with all the different components...

Yep, using CorelDraw to move things around on one image is definitely easier. Is CorelDraw hard to use?  Hard to say. It's a complex program (in fact, it's a package of several programs) that has many functions, so learning to use it from scratch will probably take some time. It's like learning Photoshop from scratch, though some Photoshop users think that doing some things in CorelDraw is a bit more complicated than doing it in Photoshop.
CorelDraw simply is the only graphics program that I (barely) know how to use. I'm a beginner at best. There are tons of helpful videos on YT and websites/forums, so I can look up things that I don't know how to do.

I use it because

- you can do lifesized images. When I built my cabs, I could create the sides, marquee, CP, ect. in the size the boards would later be. This allowed me to put the sideart on to see how that will look like, position the buttons and the joysticks on the CP, put the graphic onto the marquee, see how that will look like, etc.

- it's object-oriented. Everything you create is an object that can be moved around, resized, manipulated in many ways. Way better than say, creating a rectangle which, after you are done, becomes a part of the image, never to be changed again.

- it's vector-based, so you can resize vector-objects without any loss of quality.

- Objects can 'snap' to other objects and guidelines. If you want to align to objects, you just move one object close to the other until they snap together. You can also use guidelines, which are a kind of 'helpline'. To make my pics I used yours as a reference by putting yours exactly above mine. To align both pics I simply moved a guideline to the left edge of your pic, then dragged my pic close to yours until it snapped to the guideline. To create the big black box, I put guidelines on the left and on the right side of  the box. The guidelines go across the entire workspace, so creating the black box in my pic was just a matter of making a rectangle that fit between the guidelines.

- text is resizable. Just put the text where it needs to be and drag on it until you have the proper size.

- you can use it as a simple CAD program. This is the design for my second cab:



And this is how it turned out:



So, CorelDraw is quite useful.

You can download a free trial version if you want to tinker with it.

[javeryh]

I might give it a shot if I have some down time in the future.  I've always wanted to learn PhotoShop but it's such a steep learning curve I usually get through 1/2 of a tutorial once or twice a year and give up.

I spent the better part of the last 24 hours trying to integrate Hyper Marquee into my HyperSpin setup and I finally have it working (I think).  When HyperSpin launches, the marquee window pops open and loads an image.  The wrong images but still - it works.  Now I have to painstakingly go through my images folder to rename all of the marquee art to match the exact name of the ROM associated with it.  Right now the names are a mess so it mostly defaults to the wheel art and looks pretty bad.  I cannot believe I have gotten this far though so I'll take it!

One thing I'm a little concerned about is MOVING my HyperSpin setup to another external drive and having it all work.  Right now everything is set up on an external HDD (my E:\ drive) and I want to move everything to either this computer's C:\ drive or another E:\ drive (100GB?) because the one I'm using is 4TB and has almost all of my other media on it.  But I know a copy and paste job will screw up all of the assigned paths in HyperSpin, EDS, Hyper Marquee, Rocker Launcher, etc...  I'm hoping if I get another external drive and name it E:\ I can copy my Hyperspin folder to my desktop and then over to the new E:\ drive and it will just work. 

Next up is mounting the CRT monitor inside of the cabinet.  I need to cut a panel to fit and then cut out the center for the screen (but not remove too much material so that the corner bolts won't have anything to screw into.  My plan is to just install 2 rails along the inside and then rest the monitor panel on them (screwed in place).  Getting closer!

[Arroyo]

There are programs to do mass renaming on the Hyperspin Forum.  If I can get to my computer today and dig up the one you want it will make life a lot easier....although for some reason I recalled the names being correct for Mame games as the naming convention is standardized.  It’s the consoles where it was a free for all and is a real pain...

[javeryh]

There are programs to do mass renaming on the Hyperspin Forum.  If I can get to my computer today and dig up the one you want it will make life a lot easier....although for some reason I recalled the names being correct for Mame games as the naming convention is standardized.  It’s the consoles where it was a free for all and is a real pain...

Thanks.  That would help but I'm still going to have a rough time because I ended up making a ton of marquees myself because the ones I was finding online were not a high enough resolution.  Some of them worked just fine but I spent a lot of time googling the marquees I wanted and I didn't really think much about the file names.  Launchbox doesn't care about that - you just drag the image to the ROM metadata window and it gets associated.  HyperSpin definitely cares about file names.  I only have 100 or so images to rename so not terrible for now at least.  Maybe I just didn't know where to look for a comprehensive folder of high resolution marquees?

[firedance]

fatmatch should rename files easily, have used it to rename pics/videos, its supposed to be for matching rom to images etc but should work, best to make a copy of the images before trying to match them, might not be what you're after but worth keeping for future use

https://hyperspin-fe.com/files/file/7401-fat-match-media-renamer/