Explain the operation wolf video mystery for me

[leapinlew]

I love how the video in Operation Wolf makes the video seem super deep. How do they do that? I know other games did it too, but I noticed it last night and my nephew said "How do they make it look so far away?" I want to know what to tell him

[leapinlew]

[severdhed]

mirrors.  if you look closely at that pic, on the left inside wall, you will see a diagonal line down the side, which is the edge of the mirror.  the monitor is actually mountes so that the screen faces directly up, and the image is reflected off of the mirror.  the monitor can sit lower in the cabinet to increase the perceived space.

[leapinlew]

so, even though your looking at a mirror only a few feet away, it looks like it's further because your viewing a monitor that is being reflected in the mirror?

[severdhed]

mirrors are weird like that.  also, with that design, the monitor can sit pretty low in the cabinet.  also, you have to take into considertaion, there is the distance from you to the mirror, plus the distance between the mirror and monitor

[jholman76]

I believe the Xmen super sized cabinets did something similar like that to make it appear like a very wide screen.

not bad for "smoke and mirrors"

[bkenobi]

Does that make it easier to move with the weight of the monitor that much lower?  Most cabs are heavy as it is, so I'm wondering if the lower CG is noticeable.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I own both of the cabinets mentioned above (or owned since I sold Op Wolf).

In Op Wolf, the mirror is actually reflecting the depth of the monitor which is deeper since it sits below instead of the traditional placement in front.  The image is actually reversed on the monitor so that when you view it in the mirror it looks normal.  The optical illusion makes it appear as if it is actually going "past" the rear of the cabinet, when in reality it's just a reflection of the monitor at the bottom.  ie.  if the depth of the cabinet is 2 feet deep, and the monitor is mounted below facing up at 4 ft, the image will appear to be 4 feet deep which exceeds the back of the cabinet.  Like magic! 

As for the X-men game (which I still have) the reason for the mirror is so the the edges of the monitor appear to be overlapping.  So one monitor (on the right) is mounted normally facing you, and the other is down below with a mirror.  If you didn't have a mirror (and had them side by side on top) you would see the edges of the monitors in between the images. 

Mirrors are awesome and ingenious inventions for arcade machines!

~ DeLuSioNaL

[lkench]

The other posts seem logical, but you could always go with my dad's default answer...it's FM (F'ing magic)

-lkench

[Bender]

is this the same way they get in image on Space Inavders to seem like it's floating in mid air?

[brandon]

I own both of the cabinets mentioned above (or owned since I sold Op Wolf).

In Op Wolf, the mirror is actually reflecting the depth of the monitor which is deeper since it sits below instead of the traditional placement in front.  The image is actually reversed on the monitor so that when you view it in the mirror it looks normal.  The optical illusion makes it appear as if it is actually going "past" the rear of the cabinet, when in reality it's just a reflection of the monitor at the bottom.  ie.  if the depth of the cabinet is 2 feet deep, and the monitor is mounted below facing up at 4 ft, the image will appear to be 4 feet deep which exceeds the back of the cabinet.  Like magic! 

As for the X-men game (which I still have) the reason for the mirror is so the the edges of the monitor appear to be overlapping.  So one monitor (on the right) is mounted normally facing you, and the other is down below with a mirror.  If you didn't have a mirror (and had them side by side on top) you would see the edges of the monitors in between the images. 

Mirrors are awesome and ingenious inventions for arcade machines!

~ DeLuSioNaL

yeah.. if you were to measure the distance from the surface of the CRT to the center of the mirrors surface and then from the mirrors surface to the bezel you would see that the light is traveling quite a distance more than your typical set up.   They also do this on regular lightgun games like Lethal Enforcers.. If it used a regular monitor set up then kids would be shoot point blank and basically cheating.  With the image appearing several feet from the bezel you have no choice but to actually aim.

[Ummon]

Old-game-wise I think Asteroids Deluxe is the poster child for this.