Main > Main Forum
Designing Control Panel, Need Input
Xiaou2:
Patm95,
If you can hold out for a little bit, Ill be writing up and showing some pictorial examples of things which Im sure will help in your design phase.
patm95:
--- Quote from: zallax on April 01, 2011, 02:06:54 pm ---Don't let others get you down on a FrankenPanel design. If designed well, it just works.
Let me share my 2 cents from my experience with making FrankenPanels.
* Do not put a spinner above a trackball. You will eventually jam a finger. :cry: Buttons are generally fine.
* "Second-tier" controls need to be as close as possible to the user. If you put your flight stick, 4-way, or spinner to high, it strains the arms over extended play.
* Design button configuration for an angled arm. FP's suffer from overcrowding, which puts your buttons to close to the joystick and strains your wrists. With angled buttons, the left arm can be straight below the joystick and the right arm/hand can be comfortably angled.
* Spinners and 4-ways should have buttons that are in-line. It is usually awkward to use controls at different elevation points on your panel.
* If you can slope your panel, then do it. It helps with avoidance contact of other controls.
* Most importantly, mock it up on cardboard before you ever make a cut. You will find things you did not realize while designing in software.
Looking over the panel you posted, here are some points to think about.
* Asteroid buttons are too far from the user and unusable as your arm will be laying across the 4-way joystick.
* When using the 4-way or the spinner, what buttons are you going to use? The Flightstick?
* Using the rotary on 3P for player standing at 1P would be strange, unless you plan on playing at 3P.
* Like I said above, your wrists may strained if the buttons and joysticks are too close and the buttons are not angled for right hand.
For reference, here is my control panel's layout. I have a *cleavland steamer* pile of controls on my panel, which is smaller than a Quad SlikStik. I have had 4 players on my cab with no rubbing of elbows. On 1P and 2P, it is very comfortable to play because the right arm is angled in. The 4-way and DOT spinner are above P1 buttons which gives easy access. They may look like they are too close together but they are not. I regularly score 90,000+ on Discs of Tron so I rigorously tested the spacing with my motions. There are buttons in-line with the 4-way and DOT spinner, which works well for the most part but I do have to raise my arm a little because I cannot rest it on the trackball (sloped panel helps here). I have 2 joystick on 1P and 2P because of my love for Smash TV and the right joysticks are LS-30 rotaries because I am a Heavy Barrel nut. Another thing I did was map the Flight-stick buttons to Mouse buttons, to make it comfortable to use a mouse when administrating the OS of the cab.
Click images to see larger.
My button configuration is designed for an angle hand, yet allows me to have multiple possibilities, e.g., Mortal Kombat, NeoGeo, Stargate/Defender, Vanguard, etc. Street Fighter is shifted, but, I have had dominant SF players adjust in minutes.
I hope my information helps you out on your design.
--- End quote ---
That is awesome. I will definitely take all of this into consideration. You put a lot of thought into your panel. I like it!
patm95:
--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on April 01, 2011, 09:18:24 pm ---Patm95,
If you can hold out for a little bit, Ill be writing up and showing some pictorial examples of things which Im sure will help in your design phase.
--- End quote ---
Absolutely! I have work out of town for the next few weeks so I won't be able to do anything even if I had to. Looking forward to your advice!
Paul Olson:
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on March 31, 2011, 09:21:24 pm ---You aren't most people.
"oh you want to play DK? Hold on while I swap out the panels..."
--- End quote ---
Yep. If someone wanted to play DK on my cabinet, they could take a minute to swap panels. There seems to be a general belief that it is mandatory to be able to play different games immediately. I don't feel that way at all. The experience of using the correct controls is more important than that minute to swap panels. I had a nice functional 2 player fighter layout with a trackball and a spinner to start out with. The fact that DK didn't feel right was the main reason that I decided to do a modular panel. It was important at the time. Now I have a DK in the garage, so it is not that big of a deal, but the ability to recreate any control panel is still a great option for me.
Since the OP was asking for input, I think a discussion of modular and swappable panels is a good addition to the conversation. I have never heard anyone say they wished they wouldn't have done it. Actually, you don't even have to make it swappable or modular, but if you design it with the ability do so, it leaves the option open should you want it. For a swappable panel, that really only means adding a connector so you can plug and unplug, and designing the panel so it easy to remove. To add the possibility of modular to that, you just need to build one cp box that can accept different modules, and have an easy way to plug those modules in within the box that will connect to the main connector.
It is not worth the added work or expense until you play games with other controls and decide that that is just not good enough for you. If you realize that it is a possibility you may someday want early in the design, it is easy and cheap to accommodate it. It still wont be cheap when you actually do it though. :)
Nephasth:
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on March 31, 2011, 09:21:24 pm ---You aren't most people.
"oh you want to play DK? Hold on while I swap out the panels..."
--- End quote ---
To add to what Paul had to say, it's not 100% necessary to swap the panel(s) to whatever may provide a more authentic feel for DK (or whatever game), but the option is there for those who want it. People (guests playing your rig) who never experienced DK back in the day may be just fine playing it with a fighter setup. Options ;)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version