Marquee/Control Panel Help.

[Drnick]

Greetings,

I am currently working on a bartop unit and have decided on a Pac Theme for it.  Currently I have the following.

I am not overly happy with the shadowing behind the lettering, for some reason I keep expecting to be able to see the dots etc, I have had a quick play with transparencies but cannot get anything I particularly like.

Then we have the control panel,  I like the clean control panel look but would like to have it as an overlay to the maze background.  Once again I cannot make this look good, 

I think that all the images except the clean marquee are the correct size for the end product.

Anything anyone can do or assist me with would be great.  I have Gimp and Inkscape although can lay my hands on pretty much any software required. The font I am using is crackman.ttf  If you think there may be a better font let me know

[PL1]

I am not overly happy with the shadowing behind the lettering, for some reason I keep expecting to be able to see the dots etc

You might want to try editing the font.

Here's an editor that is free:
http://download.cnet.com/Type-Light/3000-2316_4-10897323.html

There's also this one which has a 30 day free trial ($79 to buy):
http://download.cnet.com/FontCreator/3000-2316_4-10026325.html

Edit: Well Fed Games has a great font in his post.

Saw in your other thread that you're using 100DPI for "easy math".  You might want to re-do your art at 200-300 DPI.

From Game On Grafix website:

"You can create your own art using one of the samples at arcade art library or your own design. Artwork you create must be the correct size and it should be at least 200dpi, but 266-300dpi is preferred. Leave the document in RGB mode which has a broader color range. Do not create a file in a lower dpi and then convert it to 300dpi, this only makes the file bigger and does not enhance the resolution. It will still come out blocky and actually worse then if you left it at a lower dpi. Start creating at 200 or 300 dpi at full size, in other words, if you are creating a 300dpi marquee that will print at 26x8” create it at that size.  We will print it the size you send it, we will not resize it.  The file should be a .psd photoshop or .ai adobe illustrator file, or a .tif or PNG or JPEG if using another program such as paintshop pro, Coreldraw, etc...."

If you decide to resize/repost: In place of the .PNGs, consider .ZIPping or .RARing your .SVG files and posting those instead.  That way, you keep it in vector format in case you need to resize/adjust anything before you export it in final form.


Scott

Edit:  Attached a .zip with a CPO re-start from original (?) vector files using Inkscape.  Used PacMaze marquee as background resized to 21" x 8.5" and ienjoygaming's custom control panel for the controls overlay. (Not resized) 

Background layer (Pacmaze) is currently locked so you can resize/reposition/redo the controls layer as you see fit. 

I grouped the joystick outlines, then the player buttons/outline dots, then grouped joystick + buttons/outline dots so you can move them as a group or ungroup and adjust individually.

NOTE: I did not check sizes or distances on the controls layer, just cleared the background and grouped the controls.

[Well Fed Games]

I think I used this font, for what it is worth: http://www.dafont.com/pacfont.font

[Drnick]

Thanks again PL1, also thanks Well Fed, that is a nice font As for the artwork I have a much higher DPI Version for when it actually comes to printing it.