GameOn! In Tha House!

[Matt, GoC]

Announcing the "GameOn!" arcade machine

[Matt, GoC]

Well, part of it anyway.  The control panel is almost fully operational.  I finally got a decent digital camera, so I can *now* announce this with pretty pictures !
More to come a little later.  I'll have pics of the machine (although by no means finished).
Another Pic:

[Matt, GoC]

And another:
A bit bright though...

[stuzza]

Cool artwork.    I see that the artwork has text for Player 3 and 4.  Are you adding these later or using Gamepads instead?

[Matt, GoC]

The CP has a crappy temp picture overlay.  I just wanted to test a layout, and didn't want to stare at particle board.  I still need to get two more joysticks and more buttons.  Everything works except the trackball, which doesn't have a long enough cord   .
Anybody know where I can find serial extension cords???  I'll eventually go with a blue theme for the final overlay, plus something over-the-top kinda cool.  That's a secret for now.  I still have to cut the T-moulding slots, but I'll do that later after I am ready for the final re-assembly.  In the mean-time, I am thoroughly enjoying using this on a computer hooked up to a 32" TV and surround sound with 2' tall speakers   !!!  Here's a pic of the cabinet, the top is on the right:

-EDIT:
speling errrrrer korectien  

-EDIT #2
The cab in the background is one that I will make into a vertically oriented game monster  Was an old "10 Yard Fight" I got for $25.  It includes monitor glass, marquee Plexi, and most importantly, COIN DOOR!! YAY!!!

[Matt, GoC]

Another pic of the old cab.  It also came with the PCB of "10 Yard Fight", although I'm not sure if this is the true cab for this game...  The monitor glass is smoked by the way.  I might also be able to get the monitor if the guy I got it from can remember where he put it   .  Not bad for the cost, eh?  It's partially obscured because the whole house is being re-plumbed and there's stuff everywhere.  Sorry.

[maraxle]

You can get serial extension cables at your friendly neighborhood Radioshack.  Or CompUSA.

[Matt, GoC]

You can get serial extension cables at your friendly neighborhood Radioshack.  Or CompUSA.

My friendly neighborhood RadioShack went out of business.  I'll have to check the one in the town my mom lives in when I go there.  Thanks for the info!

[Matt, GoC]

Ok.  The secret I mentioned earlier?  Since everyone's been talking about adding an LCD screen to their cabs, I thought I'd go one better and put a big ol' full color VGA LCD screen in the middle, about where the GameOn! logo is.  Barring nothing blanks the screen while using DirectX or OpenGL or anything, I'll be able to display a window on the LCD and be able to have full screen animations and such.  Here's the fun part:  I'll have it blend in to the new overlay so well, that when someone is playing my cab for the first time, they'll jump outta their skin when they see the harmless G.O. logo suddenly get eaten by Pacman!
Neat, huh?

Here's a link to the LCD buzz that's going around:
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=17856;start=0
Of particular note is what Industen has done with a Gameboy Advance.  I feel a "second monitor" LCD screen would be easier to control though...

I'm gonna backlight certain labels on the CP so the LCD screen won't be so suspicious, hee hee!

Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll stumble upon an old laptop screen to put in the marquee area to show the current game's marquee while it's playing.  But that's not important right now.

[nipsmg]

Ok.  The secret I mentioned earlier?  Since everyone's been talking about adding an LCD screen to their cabs, I thought I'd go one better and put a big ol' full color VGA LCD screen in the middle, about where the GameOn! logo is.  Barring nothing blanks the screen while using DirectX or OpenGL or anything, I'll be able to display a window on the LCD and be able to have full screen animations and such.  Here's the fun part:  I'll have it blend in to the new overlay so well, that when someone is playing my cab for the first time, they'll jump outta their skin when they see the harmless G.O. logo suddenly get eaten by Pacman!
Neat, huh?

Here's a link to the LCD buzz that's going around:
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=17856;start=0
Of particular note is what Industen has done with a Gameboy Advance.  I feel a "second monitor" LCD screen would be easier to control though...

I'm gonna backlight certain labels on the CP so the LCD screen won't be so suspicious, hee hee!

Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll stumble upon an old laptop screen to put in the marquee area to show the current game's marquee while it's playing.  But that's not important right now.

You do realize you can't just plug an old laptop screen into a normal video card an dhave it work, don't you?  You need a special interface card.  I believe there are some available, but they are prohibitively expensive.  I'd thought about that too, for a jukebox project, but it's MUCH cheaper to just buy a brand new 15" LCD monitor and use that.

--NipsMG

[Matt, GoC]

You do realize you can't just plug an old laptop screen into a normal video card an dhave it work, don't you?

I know.  It's just a thought.  Besides, a laptop screen shouldn't be too hard to interface.  It should be a normal VGA signal to the screen.  I doubt video card manufacturers would go to any lengths to make a new interface standard for a laptop.  But I may be wrong.  Who knows?

[GGKoul]

Somebody put one of those Car TV Screens in their panel.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3085992868&category=49230

Not sure, but the Car TV screen maybe easier to interface then a Laptop screen.

-GGKoul

[Matt, GoC]

Well, now that is a cool controller!  PC and all!

I mentioned the laptop screen as an idea for a marquee replacement.  I'd need something fairly large to fill a marquee, and rather than spend money on a shiny new LCD monitor, I came up with that idea.  Due to space constraints in my marquee area I couldn't really do that anyway.  Just a thought, and nothing more...
The screen in that controller appears to be the main screen for the computer so you really don't need anything more to use it.  My idea is for a secondary screen to keep track of your play time on a particular game while playing, and to show info about a highlighted game in the frontend, so that the main monitor's space can be more fully used.  It's sort of my version of the dot-matrix screens others are thinking of using.  I figured, if I'm gonna put a lot of time, money, and effort into my cab, might as well go a bit overkill, eh?  I sincerely hope that others will go a bit overkill as well on their cabs.  In my opinion, it's what seperates the ho-hum cabs from the jaw-droppers that we all want to build.  Keep the comments rolling in, all.

In case you are viewing this thread at a later date, this is the controller GGKoul is referring to:

[maraxle]

You do realize you can't just plug an old laptop screen into a normal video card an dhave it work, don't you?

I know.  It's just a thought.  Besides, a laptop screen shouldn't be too hard to interface.  It should be a normal VGA signal to the screen.  I doubt video card manufacturers would go to any lengths to make a new interface standard for a laptop.  But I may be wrong.  Who knows?

Laptop screens are notorious for being proprietary.  Generally, separating them from the laptop's onboard video card, and ending up with something usable, is pretty much impossible.  You'd be a whole lot better off with GGKoul's suggestion of the Car TV screen, or even one of those 14-15" LCDs that goes on sale for $150 at CompUSA or Best Buy every once in a while.  Those Playstation/Xbox/whatever screens aren't bad either.

[Matt, GoC]

I mentioned the laptop screen as an idea for a marquee replacement.  I'd need something fairly large to fill a marquee, and rather than spend money on a shiny new LCD monitor, I came up with that idea.  Due to space constraints in my marquee area I couldn't really do that anyway.  Just a thought, and nothing more...

Was just a thought, nothing I am going to pursue.  The only LCD screen GameOn! will have is in the CP.

-EDIT

I am considering the chassis mount screen or something similar here:
http://www.vartechsystems.com/products/flatpanel/64flatpanel.asp

[Matt, GoC]

Here's a mockup of the custom frontend I'm programming in Clickteam's Jamagic to run the Cab.  The center preview will consist of movies of the game that is currently selected.  Most likely it will be about four, five-second clips of the game.  I'm going an alternate route and adding games by hand instead of using XML importing or things like that.  Hence the mini titles along the bottom.  Much more eye-catching than simple strings of text, eh?  Tell me what you think.  Repeat: It's a mockup, not reality yet.

[Matt, GoC]

Here's an example of the art style I'm going to use as the cab's theme.  The picture below is from my Hellsing screensaver I made one day out of boredom.  It shows various (three at the moment) pictures of the anime.  What's interesting is the fact that the image is created from various colored 1's and 0's.  The numbers alternate from the two possible binary states of on and off (a sight to see in action).  Now imagine the side art (and CP overlay) made of images composed of 1's and 0's and tinted blue (the chosen color scheme).  That's what it'll look like in the end.  Pretty neat, huh?

Alucard lives... In binary:

[Matt, GoC]

And in blue.  A little less hard on the eyes, which is the intent of tinting the art...

EDIT:

To see the full effect, step away (or lean waaay back... CAREFUL!) from your monitor to see the whole image clearer.

[Santoro]

Whoa, I love that effect.

Is there a tutorial somewhere out there on how to do this?

Thanks

[whammoed]

I have a ton of serial extension cables brand new.  They come with some ups battery backups and we never use them.  So if you can't find one I will send you one for price of shipping.

[Matt, GoC]

Whoa, I love that effect.

Is there a tutorial somewhere out there on how to do this?

Thanks

It's actually quite simple to achieve, if a bit time consuming to set up.

First, you have to create two eight by eight squares in a paint program somewhere.  Fill them both with black, and then draw a 1 or 0 using a transparent color.  Save each picture.

Next, figure out the size of the image you want in pixels.  Lets say a standard 640x480 image.  Now divide that by eight to get 80x60.  That's the size of the image you'll use.  Take the 80x60 image and resize it by eight times its original size.  See where I'm going with this?  It'll now be 640x480 in size.  Be sure no effects like resampling are used, it may make it look better, but you want it blocky!  Now each pixel of the original image should now be eight pixels wide and eight pixels tall.

Finally, overlay the 1's and 0's you made earlier on to each "block" of pixels.  The result will be that the colors show through the transparent digits.

Note, I used Clickteam's Multimedia Fusion (www.clickteam.com) to make the screensaver and effect, but I'd assume something like Photoshop could do this as well.  If there's a demand, I might be able to post the source file if it will fit the 250KB limit.  You'd just need a trial copy of MMF.

Hope that didn't confuse too many...  

[Witchboard]

In Photoshop you could probably just create a fill pattern then mask it.  Kinda like how you make scanlines.

[CthulhuLuke]

http://www.text-image.com/
   you can put other text in there to convert too, free service, good stuff.

[whammoed]

I wonder where that "flight" stick on that panel is from?  Looks a little Tron like.

[Matt, GoC]

I wonder where that "flight" stick on that panel is from?  Looks a little Tron like.

It looks like a raider pro joystick on an arcade stick of some kind.  I have a Raider Pro and it looks just like that...

[Matt, GoC]

Nevermind this, just adding my custom user pic and don't have a web site yet...

[Matt, GoC]

OMG I actually got the top and bottom together!  Now you can see what it's gonna look like.  BTW, the board where the marquee should be will be replaced by acrylic plastic later, it's there for support at the moment.

[Matt, GoC]

BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!

[Matt, GoC]

In case anyone cares, this is the machine I used to cut the sides with.  The water jug is there to show how big it is.

[Matt, GoC]

Here I go, bumping my thread up a bit.  Got some progress done on the 2x4 frame for the bottom section.  I am going to make it rock solid so I don't have to worry about any unfortunate incidents .  I'm also going to redo the CP, knocking it down to 2 player.  After thinking about it, I realized I almost never have 3 other people at my place .
I'm going for an oval control panel (think the Ford logo).  I got an oval scrap from work and thought it looked unique.  I'm also going to add a small inclined ledge at the top where I'll put the admin buttons and 1Up and 2Up buttons.  Hard to picture, but it should look pretty neat in the end.  I also got a really cool idea for my custom frontend, making it more jaw dropping than a standard list-and-screenshot deal.  It'll fit in with the artwork.  More on that when I make progress.  I'll probably do it this winter when work is slow and I start seeing 3 day weekends as opposed to the 1 day weekends I've been having for the last 2 months (ugh!).  Oh well, more funds for the cab !

[AGGIEZ]

Keep the pictures coming!!!

[Matt, GoC]

I forgot my camera last weekend.  Where I am working on the cabinet is about 12 miles away from where I live now (I moved from the house the cab is at; I HATE driving in the winter to work, I've found , so I'm now in the same town my job is at ).  I also ran short of supplies and the town's only hardware store (or only store, for that matter) was closed.  I should have the frame done next weekend.  There's hope of having a two day weekend for once and my former roomate has the weekend off so maybe I can bribe him into helping .  I'll have more bandwidth-wasting pics then.

[Matt, GoC]

Here's a quick sketch of the CP that I did to figure how I wanted it.  Still not final on anything but it'll be pretty close to this:

[Matt, GoC]

Ok, so the above artistic rendering isn't that great, but I wasn't going for an award.  I made more progress this weekend and got the frame assembled for the bottom half, casters and all.  Here's a pic of it with the 27" TV in place:

[Matt, GoC]

I think I win the award for the worst cabinet building conditions:

[Matt, GoC]

Here's the oval scrap that will be the CP:

[Matt, GoC]

Here's a pic of the 2x4 frame holding the weight of the entire cabinet.  The sides are screwed on with about 20 2" screws.  They are going nowhere.  I also went a bit overkill on the screws and mending braces on the frame, but better safe than sorry!  The picture shows the back of the cabinet, with me standing at the top part (it's lying on it's front):

[Matt, GoC]

Lastly, here's the coin door that will find a home in my cabinet:

[Matt, GoC]

Some of these pictures are blurry, but my camera is cheap.  My apologies on that.  I borrowed a router from a co-worker and cut the T-molding slots on everything.  The sides of the top half and the CP have an off-center slot.  The reason for that is there will be a 1/8"  layer of plastic covering the artwork.  I'm going an interesting route for the molding and getting some of this stuff.  It should hold, in theory, the plastic on the sides and CP down so that I won't have to use any screws or anything.  Using a piece of molding from my old cabinet, I tested the slots I had cut.  The molding went in easily using my hand as a hammer, but was a real *%$#^ to get back out.  Exactly as I wanted it !  I used a 5/64" 3-wing slot cutter from here. I bought #5343.  The only problem I ran into was there was no assembly instructions included with the bit (it comes in pieces).  Luckily, the included catalogue had a picture of it and I went from there.  I've sent for some samples of t-molding and next weekend will see if it all works out as well as I hope it will.  Until then!

[Matt, GoC]

Here's a CAD drawing of the 2x4 frame.  Don't worry, it's stronger than it looks!

[danny_galaga]

I think I win the award for the worst cabinet building conditions:

christ almighty!! you win hands down...

[Matt, GoC]

I've put up a quick website for my cabinet.  You'll find nothing new there that isn't already posted here at the moment.

http://i.domaindlx.com/gocab/

[Matt, GoC]

Gots more done:

[Matt, GoC]

Coat 1 is on:

[Matt, GoC]

Just seein' how she'll look:

[Matt, GoC]

All that seems to be left is to cut the angles on a couple panels and to paint it and install the coindoor/lockbox.  For now I think I'll be using my original control panel until I get my new one planned just right and have the artwork and spinners on hand.  Now I just need a computer.  I wonder if I can borrow my friend's again !

[Matt, GoC]

Ok, It is now complete enough that I can bring it into my apartment!  A few points to note are:

The marquee.  You will notice there is no backlight.  I'm going to put a small LCD screen up there that will show the game marqee and playtime, etc.

Monitor bezel.  I ain't got one yet.  I'm planning on a simple black one made out of black posterboard, hidden behind tinted plastic.

Control Panel.  It's my original one.  I'm putting off the final one until it gets warmer again.  Last night as I was finishing the cab some snowflakes were flying, and being I'm living in Minnesota, it's a good indication that each weekend will be getting colder and colder.  Therefore I decided that that night was the night the cabinet was coming home.  And now it is!

Panel under CP.  I've still got to cut one panel with angles.  I lost the mesurements I had for it so I couldn't cut it before I got it home.  But now I can!

Sorry for the blurry pictures.  I'm going to try and borrow a friend's super expensive digital camera when I get more done on the cabinet.

[Bgnome]

is that little screen at the bottom your lcd?  i would like to see some pics of this lcd marquee in action, (ive heard it mentioned but never seen it practiced).  i will be using my laptop with a working LCD screen on it, but unfortunately it can only display the same thing as the monitor so that wont work for me..

[Matt, GoC]

is that little screen at the bottom your lcd?

No, it's actually my friend's laptop computer that I borrowed for the night.  I'm also borrowing his desktop computer for use until I get my own computer.  Unfortunately the desktop doesn't have a tv-out but I've got a Radeon 9250 on the way as I type that has S-video out.  The laptop can, however, use the TV as a secondary independant monitor, which is kinda cool.  The downside is that it's prone to oveheating.  Stay away from e-machines laptops !

[Matt, GoC]

Well I got the card in and running and I must say that it looks pretty damn good.  Also, I was pointed out to by my friend that my site has exceeded it's bandwith amount.  That's 1Gig of bandwidth a month.  Geez, I didn't know that many people were interested...
I'll have more stuff later.  I'm gonna take a bit of vacation time at work soon to work on the frontend and artwork, and get the coin mechs replaced with something that will let the BYOAC tokens pass.  I'll probably just rig it up with homemade chutes to drop the tokens onto the coin switch.  The mechs are set for quarters but many get rejected.  Plus I like the tokens very much.  I also gotta find out where my headphone-jack-to-RCA-plugs cable went to so I can have the sound come out of my TV instead of my computer speakers.