TRON-style Control Panel Overlay and Marquee; opinions needed

[Chris]

I am redoing my control panel, hopefully for the last time, so of course I need to replace the art.  I have always been fond of the TRON cabinet and wanted to go for that feel... I also saw someone use a frame from TRON as a background, so I thought I might try that (although I've actually used a frame from a TRON game and modified it).

So here is what I am looking at.  I have mocked up what it will look like populated with buttons, trackball, and bat-handled U360's.


1: Base version:




2:Same thing without the background:




3:Without the compass roses on the joysticks:




4:Without the compass roses on the joysticks or background:




5:Without the gradients on the compass rose for the trackball:




6:Without the gradients on the compass rose for the trackball:



Any thoughts?  Are any of these better than the others?  Is the whole design garbage?  Does it feel like something you would find in an arcade?

Thanks!

--Chris

[theegg]

Looks good to me.
You might want to remove the 123 and ABC around the track ball.

[ivwshane]

I like # 3 if your idea behind the compass is to mimic the "bit" character in the movie.

[Chris]

The 123 and ABC are for Golden Tee, although I know they're a bit out-of-theme....

[Billy_Goatfeet]

 As much as I dig a nice Tron bg the design is way too busy with it.  Any of your designs with a solid bg colour will look less chaotic.  I like version number 2, and the only other thing I would do is change any outlines used around controls to match the 3 colour outlines you have around player 1 and 2's controls.

[Chris]

This is the current version of the marquee I am looking at... I took the stock Tron marquee, made the grid a bit less "stark", and used the more generic name "The Game Grid" rather than TRON:

[Chris]

And the marquee without the word "THE" in it:

[Chris]

Or I could leave the existing marquee on it.  The top one is my current marquee, the bottom is my proposed new one... any opinions?

[Chris]

Hmm... ok, that marquee didn't seem to interest anyone... lol.  I've tried again in a different font.  So here are the original marquee any my two proposed replacements... any thoughts?

[ivwshane]

I like the middle one the best.

[saint]

Ditto.

[Chris]

As a slight departure I'm trying a radial "grid" as the background on both the CP and marquee, so it's less directly "TRON" but still a similar feel, hopefully giving the CP a "heads-up display" sort of feel... any thoughts?

[DashRendar]

Personally, I think the green and red at least are too dark.  The blue is ok.

I always think "dayglow" when it comes to Tron.  Should be bright, electric lines.

[Chris]

Personally, I think the green and red at least are too dark.  The blue is ok.

I always think "dayglow" when it comes to Tron.  Should be bright, electric lines.

Oddly, that red and green are using the actual color codes from the real TRON marquee; I suspect that the "bright" red and green are not within the CYMK gamut.  But I think you are right; I may have to switch to colors that do have brighter options within gamut.

[DashRendar]

I'm trying to remember, didn't the original TRON have blacklights in it?  That would have made all the colors glow.

Now that would be interesting for your cab...   

[theegg]

I'm trying to remember, didn't the original TRON have blacklights in it?  That would have made all the colors glow.

Now that would be interesting for your cab...   

Speaking of using Black Light for the control panel.
That's exactly what I'm doing.
Just got my Artwork Printed that was a pain, took almost a month to get it.
Here are the problem's you'll have going that route:

1. Only found 1 place that does custom black light printing.
2. Can only be printed on paper.
3. When placed under plexiglass it will not glow bright.

Went to Kinko's last night had it laminated which retained its black light glow. I will be posting pics after I get everything put back together.

[DashRendar]

Yep- I see that TRON does normally use blacklights to brighten up those colors.

OEM is:

Marquee: std. white fluorescent

Backdrop: std. white fluorescent

Upper control panel: black light black (BLB) fluorescent

Lower control panel: black light white (BLW) fluorescent

The BLW is brighter, but is not safe/recommended for direct viewing (can UV
burn your eyes); the BLB bulb is darker, but safe for direct viewing.
Therefore, it is safe/suitable to substitute the BLW w/ a BLB, but not the
other way around.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rescuetron/

Kinda interesting.  I wonder how much exposure my eyes got from the BLW in these things.   

[Chris]

I was originally going to do the blacklight on the CP; the blacklight is actually sitting on my desk.  But I changed the CP design to be shallower and now there isn't room for it.