The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Artwork => Topic started by: crashwg on October 11, 2004, 12:25:40 am
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A new member to the boards, legoicecream, came up with the great idea of reproducing (or producing for the first time rather) the arcade machine Trogdor, which for those who do not know belongs to Strongbad of Homestarrunner.com.
It got me to thinking that flash is a vector format (correct me if I'm wrong) and maybe it would be posible to easily convert a frame from an SWF file to AI vector artwork...
So is it posible or is someone going to have to do it the old fasion way?
Here's a link that you can right click and save to your computer if you feel like figuring this out or would just like to see what it is I'm talking about.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/arcadegame.swf
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Oh and here's a snap of what it looks like.
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I remember there being a program to reverse a SWF file into a FLA file...if you do that than you have the raw Frame by Frame...once you get that you can prob export an EPS which will be openable by illustrator.
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http://localarcade.com/arcade_art/details.php?image_id=429
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Holy cow mahuti, you rule! Do you think you could do the marquee too? Here's a snap of the game that may help...
BTW, is it posible to measure from point to point in illustrator? I want to see if I can figure out the dimentions of the cab.
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Oh and here's a snap of what it looks like.
You got that from HomeStarRunner.com didn't you? :D
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Um.... no.
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Sorry, I don't have the time to design anything right now. I was mostly interested in trying out a flash decompiler.
Obviously, it worked.
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Um.... no.
that's The Cheat playing the game, from HOMESTARRUNNER.COM k thnx bye
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Rahzel, he mentions homestarrunner.com in his first message. Read the first few lines.
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ACK! I thought I was being original in designing my cabinet, but it looks like I've been beaten to the punch. All without thinking of using the SWFs from homestarrunner.com to boot!
My current cabinet that I'm working on is called "Homestarcade!" and was going to have a full-on homestarrunner.com theme to it. I did all the vector work by hand, which is why it was taking me so long. Oh well! I have a better appreciation of the people who use Illustrator day to day now :)
Here is a link to my sample marquee. Simple, but looks great in it's full form. I'm still working on my sideart and CPO though.
http://dasme.org/cabinet/images/marquee_sm.png (http://dasme.org/cabinet/images/marquee_sm.png)
Well the cab is out of the bag now, just have to finish the construction and I will be updating the webpage with more news and photos.
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That looks really great and fun.
Illustrator is a good tool to use anyway, so you're not really any worse off.
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Sorry, I don't have the time to design anything right now. I was mostly interested in trying out a flash decompiler.
What software/procedure did you use to do that, if you don't mind my asking...?
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A professional flash decompiler. There are a number of them available, and I had to buy a few & try them out so that I could rebuild a few flash source files that I lost.
You should check out actionscript.org for more information about flash, actionscripting, and available tools.
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Actionscript seems to be a little too hardcore for my needs at this point... Going to file the link away, though, in case I ever get around to trying my hand at actually learning Flash.
Was able to (after a bit of trial and error), figure out how to get the vector graphics out to Illustrator using free/trial version software - good for anyone who isn't going to be doing this sort of thing on a regular basis...
The quick tutorial:
Used Flash Decompiler 1.52 trial version (http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/10/9/2/10-9-2-59.shtml) to decompile the SWF files with the desired graphics, and the 30 day trial version of Macromedia Flash MX (http://www.macromedia.com) to convert them to .AI files for use in Illustrator.
When you load the SWF file into Flash Decompiler, you see a list of different types of objects along the right side of the screen. "Frame" is the one of interest for this purpose. Expand the Frame heading and tick off the checkboxes for the frames you want to convert. Once you've got the ones you want, go to the File menu and click Export. There are no file format options on the Export menu for frames - just change the save path as desired and click "Export". This gives you a small, editable .SWF file containing the single frame and all it's component shapes.
Fire up Flash MX and create a new Flash document. On the file menu, select Import > Import to Library and direct it to one of your newly created individual frame .SWF files. The single frame video clip and it's shapes will be loaded into the library for the current document. Under the "Window" menu, make sure Library is checked (or just press CTRL+L). Once you have the library up (in the lower right corner of the screen by default), you should see a list of graphics, with the top one named "Frame_xxx.swf", where "xxx" is the number of the frame you exported from Flash Decompiler. Click and drag this SWF object into the document area. You should then see your frame in your new document. In the File menu, chose Export > Export Image. In the Export Image dialog, change the Save As Type box to read "Adobe Illustrator (*.ai)". Name your file, click OK. A box will pop up asking what version of Illustrator to save the file for. If you're using an older version, select that one from the list - otherwise just choose the newest one.
You should be left with a .AI file you can open in Illustrator and do with as you wish.
Turns out it's not that bad. Obviously if you're following these directions and using the trial software, be sure to register/buy it if you plan to keep it and use it for an extended period of time. Flash MX 2004 is a bit pricey, but Flash Decompiler is only $39.95 (which shouldn't be a huge expense for folks who are into collecting arcade games).... Looks like you can pick up older versions of Flash at significantly reduced prices - I've not tried it, but I'd imagine any relatively recent version should work similarly for doing this since it's a fairly basic operation... If you're going to go that route, be sure to research that before you buy.
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there are also a few third party flash editors available. One that has some good press is by sothink.