Home made Arcade Machine???

Myrddin

andrew241983 wrote: »

lads decided to ditch the mk2 theme and gonna go for a custom artwork route.. im gonna try design my own artwork(try being the word) whats the best software to do this with photoshop or is there other programmes that are better suited ??
wanna make my cp as fun as possible with all my old favourite characters all over it but not messy cheers...

Remember, less is more

Steve X2

andrew241983 wrote: »

lads decided to ditch the mk2 theme and gonna go for a custom artwork route.. im gonna try design my own artwork(try being the word) whats the best software to do this with photoshop or is there other programmes that are better suited ??
wanna make my cp as fun as possible with all my old favourite characters all over it but not messy cheers...

Best to create it as a vector image if possible so you can scale it up or down without an loss in quality. I use Adobe Illustrator CS6 (64bit as you need that extra memory) but whatever you have will do.
You can always import it into photoshop if you need to.

Optimus Prime

EnterNow wrote: »

Remember, less is more

This is seriously true, it can be the difference between a decent looking cab and something to be posted in the hall of shame. Honestly if i was building a cab over id go with an original design and artwork ie mortal kombat, its much more nostalgic than something covered with mamecade or something, even my own one feels a bit out of place now. to be honest since i got the other two cabs i only really use it as a jukebox! and when i say "I" i mean the other half.

andrew241983

Thanks lads yez have me second guessing myself and since my artistic side isn't very good I might end up going the original route. I'll design one and see how it is and if its utter gripe ill just go with th Mk2..(do u think there wud be anyway of updating it abort or wud that just ruin it)

The Last Bandit

Matt black and just add a few fag burns and you'll be fine

andrew241983

The Last Bandit wrote: »

Matt black and just add a few fag burns and you'll be fine

Fang burns ???

Optimus Prime

You can always design the artwork in photoshop and if our not happy with it and go with something else, it wont cost you anything to draw it up. you should stick with the MK plans for the cab itself then if you need to you can just get the MK artwork.

andrew241983

Lads thinking of using something like this on my cp.. im thinking of something like having this running along the bottom 1/3 and then have to slowly going from black to like burnt orange and then red ...havent decided what way to surround the buttons and joypads just looking for a little feed back..be as blunt as you want:D:D

o1s1n

That could look pretty cool. Just be careful with the placement - remember that you're going to have buttons on the CP too! I've seen people put atwork down but not really give consideration to buttons. So once they're drilled through, the artwork is totally ruined/obscured.

andrew241983

Ye that's why I'm gonna try keep the characters to the bottom 3rd of it so i don't destroy it when i go to install buttons

The Last Bandit

Sorry to hijack but, where are you getting this artwork made ? I'm looking for basic vinyl stickers like directional arrows around joysticks etc..

andrew241983

I have a lads address here I can pm you..he only prints I don't think he does any design

Andrew76

o1s1n wrote: »

That could look pretty cool. Just be careful with the placement - remember that you're going to have buttons on the CP too! I've seen people put atwork down but not really give consideration to buttons. So once they're drilled through, the artwork is totally ruined/obscured.

And vice versa the artwork shouldn't obscure the stick and buttons imo. Here's an extreme example of that: :eek:



It actually has 3 bids on it on ebay atm, presumably for the parts and not the panel.

o1s1n

Wow, that's hard to look at! Looks like a load of Smarties.

andrew241983

reminds me of this

"what have i told you about licking my control panel?"

no way mine wont be as extreme as that my buttons will be totally visible

andrew241983

andrew241983 wrote: »

Lads thinking of using something like this on my cp.. just looking for a little feed back..be as blunt as you want...

This is only my personal opinion, so ignore as much as you want, but I think it looks a little busy. I like control panels to be fairly minimalist, with a style that the buttons and sticks sit well with, not an established, complete theme or picture that they interrupt. At best I think sticks would detract from that graphic unless you got spectacular custom ones, at worst I think it could actually spoil the look of the cab.

The background from that graphic and maybe some colour gradients based on the key primary colours from the MK theme, and maybe some MK logos would work well with sticks, properly colour coded, but I think when you add all the characters to your full set of controls and admin buttons, it would have a lot going on for my liking, and that would make it tough for it to sit well with the rest of the cab.

nacimroc

I agree with what people say about some CP's being a but busy. I think your artwork will look fantastic, but it will look busy if its bright and/or colourful.

What I would suggest would be to go with your idea and use that exact artwork, but put it under slightly tinted acrylic (assuming your using acrylic on CP). You will be able to see the sticks/buttons crystal clear and the artwork clearly. Something like THIS

Or give it a washed look in photoshop like turning contrast up too high on a TV.

andrew241983

Do you think the artwork as it is, is too bright i thought it was dark and deep enough as it is but i can always try a few things in photoshop and see how they come out.. i think putting a tinted plexi on it would take away from the artwork itself.. but the only thing to do is design it and see how it looks ...so that's my job for the weekend!!

andrew241983

Lads head bent here had my whole hyperspin setup on my laptop 32 bit version of mame. So transferred it over to my mame pc a gx280 Pentium 4 with hyperthreading and 4 gb of ram... For one hyperspin is laggy don't mind that can always switch to maximus.. but the main thing is mame won't run on my pc not at all for the command line mame ..but I can get onto the mameui but when i try to play I get the following message


anything I'm missing here lads

andrew241983

lads found this cpo and decided its the one i'm gonna go with..the only change i'm gonna make is remove the run button in the corner and just have the six and use one of them as run... think this looks great...

Myrddin

Much better, nice & minimal

andrew241983

EnterNow wrote: »

Much better, nice & minimal

any idea of the prob im having with mame in my previous post.. its a a fresh install of xp with service pack 3... is there anything else im missing??

Myrddin

andrew241983 wrote: »

any idea of the prob im having with mame in my previous post.. its a a fresh install of xp with service pack 3... is there anything else im missing??

Have you tried MameUI 64?

andrew241983

ye it just say that its not a windows 32bit program...is that where my prob lies??

Myrddin

andrew241983 wrote: »

ye it just say that its not a windows 32bit program...is that where my prob lies??

Did you just transfer your mame install from your laptop to your pc? If so, maybe there's a config file of something which needs to be deleted. I would redownload mame again to be sure. Make sure your using MameUI 32 if its a 32bit OS which it sounds like it is

andrew241983

EnterNow wrote: »

Did you just transfer your mame install from your laptop to your pc? If so, maybe there's a config file of something which needs to be deleted. I would redownload mame again to be sure. Make sure your using MameUI 32 if its a 32bit OS which it sounds like it is

ye i set it up in my laptop and then just transferred it across .. so you reckon its setup to run on my laptop and that's why it giving me grief??

Myrddin

andrew241983 wrote: »

ye i set it up in my laptop and then just transferred it across .. so you reckon its setup to run on my laptop and that's why it giving me grief??

I've no idea, merely trying to narrow it down by advising a fresh download. If it doesn't work then its obviously something else

andrew241983

thanks ill give it a go when i get home thanks mate

CathalDublin

if your using hyperspin or any other front end for that matter you don't want to be running mameUI(user interface). turn off advanced transitions, etc in hyperspin to cut down on the lag but IMO an optiplex gx280 wont be powerfull enough for hyperspin

Myrddin

CathalDublin wrote: »

if your using hyperspin or any other front end for that matter you don't want to be running mameUI

Why is that? Works fine on my setup