Yeah, I have thought of the lightbox idea, it would have to be something custom and adjustable to accomodate the different sizes. But haven’t put much thought into it beyond that yet. It is a good idea. I’m glad you appreciate this set! It was a ton of work to put this one together due to those bezel issues.
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I know what you mean @Dreamstate, on the other hand, the hard stuff is so much more more satisfying when you do finally get it done 
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Spent a little time updating the Street Fighter 2 Hyperfighting Turbo (not enough superlatives here)
Updated the marquee with my current process and adjusted the lighting.
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I was just looking at your vCabinet build photos. Did you ever look into adding plexi over the TV? They do that on the RecRoomMasters vertical build that I have and the plexi really does add to the arcade feel, it was pretty surprising.
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Haha, yes! I ordered some Before I cut the cabs and messed up the measurements so have spares for any future (smaller) ones! they all have one but currently at a friends getting a vinyl boarder put on the inside to clean up the small visible gap/TV bezel - totally agree, makes a massive difference to the feeling and presentation! also added speakers and a sub since that photo, that’s actually just Mounted on the wall in my workshop while I built it hence the chalk pen on the wall.
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Updated Vanguard Vertical Overlay
This one was truly a team effort and I think the results speak for themselves. @Dreamstate did a fantastic job restoring the original artwork and provided a ton of research on the original cabinet design as well as some art direction. @Papashine generously contributed his talents in the creation of an exquisitely detailed 3D rendered recreation of the original Zaccaria coin door, as well as render of the marquee with the chrome borders. For myself, I worked on the light and color effects for the marquee and assembled the components into the overlay.
I think we had a beautiful outcome and I am grateful for everyone’s contribution to this project!
I’ve done both large screen and full bezel variations:
Large Screen
Full Bezel with CPO
I personally prefer the large screen version here, despite the unfortunate loss of artwork on the bezel.
Hope you all enjoy!
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Much as I respect the love for the joystick and button configuration, I personally prefer the marque/bezel/coindoor layout. That said, I’ll absolutely download, enjoy and respect whatever you guys choose to upload. These works of art are a total gift to the community!
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Yep @benlogan, I’ll normally continue without the CPO visuals, but it’s nice to experiment sometimes and offer some variations. The large screen version without the CPO is out there too, just in the large screen folder:
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OK guys, I’m going to throw mine in the mix, @ArsInvictus I love your large overlay without CPO, just wondering if a bit of squashing (distortion/spherize) might be able to bring back some of the cropped bezel. Not sure if you like the idea of distorting the image over cropping it. ( i did that in my Scramble to get all the bezel in, but keep a larger screen.)
Anyway here’s my take on it. I liked your Marquee so tried to find a way to get the same effect as i don’t know how you did it. @PapaShine your Coindoors really shine in these!!!
@dreamstate true choice is good, but for me I am still trying to find what works, I like the CP’s but not sure yet of which route to go, still feeling and trying new things, maybe even go the 3d route just to get a feel. This cab has been a good example of the different possibilties we might like.
anyway going to pick up kids
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Hey @Briball, thanks for the suggestions!
I’m glad you like the large overlay. I noticed you did that in your overlay, but as a personal preference I don’t like distorting the graphics. It’s much more distracting for me to see an oval when it should be a circle than just not seeing portions of the graphic at all. Even for TV’s, when people have them set to stretch 4:3 images on a 16:9 display, I can’t stand it and will try to grab the remote and put the borders back Obviously this is a subjective thing.
For the marquee, I can try to share the process I am following here. I’d love to hear suggestions for how to improve the workflow but this is basically what I’m doing:
- CMD-J, to clone the base marquee image into a new layer, then select the new layer
- Add a Gaussian Blur set to a level of 3 (usually)
- Hit D key (to make sure fore/back colors are set to default)
- Go to FIlter Gallery and under Distort choose Diffuse Glow, settings of Graininess 0, Glow and Clear at 14.
- Apply Unsharp Mask, 500%, Radius 0.2, Threshold 0
- Set the Opacity for this layer to around 40 to start, usually, this is something I’d tweak later
- Add a new layer and create a white radial gradient to emulate the back light, set the blend mode to Overlay
- Sometimes I will duplicate this layer and adjust opacity based on amount of effect I want
- Add an Exposure adjustment to the base layer
- Select the base layer and perform a selective color on the blacks, copy the blacks from the base layer to a new layer at the top of the stack
- Add a selective color adjustment to the top of the stack, use the light overlay layer as a layer mask on this one
- Sometimes I will add other adjustments here for other things like Color Balance, Exposure, depending on the effect I want. I may also add a selective color without the layer mask to adjust the overall colors.
- Add a new layer at top of stack with a black reflective gradient horizontally to add a darkening effect to the edges. The opacity and size is something I adjust.
At this point I have something like this set up:
I then adjust the parameters on all these layers and effects to achieve the look I want. A lot of adjustments are usually made to the selective color layers to match a reference photo.
Beyond that, @papashine took what I did as a base and applied some 3D rendering effects for the curvature and the frame.
Hope this is helpful, let me know if u have any questions!
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Thanks, I wasn’t far off, some interesting steps I can add and play around with.
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Legendary Wings 4K Vertical Overlay
For this one I restored both the marquee and bezel artwork. Thanks again to @mrdo for the source scans for both. I also used the excellent coin door reproductions from @PapaShine here. The one he did for r-type was fairly close (if not identical) to the one I found in the reference photo I used for this game.
The marquee and bezel can both be found on the cloud drive here:
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Fantastic work, ArsInvictus. Thanks!
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Excellent job as always @ArsInvictus, that marquee really pops on this one! - had this on my shortlist for way too long but didn’t have the assets?l! loved this game, brutal and overlooked classic.
Just looked at the rather poor reference I had for this (Actually a wooden cab) and weirdly it has the same speaker we’ve been working on!
@Briball thanks for the coin door love, glad they’re a welcome addition
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Plus one for coin door excellence, PapaShine. Nice to see so many talented artists collaborating here. Much appreciated, all!
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Thanks @PapaShine, this wasn’t a game I was too familiar with but I really liked the art so this is another case of the artwork directing me to an overlooked game. I’ve tried playing it and you are right this thing is brutal, but also had some really cool gameplay mechanics, with both top down shooter and sidescrolling elements. I’ll have to put some more time into it.
This is the reference I was using. Not sure if it was a dedicated cab or conversion:
BTW, let me know if there are any other games you are searching for the assets for. I’ll see if I can help with locating them or with the restoration.
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Thanks @ArsInvictus, for the record I think that’s the same type I played on as a kid, the ref I had was just One I saw once and assuming it might be a dedicated cab, it showed a decent view of the wood grain, admittedly I Haven’t done the research to work out what it is - and in my ref picture you can’t really see the bezel, pretty sure yours is perfect - just surprised to see The speaker shape there, and also now I look, on those Vanguard cab refs too! Amazing what your eye gets trained for once you start to look
Thanks for the offer I’m still looking for an [Edit] ‘Zero team USA’ set and ‘Mystic Warriors’ if you find them under a rock somewhere! You may have already done one yourself!
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That’s adorable. Thanks for sharing
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