Beautiful bezel design work, Ars. Thanks! Marquee looks super sharp
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This looks great - love the sensitivity of the custom Bezel, pairs up really well with the Marquee, great job as always!
always a sucker for an instruction card too!
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Lode Runner
This game was a request by a good friend of mine, who played it a lot as a kid. It was also a collaboration between myself and @PapaShine. I restored and provided lighting effects for the marquee, which was provided by @MrDo. The bezel was also from Mr. Do’s site and was scanned by TrevEB and restored by Kiltron back in 2010. The CPO was traced by Nightvoice on the MameWorld forums and provided by him. @PapaShine created a 3d model of this very unique cabinet structure and control panel, which I then tweaked with some posteffect work in Photoshop to give it a more dramatic feel.
I’m pretty happy with the end result and it’s a great example of how collaboration in a community like this can raise the level of this work!
Here is a ref pic of the original cab:
Thought I would share an image of the 3D model created by @papashine for this:
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The reflection was there in PapaShine’s original render, but I added shadows given the depth of the cabinet, which would mask the reflection. At least, that was my thinking. I don’t see the macroblocking here, do u mean on the PNG or on the JPG?
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Yeah, the perspective of the CP is deliberate so all the art sits on screen and you loose nothing cropped at the sides, as well as looking less like a photograph, just like the coin doors - it’s been captured at a ridiculous distance (approx 1/2 mile away from the cab!) with a massive zoom on the lens so we lose all the issues perspective throws up, obviously a bit of a learning curve for that it seems - I can easily render with more perspective of course 
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1/2 a mile! That made me laugh out loud. I think it looks good and it doesn’t distract me when I’m playing
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Yeah, I fade the reflection out in my own, it’s because I didn’t have the reflection as a separate layer to manipulate. @papashine has started to work my post processing look into his own rendering workflow so that kind of issue would be fixed going forward I think.
If it’s that distracting I can remove the shadow I added and keep the reflection more uniform.
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@dreamstate: Here it is without the shadows so the reflections are even. Guessing that will solve your macroblocking issue too. What do you think?
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Love the Lode Runner overlay. PapaShine’s 3D cabinet rendering has me wondering: In the Visual Pinball pinsim community, we’ve recently been treated to a virtual reality version of the software.
Might a RetroArch variant ever appear that would allow cabinet art enthusiasts like yourselves showcase their work in VR? I know we already have Neon Retro Arcade for VR, but it’s pretty limited, proprietary and hasn’t been updated for years.
Here’s a link to a VPVR video:
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This looks really great!
I played lode Runner on the original Macintosh a lot (I think there were very few games for it at the time), and never realized there was an arcade game!
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Glad you like it @benlogan
Love some pinball! I’m actually a VR/AR developer as well – I have actually built a virtual reality arcade machine, at one point we had a main cabinet running which when you put the VR headset on put you in this awesome, Tron like world with loads of retro arcade elements moving past while the game plays on a massive screen – which was fun but not really authentic! Also built a virtual arcade cab in AR for the magic leap that you can play as it displays the cabinet around a physical controller and did the same with VR. Event still, personally I’ve always loved the cooperative play of arcades and this format has taken some of my desperation to reach-create them in a virtual world, while I loved NRN arcade it wasn’t much fun without multiplayer all alone in the arcade! – but I totally get where you’re going, and I could absolutely translate this into a model for VR - when headsets like the oculus quest can deliver a more photo real rendition then I think that’s a perfect platform to deliver this.
pinball machines on the other hand are a completely different thing, and the whole physicality of the mechanics is a real sight to see in person and Screaming for VR ! I’ll have to check out some more VR pinball, I have Pinball FX VR and it’s pretty good but a little OTT - love the idea of a straightforward table with no animated characters Cluttering it up!
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It doesn’t look like that on my machine at all @dreamstate. Not sure why you are getting that, I’ve zoomed in very closely and it’s very smooth. Anyone else seeing the same issue?
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Actually, I do see it now, when viewing on my iPad. It looks like there is actually some splotchiness in the original render @papashine? And the shadows exacerbated it. It’s not noticeable on any of the other 3 monitors I’m viewing on, I think your gamma is set differently. But, I can update it without the shadows for now since it’s less evident without them.
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Ok, I think the splotchiness might have happened when I adjusted the curves and raised the black levels. But it might not be noticeable on most monitors, so I’ll not worry about it for now. Heading to Galloping Ghost in a few minutes!
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I’ve missed most of this but yes @ArsInvictus , there is a deliberate texture in the specularity of the speaker panel, it’s a kind of aged 80’s shiny plastic coated surface so I guess it’s a slightly splotchy effect when it’s heavily graded? - @Dreamstate, Thanks for the feedback!
Enjoy galloping ghost!! All pretty envious of you!
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Halley’s Comet
I found this game via the marquee, which was selling on eBay. It’s not a game I’d heard of before, but apparently this was the 2nd most popular tabletop game in Japan back in 1986 when it came out. I also saw it on the floor at Galloping Ghost the other day, which was very cool to see.
So for this overlay I purchased and restored the marquee. I also took photos of the instruction card and between that and a scan I found on @mrdo’s site, I recreated the instruction card in vectors in Illustrator with text and effects in Photoshop. The bezel is a custom number I based off the original arcade side art design.
So, after quite a few hours of work, here’s the overlay:
And a shot of an actual cabinet, I believe this was from Galloping Ghost’s cab, but I didn’t take this photo:
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Great one. Timely, too! We just went comet comet viewing in the park the other night. Quite a sight with binoculars. Thanks for this beauty, Ars.
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Yeah, the comet last appeared when this game was released back in 1986, when I was 14-15 years old. It won’t appear again until 2061, when I’ll be long gone. My daughter will probably be able to see it and she’ll just be a bit older than I am now. Puts things in perspective!
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For whatever reason, every reference photo, plus the one on the floor at GG, takes on a blue hue when backlit. So I’m just replicating the actual look of the marquee as near as I can tell.
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I haven’t tried @dreamstate, I’m just matching it to what I’ve seen in the wild in terms of actual marquees. It may be age related, where the marquees faded with the heat from the lamp. But for whatever reason, the older marquees look blue. It’s also possible there were multiple versions of the marquee released with different colors. I don’t know. But it’s MY overlay and that’s what I did 