It’s really nice, can you share the files and preparation files, thank you
Ah, I’was only talking about your picture being so great and whether we could have that as a static overlay picture. You know the ones you have here: https://github.com/Duimon/Retroarch-Overlays/blob/master/Night/
so your private version of the DEC picture as an overlay image, to use as a general overlay for snes, psx etc games. Hopefully you’ll consider doing that, and if possible it would be really neat to have the same overlay but then with 4x3 “black screen” in the monitor instead of the current round “black screen”. I think both would serve very well as a great general overlay to use with any retro system. It’s as if you’re playing your games in some NASA control room in the 60’s
I guess I misunderstood your question. That image is a wholly Photoshop creation, except for the monitor, which I modeled and rendered using sheet metal properties in a parametric modeler.
My current project, and all the overlays along with it, are vector source. I suppose I could magic something up using the source but it would be 1920 x 1080.
The new version, while I will work very hard in the attempt, will probably not quite measure up to the original. I doubt I will be able to recreate all the fine detail in vector, so will have to end up simplifying it somewhat.
We’ll see what happens.
Hi Duimon,
Is it possible to have this background with ARCADE in red ? Arcade_Horizontal.png file like MAME & FBneo ? Arcade has only CAB versions.
Yes my friend, I can do that for you.
Wow I’ve got to say this thing is so cool! Is this what you were asking about extra controls for the dual screen for?
No, I wasn’t thinking of this at all. In fact it just occurred to me one afternoon that I could probably do this since we have control of where the viewport splits.
I would like to increase the top range of Y position on the 2nd screen though. 500 is not quite enough.
Turn it up to 11!
Sure thing I’ll tweak that one
Why not just make 10 louder?
Here’s some progress on this.
Baby steps. The monitor is still raster from my original graphic. I managed some small toggle switches.
They’re not perfect but since they are so small I think they will work. I may tweak them a bit.
At this stage nothing ever seems good enough. As more objects are added the individual perfection stops mattering so much. The whole is enough to trick the mind into filling in the missing details.
With the MAME overlay I wasn’t satisfied with the green lamps. Eventually I changed them to amber in the code. and compiled my own MAME binary.
As I was saying. Even with the MAME games that have default layouts, like the color vector games, there is an actual layout file that is compiled into the binary. You can see it if you look at the source.
Not so with the PDP-1. None of the hardware is exposed. All the layout stuff is hard coded into the pdp1.cpp and pdp1.h files.
I am trying to figure out a way to color the lights amber using the shader but no blending mode on the layer I am using over the lamps has the desired effect. The best I can get is an ugly pea-green.
If there were individual color controls on each screen I could use grade. I am going to try it on the whole thing and see what happens.
I spent months finding various images of this computer on the Interwebs that I could piece together to make the original. I will probably spend an equal amount of time on this version.
That being the case I will probably work on it part time while I do the rest of the core graphics. I would really like a complete set by the time the shader hits v1.0.
I managed to find a way to turn the lamps amber. I used grade to change the hue of the screen until the lamps were amber. Then used the cabinet glass layer in multiply blending mode to turn the screen green. (Since the Gel layer does weird things in dual screen mode.) The pdp-1 actually used a radar screen so it was quite green.
Now that I can change the color of the lamps I can change the color of the lamp diffusers back to off white. (Instead of the dark amber I was using in this attempt.)
I am going to try a brighter green on the glass layer also.
Getting better!
Even the black on the screen is a bit green after I lowered the contrast just a hair.
I’m not sure this is desirable, and the lamps are still a WIP. I see a lot of potential though.
Duimon you are going to have to remove the sam coupe from the list, because I have no way of emulating it with mame.
It was never on the list.
Well, better because you save work, because it doesn’t work.
Here’s another WIP shot.
I turned the contrast back up so the screen is blacker. (I will eventually have a reflection on the screen anyway.) I also reduced the opacity of the screen overlay to just past the point where it tinted all the pixels green. (It was too saturated and it was eliminating intensity variation.)
I also increased the phosphor persistence.
The screen is also hard coded into the driver so although bloom works, a vector shader will not really work here, even the phosphor persistence is hard coded.
My increased persistence was really geared toward the lamps. They were incandescent bulbs and fairly persistent themselves. (They look better now than they ever did in the MAME overlay. )
Next up is the monitor. Then it’s time to put this to bed for a bit and do something else.
Like the original, this may seem like a lot of work for just one game, but I feel the historical significance of this particular game is worth it. It is a labor of love.
Thank you Duimon ! These Arcade backgrounds are really great !
Here’s something new!
The Amstrad GX4000 WIP!
I had a couple of choices on what parts of the console I showed. (The outer-most parts are also cool and distinctive, but the LED would have been hidden.) I chose to show the LED.