Backdrops in mame2003-plus

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

@Clyde
Glad to know it works. When did you update?

According to the timestamps of the core, it's from Dez 21, 09:39.

Did you update yet, and did that fix your problem?

Although @Riverstorm says it works with the latest build, I'm now hesitant to update my running system. ;)

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Nice snap Clyde I'm digging the shader! ;)

Thanks, although it isn't authentic for vector games, I think, because vector monitors didn't have a raster but "painted" the graphics with their electron beam. Right?

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

@Clyde - Could you by chance share your vector settings? I don't think I have my tweaked to look that good. It looks sharp.

Gladly. They are just the ones I liked when the vector options were implemented in mame2003-plus.

mame2003-plus_vector_antialias = "enabled"
mame2003-plus_vector_beam_width = "2"
mame2003-plus_vector_flicker = "20"
mame2003-plus_vector_intensity = "1.5"
mame2003-plus_vector_resolution_multiplier = "3"
mame2003-plus_vector_translucency = "enabled"

@UDb23 @Riverstorm As for SD cards, I have a Toshiba Exceria Pro 401 (32GB) in my Pi. It also had good test results and it was slightly cheaper than the Sandisc Extreme Plus when I bought it. My roms are on a Samsung Evo 250 SSD anyway. :)

But like @UDb23 and @grant2258, I don't think that the upper end of transfer speeds matters much in a Pi running Retropie.

UDb23

@Clyde @Riverstorm Updated right now and...

it works, thanks!

Pull request for full screen (1080p) backdrop made.
Backdrop is available here meanwhile.

Actually final res is: 1912x1080. Still need to find out if we can "trick" the .art system to provide right calculations.

UDb23

@Clyde Your vector setting look really great. Copied your config ;-)

UDb23

One more backdrop: Armor Attack

It was actually an overlay applied to the monitor ; Mame was considering this as a backdrop 'cause there was a tinted screen on top ?
Anyway it works nicely so why bother.

The image for the bd on MrDo's is only 1024x1078 so resulting quality is not ideal at higher res.

mame2003plus backdrop avalable here.

Consider this preliminary (but works) as I was able to get detailed pics from a nice guy that owns the real cab parts.
Will create a new bd from those. Aligment also is important for playability.

Clyde

@UDb23 Works perfectly on 1600x1200 without any changes to the art file, thanks!

UDb23

FYI thanks to @markwkidd & @arcadez now sound for Frogs works.
You can get the samples from Twisty's.

Riverstorm

@Udb23 @Clyde - Thanks for the tips on the cards so It sounds like I should be fine with 50MB/s with the non-plus EVO card.

Every new Mirco SD card, flash drive, hard drive (internal and external) I run through CDM Benchmak testing with the default format and cluster size. Then I screenshot it and store it in a folder. Not sure why I've done that for years. Interesting to see the speeds increase and trends over the years.

@Udb23 - That's pretty cool so you have a nice camera too! Are you an art major? Art (drawing) was always my first love but never good enough to put food on the table but I still dabble to work the other side of my brain.

@Clyde - Yeah your correct. Vector graphics have zero pixels. They have a start point and end point, no pixels. I just really enjoy shaders in all things but usually not on vector games but your screenshot wowed me as it just looks great.

I just happen to have some extra time today gentlemen so I'll be implementing some new backdrops and get some screen time in today, thanks guys. New backdrops, better settings, things are looking up.

We have a few parties we may attend this evening but I think we are going to get some steaks and a nice bottle of wine and do dinner at home with our youngest. Basically stay in, We must be getting old. We grill out often in the winter here and even in the snow as it is today but only light which is good for all tthe drunkards that will be on the road tonight. Also may the New Year bring you health, wealth and prosperity and all the good things you deserve, cheers!

UDb23

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

That's pretty cool so you have a nice camera too! Are you an art major?

Not at all, I'm more on tech side (studies & work). Still I like playing around with graphics and photography when time allows (got a Sony A77 mark 2).
Took nice shots this summer in Arizona & California; a milky way shot in particular. You don't get to see it that way here in Italy.

Wish you and your family a great, healthy and successful new year.

UDb23

Happy new year !

Newly created backdrop & overlay: Omega Race - cockpit version (1080p)

All required files available in the Repo.

Note: not tested on the Pi yet.

Clyde

@UDb23 I didn't try your 1080p version, but you motivated me to make my own 1600x1200 one. Unfortunately, I don't have a repo myself. Do you have an idea how I could share my omegrace.zip with others here?

Anyway, I noticed that the original backdrop from arcadeartwork.org is too bright for the vector graphics of the game (first picture below). I had to add a line brightness = 0.4 for a playable display (second picture).

alt text

The images appear much darker in the forum than they do in my cabinet, but the different readability of the vector text should clearly visible.

You may want to check that in your own backdrop.

Clyde

I experimented a little bit more and settled finally with brightness = 0.25 and a non-scanlines shader named "VecX" for the eponymous Vectrex emulator.

alt text

Again, this looks significantly brighter in my cab.

UDb23

@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

how I could share my omegrace.zip with others here?

Do you have a github account ? if so you could add it to my Repo (e.g. 1600 subfolder of Omega Race cockpit).

Good finding with the settings. I reduced the saturation of the image colors directly in Photoshop to get better visibility of game. Mine will require some tweaking with the settings too anyway.

Clyde

@UDb23 I actually have a Github account. I'll look into how I can upload files into your repo, thanks!

I think the brightness option is a nice and easy way to adjust the image to one's own monitor. So, I wouldn't mess with the brightness of the image itself, lest it may not respond as good to further adjustment in the ART file as an unmodified one. But your idea to reduce its saturation is a good one. edit: I may use your final image in my version, if you would kindly provide me with a highres image or even a direct 1600x1200 one. This would also ensure consistency between our versions if I put mine into your repo.

The original image wasn't very bright and colorful anyway:

But it may have been enhanced by blacklight, like the starfield image of the upright cabinet was according to this article (just search it for "blacklight"). So, maybe we should try to imitate that? Alas, I don't have the image editing skills for it.

edit: By the way, does anyone know why (only my?) mame2003-plus renders the vectors yellow instead of white like the original?

UDb23

@Clyde said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

does anyone know why (only my?) mame2003-plus renders the vectors yellow instead of white like the original?

Good question, I was wondering about the same. @markwkidd , @grant2258 probably know.

Very interesting video, I was aware of use of UV inks in the upright model (and mr Do's bd tries to imitate that) but not about the cocktail.

The image I used for the bd is very colorful, actually it's not the scan from Arcadeartwork. I think somebody recreated in vectors and posted the resulting raster image. Can't remember exactly where it comes from. I agree letting users modify the settings according to their monitors is better then pre-applying some brightness/saturation.

I think for UV ink there are some PS actions that could help. I'll give it a try to make the cockpit bd look like in the video; if successful I'll surely share the higher res image with you.

UDb23

Found another pic that shows how colors look on a real machine:

OR cp bd colors.jpg

Vectors are white effectively.

grant2258

the driver uses a yellow overlay this is how it look if you remove it from the driver.

alt text

to disable the overlay comment this line of code out

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/11951318360da64f996309a71b155f8631aa019c/src/drivers/omegrace.c#L602

UDb23

@grant2258 thanks for checking on this.

As it seems original machine used white beams (at least according to most videos & pics I could find) I would warmly suggest to remove the overlay from the driver (and therefore from official lr-mame2003plus).

If anyone wants it more yellowish it's easy to create a yellow RA overlay or thru the Mame .art artwork system.

What do you think ?

UDb23

In general, as we now got the artwork system working, I'd remove any "embedded" overlays from code, unless there's a very specific "per driver" reason (e.g. SI colors).

grant2258

@UDb23 I don't have push permissions anymore on plus. I gave that part up as I don't have the free time to justify looking after project I'm sure mark will read this and disable that one line I can't see any reason not too

Clyde

@UDb23 Interesting, on the cockpit picture you found, the image doesn't look as dark as in the video, and it also looks not that much UV lighted to me. In addition, the backdrop seems to be much bigger than the game area. I may try to mirror that via different ART settings when I'm back home.

I look forward to your take on UV simulation via Photoshop.

@grant2258 Thanks for the information about the yellow overlay and for the pictures without it. I definitely prefer the white vectors, so I hope that @markwkidd will be so kind to remove the overlay and maybe others, since I second @UDb23 in that embedded overlays etc. seem to be outdated with a working artwork system.