We have a crosshair overlay for that. Aim with the mouse and click to shoot, same how we emulate Namco Time Crisis for example. *edit* Oh, lightgun + layout instead of bitmap/screen might be a problem but nothing we can't fix or workaround. I don't know if it's currently possible MAME can know if the mousecursor is above a red LED in a layout.
Sean ok got it =) BTW I got a cheap TI Spelling Bee on eBay, the somewhat rare 2nd version, should be on your way soon.
There's two sets, one with a black background, and one with a transparent background... I wasn't sure if the transparent background would vector easier or not...
Someone can either take them from there and finish them, or maybe explain what the next step is... I'm not sure how the vectoring and grouping works.
Also figured out the full name of the game: Ultraman Monster Battle
Ok, if you want, I can do this for you. Let me know in that case.
Here are the steps: - save these files as black-on-white bmps. potrace by default takes dark(foreground) on light(background) - draw some junk on the corners, this will make it easier to align the layers perfectly - commandline 3 times: potrace -s file.bmp - inkscape: import the 3 svgs as 3 separate layers and align them - ungroup the objects(shift ctrl G) in inkscape, and set the colors(ctrl A to select all, then click a color) - get kevtris's picture where he placed grid and plate numbers over the element - group paths(ctrl G) that make 1 object and set the title in object propertjes to x.y where x=grid number and y=plate number. See the finished artwork svgs as example. - use Sarayan's svg2lay tool to make a MAME layout with it: svg2lay file.svg 1 outputfolder
*edit* svg2lay for this purpose is deprecated soon, in favor of MAME supporting svg directly. Nomore external artwork either, the svg will be in the same zip container as the game ROM.
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Z_Imgs/MESS/bultrman.zip (I haven't done any vector tweaking yet, I just wanted to make it work... I'll tidy up some things later to have a better SVG for MAME when it supports them directly.)
It's not playing right though, it looks like the numbering is off by one on some elements (it keeps displaying plate 3 when it should be plate 2, so you are playing headless monsters instead of the little person on the first level, and the UFO (plate 14 on all grids) is buildings (plate 15).
But the UFO's shots are okay (Plate 10, 0 and 1 on each grid)...
I double checked several of the PNGs svg2lay created, and they look correct (assuming the ID PNG is correct (Edit- looks like it is correct...)), so maybe a programming tweak somewhere? (My compile is a couple of days old, just in case something was changed over the weekend or something...)
And, if we are being picky about titles, 'Ultraman' is one word...
svg2lay for this purpose is deprecated soon, in favor of MAME supporting svg directly. Nomore external artwork either, the svg will be in the same zip container as the game ROM.
svg2lay should stay useful to check whether you're tagged things correctly. Looking at the pngs usually shows the mistakes you might have made.
Here's one whole cycle of the Ultraman game in demo mode:
Just in case you want to know exactly how it plays. When playing, the first level is just avoiding the red missiles from the UFO, the second level is kicking/hitting the monster heads before they burn up the structures at the top. The last level is timing a shot from one side to the other to hit the big monster. The 'laser' (whatever it is) flickers to give it a shimmering effect.
The first two levels are timed from what I can tell, you just play for a minute or 2, the last level you have 3 shots, and then it starts over.
Since it's just demo mode, lives and score aren't used.
That's still in 3 layers, is that okay for MAME, or should they be 'flattened' in some way first?
Tried the Donkey Kong code with SVG support, looks like it needs some work on the rendering side...
Also, check out my artwork file for Gakken Crazy Kong: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Z_Imgs/MESS/gckong.zip I'm trying to add an overlay for the ladders, but I want the entire game overlay, which is much bigger than the VFD. I managed to make it work by sort of hacking the .lay file, but what's the proper way to do something like this?
Thanks, 3 layers is fine. In the steps, I forgot to mention to change page units to px. I also lowered the width to a more sensible approx 2000 pixels. I didn't touch up the colors, those are your choice. http://tsk-tsk.net/net/temp/bultrman.zip
On the MESS artwork page, gckong already has the ladders added, based on your work. Picture: http://www.mess.org/_detail/artwork/gckong.png?id=artwork The proper way to do this is by recreating the artwork with vectoring, but what you did (edited photo?) is fine too.
Outer bezel, control panel, etc. falls under decorative artwork. It's not required to be able to play the game. If you want, it can be added here: http://www.mess.org/artwork#decorative_artwork
Anyway, Ultraman is now playable. Fun game =) The problem with the plates was a mistake in bit shuffling before sending the data to the renderer, this is corrected now.
Yeah, I saw that you had added the ladders, which I guess makes sense as you need those to play the game (like the maze on Bandai Packri Monster). I was just having trouble, back when I did this, adding the whole bezel. It looks like following the decorative artwork details will solve that though, there's several games that have images around the screens.
I was trying to fiddle with that list of plates in the code, but couldn't figure out how you determine that, so I figured I'd just wait... Thanks for fixing it! I see one graphic that's grouped wrong, I'll fix that and tidy up some of the vectors this week.
I'm also going to redo some of the others, especially ones like Pac-Man and such that just have a couple of sprites used throughout. I can create one nice clean one then copy/paste them all over. Might as well at least do the easy ones...
BTW, is Kevtris still around? I guess it's time to send him more games if he's up to it...
I'm not sure how the vectoring and grouping works.