Building a MAME cabinet

[DarcSystems]

I'm in the process of building a MAME cab. Got my control panel setup, got the computer all loaded with roms, and a good frontend. Working on the cab now. Before I put any glass in, or start painting the cab or anything, I was wondering if anyone else has done anything like this, and if they did their own graphics for the cabinet. I wanna do a custom control panel overlay, marquee, and side art, but the prices places like Kinko's charge for printing out adhesive vinyl is ridiculous. If anyone else has done this, I'm curious as to what path you chose for your artwork. I don't have access, or no anyone with access to a large printer who would be able to do all this. I'm hoping to spend less than 200 on all the art. I wanted self adhesive vinyl, but if I have to deal with a glossy paper or something, i will.

Thanks,
Jay

[OLIAX]

but the prices places like Kinko's charge for printing out adhesive vinyl is ridiculous.


2 words

body

shop

[Joey Orion]

I'm in the process of building a MAME cab. Got my control panel setup, got the computer all loaded with roms, and a good frontend. Working on the cab now. Before I put any glass in, or start painting the cab or anything, I was wondering if anyone else has done anything like this, and if they did their own graphics for the cabinet. I wanna do a custom control panel overlay, marquee, and side art, but the prices places like Kinko's charge for printing out adhesive vinyl is ridiculous. If anyone else has done this, I'm curious as to what path you chose for your artwork. I don't have access, or no anyone with access to a large printer who would be able to do all this. I'm hoping to spend less than 200 on all the art. I wanted self adhesive vinyl, but if I have to deal with a glossy paper or something, i will.

Thanks,
Jay


I've never done anything like that before but the thought has always crossed my mind. You may inspire me :ohnoes:

[DarcSystems]

2 words

body

shop

Didn't even think about that. I know a bunch of body guys too. I'll give some of them a call. Thanks.

[Not Registered]

Don't make any of these:
http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/

And I really didn't look into it so don't flame but this might help:
http://www.classicarcadegrafix.com/mamegfx.htm

[DarcSystems]

haha, I'll try not to make any of those. I'm a sub-contractor (building houses) so I can design, and put together the cab to look half decent. And I've been doing graphic design for a while, so the artwork isn't gonna be...well, like that.

So far it's just a 2ghz computer, 512 megs of ram, geforce 4 128 meg video car with s-video out, 27" Sharp TV, creative 5.1 surround sound (it's going to have a digital juke box on it as it's going next to the bar) 3d scrollable frontend with about 100 or so roms ranging from Arcade, NES, SNES, Atari, ColecoVision (I'm oldschool), and I might put some Genesis stuff on it, but the only game I ever prefered on Genesis over SNES was Beavis and Butthead. The control panel is 4 player, 8 way joysticks, 8 buttons a piece, independant coin buttons (for the games you can't set to freeplay) central trackball, with 4 buttons, central escape button for exiting the games, individual start buttons. Everything wires into an I-pac4 (though I may switch to this 72 input setup with integrated trackball support) and goes straight to a PS/2 connection. The front of the cab will have a flush mounted CD rom, for easy access to inserting music or software CD's, and the setup will be equipped with a wireless NIC, for updating, and adding games without having to open the cabinet up or plug anything into it.

And the other day my buddy came up with the brilliant idea of putting it on wheels. My last cabinet wasn't on wheels and they're not all that easy to move around. :)

I've checked out that classicarcadegrafix.com before. Good site, and lots of options, but their custom printing is still a bit pricey (about 200 bucks per side art piece) so it would be around 1000 to get all the artwork on a cabinet that cost me like 300 bucks to build. I might just custom paint the cabinet depending on how in depth I want my artwork to be.