SPACE PARANOIDS- Original TRON- Working arcade version?

[eaviii]

Very cool- Awesome on the SP cab, Astrocade!!!!

A couple of things. I grabbed shots of the Flynn's from ComicCon this year. I have shots of the neons and the SP cabinet (as best I could). I still love the BYOAC stuff but maybe someone could generate the sideart from Flynn's from the pics.


I will have time over the next 2 months to finish up the Star Trek TOS sim and hopefully get a basic game structure with models in place for SP. The online game is fantastic (though not exact) and would easily play in a MAME cabinet (trackball/joystick at Flynn's).

Still accepting help on the 3d models. Just need the Recognizer and the environmental building blocks. May be able to do the latter myself but I suspect that someone with more of a modeling background could do a better job.

Will post the pics soon.

Doc

 

[Riboflavin]

Cool! I registered just because of this project.

Well, I'm a modeler, so I could whip up a Recognizer in a few minutes flat. So, what format and game engine are we thinking?

I'm just as interested as anyone in getting this in a cabinet. Using real vintage 3D hardware is a tall order... and to be honest probably impossible. We probably already know that, but just want to make sure we are on the same page. The only one done to that standard is the semi-obscure I-Robot circa 1984. And unless we know a bunch of crazy hardware engineers, lets mock it up with windows.

Anyway, if the game engine is still up in the air... I can code in Dark Basic (made demos and games with it before). Great engine. I bought a licensed copy too. I'm sure it would be up to the task in this. You'd just need a WinXP computer in the cab to boot directly into it with some modified loading screens or something.

Someone did a very similar "recreation" of a legendary arcade game with it before... check out Polybius if you haven't heard of it...

SINNESLOSCHEN

anyway. Let me know. I can crank out some models and stuff for Dark Basic if we get some momentum going.

 

[Riboflavin]

Not that I enjoy replying to my own post, but I'm all enthused about this. I went ahead and modeled a recognizer in Maya. Some detail work to do... but the basic shape is there.

I mean... this thing is like... 30 years old. :lol Not like I have to paint weights or add Monsters Inc. Hair... or crap... ANYTHING... it's a bunch of modified cubes.

Still... trying to make it right, I'm still impressed with the vintage design. Real appealing and still cool after all these years.

Need detail on the cockpit and the um... whole z axis. Anyway here it is. Probably less than 100 poly faces total. Awesome.

 

[Architect]

heh this is very interesting. I have made a couple cases in my time.

not terribly accurate but then I was only wanting something I could get the playing experience again from, not trying to get the look exact.

there are detailed enough specs for any game on the BYOAC though for sure to build just about anything and make it exact like the originals.

personally I had to scrap the whole project due to space constraints. Maybe one of these days I will have the room and can build again.

 

[RikiTiki]

Ill help out where I can, not sure which cab your building but the one at comic con is different than what was in the orginal movie, inlcluding the art and controls.
I brought my latest project out to California Extreme
Basically a complete scratch build and expanded on the orginal 1978 Atari Video Pinball
and dubbed this one Encom Video Pinball 2.0

and heres a link to my build blog on it
Encom Prototype

 

[Wes R]

This is so cool. You could probably get an original arcade cabinet on the cheap, turns out there is a huge collector's market for pinball and arcade machines.

 

[RikiTiki]

Yes my day job
This Old Game

There arent too many shots of SP in the movie to get a good idea what cabinet was orginally used or if it was a prop build.

 

[Riboflavin]

That Encom Video Pinball thing may actually be the coolest thing I have ever seen. I suppose I can die now!

 

[eaviii]

I am with Riboflavin on that, The Encom Pinball is truly amazing!!!

So, Riboflavin, I also code in DBasic (classic). I would love to collaborate to get this done if you like. PM me if you are interested.

SOOOOO . . . Third time to attempt this post (timed out twice) so splitting it into 2.

First the Paranoids cab . . .

Very similar to the poster . . . .

 

[eaviii]

Now for the neons . . .

 

[MrSinistar]

Here's some images of the cabinet in the movie:

 

[Riboflavin]

As a fan of Neons, I'm thrilled with the designs... bit disappointed with the out spots. Couldn't get them all 100% working in time for the event, huh? Wonder what the story is there.

Heh... probably a small fortune could be made for a Neon bender who'd make more of these things and sell them on a limited run. They'd go in on the walls of a game room like parmesan on spaghetti.

 

[Light_Tech]

I think if I remember photos from the '09 con they all were working, but in a year of storage I guess things didn't go so well, or it was planned. Who knows, still pretty cool none the less.

 

[eaviii]

Point taken on the CCon vs original machine. Still unsure of the original maockup base. The bezel on page 1 of the thread is apparently the original bezel so there must have been the large graphic at the top of the screen and a horizontally mounted monitor for the in game shots. Here is the Dominos cab.

Maybe or maybe not. Still unsure. Also, does anyone actually see a joystick in the film (though sure seems like he may be holding one).

I have never seen any production photos of the cabinet in the film. If anyone has any line on this or info, that would be awesome.

Doc

 

[Rook 3]

The SP cabinet in the film didn't have a joystick.

As a fan of Neons, I'm thrilled with the designs... bit disappointed with the out spots. Couldn't get them all 100% working in time for the event, huh? Wonder what the story is there.

I "think" it was intentional, to make it seem like the neon had been abandoned in Flynn's Arcade for 20 years... like the games.

As an arcade manager, the only time our neon goes down is if somone intentionally breaks it.
Normally, the stuff doesn't die just from sitting dormant for a year. But then I'm not a lighting person, I could be wrong.

I have a small neon game room sign at home that only gets run maybe an hour or two a year, and it's worked fine since I got it four years ago now.

Russ

 

[tim]

I'm just as interested as anyone in getting this in a cabinet. Using real vintage 3D hardware is a tall order... and to be honest probably impossible. We probably already know that, but just want to make sure we are on the same page. The only one done to that standard is the semi-obscure I-Robot circa 1984. And unless we know a bunch of crazy hardware engineers, lets mock it up with windows.

Not a crazy hardware engineer, but I am a BME (though more on the research end of things than the development end of things right now). Finding the vintage components would be tough, unless cannibalized from some working vintage hardware.

Given how simple the hardware requirements are by today's standards, I bet you could run the whole show off of a cheap single-board computer. Basically the main thing you need is the CRT display driver.

 

[MrSinistar]

I'm pretty sure the neon signs with the out spots were on purpose, to show that the arcade was abandoned and stuff.

Man, I would love to get a Vice Squad neon sign.

 

[nickytea]

My mom owns an old Q-Bert coin op cabinet.
I'm going to try to talk her out of it so I can try to put one of these together. :lol

 

[Dakarn]

My mom owns an old Q-Bert coin op cabinet.
I'm going to try to talk her out of it so I can try to put one of these together. :lol

Step away from the Q-Bert. Its a classic, leave it alone.

 

[eaviii]

A couple of things, with Darkarn on the QBert, NickyT. Absolute genius game by Gottlieb and a true fusion of pinball-to-videogame. I still love the kicker in the game base when he falls. Just awesome.

Probably should have put the neons in a different thread. I agree that they were intentionally modified to suggest aging.

As for a cab, you can pick up gutted cabs for nothing usually locally. I know guys in Dallas who warehouse purge gutted cabs (free for the taking). You can also try www.superauctions.com if they come near you. If you don't mind standing around until the fixeruppers are auctioned, you can grab a cab for $20-40 bucks.

I am more interested in what constitutes the original base for the cabinet in the film and how the bezel fit. I have looked into this back around 2000 but never got anywhere. Maybe the BYOAC guys or KLOV guys could spot the cab.

As for a boardset/hardware, very cool idea but would be easier as suggested to run out of Windows off a boardset/old computer. The DarkBasic engine is an old one and purrs on most computers. Plus, I think the possiblilty of running MAME, other TRON software (including SP online), or the film/music, would make a MAME type cabinet more appealing. Just thoughts.


So, again, thoughts on the cabinet base, sideart, controls, etc?

Doc