Hack29.Add Cabinet Art to MAME

Hack 29. Add Cabinet Art to MAME

Gussy up your gameplay with classic arcade artwork .

So you've decked out your MAME setup with original arcade game sounds [Hack #28] and even got hooked up with a classic arcade-style controller [Hack #27] . But something's still telling you that your MAME experience isn't quite complete. Something's still missing.

Your peripheral vision is giving you different cues than you remember. You're not supposed to be looking at the grey sides of your monitor. Or the empty black unused space on the sides of the screen. Or that cheesecake photo calendar from ten years ago. No! You're supposed to see the arcade cabinet art bordering your screen. And didn't the original Asteroids Deluxe machine have a cool holographic background, or was that just your imagination ?

Well, don't fret, because MAME's crew of dedicated supporters have a solution. You can download artwork files that feature reproduction of the arcade cabinet art, overlays, and backdrops for a more fulfilling and realistic gameplay session.

3.10.1. How to Use Artwork

Though ROMs dumped from arcade games , being of dubious legality, are not provided on any official MAME site, artwork is. A page at the official MAME site, http://www.mame.net/downart.html is updated regularly with the latest officially supported artwork sets. MAME only started supporting artwork with version 6.1, so be sure you've upgraded.

Artwork has been created for nearly 140 different titles so far, although they vary in quality. The list of downloadable artwork is split up into three categories: games with overlays or backdrop graphics and bezels, games with only high-quality bezels (artwork placed around the monitor), and games with low-quality bezels. (Note that the definition of high-quality here is subjective ; some of the artwork in the high-quality section is pixilated and blurry.)

Like downloading ROMs [Hack #26] , downloading artwork is quite simple. Artwork files are provided in Zip archive file format, which you do not need to extract. Simply save the . zip file, as is, in the artwork directory under your MAME directory. Do not change the filename, or MAME will be unable to find the artwork.

If you're using the latest version of MacMAME [Hack #21] , you must store all your artwork in the Cabinet Art folder under the ~/Documents/MacMAME/ directory.


Let's look at how artwork can change what MAME looks like. Figure 3-18 shows us what Asteroids Deluxe looks like running under MAME with no artwork installed.

Figure 3-18. Asteroids Deluxe, no backdrop or bezels

Not bad, but not the best it can be. Install the astdelux.zip artwork pack, however, and start the game up to see something like Figure 3-19.

Holy cats! Now that's the Asteroids Deluxe I remember! (By the way, the backdrop is not really holographicjust a couple pieces of printed Plexiglas that are reflected onto the screen image.)

3.10.2. How to Not Use Artwork

You may have noticed something about the art-enabled Asteroids Deluxe screen. Namely that the gameplay area has shrunken. Well, yeah. Where did you think the bezels would go? You might be able to forgive this ( especially if you have a giant monitor), but if you find that having bezels turned on is starting to impede your play, you can remove them.

Figure 3-19. Asteroids Deluxe with backdrop and bezels

And you can do it without deleting the Zip file and losing your backdrop art. For example, in the PC command line version of MAME [Hack #20] , enter - nobezel on the command line after you type the name of the game you want to play. For example, typing c:\mame\mame astdelux -nobezel will result in the game looking like the screen shown in Figure 3-20.

3.10.3. How to Make Artwork

"Hey, [insert game here] is missing the cabinet artwork!"

So make some! If you have access to game art that's not yet supported, or think you can get a higher-quality scan or photograph of artwork that you think is really ugly to look at, I'm sure the good folks at MAME would love to hear from you. Instructions for how to make bezels, and the appropriate email addresses to send them to, are located at the artwork page on mame. net (http://www.mame.net/downart.html).

Artcade (http://www.macmame.net/artcade/) used to be the primary repository of MAME artwork, but stopped updating in 2002 after mame.net began hosting all the files. The reason I point you to it now is because it features tutorials for budding bezel captors, complete with photographs and explanations of how certain machines were photographed to replicate the original lighting and feel.

Figure 3-20. Asteroids Deluxe with backdrop but no bezel



Retro Gaming Hacks
Retro Gaming Hacks: Tips & Tools for Playing the Classics
ISBN: 0596009178
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 150
Authors: Chris Kohler

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net