Archive for August, 2007
Shortcut to switch through Photoshop tools
I had a friend of mine ask me the other day how to rotate through a grouping of Photoshop tools without having to use their mouse every time.
This is pretty easy, and it can save you a lot of time. Let’s take the Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tool grouping within the Tools palette.
The shortcut to start using the last selected tool from from that group is the “O” key. Now, let’s say you hit the “O” key, and up came the dodge tool, but you need the burn tool. To rotate through the grouping of tools using a shortcut, just hold the modifier key, in this case “Shift” which hitting “O”.
So, rotate through a grouping of tools is easy. Hit the shortcut key to get to the group first, and then hold “Shift” with the key to rotate through them, in this case “Shift + O”.
Mappy Cabinet in Dayton area
I had to pull teeth to get any information on this cab in Dayton area. I had seen a post right after I got back from vacation about a Mappy cabinet for $15. But for the price, the people didn’t want to do any photos.
I don’t understand people. Now hard is it to take a couple of photos? You will waste more time answering silly questions than if you take three digital photos and post them somewhere.
Well, they were going to destroy it by the 10th, and I didn’t want that to happen either. The price was great, I was ready to take a risk in driving all the way to at least see it.
But at least I asked the right question and found out it had no topper piece. I would have been pissed if I went all the way over there to get it and it was without that. I might consider taking it for free, but it isn’t worth my time otherwise.
Gotta keep hoping another Mappy cab, complete or not, comes up close to me. They sure are hard to come by.
Most of Pengo Sideart Traced
I had emailed a contact about getting some vector Pengo art that I thought they had. It appeared to me as if they had traced the cardboard bezel at one time, and I thought it would be a good place to start to get some vector versions of the ice mountains, sno bees and the Pengo character himself.
But come to find out, the image of Pengo bezel I saw was just a nice raster scan. So, knowing that I already had some different pieces of the sideart traced from other individuals (Pengo character, Pengo Lettering, Sega Lettering), and seeing that the artwork was fairly simple, I decided to see if I could crank through tracing it in one night.
I got through all of the major sideart details except for the sno bees on the right side of the artwork.
In one more night of work I should have the sideart decal artwork traced good enough to post an image here. Now, there will be some other details to iron out. The Pengo character doesn’t fit up with my photo (which could be due to distortion because I know the tracing is very good), there is a half tone pattern to make the gradient in the letter and the mountains in the original artwork that I will need to address, and of course the color matching.
But at least I will have the Pengo vector artwork to add to my collection. If I want to get into those details later on I can, if I find that there are people out there who want a set of the Pengo artwork I can do some reproductions. I would think there would be a significant demand, I don’t think there is any NOS Pengo sideart out there. I have found 2-3 people who have expressed some interest, Tim Hill, James Hagen and a couple of other arcade collectors in online board posts looking for sideart and control panel overlays. But we shall see.
Barry Bonds Hits Home Run 756, Beating Hank Aaron
I watched Barry hit is 71st home run in the second where he broke Mark McGwire’s fledging Home Run record, but I didn’t get to see him do it last night. Nor did I care.
But he did finally do it, and the pressure is off of him. Barry Bonds has finally broken Hank Aaron’s 33 year standing home run record of 755 home runs.
I wanted Barry to retire a couple of years ago, and with his knee injury I thought he may never make it here. But in some respects, he may have a season or two left of teetering out. He may hit as many as 30 homers this year, which is still a decent amount even among normal players.
The question for me, is how long will he be around. He has hinted about playing next season but for who? The Giants suck, largely I believe because of Barry and how much of their daily lives revolve around him. Now that there is no record, will the resign him? Or will he go to an American League team where he can DH?
Will he stay around long enough to hit 800 home runs? I would say that would depend on next season, if he stays around, and where he is. If he has a decent season next year and gets within close striking distance, I would say just like Barry, he’ll stick around just to reach 800 home runs.
I just really hope Alex Rodriguez continues to stay healthy and in the hunt so that Barry doesn’t own this record for more than ten years. He is hardly the humble, grateful player you want to own the record or nearly as stand up of a guy as Hank Aaron.
Rodriguez is no Aaron either, but he’s a lot better than Barry, and not a bad guy.
No NOS Pengo sideart exists
This week I saw someone post about wanting some NOS Sega Pengo sideart, so I got motivated to do some vectorization of the sideart of one of my favorite games.
Last night I got through 80% of the Pengo sideart. I had taken the photos, pieced them together in Photoshop and used the pieces that were already done like the Pengo lettering and Pengo himself to start my Illustrator file.
I got through everything but the sno bees on the right. Today I was having major issues trying to get a good image of the smaller sno-bees to trace. I had taken some photos close up of the sticker and I even was able to figure out my scanner with the laptop and scan the two snow bees. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get as exact of detail as I wanted. So, I used what I had and traced sitting right next to the Pengo cabinet so I could memorize the shape and then trace it as best as I could with what I had.
Like I mentioned previously, this Pengo sideart isn’t color matched, it doesn’t have the halftone pattern, but it is a good start to work with if I ever want to have this reproduced.
~ Update May 22, 2008: Well, I ended up eating my words. A set of new, unapplied, NOS Sega Pengo sideart surfaced. I didn’t have to wait that long, and I was lucky enough to get it.
Ms. Pac-man Stencil Separations
I bought my Ms. Pac-man last October, and even when I bought it I knew that someday I wanted to either redo the sideart or get a cabinet that had more pink in the sideart.
I have thought about checking around for how much stencils would be, but hadn’t gotten around to it. I have monitored buying another Ms. Pac-man machine and switching cabs, but a deal hasn’t fallen in my lap yet, and Saturday I took the time to email a prominent collector who also does repro art and is well known for his quality stencils about making up a set.
He said he didn’t have the artwork for Ms. Pac-man separated. There is a vector set on localarcade.com, but it needs another set of processing to be ready to produce stencils.
Brian Jones (Prok) said he would work with me if I could get the separations done. I don’t know any printers that I feel like I could go to and have the stencils done for some sort of barter, so I have decided to start on it myself.
Brian has given me some basic instructions and I have an understanding of what he needs. He needs each color in different layers in Illustrator in the order that the color would be laid down on the cab. In the Ms. Pac-man case for stencils, it would be the base blue color, then the yellow, then the pink and finally the black.
Since I have not done this before, I am relying on my sense of 3d and general graphic experience to visualize how the paint would need to be laid out and in which order. I did a sample piece of the artwork, and Brian said I had the right idea so hopefully I can crank through and get it done.
We are still talking about how much it would it would cost to make them. I need to keep it cost effective just in case of a bad situation where I have to sell the game, I can’t get too much into it for that reason.
Nokes first full day home alone!
Today both Sarah and I had to be gone all day, me for work and her for preparing for yet another year at school.
Nokes stayed home all day today, over 8 hours, by himself without an issue. He did have to poop quite a bit, which was weird, like four times. But we are very excited about this next step for him.
I personally still hope we can leave him in the house alone within six months, but who knows….
