Nichibutsu - Moon Alien Project

[Jon-A-Tron]

Thanks for the tips guys. I will definitely try out that for the black outline.
I did sort of understand the idea of separating out all the parts into separate layers for the side art i did. Each of the aliens, text and fireball are on individual layers i can move about.
Only got 1 day left on the free trial and it's a bit pricy after that.

I need to rescan the marquee. There are lots of details i can see that havent show in the low quatity scan above.

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

This arrived today. £2 from ebay.

I know this is online but the quality wasn't very clear so not good for fault finding using the diagrams.

This is really clear and very good condition. Really happy with the picture of the upright as the monitor picture looks exactly like the monitor in my cabinet, so confirms it's the original monitor.

Another useful page is the scores/how to play page. I can use the pictures at the bottom to add a nice instructions card to the Control Panel overlay. That's the image that I think I will have the biggest problem with as there is no image anywhere for it. I will most likely have to make something original for that. The picture does confirm the position of the 1-2player buttons, Joystick and Laser button.

JT

 

[pezley]

This arrived today. £2 from ebay.

I know this is online but the quality wasn't very clear so not good for fault finding using the diagrams.

This is really clear and very good condition. Really happy with the picture of the upright as the monitor picture looks exactly like the monitor in my cabinet, so confirms it's the original monitor.

Another useful page is the scores/how to play page. I can use the pictures at the bottom to add a nice instructions card to the Control Panel overlay. That's the image that I think I will have the biggest problem with as there is no image anywhere for it. I will most likely have to make something original for that. The picture does confirm the position of the 1-2player buttons, Joystick and Laser button.

JT

Thats great !

how did you get on with the Marquee ?

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

I actually missed my last day of free PS so haven't done anymore yet. I'm looking at a way to get an older free version and trying that out.

Do you need me to send you the file so you can see what you can do with it? Like I said before, it's not very good quality and i'm looking to get a hand scanner with a better DPI.

 

[pezley]

Sure if you want a hand. The grey clouding on the right side, were you able to remove that or is that damaged print ?

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

No, that is damaged print on the back. It looks a lot worse in the picture than in actual. There is details that I can see that haven't transferred on to the low dpi scan. Which is why I could make some guesses as to what the 2 badly blown out aliens on the right look like.

pm me your email and I'll send it across. I did find PS very rewarding and calming...I can understand why people like restoring old pictures and stuff.

 

[R64]

Thanks for the message Jon - this is really exciting stuff, as I have the same cab, no marquee but with the bezel.
We’ve been working on the same project, though I had given up for now due to lack of progress.
My cab is at the back of the storage unit...

I’ll get to my laptop and share what I have, and we can bring these things back to life

 

[R64]

So mine is also in a sorry state.

My pics are a bit crap also, so apologies for that.

Here's what I can tell you / my theories:

1. The right hand side of the control panel is definitely the cocktail instruction card.

No idea what the other art is, but it's some kind of space age control panel!

2. the side panels on mine are also woodgrain like yours. This leads me to believe that they didn't actually release it with the side art. because:
a. The only two of these cabinets known in existence (I'm stretching here, fishing for others..!) have woodgrain sides;
b. This flyer also shows a woodgrain side release of Rolling Crash (link, and below)
http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=3508&image=9
c. Nichibutsu seem to be liberally bending the truth with the old glue stick on this page. The Moon Cresta has the Moon Alien art on it. An look at those "big screen' monstrosities. It could just mean that they only photo'd the prototype.

This does not stop me wanting the side art though!

The colour scheme for the side art will probably match that of the marquee and bezel, so we're talking simple colours, minimal shading, bold lines, fluorescent colours.

I have the above "Frontier Spirit of Amusement" flyer, and took a 1200dpi scan of it. After a certain resolution there's not much there, still this is what it looks like warped to size.

This art is very similar to the cocktail art, e.g.

So I think all the clues are there to assemble an accurate composite image to vector up. (I don't think a photoshop version will cut it, let's do it in illustrator)
I think your marquee is the missing link to get those clouds and the correct colours!
-

 

[R64]

Also - I just noticed that the buttons on the cocktail picture there match the buttons on the picture of the upright control panel:
- fire button has a high tubular white collar
- P1 and P2 start buttons are square, which I think Nichibutsu loved using also. All those Mahjong spares I suppose.

I haven't seen those buttons as spares anywhere in my search for other Nichibutsu parts. Maybe another look through Akihabara in Tokyo might yield one or two..!

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

This is fantastic info! I'm at work right noe but i'll have a good look later.

I have a lead on someone who worked for Nichibutsu UK in the early 80s. The side art question is going to be one of my main questions. Unfortunately i think you are right about it being wood laminate. I'm also going to do the full side art though. It looks much better.

 

[CharlieFar]

Looks more Galaxian than Galaga to me.

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

Looks more Galaxian than Galaga to me.

You are absolutely right, definitely a Galaxian clone now that I've properly watched some gameplay side by side.

@R64 - Your cab looks in a lot better state than mine. You have a control panel and coin door as well as the bezel. All of which are missing from my cab. The coin door looks to be specific to these Nichibutsu cabs too but i'm keeping an eye out for a similar one.

The clouds on the marque are the same colour as the clouds on the bezel. The clouds on the side art look a lighter shade of blue. I guessed it in my photoshop mock-up.

I'm with you on the need for the art to be vectorised in Illustrator. I don't have the skills to use (or the funds to buy that program come to think about it..) so I'm going to keep working with a free version of Ps to get the mock-up looking right. Once we have something that we think looks right then I may need to get someone, who knows what they are doing, to do it properly.

The Alien on the cocktail looks like the right Alien for the side art but the side art one always looks 'fatter' to me. Maybe its just the angle of the flyer art that is distorting it.

The control panel looks like a control deck of a space ship of some sorts. The left image looks like map or globe. Middle looks like a camera view from a hanger or something, very Star Wars like. The right side, no clue. The far right side is, like you said, the cocktail instruction card so at least that's a starting point.

I'm sure I've seen a panel that is similar somewhere before. Cant find it now though. The search continues.

JT

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

Here's the Rolling Crash CP for comparison.

Buttons and placements are the same.

JT

 

[R64]

I have a lead on someone who worked for Nichibutsu UK in the early 80s. The side art question is going to be one of my main questions. Unfortunately i think you are right about it being wood laminate. I'm also going to do the full side art though. It looks much better.

Yep I agree - we need the side art.

I have so many Nichibutsu questions and you have lead? (!)

The bezel is out of storage and scanned, just gotta stitch it together. The fluorescent colours come out very faded in the scanner. There’s some fading from sunlight exposure also.

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

Found Nichibutsu UK site and have details of 2 people who worked there in the early 80's.

Link

Only just setup a linked in account a few weeks ago so need to build up links/contacts to send a message.

 

[R64]

Some pics of the fading, and a bit of wear and/or cigarette burn in a long line on the base.

Note that it’s brighter where it was behind the panel. I’m optimistic we can reproduce the damaged part of the marquee using the bezel graphics, as they’re very similar. I have a Pantone colour swatch to get the colours matched, but not sure how we will do the fluro colours. Possibly will need to reverse laminate the primary colours and black, cnc trim and manually paint the fluro.

I can vectorise the graphics given enough time (cue heartwarming sob story about having 2 adorable kids under 4) but I’m working on some delorean mods to fix that situation.

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

Don't know if the print can be set for just the fluro colours. If so, then could print the standard colours first the run the fluro after. Don't know if this is how it works. Manually painting would be a lot of work to get right.

Do you have a picture of the whole bezel? Would like to know which section of I have..

 

[pezley]

What is wrong with photoshop that wouldnt cut it ?

pezley2017-10-31 08:37:30

 

[Jon-A-Tron]

Dont think there is anything wrong with photoshop when you have the actual art scanned and sized correctly. If we were to create the side art from the flyer then it would have to be scaled up considerably. Vectoring would be better i think. Not an expert by any means so would be up for input by anyone who has more knowledge on this.

 

[pezley]

Dont think there is anything wrong with photoshop when you have the actual art scanned and sized correctly. If we were to create the side art from the flyer then it would have to be scaled up considerably. Vectoring would be better i think. Not an expert by any means so would be up for input by anyone who has more knowledge on this.

Vectors are brilliant to create something small that you may want to blow up to the size of a house but for arcade sized projects you just start with a large enough canvas with enough DPI for decent scaling in the first place and you are fine.

Best case example for vectoring is something like a font. You may want it tiny or you may want it 100feet tall but it's a basic shape that is capable of scaling and no matter how much you scale it never loses quality. Basic shapes, colours and patterns are great for this. If you used standard pixel art for this, once it's stretched so much you start to lose quality, a vector wouldnt.

I think the term of vectoring has become synonymous with creating high quality graphics. You can't simply scan and vector something and expect it to just scale as much as you want.

Just think, if you could take a photo and simply vector it, we would never have the need to increase the megapixels in camera sensors

All that aside, this moon alien artwork could be vectorised so you could blow it up to the size of a space ship but the job would be A)much easier in PS and B) if the canvas is created at cabinet size (or larger) in the first place the end result would be perfect.