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Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
#372025 - 12/18/17 10:52 PM Attachment: vertical3.png 20 KB (16 downloads)
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I'm still searching for a decent 'mask' to make the image on panels and PC CRT's look more arcade-like so decided to look closer at the images from a monitor running an arcade board. I took photo's of Mr Do's Wild Ride on both my Philips CM8833 monitor (not a true arcade monitor, I know, because I don't have one) and a panel. See images. I then experimented to get close to the CM8833.
Standing a little back, it is clear that the arcade-look is due to the darker horizontal lines and it is this feature I'm trying to replicate.
I tried file 'vertical1' first which SHOULD be close and looks quite good but is more grid-like in appearance. I then tried a second file 'vertical3' which is now my preferred choice and looks good on both panels and CRT's (in both vertical and horizontal games).
Neither are *perfect* but give a more reasonable feel (in my view) to that of an actual arcade monitor. Feel free to experiment further (as I will do). The .png files need to go into artwork file of your MAME directory. Then select it using the Advanced tab of MAME UI.
[ATTACHED IMAGE]
Edited by JonBoyRetro (12/18/17 10:53 PM)
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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This is the other file(s)
[ATTACHED IMAGE]
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: JonBoyRetro]
#372093 - 12/21/17 01:29 AM
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What settings are you using? It looks like your shadow mask dots might not be dense enough.
Your 'vertical3' is an aperture grille mask. I don't know of any arcade games that used aperture grille masks, though they are retrofitted. The reason for this rarity is due to Sony having a patent on the technology. TVs and monitors with aperture grilles were sold under the Trinitron brand.
Your 'vertical1' mask is the same as MAME's slot mask downsampled by 2 with linear interpolation. I actually use this mask instead of MAME's stock slot mask image because right now downsampling shadow mask artwork in-MAME aliases (and I'm not sure why because it should do linear interpolation as well). Slot mask is the most common mask for arcade monitors and televisions.
Monochrome games don't have masks at all.
The mask is just one out of many effects that contribute to why CRTs look the way you do, but the effect of the mask is actually not very critical compared to other effects. This is because the dots are so small while the screen is so bright. Getting an accurate effect requires maximum shadow mask alpha (1.0) with a very bright monitor (minimum 240 cd/m^2).
The black lines that you are speaking of are scanlines, a totally different phenomenon which are caused by a CRT drawing ~240 visible lines instead of ~480 for broadcast television. I honestly don't know why the lower resolution is so ubiquitous. So half of the lines are drawn, but the beam of the CRT remains the same size. Thus, there are black lines visible between each line in the raster. Arcade monitors were often adjusted so that the beam would be a bit blurrier. This made the beam bigger and the scanlines less visible. If you compare an arcade monitor with a CRT television hooked up to an old console like an NES you will find the TV to have much more visible scanlines.
Interlaced sources have 'scanlines' visible as well, but they only flash for a brief moment. This creates a flickering effect which has become associated with interlacing.
So in brief, your current artwork doesn't have any scanlines at all.
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: anikom15]
#372127 - 12/21/17 04:05 PM
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I understand about the (no) scanlines effect very well. Agreed it is just a monitor display solution to get around different resolutions by missing out lines. I thought we all knew this so didn't elaborate. You need to look at the actual game .jpg files I have supplied. I have many more shots but a pain to stick them on this forum (only one at a time per post). My goal was to compare actual arcade shots against MAME masks and to replicate the effect as closely as possible via experimentation.
I understand that different monitors have different ways of displaying things so different masks will have different effects. I don't have access to loads of monitors, sadly, so can only tell you the effects using mine. Essentially, I have rotated the slot_mask by 90 degrees and removed the darker intersection lines. Comparing my actual arcade shots against a MAME setup (on CRT or panel) IMHO it looks better (not perfect, better) and certainly way better than using no mask at all. That just looks plain wrong.
People can choose to use these or not - it's not a problem to me. However, I'm much happier with my set up that vertical3 more closely resembles an actual arcade monitor running the original h/w on both CRT's and panels under MAME. So give it a try and use it or not dependent on the effect you desire.
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: JonBoyRetro]
#372154 - 12/22/17 02:06 AM
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You didn’t read my fucking post, did you?
Your mask is totally wrong. It might look okay to you but those masks don’t exist in real life and the dot density is also incorrect.
If you posted your settings like I asked, then I could actually help you.
Don’t act like a fucking know-it-all when you clearly have no idea what the hell you’re doing.
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: anikom15]
#372158 - 12/22/17 03:37 AM
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> You didn’t read my fucking post, did you?
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> Your mask is totally wrong. It might look okay to you but those masks don’t exist in
> real life and the dot density is also incorrect.
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> If you posted your settings like I asked, then I could actually help you.
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> Don’t act like a fucking know-it-all when you clearly have no idea what the hell
> you’re doing.
That is not being the person Mr. Rogers knew you could be. It is not following the Dale Carnegie principles.
Not to say that the person you're responding to didn't have a clearly condescending attitude, but one of the hard-won lessons I've learned over the years is that going at people with that approach will just sow more drama.
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#372169 - 12/22/17 05:49 AM
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Alas, it’s always the condescension that gets to me.
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: anikom15]
#372230 - 12/23/17 03:26 PM
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No condescension intended or implied. Those of us posting on here do, generally, know a fair bit of stuff and I'm sure most know that 'scanlines' really means 'lack of scanlines'.
It was just my little attempt to help the lives of others trying to replicate that arcade look.
It may look 'wrong' to you but and go against all of your principles BUT it looks right under emulation. Surely that is the whole point? Right now, I am looking at an actual arcade PCB and the same game under MAME and it is close (not perfect, as I said). Certainly better than other masks I've used.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I did say if it works for you, fine, and if not, that was fine also.
It's people like you that stop us ordinary folk from posting and I think your comments were completely unnecessary.
I'm a pretty decent chap and would go out of my way to help others. It's people like you that destroy my faith in human nature.
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God, I miss those dark, musty arcades ....
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines
[Re: JonBoyRetro]
#372231 - 12/23/17 03:49 PM
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> It's people like you that stop us ordinary folk from posting and I think your
> comments were completely unnecessary.
>
> I'm a pretty decent chap and would go out of my way to help others. It's people like
> you that destroy my faith in human nature.
For what it's worth, I acknowledge the usefulness of what you posted. As the person who wrote the HLSL (and subsequently BGFX-based) backends for MAME, I can absolutely appreciate that what looks good, and gives a nice nostalgic feel, is rarely ever 100% accurate to real life. And I rather designed the system with that in mind, so I disagree with anikom coming down on you like a ton of bricks.
Having said that, I'd like to ask for some understanding on anikom's behalf. Only 5-10 years ago, I most likely would have been That Person, coming down on you with full force for simply wanting to have a result that looks good. I don't know how old anikom is, but it's clear that they share a passion for preserving digital history, and it may simply be that age has not yet tempered his or her internal fire yet.
I think we live in a world where both perceptually-pleasant and accurate emulation can coexist. It would warm my heart for both of you to abandon any hard feelings and instead share in the holiday feeling of bonhommie. Let's join hands and move into the retro-preserving future together.
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Hi all my first post!!! I am getting some excellent results enabling HLSL via the mame.ini file. If you haven't already done so, edit the mame.ini file to enable the hlsl features ( you will need DirectX 9c - regardless if your using DX11 or 12 - you must install DX9c ) Scroll down to this in mame.ini:
# DIRECT3D POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
hlslpath hlsl
hlsl_enable 1 <---- 1 is enabled, 0 is off
hlsl_oversampling 1
hlsl_write
hlsl_snap_width 1440
hlsl_snap_height 1080
shadow_mask_tile_mode 0
shadow_mask_alpha 0.1
shadow_mask_texture shadow_mask.png
shadow_mask_x_count 12
shadow_mask_y_count 12
shadow_mask_usize 0.5
shadow_mask_vsize 0.5
shadow_mask_uoffset 0.0
shadow_mask_voffset 0.0
distortion 0.0
cubic_distortion 0.10
distort_corner 0.10
round_corner 0.05
smooth_border 0.03
reflection 0.0
vignetting 0.0
scanline_alpha 0.5
scanline_size 1.0
scanline_height 1.0
scanline_variation 1.0
scanline_bright_scale 1.0
scanline_bright_offset 0.2
scanline_jitter 0.0
hum_bar_alpha 0.0
defocus 1.0,1.0
converge_x 0.0,0.0,0.0
converge_y 0.0,0.0,0.0
radial_converge_x 0.0,0.0,0.0
radial_converge_y 0.0,0.0,0.0
red_ratio 1.0,0.0,0.0
grn_ratio 0.0,1.0,0.0
blu_ratio 0.0,0.0,1.0
saturation 0.9
offset 0.0,0.0,0.0
scale 1.0,1.0,1.0
power 1.0,1.0,0.95
floor 0.0,0.0,0.0
phosphor_life 0.0,0.0,0.0
----
The snape width and height is what I am using with corresponding artwork over lays I made:
hlsl_snap_width 1440
hlsl_snap_height 1080
I am using these mask counts, some say the y count set at 6 is better for them, but for me its 12 both ways:
shadow_mask_x_count 12
shadow_mask_y_count 12
Now for cubic distortions and corners, I am using these settings to give the scan lines a slightly curved looked at the corners to look as if the display is wrapping around the curvature of a CRT as they are not perfectly flat screens.
cubic_distortion 0.10
distort_corner 0.10
round_corner 0.05
smooth_border 0.03
After HLSL is enabled, then you can play with the scan line attributes:
scanline_alpha 0.5
scanline_size 1.0
scanline_height 1.0
scanline_variation 1.0
scanline_bright_scale 1.0
scanline_bright_offset 0.2
scanline_jitter 0.0
hum_bar_alpha 0.0
With HLSL enabled you will get a lot of new machine settings. Otherwise if its disabled, you will not see the new settings and not be able to adjust scan lines and other cool features that will allow you to tweak your in game display setup. (slider controls is where you will find all the scan line adjustments) I prefer to use custom artwork and overlays so I can have a true ratio of the original display, see attached.
These scan lines are almost perfect for me...
Questions?
[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines (file4)
[Re: SteelTigers]
#372258 - 12/24/17 03:16 AM
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Have you tried using slot-mask.png for shadow mask?
I've made some changes (not on official build yet) to HLSL and one of the things I changed was the order of when scanlines are applied. I set scanlines so that they are applied after defocus instead of before. The result is that you can set scanline alpha to 1.0 and blend the scanlines into each other by increasing defocus. From my understanding this should be a more accurate simulation, and I think it looks better too.
Unfortunately, HLSL doesn't have any general perspective transformations for the screens. This doesn't bother me, but I'm sure there are people out there who want the bezel to be like it is on the right in this photograph:
Realistically, however, we'd really want transforms to apply to the artwork because players orient themselves so that they are facing the screen directly. As I've ranted before, photographs can be very deceiving when it comes to simulating the screens.
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines (file4)
[Re: anikom15]
#372261 - 12/24/17 04:03 AM Attachment: hlsl-dk.jpg 443 KB (2 downloads)
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Hey Ani, how's it going? I am using slot-mask.png and recommend the OP does too.
# BGFX POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
bgfx_path bgfx
bgfx_backend auto
bgfx_debug 0
bgfx_screen_chains default
bgfx_shadow_mask slot-mask.png
bgfx_avi_name bgfx.avi
Indeed, I am using a bezel design that replicates the coin-op as well, a virtual bezel for DK. I couldn't be happier with the results. Here is a screen shot of the current config.
[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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Stiletto |
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They're always after me Lucky ROMS!
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Reged: 03/07/04
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines (file4)
[Re: SteelTigers]
#372262 - 12/24/17 04:22 AM
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> Indeed, I am using a bezel design that replicates the coin-op as well, a virtual
> bezel for DK. I couldn't be happier with the results.
Wow, that's really impressive.
- Stiletto
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines (file4)
[Re: Stiletto]
#372265 - 12/24/17 05:08 AM Attachment: dkong.zip 8739 KB (14 downloads)
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>Wow, that's really impressive.
Thank you. Please find attached the artwork, which includes 4 different views. Enjoy...
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| John IV |
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IV/Play, MAME, MAMEUI
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Reged: 09/22/03
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Posts: 1969
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Loc: Washington, USA
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Re: Another attempt to get that authentic arcade-look using scanlines (file4)
[Re: anikom15]
#372314 - 12/24/17 10:33 PM
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Anikom, interested in your updates, perhaps consider using the hlsl presets for some of your new featured changes. I don't think they've been utilized since Ryan did his last round of work a few years back; might be an easy way to get folks to see it vs. raster.ini for example.
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john iv
http://www.mameui.info/
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