Controls overlays / move lists in MAME

[vaderag]

Is there a 'simple' way to move lists or control overlays in MAME?

Was playing SFII the other day and one of my mates mentioned it, and thinking it would be super useful!

Thanks

[ItchyRobot]

The easiest way for a moves list would probably be to replace all the crappy manuals that come with the MAME import with pdf Move Lists. That way you can use a Pause Theme that has a quick link to your manuals. I eentually plan on adding that to my solution below.

I am building my own personal controller layout that I can bring up when pressing pause (using the "Game Controls" Pause theme). Here is an example of my Mortal Kombat II controls...
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WozzcdtKwZtVAJih6_PZDULQ33u3LMuY

I am using this Pause Theme ... he has a full screen version too.

 

 

[ItchyRobot]

Here is an example of me using a BigBox pause theme to bring up an image showing the layout of my Arcade controls (custom) and Gamepad controls (Xbox). From the pause screen I can select "View Manual" to bring up a PDF I created showing all the characters moves. Notice that both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat each have their own custom controller layout images. I am slowly starting the process of creating all the control layouts and move lists/guides for my favorite games. For Visual Pinball X (desktop mode) I use the "View Manuals" selection to show the instruction cards.

BigBox Pause Theme: "Game Controls (Beta) 1.0.0b", by Retro808.

BigBox Theme: "Colorful (BETA)", by viking.

 

Edited March 12, 2020 by ItchyRobot

[GamingDoyle]

On 3/12/2020 at 6:26 PM, ItchyRobot said:

Here is an example of me using a BigBox pause theme to bring up an image showing the layout of my Arcade controls (custom) and Gamepad controls (Xbox). From the pause screen I can select "View Manual" to bring up a PDF I created showing all the characters moves. Notice that both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat each have their own custom controller layout images. I am slowly starting the process of creating all the control layouts and move lists/guides for my favorite games. For Visual Pinball X (desktop mode) I use the "View Manuals" selection to show the instruction cards.

BigBox Pause Theme: "Game Controls (Beta) 1.0.0b", by Retro808.

BigBox Theme: "Colorful (BETA)", by viking.

 

This is pretty much what I'm looking to do, thanks.  Have you looked into using CPWizard or CPWizBiz to generate control layouts?  I'm not looking forward to the idea of creating the images by hand so I'm hopeful I can use these tools but I haven't tried them yet

[ItchyRobot]

3 hours ago, GamingDoyle said:

This is pretty much what I'm looking to do, thanks.  Have you looked into using CPWizard or CPWizBiz to generate control layouts?  I'm not looking forward to the idea of creating the images by hand so I'm hopeful I can use these tools but I haven't tried them yet

No, though I have seen old posts about it from time to time. I figured it had been abandoned. Let me know if you figure it out.

[JoeViking245]

"Abandoned", but fully functional.

I've used CPWizard to generate controller layouts and it works great.  The program is "updated" with the data you supply it.  It gets a list of the MAME machines from your mame64.exe.  Then just supply it the updated .dat and .ini files found in the ../CPWizard/Data folder.  The ReadMe.txt file in the root folder shows where you can get these.

It's nice because you can customize the look of the panel to match your own. Here's one of CPW's outputs.The button labels probably could have been adjusted a little further apart, but not many games have that much writing, so I left them there. 

If a particular game doesn't use all the controls, it will make them transparent.