Duimon's Vector Cartridge Templates

[ABeezy13]

I lack in the transparent area too, and can't really say I can offer much advice sadly lol :(. I do know the PCB takes up most of the "background", here is another image, you can see the cart is transparent but to eliminate background showing through it would be a PCB.

 

 

 

So making the clear cart in illustrator with all the fancy vectors like you did for the OG cart (somehow learning transparency magic) and then using something like this for a layer behind it:

 

[Duimon]

On 3/9/2021 at 8:08 PM, ABeezy13 said:

with so many different shapes and objects in the AI file?

I was just finishing up work on my Neo Geo AES and looking at my source.

If you want to see some crazy source, take a look at the DOSBox graphic in my HSM Graphics source repo.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Duimon

[Duimon]

On 3/11/2021 at 8:13 PM, ABeezy13 said:

So making the clear cart in illustrator with all the fancy vectors like you did for the OG cart (somehow learning transparency magic) and then using something like this for a layer behind it:

Yeah, the real trick, (As you may know.) is to add just enough detail to get the human mind to fill in the gaps, so I wouldn't actually have to create a very detailed PCB.

One advantage i may have is that the cart is textured, so there is actually something to show, even when there is nothing.

Thanks for the nice shots! I think I feel a plan taking shape.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Duimon

[ABeezy13]

On 3/11/2021 at 11:42 PM, Duimon said:

Yeah, the real trick, (As you may know.) is to add just enough detail to get the human mind to fill in the gaps, so I wouldn't actually have to create a very detailed PCB.

One advantage i may have is that the cart is textured, so there is actually something to show, even when there is nothing.

Thanks for the nice shots! I think I feel a plan taking shape.?

Excited to see what you come up with. You've been doing an awesome job thus far!!!!!!

[Duimon]

Here's a WIP on the GBC Cart PCB.

It's already more detailed than I think it needs to be but I am having fun! Also, Since I still have no clear idea how I am doing the shell, I may need it to be more visible.

I am designing the final cartridge to be exactly the same size as my Game Boy cart, so it should work with the SGB template.

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Duimon

[Duimon]

Power!

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Duimon

[ABeezy13]

Danngggggg. Nice job so far, that looks sweet!

[Duimon]

This is about as much work as I will do on the PCB. It is way past more detailed than it needs to be. I could do more trace but 100% of the remaining trace will be covered by the sticker on the cart so it would really be a waste of time.

I have been posting some of my work on Deviant Art, but I think this is complete enough for that as well.

I seriously enjoyed doing this so thanks @ABeezy13 for giving me something to test my skills.

Now we'll see how well I fair with the cart shell. (I just did the two solders on the battery. It felt wrong without them.)

 

BTW... random globs of solder are weird to do in vector.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Duimon

[Duimon]

Here's a real quick and dirty test to see how transparency is going to work.

Without a background...

...and with a background.

Turns out that as long as I have two or more layers, the blending modes seem to export with transparency intact.?

This is going to be FAR easier than I thought.?

Edited March 17, 2021 by Duimon

[ABeezy13]

Looks superb so far! Outstanding work

[Duimon]

On 3/17/2021 at 2:25 PM, ABeezy13 said:

Looks superb so far! Outstanding work

Thank you, and not to worry, the shell in this quick and dirty bears little resemblance to what the finished graphic will look like.

I also have in mind to do some testing on exactly how Illustrator uses external PSDs as texture templates. I may be able to use some VERY custom textures depending on the results of my tests. I may even learn a thing or two along the way.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Duimon

[Duimon]

OK. I think this is as good as it's going to get.

This was pretty crazy. I originally planned on the graphic actually being transparent. While possible in theory, in practice it won't work. The reason will be obvious to you artists out there... additive color.

In the real world what we see is subtractive color, white is the absence of color and black is all colors combined. On a backlit screen it is the opposite, white is all colors combined. Having a transparent appearing graphic that was actually transparent makes the object appear to be backlit, which does not look real. Especially when compositing. The difference in color are always a consideration in my projects.

For example, if you lay a black sheet of paper on a table and then a slightly more gray one on top of it, they appear pretty much the same. On the computer screen, when you place a 5% gray object on top of a 100% black background, the gray object looks almost white.☹️

Any way, aside from this creating a habit of my wanting, in general,  to work above the 20% gray-scale level... here is the most recent WIP.

It looks pretty good.

I had to compare way too many shots of carts to come up with a clear picture of what this thing actually looks like. (It's hard to take a good photo of a transparent object.)

To help everyone combat the side effects of additive color, and to give you more freedom, I have exported this as several layers and combined them in my template. We have front, PCB, and back layers. The front and back each have HSV adjustment layers, and the front has an additional Levels adjustment layer. They are all at defaults so initially have no effect.

The front Levels adjustment will allow you to change the value offset of the cart so it looks more natural on various backgrounds, the HSV will let you change the color of the cart. The back HSV will let you fake transparency by adjusting the color to mimic various solid color backgrounds.

Here is a sample of what this looks like used as source in my SGB PAL template...

...and here is a shot from the US SGB. Here I used the front Levels adjustment to lighten up the cart and an exaggerated HSV on the back to show some purple, just to illustrate the potential.

As you can see, the default color of the cart looks pretty dark when used against a light background. It looks best on a 50% gray background, and acceptable on a black, I had to make a choice. The adjustment layers add a lot of freedom.

I can already see at least one problem caused by Illustrator's weird multiply export bug. It should be easy to fix.

This is easily one of the more difficult projects I have done. (Also one of the most fun.)

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Duimon

[ABeezy13]

Man that looks wicked so far! You are doing a really good job on everything you've done so far!

[Duimon]

Here is a shot of the final graphic on a 50% gray background. I had to make a couple changes due to the weird way Illustrator exports multiply and screen blending modes over transparency.☹️

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Duimon

[ABeezy13]

That looks, really, really good!!!! Amazed with your talents. Can't wait to download this one and play around with some carts!

[Duimon]

Thanks. I'm really pleased with the result, especially since I had no clue how I was going to pull this one off. ?Thanks again for the challenge, it's the best way to learn.

I did some testing with the back layer HSV and fake transparency, I didn't behave exactly like I'd hoped, so I moved some things around and changed the back HSV layer blending mode to multiply. Here's an example with a green background.

It takes a little playing around with the "Lightness" slider to turn the white background into something that shows when in multiply mode, along with the Hue and Saturation. I will include a readme with some details.

Of course this will only work well with a plain color background. Most of the time I think the front layer adjustments will be enough. I'll leave that decision to the user.?

I'll get this up in the repo tomorrow.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Duimon

[zetec-s-joe]

Looks amazing, well done

[ABeezy13]

Legit!!!! Cant wait to see it on the repo!

 

If you're taking more requests how about Nintendo Switch carts and Nintendo DS carts? ?

[Duimon]

Always taking requests!? I'll move them to the top of the list. Really it just makes them happen sooner than later... since I plan on doing every cart ever made.

I am dividing my time between this and my HSM shader graphics project, I am currently working on the Neo Geo handhelds. Here is a WIP of the Neo Geo Pocket.

 

I am near finished and the Color will soon follow, since they are almost identical.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Duimon

[Duimon]

The Game Boy Color is in the repo.

 

Edited March 12 by Duimon
smily