28 replies to this topic

[CaptainNeo]

AC DC Pro Playfield scan



Version: 1.0.0
Category: Playfields

Author(s): DedRok_V, plumb, captain neo

Description:
Scan of an NOS Ac Dc pro playfield
scans a little blurry, but not bad. Little stitching problem in the bottom right corner. Working on an LE scan as well.

View File

Submitted by CaptainNeo, on Jul 10 2012, 11:03 PM

[oldskoolgamer]

Wow my hat is off to you sir. You are a great assist to this community man. Thank you for all these PF scans!!

[Dazz]

These scans are some top notch scans! Too bad we can't re-create several of these for a few more years....

[destruk]

Even if the stitch together job is noticeably 'off' by a bit on the right, it's still better than what we had. I think paying the 40 for a single scan cruse job at 300dpi would still be worth it - do a few playfields per month, and keep them coming, so they don't have to be re-done over and over again later.

Edited by destruk, 11 July 2012 - 08:12 AM.

[CaptainNeo]

you kidding me? $40 per playfeild, and come in contact with around 10 new playfields a month. that's $400 a month at least just paying someone for playfield scans. When Plumb and I can scan them in ourselves and stitch together for free. It's more time consuming that way, but beats shelling out $400 a month, and the results are pretty much the same. (except this scan, which has that piece together glitch). but we are working on upgrading this one in time. Just wanted to get it to you for now. You guys can make the table and make your own roms for it for now. I've played this game a ton, so if you want to know about rules, I can help. Plus bowen has an awesome tutorial on the entire game.

Btw, did put in the description about the stitching problem in the bottom corner. i think it has something to do with the slight blurriness of the scans. This was done with a scanner that wasn't ment for large flat surface scanning. Dedrok supplied us with the scans for this one, and Plumb did the stitching.

Edited by CaptainNeo, 11 July 2012 - 07:14 PM.

[destruk]

I suppose it would be more accurate to say that you have the real playfield - why not take the time to make it perfect instead of settling for second best? Is it because you can't justify spending $40 for a game? Wouldn't you want that scan to be perfect for VP, for CPR, for other game restorers, for pinball editors in the future, or is this just 'good enough' for the amount of effort you're willing to invest in it?

If it's truly about the money - maybe it'd be better to only scan playfields that people can use right now - like if you were to post a list of what playfields you have this month, and then someone else can give you the $40 to have one they need professionally scanned and put on DVD at high resolution to mail out.

[CaptainNeo]

well for VP, I have to reduce it down by over half anyway, because VP can't handle a full playfield scan. I think the scans we've done already are near perfect scans, and wouldn't know much difference from a one pass scanner. Besides, clearcoat and glare effect one pass scanners a lot of times. For my line of work, the scans we do at 150 dpi far exceed what I need them for. I don't work for CPR, so I don't care if I have scans they can use. Besides, they won't share scans with me or do trades anyway, i've asked them, they wern't interested. Wanted to charge me for their scans. I just use the scans for art reference or rare cases, water slides for perfect text. that's exactly what they do. CPR needs them color split into 4 color screen process and revectored anyway. Wouldn't really be useful for them as is, or would need a ton of work, unless they were doing it themselves and could scan in colors seperately.

[destruk]

Maybe then, a single photo of the playfield would be sufficient - at least to include a smaller non-stitched image of the playfield at 2048x4096 res. That would be all most people need to use for a playfield image in VP.

[rob046]

Yes if money is ever the main issue that might prevent you from doing some scans, please let the community know & I'm sure (depending on the PF's in question) that some ppl might help out. I do think there are some users who want to contribute to the community but don't know how to do any table work. This could be a way for them to help, & in general pinheads are pretty good with donating time or money to a worthy cause (such as yourself). Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but if it does I'm sure we would all hate to see you come in contact with all these great stripped PF's & then they leave you hands without getting scanned. It is just so rare that we have members with the resources (PF's) to do something like this.
But it sounds like you do have an alternate use for the scans anyhow, for art & touch-up purposes. A win/win indeed!

Do you think CPR has a Cruise scanner? If they do & are unwilling to share scans to do scans for others, then that really sucks. I understand they are worried that others will take their art & reproduce it themselves, but in VP we don't need full size scans. We can take something along the lines of 2048x1024. Bigger is always better, but a scan that size is certainly still better than any pics.

[CaptainNeo]

that's the thing. I have the resources and equipment to scan it in myself. Every playfield I get through my doors is already scanned in. Has been for years. Plumb is in the process of stitiching all those playfields together. It can be time consuming, because I didn't overlap as much as I should have in the early years. He can do it, just takes longer. You could use one full picture of a playfield. Pictures are hard to keep everything in focus and get a straight on shot, without flash glare. Scanning is a perfect recreation and highest quality. Why ask people for money for one piece scans, when we can do it for free, and bring them to you guys? Look at the quality of our paragon, frontier, xenon, and the other 10-12 we uploaded. You can't tell me you would know the difference if we did it on a once shot cruze scanner or scanned it ourselves with our HP4600 surface scanners. This playfield turned out different, because we didn't have the original playfield, and couldn't scan it in ourselves, the pictures were given to us, and plumb stitched them and cleared them up as much as he could. If I had an AC/DC in house, it would have looked like the other 15 fields.

[s1500]

I used to scan in obscure 80s new wave album covers at work on my spare time. With a regular sized scanner, I did it in 90 degree rotations. NEVER could I get things aligned right. Too much curving.

Then we got a Mustek A3 scanner. I did an album scan with its much larger surface in 2 scans. Came out perfect. Too small for a playfield, but great for plastics. Heh.

[rob046]

that's the thing. I have the resources and equipment to scan it in myself. Every playfield I get through my doors is already scanned in. Has been for years. Plumb is in the process of stitiching all those playfields together. It can be time consuming, because I didn't overlap as much as I should have in the early years. He can do it, just takes longer. You could use one full picture of a playfield. Pictures are hard to keep everything in focus and get a straight on shot, without flash glare. Scanning is a perfect recreation and highest quality. Why ask people for money for one piece scans, when we can do it for free, and bring them to you guys? Look at the quality of our paragon, frontier, xenon, and the other 10-12 we uploaded. You can't tell me you would know the difference if we did it on a once shot cruze scanner or scanned it ourselves with our HP4600 surface scanners. This playfield turned out different, because we didn't have the original playfield, and couldn't scan it in ourselves, the pictures were given to us, and plumb stitched them and cleared them up as much as he could. If I had an AC/DC in house, it would have looked like the other 15 fields.

Agreed. This is an awesome system & I hope it keeps going. I'm just trying to think if there is anything the community can do to help. People not working on tables but have photoshop skills can maybe help with stitching if Plumb doesn't keep doing it. Or if you got too many PF's for him to keep up then I'm sure others could help. Plumb does a really good job though. He is good at it. Though what also helps is better software. Much better to stitch I think in newer versions of photoshop.
If you guys keep doing this I'm sure you'll only get better at it (certainly not worse). Though you are right, for stiching PF's you really can't do a whole lot better, at least for VP purposes.

[koadic]

Well, if I can be of any help in the future, I have a good amount of free time and 'access' to PS CS6

[zoltar420]

Thanks for all your hard work CaptainNeo Also thanks to Plumb for all his stitching work!

Edited by zoltar420, 12 July 2012 - 06:24 PM.

[CaptainNeo]

it's cool, we got it undercontrol. We'll be releasing playfields faster than you guys can make them anyway. Maybe i'll just hold the other 75 hostage, until I get that cherry Atlantis FS recreation i've been dreaming about. Relax...it was just a joke...or is it?

Edited by CaptainNeo, 13 July 2012 - 01:32 AM.

[rob046]

it's cool, we got it undercontrol. We'll be releasing playfields faster than you guys can make them anyway. Maybe i'll just hold the other 75 hostage, until I get that cherry Atlantis FS recreation i've been dreaming about. Relax...it was just a joke...or is it?

Joke or not, 75 PF's for an Atlantis recreation... damn good trade! Of course I know you aren't holding PF's hostage. Or are you?!?!?
Atlantis will get done. It has taken this long not just due to lack of resources but probably because many don't consider it an A+ table. I do think its underrated though, & could actually make for a real good recreation. Take Game Show for example. Not the most impressive table in real life, but in VP with good resources it can be made to really sing.
I thought I saw that LH started an Atlantis, so maybe that is why nobody else has started one? But at this point it might be safe to say that LH isn't around very much these days, so who knows when or if we would see that.

Edited by rob046, 13 July 2012 - 02:56 AM.

[DedRok_V]

The scans that I gave the guys were quickly done by someone that I know. He had a replacement PF sent to him and it was the pro not the LE.

So before he sent it back , he grabbed some quick scans and gave them to me. He is not an expert, not into VP, and only did it cause he new I was and thought he could help.

He has no intention of changing over the LE PF when it comes, so we will have plenty of time to source a scanner for the LE.

The guys did what they could with what they got and it could be used by someone to redraw. Anyone with a spare ACDC PF feel free to get some good scans, I am sure there are plenty floating about.

Nice work on all the scan uploads you are getting done guys.

[CaptainNeo]

thanks. A lot comes to your scanner. If your scanner has a grove where the paper sits in. your scans for playfields will always come out a little blurry because the glass is not touching the playfield. you have that 1/16" gap, which effects the scanner. The scanners we have, are basically just a sheet of glass that we can set on anything and scan. Even cabinets, wallpaper, whatever. That's why they end up so clear.

[bodydump]

Hey Neo, any chance you can list the playfields you have scans of? Save me from "wasting" time redrawing playfields.

[CaptainNeo]

just off the top of my head.

TAF
AFM
BR
Bk2k
BSD
BH
CFTBL
class of 1812
Cleopatra
CV
Cyclone
Dr.dude
DM
EBD
EATPM
f14
fathom
FH
Flash
Gorgar
IJ
Joust
Kiss
Lightning (bottom only)
Lost world
Magic
MM
Medusa
Meteor
MB
NF
Old chicago
Pharoah
Pinbot
Bobby ore
Shadow
SBM
Spiderman (gottlieb)
Stargazer
Stargate
TOM
STTNG
SMB
Taxi
TZ
Wh20
Space shuttle
SS

that's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I have more around.


plus I have a bunch of EM fields i'm currently doing
Captain card
Zig Zag
Astro
some others to I can't think of.