And now for a completely random question

[CMPXCHG8B]

Does anyone have any high-res pictures, or any pictures at all (apart from the in-game sprites) of the Ketsui scoring chips (cubes)?

I'm looking for anything that is moderately accurate, though CAVE canon would be preferential. I've tried googling much to no avail- either my google-fu is too weak (unlikely) or I'm asking in the wrong language (more likely, since I only know three- english, bad english, and Objective C).

-CMPX

[BPzeBanshee]

Does anyone have any high-res pictures, or any pictures at all (apart from the in-game sprites) of the Ketsui scoring chips (cubes)?

I'm looking for anything that is moderately accurate, though CAVE canon would be preferential. I've tried googling much to no avail- either my google-fu is too weak (unlikely) or I'm asking in the wrong language (more likely, since I only know three- english, bad english, and Objective C).

-CMPX

Emphatic has something that might fit the needs in his display picture.

[CMPXCHG8B]

Eh, not really.

A friend wanted a background filled with them (in 3D) and I was curious to see how they'd look as an icon for my custom MAME builds. In either case I've landed up attempting to model one in 3D, but the geometry is kind of strange with the bevels and the insets on the four corners to the left/right of the digit. I'm having troubles trying to size up the ratios to get it looking OK-ish since it's not exactly something I can just adjust on the fly (changing the dimensions involves remodelling the whole thing, and that takes about 20 minutes a pop).

I know they're probably hand-drawn because the stuff that I have seen looks like it was done in a vector program and in some cases the dimensions don't even work out physically. But I was wondering if CAVE ever made a physical model or something that someone had a hold of, and thus pictures of it. Hell, I'd settle for decent resolution 2D pics just so long as I can see the details and make out the general dimensions (apart from the sphere, cuboid chassis, and the four retainer clips).

I'm not even sure what these damned things are called and that's probably half of my problem. In some cases they're just "scoring cubes", in others they're referred to as "chips". And I have no idea what whacky characters make up the Japanese equivalent, though they've probably got their own dedicated word for them...

-CMPX

[AntiFritz]

The only ones i know of are from the cave icon pack on that desktop cd. Their only 128x128 though.

[DJ Incompetent]

I've seen a few unique variations on pixiv

[CMPXCHG8B]

Any chance you could post a link?

I tried searching "ケツイ", which is what Google Translate told me was the equivalent of "Ketsui". It brought back about 10 pages, but nothing in there was detailed enough.

I have no idea if that's even the correct series of symbols, as I said, I don't read or write the language. The search results seemed to be Ketsui fan art, so I can't imagine it's that far off the mark. Maybe that's all there is, I have no idea. Kinda flying blind there.

-CMPX

[Observer]

Any chance you could post a link?

I tried searching "ケツイ", which is what Google Translate told me was the equivalent of "Ketsui". It brought back about 10 pages, but nothing in there was detailed enough.

I have no idea if that's even the correct series of symbols, as I said, I don't read or write the language. The search results seemed to be Ketsui fan art, so I can't imagine it's that far off the mark. Maybe that's all there is, I have no idea. Kinda flying blind there.

-CMPX

That's indeed the katakana for Ketsui.

But you are missing the STG keyword. Try with that one too to see what happens.

[Annoyboy]

Are any of these of interest to you?

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9 ... quADusbJ8v
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3123/279 ... 171e8e.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3089/279 ... 9ef4f6.jpg

[CMPXCHG8B]

As in, "STG" literally, or whatever STG is in katakana?

Searching "ケツイ STG" brought back a few more (different) results. Google's translator won't accept "STG" though and instead says it's equivalent to "6,415", whatever the hell that means.

Think I've found enough pictures on Google though (which is really only two) of various CAVE merchandise, both of which suggest the same assembly/model. The stuff I've seen on pixiv doesn't appear to be the same though, most of the depictions I've seen on there so far are just a square with beveled corners and a flat green bit in the centre (which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be a perfect sphere).

Are any of these of interest to you?

Actually, yeah. Those confirm what I've been seeing elsewhere. Thanks for the links.

-CMPX

[Ed Oscuro]

[5] brought up a few results. Unfortunately they seem to be low-rez or not a straight icon graphic.

You don't need quotation marks to search Pixiv.

(As always, the proximity of STG and R-18 continues to astonish me; also anything with a ゆっくりしていってね tag.)

W-wha?

[Observer]

As in, "STG" literally, or whatever STG is in katakana?

Searching "ケツイ STG" brought back a few more (different) results. Google's translator won't accept "STG" though and instead says it's equivalent to "6,415", whatever the hell that means.

Think I've found enough pictures on Google though (which is really only two) of various CAVE merchandise, both of which suggest the same assembly/model. The stuff I've seen on pixiv doesn't appear to be the same though, most of the depictions I've seen on there so far are just a square with beveled corners and a flat green bit in the centre (which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be a perfect sphere).

Are any of these of interest to you?

Actually, yeah. Those confirm what I've been seeing elsewhere. Thanks for the links.

-CMPX

STG is the japanese acronym for shmups. It stands for "ShooTing Games". (ShutinguGemu is the approximate pronunciation, here is the katakana: シューティング ゲーム)

[shmuppyLove]

Looks like Cave gave these out in a matsuri kit:



Here's the page (in French):
http://spinzshowroom.com/arrivage-cave- ... lan-achats

[Annoyboy]

Are any of these of interest to you?

Actually, yeah. Those confirm what I've been seeing elsewhere. Thanks for the links.

Those are images of the "Ketsui crystal", which was sold for $ridiculous for a brief time on one of the official online Cave shops. Here's a video so you can see one from different angles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-0eKLg9VSQ

[CMPXCHG8B]

Okay, so according to the photos here and here:




What we have is a bizarrely beveled frame encompassing a perfect sphere with 4 clips attached to each vertical corner. And there's some whacky cutouts that line up with the frame and clip. This seems to be the most popular depiction of the scoring cubes/chips and these are the only two references I can find that are nearly 100% identical (some other pics show it as a boring flat box, others are off the mark entirely). It's also the only depiction that matches the crystal cube mentioned above (god I want one of those).

Throw all that in the CMPX-o-matic 3D mesh making machine and you get this:



Spent about an hour modelling up this bad boy. It was kinda fun because the frame geometry is completely whacked, and it took a few tries to figure out what it should look like were the cube/chip physically real and create a nice mesh with proper quads and flowing edge loops.

I'm not a fan of the reflections and the metal totally needs to be battered up. I was hoping to simulate some explosions around the cube (not directly visible) to add to the reflections and cast off some nice light, but I haven't had the time to fiddle around with a voxel sim today.

Anyways, my question to you all is: is this (preferably instantly) recognizable as the Ketsui score cube? I tried to get the dimension ratios as close as I could but it was kinda difficult to do so. I'm still not entirely positive that the way they were drawn in 2D is physically viable as a real life object since some things had to be tweaked so the geometry wasn't clipping (in other words, what you see above is as "real" as those should ever be).

It's obviously obvious to me because I've been staring at them for the past 120 minutes. I just wanted to make sure it was obvious to someone else as well (might be more obvious from a head-on or top-down shot? I've never seen them at an angle like that, now that I think of it).

-CMPX

[AntiFritz]

That looks awesome. I dunno though, i always imagined them being more square and less a ball inside a cube thing. They always looked fairly flat to me (despite them obviously just being 2d sprites).

[Ed Oscuro]

That looks awesome. I dunno though, i always imagined them being more square and less a ball inside a cube thing. They always looked fairly flat to me (despite them obviously just being 2d sprites).

Yeah, but Cave's own ref above demonstrates that it is in fact a sphere inside a cube frame.

CMPX:

Looks great, except that reflection looks like a cheezy normal map, makes the sphere look lumpy. The ref shows the sphere having a more matte surface with one specular highlight, although I can see why you rejected that as less visually appealing. Visibility isn't as big an issue in the render, for sure.

[emphatic]

Looks cool. Shouldn't the sphere be smaller though?

[CMPXCHG8B]

To be honest I'm not sure.

If you're looking at the chip dead-on with perspective (and not an orthographic projection as the Cave drawings are), then the sphere protrudes from the sides of the frame chassis approximately the same amount as the Cave references do. I think it just looks awkward because nobody has really bothered to model these up before, so seeing them from another angle gives you all sorts of bizarre impressions (being able to see through the frame corners, etc).

ATM the sphere is exactly 1 unit (since in 3D, units kinda don't matter). The rest of the frame was sized accordingly so that it touches the sphere exactly 12 times perfectly. The tips of the 4 clips down the side were also measured to contact with the sphere (though, given that the sphere is mathematically perfect, that contact point is almost infinitely small).

I have a render running right now that I know will take all night (err, morning? It's 3:30AM) to finish. I'll post it tomorrow and you guys can tell me (if you want, I'd be thankful) if I'm still possibly out of spec or if the model is ~99.5% accurate.

-CMPX

[BPzeBanshee]

Looks like a geniune Ketsui cube to me.

[Annoyboy]

Looks good, and is easily recognisable, but I have to point this out:



"Perfect sphere"?

[Ed Oscuro]

What are you trying to point out?

[CMPXCHG8B]

"Perfect sphere"?

Yes?

I'm not sure what you're seeing there. There's actually two spheres in the model- one has a radius of exactly 1 unit (which is what the frame was designed to fit around), and another has a radius of 0.975 units. The outermost sphere is glass and provides the reflections and slight IOR. The innermost sphere is a very bland and boring green (which does have a fresnel shader on it to darken the colour around the edges) with an equally bland and boring white for the digit markings.

Perhaps you're seeing something because of the 0.025 unit difference between the glass (shell) and the inner core? It might also be due to aliasing or GI trying to work out a surface that comes within such close proximity of the metallic frame. I don't know. If you want to elaborate I'd be interested to hear what you're seeing.

-CMPX

[Annoyboy]

This is what I see:



Maybe it's an illusion caused by the shadow?

[CMPXCHG8B]

The shine is just a reflection from the cheesy skymap I used.

I'm not sure what surface you're referring to. The frame is totally open on all six sides.

Here's a quick render with the chip disassembled. Don't ask me how they get the sphere in there, I don't know.



-CMPX

[BPzeBanshee]

Don't ask me how they get the sphere in there, I don't know.

It's a bouncy ball that stretches and compresses like any other!

So are we eventually going to see that XCode MAME Mac again which I presume this is for?

[shmuppyLove]

Don't ask me how they get the sphere in there, I don't know.

Simple! It's filled with air, so they just put the deflated ball inside and then pump it up!

That or it's the old mouse in the beer-bottle trick. The put the ball in there as a baby, and feed it until it grows bigger. LOL