Custom Bezels and MAME Vector Games

[MrGrynch]

Just thought I would share my experience trying to get my custom  bezels working with MAME vector games.  I figured its OK to mention it here since I am configuring MAME in the context of setting up my PinballX front end.

I have default horizontal and vertical bezels set up so that MAME automatically chooses the right one without me having to create a bezel artwork file for every game.  I noticed that some vector games either ignored the default or used it, but then the actual game screen was altered.  For example Armor Attack ignored the default.  I create a separate bezel artwork file for the game.  When I fired it up, the bezel was there but the entire playfield was gone!  I decided to look at the existing bezel file from Mr. Do and noticed that they were providing their own playfield image as well.  The .lay file was configured to show both.  This gave me the ammo I needed to solve the problem.. I resized the gameplay image to fit 1080 width and everything was good.  See attached lay file.  The next one was Battle Zone.  On this game, the default bezel worked, BUT.. the playfield was black and white!  Creating a separate bezel file didn't solve the problem. Again, I looked at Mr. Do's bezel and noticed they defined two rectangles and gave them RGB values to restore the color.  With a little tinkering, I managed to get it working with my bezel, maintaining color.  See attached .lay file

So, if you are customizing your game bezels, be prepared to have to do some extra work with vector games.  BTW, Black Widow didn't have any problems at all, so some vector games will be fine.

armora_default.lay bzone_default.lay

[Draco1962]

These are great! Would you mind creating a share on the FTP site for your creations?

[MrGrynch]

1 minute ago, Draco1962 said:

These are great! Would you mind creating a share on the FTP site for your creations?

Sure thing!

[MrGrynch]

I created  an FTP folder and put some things up there, such as the bezel files for the games mentioned above, the bezel template images, as well as the default bezel files and config.  I accidentally copied two files to the MAME root folder, and it wont let me delete them.

Anyway, my files can be found at /-PinballX-/Other Uploads/MrGrynch

I'll add more stuff soon, such as gameplay vids, etc