Big Bang Bar

[BBB94]

Backstory:
The BBB artwork does not exist in a digital format so the merchandise has to be done from digital pictures of the decals and stickers. Last time I was down there I spent a few hours taking photos of things. Unfortunately I’m not an experienced photographer so I didn’t realize that barreling and pincushion was such a prominent issue when taking photos – now I know otherwise.

The photo update:
I bought a new camera and went down to BBB HQ Saturday to take some higher resolution and hopefully high quality photos of the cabinet, etc. The lighting and background are still too uncontrolled for my tastes, but the results were a huge improvement (probably quite acceptable, just not perfect).

I was surprised by and impressed with the sensitivity of the new camera. The below pics were taken in the dark by hand (no tripod). These are of Kim’s machine – the test bed. There’s nothing particularly unique about these shots, but I thought they were kinda cool.

The light test in the dark:


The whole playfield under blacklight only:


The upper portion of the playfield under blacklight only:


I took this to try and show just how much the tube ramp glows with the blacklight:

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The (surprise) production update:
Since I was already there and had some extra time I was able to help out on some subassembly work too. I put together 176 blacklight ballast/starter assemblies.


It seems like they are making good progress on the subassemblies. It sounds like they will be ready to start full steam production soon.

CraigC, hope this helps ease that itch a little.

For the volunteers: it sounds like they are close to working out a plan and schedule.
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The merchandise update:
I currently plan to try doing a limited number of items and maybe add more later if things go well and time and interest permit. I will need to do some more polls to make sure I am on the right track. Once I get a product and design “finalized” I need to get it approved by Gene.

My current thoughts are a T-shirt (silk-screened front and back), a polo shirt (embroidered front), a ballcap (embroidered front), a 16oz. or so beer mug (silk-screened, 2 sides), coasters (hopefully sandstone with silkscreen – perhaps multiple image sets), and either a highball shotglass or a Bravura “crazy stem” flute or martini glass (silk-screened 2 sides). I also think lanyards and silk-screened jackets would be cool.

I don’t have the time to figure out how to extract the BBB sounds and select several that would work good for the 20 second keychain, so I’ll probably abandon that idea (for now at least). I want/need to balance having a good selection of items with not going overboard and taking too long to kick this into high gear. That said, I’d love to hear specific ideas about anything that I haven’t covered that you people think would be big movers (or that we have covered and I seem to have forgotten or not noticed).

One problem that I have identified is that the most popular cropping of the side art is a 38” x 20” section (2:1 W:H ratio). The industry standard t-shirt silk-screen is a max 12” wide (14” tall), which would make the image side art image 12” wide and just over 6” tall. That seems too short and small to me. So we might need to select a narrower cropping if I can’t find a vendor that can print wider (and still have it fit and look right).

It looks like I may set up a web store just for this stuff. If so, I think all payments would probably be through Paypal. I think I would have to do this on a pre-order basis. I need to determine if I can predetermine shipping costs, or would need to request a second payment (for the actual packaging and shipping costs) when the items are packaged and ready to go. I plan to charge near cost for pre-orders and will likely have some extras made that I would charge a moderate markup on. Gene did not seem comfortable with the idea of trying to ship the items inside the games, so that’s unlikely.

[jadziedzic]

[pinsane]

Cool. So how did it play?

steve

[BBB94]

Thanks Tony, I'll look into that stuff, and start thinking about how else I might handle the money. Maybe checks would be safe with this crowd, but I’m not sure if we will open the merchandise up to non-forum members (I need to poll that). Currency conversion with the international contingent could be a hassle.

Steve, yes I did play 3 (or 4?) games this time. Since I didn't play last time, the first thing TOG did was make me play (really it was more of a firm reminder, as once again my mind was on other things). It played fast and crisp. The snap of the flippers was amazing; the balls were coming off the slings like bullets. The ball did hang on the ramp behind the aliens a few times, but that is the test ramp and has been in and out numerous times I imagine. I never stuck my head in there far enough to see what it was catching on, but I don’t think the ramp was the culprit, I think it was a wire or something out of place.

[Bertl]

Wonderful pictures! The blacklight make the machine real cool. So you have to play the machine in the dark to enjoy this awesome sight.

Anything about the tube dancer lasered in glass tube? Did you had the chance to ask Gene about the permission?

Thx
Norbert

[unigroove]

[BBB94]

From full size film positves (or negatives) is my understanding.

[BigBangJoe]

[CraigC]

cool pics and thanks for the playability update.

I plan on getting down there at some point, but it would be better for me to do a long weekend instead of a weekday. are people there working on saturday and sunday?

I've done a lot of playfield swaps and I'm pretty good at assembling things so i think i could be of service.

let me know when the best time would be.

-c

[pinsane]

[pinsane]

[Swann]

Wonderful update, especially interesting to read about the playability.

In regards to payment for merchandise, please do go the paypal or secondary the western union way (money order or what the call it), payment via check isn't feasable for non-american's, it's a lots of bankfee's and quite complicated for us non-us citizens.

T-shirt: Great, would buy a couple
BallCap: Great, would buy at least one
Beermug: Hmm, will have to see it first...
Coasters: Great, would buy a set
Highball shotglass: Doubtfull that I buy...but if the price is reasonable...
Bravura flute: Don't know how it looks like...
Martin glass: Cool idea!, suits the game, would definitly buy!
Jacket: If it's like the AFM-jacket that exists, yes definitly !!!
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BBB #79 has arrived here in Stockholm, Sweden!

[jadziedzic]

After reading and re-reading this thread, I still can't shake the feeling that there's actually very little content here regarding recent progress on BBB (not knocking the OP's pictures or anything). Based on the significant milestones early in the year, I was expecting to read that at least a few games had been assembled by now, or that some number of fully-populated playfields had been produced.

Heck, if there are unexpected problems that have arisen and slowed progress, even that's something interesting to hear about.

Tony
_________________
Joseph "Tony" Dziedzic
BBB #39

[robertwinter]

[BBB94]

Thanks for all the thoughts and reminders. Perhaps my question was misunderstood. I asked if the BBB art existed in a digital format and was told no. From there I assumed that meant that only B&W positives existed for silk-screening. I will have to inquire further. Now that you guys have me thinking more, I realize that if I did the super-sized scanner thing for the full size positives, that the 1 bit color (aka B&W) output could be easily layered into a graphics program and each layer could be color filled the right color and merged to make an RGB file, not that that’s even necessary, since it is unlikely that I will be doing any CMYK or die sublimation printing for the merchandise. I’m 99% sure everything will be silk-screened using the same Pantone colors as the side art, but perhaps tweaked to compensate for background (aka item colors). I don't remember the old posts that you guys are referencing – I sooo wish I had access to the old forum content. I have the pic showing the Pantone colors, but thought that was a poor low res picture of a proof copy of the side art, especially since it was so small and the pixel coloring was so erratic. Anyways, sounds like a mystery worth investigating. Hopefully the digital files have not “disappeared”.

Steve: I think you are either sandbagging and being way too humble about your pinball skills or I’ve figured out the cause and source of your shorter nickname. When I play I struggle just to keep the ball alive, so if you can determine things like how snappily drop targets drop while playing – well damn that’s a lot of cognitive ability. I’ve certainly never noticed subtle tactile variations in a properly working drop target. So, if you are good enough to notice these things while playing then you are being way too humble, and if not, well then far fewer balls would go SDTM if you focused on the ball instead of the drop targets :-) (totally teasing, no offense intended – you and your knowledge and incites are such a great asset to this group and the pinball community in general).

The only SDTM that I had was from a weak ramp shot. All other shots did indeed tend to present to the flippers. The ball coming down from the left side of the pop bumpers past the left side the Qualify Mode drops targets always scared me because it slows way down and dribbles out, but always surprised me by going to the left flipper instead of SDTM. I don’t backhand much of anything, so can’t comment there. Play was struck me as very smooth. The slings did not tend to feed the outlanes, heck shot the ball up the playfield, if anything. I’ve only played BBB 4 or 5 times in my life, so I’m still not familiar with the game, but certainly hope to become more cognitive and insightful as I get more familiar. Hey I know! When they have new volunteers over, I’ll come down, and while the new volunteers slave away, I’ll play and look around, and play, and try a backhand or two, and watch drop target while the ball drains, and play, and play…then maybe you'll get a really detailed playability report. :-)

I suspect that the game was close to the proper pitch, but maybe not close enough and not likely to have been level (side to side) as it was on a rolling cart with a 2x4 propping up the back end. The slots were still present in the paths to the aliens. Only one alien path was sanded a little as I understand it to prevent the back of the alien from rubbing the ramp when rotating. I did not notice any bumps in the loops, but didn't last long enough to be able to really notice sometihng like that. It is my understanding that it was only the outer loop (the ball launch loop) that had the wrong rivets and those were ground down. If I get back down to play I’ll try to be more curious and analytical.

Tony, Robert: I don’t think they can realistically proceed with playfield assembly until all the subassemblies are ready and any problems resolved. Once everything is ready to go, then each game can be built and boxed in a prompt fashion helping to keep it clean and safe. It wouldn’t seem prudent to populate playfields in a stop and go fashion. The storage requirements would be significant and the chance for damage elevated, I would imagine. Like Robert implied, I don’t think they have decided what to do about the ramps yet. I also know that, at least until recently, TOG was still finding little parts that “did not exist” (meaning that there were no schematics for them), and I guess had been overlooked by the prior project managers. As best I can figure Kim’s machine is the test machine/cabinet. I agree that they need to get the first machine complete and working good, then put together the rest of the protos and verify the quality, fit, and consistency, and then they can Bang the rest out.

Something for the production team to consider: I’d be happy to receive verbal briefings from you and I could draft an “article” of what I’ve been told and send it to you for approval before posting. I can crop and resize any pics that you might want included too. This way you could provide updates without diverting much time and energy from the project. I’m sure a number of folks out there would be willing to do the same, and probably have better writing skills.