Well, the overlay previews indeed made it to Scotland, where they met a real Vectrex and unfortunately it rapidly became apparent that they need some extra iteration.
As you can see from the pic, when held up against a typically beautiful Scottish urban landscape (ahem), the way that the gradient is currently being printed results in a lot of diffusion.
Even though the distance between an overlay and the Vectrex screen is only ~5mm at the screen center, ranging to about 10mm at screen edges, that’s still far enough that the diffusion causes unacceptable focus issues.
Here’s a comparison of the Vectrex boot screen. On the left is an original Bedlam overlay, on the right the current Vecribbon preview overlay:
So, we’re doing another iteration on overlay previews. This time round, our supplier is trying to source some coloured 0.5mm polycarbonate stock as a starting point. We should know within a couple of days what our options are there.
If we could find an attractive enough colour, we’d be prepared to drop the gradient if you guys are cool with that.
Alternatively, we’re investigating to see if there’s any other process we could use for getting the gradient effect on clear stock without the diffusion.
We’ll run the options past you as soon as we know more!
All is looking promising…the overlay has the gradient well, love the colors…
Maybe connect with Sean Kelly in the US and ask how he would approach this method of getting a more transparency from the gradient overlay…your doing exceptional in this time of craziness…hope there are no more barriers to the Shattered Team releasing this very anticipated Vectrex game…I might even have to pre order another VecRibbon, since I see there are sitll 36 available….
Thanks so much for your kind words and support 🙂 From what we understand, Sean K is printing on the foil and laminating multiple layers; a process which may be out of our reach.
We now have a sampler of a dozen different single-colour polycarbonate sheets on the way. Some of the colours look really pretty!
I think that once that arrives and we can take some decent pics, we will have a poll of those who have pre-ordered to see if people would like to go that route, or keep chasing the gradient dream.
Fell, just a thought..have you seen Robin Jubber’s overlay for Player 2, he is over in the UK…it has a really nice gradient overlay and colours are vibrant and transparent….
Good thinking Chris — contact has now been established!