Author Topic: Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast Instruction Manual Scans (+32X & SMS)  (Read 12782 times)

February 25, 2013, 11:43:06 AM
Reply #120

segamer

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February 27, 2013, 10:09:55 AM
Reply #121

TSOLfan

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I finished transferring all of my images over to the new server, and all of my UI work is done (I'm pretty happy with my JSON work).  Though, before I flip the switch, I'm going through and auditing Sega Saturn scans.  It was the system I started with, and I went in naively thinking that of course all manuals are the same dimensions, I mean, why wouldn't they be? :)

So, when applying my crop dimensions across the board, on some manuals, you lost 1/8" of artwork (3D Baseball), and some you gained 1/8" of black space (Andretti Racing).  It was really noticeable to me when I had everything uploaded and was checking to make sure everything pulled in correctly.



Honestly, I'm surprised no one said anything, especially since 3D Baseball was one of the very first titles I did.  Oh well.

Fortunately, I still have all of my full scanner bed sized scans that I used to then crop, so I don't need to re-scan anything, just check, and re-crop if needed.

Also fortunately, when I started doing Sega CD, the size differences were so varied in the tall manuals, it was easy to see when glancing at files while they were uploading, so with the other systems, I checked each manual for the correct crop dimensions, and updated my batch settings to use those, so Sega Saturn titles are the only ones affected.

It won't be until the weekend when I'll get a chance to check/crop/upload those, so hopefully my MediaFire account sticks around a little while longer.

February 27, 2013, 10:49:39 PM
Reply #122

larryinc64

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You may want to pass your manual measurements on to Seymor Onion, He is planing extra tall Sega CD/ Saturn DVD cases after his other game cases are made.
How tall is a Saturn/CD case? Wondering how tall they are compared to 3DS 3DO boxes.

Also, thanks for the Dragonforce scans. BTW, the cover is cut off a bit on the right.

Edit - Fix
« Last Edit: February 27, 2013, 11:43:26 PM by larryinc64 »

February 27, 2013, 11:13:49 PM
Reply #123

TSOLfan

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You may want to pass your manual measurements on to Seymor Onion, He is planing extra tall Sega CD/ Saturn DVD cases after his other game cases are made.
How tall is a Saturn/CD case? Wondering how tall they are compared to 3DS boxes.

Also, thanks for the Dragonforce scans. BTW, the cover is cut off a bit on the right.

I already did (and wow, didn't realize that was over a year ago):

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=10153.msg68372#msg68372

As for the Dragon Force manual, yep, just checked it and this is one of many that got caught in my "one size to crop them all", and it's not just the cover, you'll notice the vertical text on the right is also cut off on most pages (about 40 pixels worth).  My original raw scans prior to batch cropping have everything, so, when I relaunch ratigators.com, the corrected cropped scans will be uploaded (someone keeps reporting my MediaFire account, so I probably won't even bother taking the time to update those).

February 28, 2013, 12:05:03 AM
Reply #124

TSOLfan

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I went through all of the A's and B's, and it's not as bad as I feared.

It seems primarily confined to the Working Designs games (with the big thick manuals) and any late release Sega Saturn game (that had the cheaper quality manuals, not the thick almost card stock) like Burning Rangers or the 1998 sports games by Sega (World Series Baseball and Worldwide Soccer).  The later release games are roughly 1/8" wider than by default crop.  The Working Designs games, almost, but not quite 1/4" wider.

Games like Batman and the Battle Arena Toshinden, where the game rating in the lower right is really really close to the edge, this is actually how the manual is, so those weren't bad crops.

3D Baseball, the edge of the right "L" is cutoff on my original manual, though, my auto-crop took off about another 1/16" which made it a bit more noticeable.

March 01, 2013, 11:40:24 AM
Reply #125

larryinc64

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If you could go and find the uncropped Raws of Dragonforce, I could use that. I need a NTSC DVD cover, The back in your archive is fine.

March 01, 2013, 12:10:59 PM
Reply #126

TSOLfan

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If you could go and find the uncropped Raws of Dragonforce, I could use that. I need a NTSC DVD cover, The back in your archive is fine.

Not hard to find, everything is nice and sorted on external drives.  I already fixed the cropping of #-G (less than 10% were affected, and in my notes I have 3D Baseball, Albert Odyssey, Burning Rangers, Contra, Criticom, Dragon Force, Fighters Megamix as losing some info from bad crops, and primarily EA titles (Andretti Racing, Darklight Conflict, FIFA titles, etc) that gained a ton of black space outside the manual area from crops larger than the manual sizes), though, uploaded to my new site that's not yet available.  Back inserts for Sega Saturn are good across the board, as I manually cropped every single one of those (and for the other systems, I checked the first scan and set custom batch crops per title based upon the dimensions of the first scan).

Even though I'm about to shutdown MediaFire for reasons noted previously (they get ad revenue from my scans, and I don't see a dime (not that I expect it), but they can't even be bothered to let me know who is requesting takedowns of all of my scans), I went ahead and purged all of the Dragon Force scans from there and uploaded my new Dragon Force crops (just the front cover and zip with everything).

March 03, 2013, 08:12:47 PM
Reply #127

TSOLfan

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Finished going through Sega Saturn scans and all of those that required a re-crop were re-cropped accordingly, and everything has been uploaded to my site, as opposed to MediaFire:

http://www.ratigators.com/

I kept the UI basic.  Click a system, scroll through the "shelf" of games (which uses a lazy load, so only the items on screen load for bandwidth's sake, but as you scroll and items come into view, they will load), click to load the manual (which uses some basic math to determine the viewable height and do some rounding to keep the amount of cached thumbnails on the server to a minimum (100 pixel height increments)), and click any page for a full screen view (if the default manual isn't already large enough to read).

With the variable height interior manual preview images, if you are the first person ever to visit the site with your specific vertical resolution, the preview images may take slightly longer to load while the server builds them (the top thumbnails are consistent for everyone).  The next time you view the same manual it will be quicker (or if someone running your same resolution has already viewed it).  I did this so the server only has to build what's required.

As for what Sega Saturn covers require a re-download, I originally cropped system wide at 2800 width.  The late release games with the lighter weight paper were apparently 20-30 pixels wider (Burning Rangers, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Winter Heat, etc), as were the original release titles (Daytona USA, Panzer Dragoon, etc).  Oddly enough, just about every Acclaim title was also 30-40 pixels wider (with a few exceptions that were the original 2800).  Also, another odd occurrence, just about every early EA title (Andretti Racing, Darklight Conflict, Madden 97, NHL 97, etc) was 20-30 pixels shorter (though, their late release 98 sports games were the 20-30 pixels wider, like NHL 98).  All of the Working Design titles had wider manuals 10-50 pixels) except for Magic Knight Rayearth, which was the standard 2800 pixels wide (which was also their last game for the Saturn).

Oh, and 3D Baseball is still cut off.  You now at least see the "T" in TM in the logo.  Though, the way my manual was cut from the factory, there is no M at all.

The only manual that had actual text cut off on the inside was Dragon Force.  On the outside, Albert Odyssey (the "G" in RPG was cutoff), Dragon Force (same "G"), Criticom (part of the "TM"), and Fighters Megamix (the edge of the tagline).  Anything else was just the very right-most edge art (and as seen with my 3D Baseball, some original manuals might not have even had).

March 19, 2013, 08:48:09 AM
Reply #128

TSOLfan

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Just a minor update, I had a replacement manual for WWF Raw for 32X arrive in the mail yesterday.  My original manual had some damage to the artwork on the front from the removal of a rental sticker (one of the nasty foil ones that leave a VOID residue).

The new manual cover (the only thing I scanned as the rest was good) has been uploaded.

April 01, 2013, 07:38:37 AM
Reply #129

TSOLfan

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Did some more user interface work on the new ratigators.com, and again, let me know if anyone notices any issues.


April 23, 2013, 05:44:34 AM
Reply #131

TSOLfan

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I picked up Alex Kidd in Shinobi World for Sega Master System and it has been scanned and uploaded.  That just leaves James 'Buster' Douglas Knockout Boxing as the only US insert I'm missing and Alf, Fantasy Zone, and Teddy Boy as the only US manuals I'm missing.

May 07, 2013, 01:07:36 PM
Reply #132

TSOLfan

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Picked up a spare copy of Alf for Sega Master System (mine was missing the manual), so the manual is now uploaded:

http://www.ratigators.com/ui.asp?c=SEGAMASTERSYSTEM

Also, the system isn't linked from my main navigation, but I scanned this by request:

http://www.ratigators.com/ui.asp?c=SEGAGAMEGEAR

May 15, 2013, 11:34:21 AM
Reply #133

TSOLfan

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Huge thanks to a new Cover Project member, Specialt1212, who has been going through my site and letting me know things that need to be fixed, such as Sega CD games where I flipped two pages instead of one, resulting in some missing pages.

I lay blame squarely on my (then) newborn as the distraction :P

Sega CD 32X
Supreme Warrior: Missing Pages 30 & 31

Sega CD
Dark Wizard: Page 1 (labeled start up) is messed up it looks like the image was moved during scanning
Dungeon Master 2 Skullkeep: Missing Pages 30 & 31
Lethal Enforcers: Missing Pages 8 & 9
Microcosm: Missing Page 6 & 7
Third World War: Missing Pages 34 & 35

So, a year after uploading everything originally, those games are now once again complete.

It was also noted that my Virtua Fighter for Sega 32X was missing quite a few pages, though, after checking my manual, every page I had was scanned.  My manual seems to have two entire sheets that didn't get stapled in (resulting in 8 missing pages, pages 5, 6, 7, 8, 25, 26, 27, 28).  When I get a replacement manual for that, I'll get it scanned (assuming that it has all of its pages).

Specialt1212 is also sending me a batch of Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear manuals to start up those sections.

Huge thanks!

Also, again, if anyone notices any issues, let me know and I'll get them fixed as soon as I can.

May 15, 2013, 11:36:54 AM
Reply #134

TSOLfan

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Also, if anyone else has a stack of Genesis or Game Gear manuals they want to send my way, I'll cover your shipping costs (both ways if you want them back).