39 replies to this topic

[destruk]

vpfcoder - thanks for the continued communication. My response was solely aimed at this comment -
"The way things appear at the moment many longtime and talented VP authors may just get fed up and leave the community. And that would be a shame."
I can assure you, the authors we have can put up with a lot. Some authors like PacDude 'left' before any of this happened. Those authors that are still here are still making tables because we (if i can speak for the remaining developers) truly believe in promoting pinball to the masses, and we enjoy what we're doing. As such we aren't easily swayed to give up and run away by such trivial changes in the atmosphere.

[Greywolf]

Wow, VPForums.org. I was very surprised when I decided to check VPForums.com one day and found it unreachable. "What has happened?", thought I.

But here I am, so, no big.

Regarding FP physics: They are not yet up to par with VP, and the community (and Black) are quite aware of that. I will note that they have improved noticeably, but slightly, between 1.8 and 1.9.

Regarding the PinMAME-alike implementation: There are far fewer pieces of hardware that Pinball ran on than there were Video Games, and they were MUCH more standardised over time. The tricky one is going to be the emulation of the Rockwell chips that Gottlieb used (and that may require jumping through a few hoops, but probably nothing too serious, on the legal end). Gottlieb were real bastards when it came down to hardware design which is probably why they floundered once they hit the Solid State Era. Pity, since their EM lines were rock solid (at least until they started putting those stupid lightweight plastic spinners on the tables...).

Anyway.

How is everyone?

[ruby651]

Hi, Greywolf! Big fan. Your Pinball Wizard is one of my favorites. Nice to see you pop by!

Edited by ruby651, 03 February 2009 - 05:15 AM.

[Greywolf]

[I don't know where this post should go, as it branches from here to there...]

LOL @ your avatar, Ruby! Looks like, who is that, Jessica Alba, going over an X-Men script and saying "it SUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKSSS!"...

I'm mostly a poppins (I poppins here and there), largely a spectator here, just to see what's going on. My VP code branch is pretty much in deep stasis at the moment, as it's hellish enough maintaining one branch of code, and the differences between FP and VP are enough to create a compatibility nightmare.

[I may revisit this statement, now, looking back...]

If VP would support shared user libs, I wouldn't have as much of a problem; right now, the biggest pain in porting would be keeping all the shared sounds, images &c. up to date within each table, not to mention having to use .wav files, dropwalls for lights (which render light sequencing moot which is a pity because the light sequencing helps me out a little), dropwalls for lighter/darker plastics.

The advantage, of course, is that I could use .jpg format for all my images, and I can put the fonts I want on the reels.

The really big hard hurdle will be backporting my existing FP codebase into VP.

VP vs. FP (For me):

SHARED LIBS (makes updating shared resources easier): VP no, FP yes
OGG SOUND FORMAT for both music and sound (smaller files vs wav, better quality vs. mp3): VP no FP yes
TEXTURED LIGHT LENSES (makes it easier to put in good looking lights): VP no FP yes
TRANSPARENT SURFACES: VP .bmp only, FP .bmp and .tga (true alpha channel support)
STARTUP TIME: VP fast FP slow
PHYSICS: VP > FP
LIGHTING: VP < FP without jumping through a lot of hoops.
EMULATION: VP via vPinMame, FP no
IMAGE REELS: VP yes but very very very limited - I can't put the 100 images necessary for the old Gottlieb Hemicircle Credit Display on a single image;
FP no, but FP supports other changeable image displays, such as overlays, and sub-translite animations which can be rotated (reducing my
image need to 10 images).
HARDWARE: VP runs on basic everyday hardware; FP requires a beefy GPU and a better than mediocre system.

I *really* wish the physics were a little better on FP (no secret from here to there - I've voiced it there many times: The spinners just don't cut it.). They HAVE improved, though....

[Noah Fentz]

TEXTURED LIGHT LENSES (makes it easier to put in good looking lights): VP no FP yes

VP 9 ... yes.

Custom lights can now have any image, including textured light lenses. No more drop walls required.

[The Dude]

vpfcoder - thanks for the continued communication. My response was solely aimed at this comment -
"The way things appear at the moment many longtime and talented VP authors may just get fed up and leave the community. And that would be a shame."
I can assure you, the authors we have can put up with a lot. Some authors like PacDude 'left' before any of this happened. Those authors that are still here are still making tables because we (if i can speak for the remaining developers) truly believe in promoting pinball to the masses, and we enjoy what we're doing. As such we aren't easily swayed to give up and run away by such trivial changes in the atmosphere.

The so-called "atmosphere" can have a lot to do with whether a hobby is 'fun' or not anymore, so I wouldn't call a poison atmosphere trivial (Black's quote about "some" members of the VPM team is a good example of just how poisoned it's been for years between certain people who cannot seem to get along even for the sake of a fun hobby like pinball). The idea of David Foley adding some kind of rom emulator to Future Pinball is pretty amusing, though considering how much Black hates VPM...well Black hates pretty much everyone that doesn't worship him so that goes without saying, really. I'm so glad some of you are really promoting pinball to the masses. Some of us really just wanted to have high quality realistic versions of pinball to play at home without having to spend tens of thousands on hardware we have little cash or room for. Some of us now have the room and money, but model building can still be fun if someone isn't busy kicking over your work just for the fun of it.

Besides, some of us have had more important things to do with our time the past year and a half like scan 20 years of photos so they're not lost and move our entire media libraries from DVDs to laserdiscs to VHS tapes and editing home movies to put them all in digital form. I'm still not done doing either of those time-consuming things and I've got two Macs and a PC in the room with me helping me get all this done (and multiple playback units spread around the house to view them when I'm done). I was showing a friend from work Xenon since it was his favorite machine before we go to the Papa 12 Pinball Championships next week and found VPM had expired and saw from there that there was this fabled VP9 out. Can it have flipper images mapped directly yet? The latest VPM seems to miss a lot of solenoid kicks (and therefore sounds) when I played Xenon with it (for example, VP kicks the ball off the pop bumpers, but no sound is played half the time). Other games like Firepower seemed to do much better. I don't remember this being an issue the last time I used VP/VPM. I haven't tried VP9 with it yet, though. Really, it's the first I've loaded it in a good year so who knows. It sounds like VP9 will probably be the end of VP, in any case. I guess it's better than no update, but it's hard to imagine Future Pinball having good physics given how god-awful they've been since day 1. Maybe at least video cards are finally catching up where you can make a table without it coming to crawl (without VPM)?

[scapino]

Glad to see ya around, PD! I know I, for one, missed you!


Kurt

[GRONI]

I don´t know PD, but i thank him for his Releases! My Twilight Zone could not be done, without
his version of that Pin! He added codes in a way nobody does! And of course his fading lights, which
JP and me use as standard.

Thanks PD Nice you are back!

GRONI

[The Dude]

I don´t know PD, but i thank him for his Releases! My Twilight Zone could not be done, without
his version of that Pin! He added codes in a way nobody does! And of course his fading lights, which
JP and me use as standard.

Thanks PD Nice you are back!

GRONI

Hello (and Hi Kurt, nice to see you too). I guess there's some tables I should check out. It's funny because a new Twilight Zone was what I was about to do next when I stopped (although I asked Kurt if I could use his clock reels, which he kindly consented to). I'm still not sure I want to start working on pinball again, though. Seven years is a big chunk of time and let's face it, building VP tables can really chew up those weekends. It makes me wish I could have worked on tables back when I was in college and still had summer breaks that lasted almost four months. As it is, I feel like I've been barely able to get most of the outdoor painting and the front yard landscaping done this summer (well that and my blueberry and raspberry garden planted). Next, I'm off to some vacation location in a few weeks. I'm thinking either a cruise to the Southern Caribbean or to Egypt to see the pyramids. I've been to California (Redondo Beach area) and Arizona (all over the state from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon) already this past year. Other than a trip to Arizona in 2005 and short drops like Niagara Falls, I didn't really travel before that since 2000 when all this began. Several family members have died in the past couple of years and somehow the petty BS of the old days is not something I care to repeat so I'm mostly planning to steer clear of discussions on here. If a decide to work on a table, I'll post a release thread, though. It looks like some of you have been doing a good job filling the gap anyway.

I don't know if VP9 makes fading lights obsolete or just offers a lens alternative. I learned towards the end with VP8 that large scale GI effects like on the new Addams Family table I did used very little CPU cycles compared to using even thin drop walls over large areas as TAF is just MAD with GI effects during multiball startup and it would bring the table to its knees with any use of drop walls for 8-state fading GI, but runs smooth even at 1600x1200 if reels were used for GI. Reels are a royal PITA, of course, but are less so when starting from scratch than trying to retrofit. VP9 makes several claims about performance improvements, though so I don't know how any of that might affect things in that regard. My primary focus beyond getting a game to feel as close as the real machine as I remember was to have the lighting "wow" factor as much as I could get it since one of the things that always blew me away on real machines in even semi-dark lighting was how spectacular the lighting looks with all the different kinds of lights pinball machines use from flashers to fading GI to just tons of playfield lights doing all kinds of mesmerizing patterns. Maybe it goes back to being a kid at an amusement park and watching the rides light up at night, but light shows have always interested me. Even the best made commercial games (like ProPinball) only scratch the surface of the dynamic nature of actual real world lighting. A computer monitor cannot convey light in a realistic sense, not even in HD. Seeing things like fireworks in person, they're so much more dynamic and bright. Of course, you cannot fully convey the real 3D sense of watching a ball move around an actual table either, but I guess to some of us pinball holds a fascination even when simulated.

I went to a new bowling alley yesterday and they had no pinball machines at all. After bowling, my friend and I headed over to Jillians and they had two whole machines, one non-working South Park and a Revenge From Mars that was overpriced (using their ridiculous point system). It said 25 cents a game on-screen, but the credit reader device made it clear that it was 490 points, which is over 75 cents a game (and at an odd amount relative to their exchange rates; what can you play for 15 cents, for example?). Even with Stern making games, pinball is more or less dead, even in what's left of arcades. And that's a shame. There's nothing "outdated" about pinball. It's not like video games where the home consoles are light years ahead of the arcade industry (when it used to be the other way around). Bowling alleys and bares are still out there in huge numbers. But clearly with most of the pinball companies dead, there is not enough push left to sell the games. Given the quality of most Stern games, I can't say I'm surprised. I have yet to see a single Ultrapin anywhere outside a trade show either. Maybe the only safe place left for the machines is the collector, but that of course makes them that much more expensive to collect. I spent many a day after class in college playing games like Theatre of Magic, Twilight Zone and Attack From Mars. Now the only games you do see are driving and redemption games. Somehow, I don't feel like the audience ever abandoned traditional arcade games or pinball, but rather the industry abandoned those types of games. While Turbo and Pole Position were popular in the early '80s arcade, they were hardly the top performers. Games like Pac-man, Donkey Kong and Dig-Dug just don't happen anymore and that's just as much a shame as losing pinball. Many 3D games make me motion sick and even playing old Intellivision games like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is more fun than some of the newer whiz-bang games out there. Clothing has gone retro. Cars have gone retro. Maybe gaming will go retro next. Clearly, the Wii has outperformed much more powerful systems because it's more about fun than flash. If only the industry would learn something from that instead of planning their next big flash.

Oh, did someone mention I should be advertising my site in my signature? Here you go: http://www.pacdude.pinballnirvana.com/

Of course, if you haven't grabbed those tables by now, you're either new or asleep.

[Mr. Pacman]

PD!!!!! (or..Dude now) Welcome back man! Its nice to see you here! How is your health?

[destruk]

Well, Gaston added 16 rom controlled dim states to Capcom, so with 1900 lamps and VP9 I get no slowdown during a game or attract mode. I don't know if VP8 could deal with that, but add that as another 'performance claim'. These lamps are image mapped like walls, only obviously they don't take up much of a performance hit. Some dim states have a shorter duration than others, so it's a lot more accurate and looks nicer than having a 1 or 2 phase timer with 4 images in vp guessing about stuff.

[The Dude]

PD!!!!! (or..Dude now) Welcome back man! Its nice to see you here! How is your health?

It's not too bad. My shoulder problem seems to be some kind of tendon tightening issue. Stretching every day seems to have helped. I bought a treadmill and some dumbbells and I've started working out on a regular basis.

Well, Gaston added 16 rom controlled dim states to Capcom, so with 1900 lamps and VP9 I get no slowdown during a game or attract mode. I don't know if VP8 could deal with that, but add that as another 'performance claim'. These lamps are image mapped like walls, only obviously they don't take up much of a performance hit. Some dim states have a shorter duration than others, so it's a lot more accurate and looks nicer than having a 1 or 2 phase timer with 4 images in vp guessing about stuff.

I guess I really need to take a look at VP9, but are you saying you have 1900 lamp objects or do you mean VP is handling states for 1900 lamps internally? Having to place and/or name 1900 lights sounds like a real chore. It seems like having an option in VP to have a given number of states per light would be the easiest solution (not sure whom all has access to the current VP source at this point), although I always thought some kind of auto-name option for groups of walls would have been nice to make things easier for the author. In any case, as I recall Capcom was unique in that it had no difference between a regular lamp and a GI lamp. They're all one and the same to the system. I assume the new ability to map images to lights means you're mapping a light with an image on it for things like lights under plastics? I'm not sure how else you could simulate lighting that "illuminates" something in VP (i.e. most GI lighting type bulbs). This is why I had to either make up reels or edit playfield images so I could simulate the light lighting up more than just what was directly above it for GI type lights.

I don't really understand the comment about accuracy in regards to a phase timer and 4 images "guessing". When I made Big Bang Bar and Breakshot, there was no such control options in VPM, so I never even attempted to simulate ANY "dimming" what-so-ever for Capcom games. My fading light system was and is about simulating the incandescent filament cool-down effect that occurs on all incandescent bulbs regardless of whether a game has dimming circuits in it or not. This has nothing to do with dimming control what-so-ever. Those tables only have those fading (not dimming) effects. In other words, "dimming" involves the controlled application of a change in voltage to the lamps and this is controlled by the table's electronics if it supports it. Whereas "fading" is the result the lamp filament cooling over a second or so and is plainly visible with any pinball table (that isn't using LED lighting) in a dark or semi-dark room (bright lighting in the room tends to negate the eye's ability to see the dimmer light states and makes it appear to turn off almost instantly). With the new Capcom controls, it would be a simple matter (if not a laborious process) to change all the lights to 16-state VPM controlled. Of course even then, technically if a light went from full one to full off in VPM, in the real world there would still be "fading" involved even when there's no dimming, but trying to combine the two together for even more realistic physics would be a definite chore.

When WMS games got dimming control, I accommodated that into the system (to a degree in that I followed the same template but let the machine control the GI) so those tables that I made or modified to have dimming use the full 8-9 lighting states for GI dimming (and added some routines to make conversion from 4-state "fading" to 4-state "dimming" possible on tables that already had some kind of lighting control in place (initally updated White Water to use this for example until I later had time to go back and redo the lighting for 8-state). They are controlled directly by VPM for dimming and aren't "guessing" anything. I could use lights, walls or reels or any combination at leisure. The new features of VP9 may make some of those options moot, of course or perhaps an update to accommodate different ways of doing things.

[destruk]

Yep

[Satch]

Welcome back PD!

[ANDROID]

AA big WELCOME BACK PD. Its hard to spend the time on the puter during the summer months. Plenty of cold winter nights to occupy your time, where we live. You bring the clallenge to gaming aspect of pinball, as most all of your tables are not pushovers, and beautifully rendered.---> AFM4.3

[FreeMason]

I was just reading this again... it almost feels like another dimension.  Very cool this thing still exists here... it's part of history. 

Foley said there will never be a VP10, well it took 6 years but it's almost there. 

[toxie]

Thanks for bringing this back up.. very interesting read (again) for sure!

[The Loafer]

It's kind of funny, it was an interesting read for sure, but it also gave me an indigestion. I wonder why?

Edited by The Loafer, 19 March 2015 - 06:45 PM.

[dyopp21]

First time seeing this thread.  I noticed two things:

1. Everyone was inviting Pacdude (The Dude) back.

2. According to his profile, he's not been here since 2013.

[FreeMason]

What I noticed was Foley was Last Active Jul 25 2014 05:39 AM