185 replies to this topic

[The Loafer]

It would be, I think resources are scarce on that one though and not sure if the rom is available.

[Trinity]

I had mentioned to EalaDubhSidhe (the table author of the vp8 version of Loch ness Monster), that there are HD quality images available  (provided him the link) to that table and asked if he was planning on a VP10 version.

He said in deed he would like to do that. The lack of the real rom being available has been the real problem. It's my understanding since it's a one off game, the owner is more than a little apprehensive about extracting the rom data for us.

Really cool table.

[vic viper]

i would like to see Monopoly, Millionaire, and No Good Golfers recieve an update

[hmueck]

[fripounet]

I would like to see redraw the playfields Paragon , scorpion and pink panther in ultraHD for 4k please .

vp accepts svg files ?

Edited by fripounet, 30 August 2015 - 03:08 PM.

[BobAlbright]

Bram Stoker Dracula...current table plays great, but could use a lighting upgrade

[humid]

Another long time VP addict here, pleased to see PacDude sermomizing on the physics in the " commercial " video pinball products out there. I agree with the thrust of his observations. THE best balanced pinball experience I've encountered on my pc so far has been VP 9.9 hands down. I download nearly every table ....9.2....9.9...physmod5...VPX, And I feel just as spoiled and delighted as I did 10 years ago. New Authors continue to jump into the mix and inject new perspectives and ideas to keep the momentum going. I don't need to understand every aspect of primitives and GI grouping to realize they have improved the authoring experience.

 

I was around when Pacdude and Scapino were at the forefront of awesomeness, before J.P. Salas arrived to inherit the crown.  Every sane player here should appreciate and respect the efforts of all the trailblazers that got us to where we are today. I don't know how many downloads IRPinball gets these days, but even as a type of museum, I'm glad it's still out there for new players to see how the 'first explorers' made tables.  

 

And that's why I don't agree with PacDude's statement that broken tables or the progress to VP11 is a stumbling block. We've gone from The Wright Brother's flight to having our own remote controlled drones in a hundred years, because creative people kept injecting new ides into the mix, improving different elements from different directions. It's one of the bigger reasons I've enjoyed this hobby over the years. The tables have really come to life recently. The progress is quite tangible. Watching the baton getting passed along continues to be a cool experience. I'd love to see PacDude put it back in his hands again.

[mfuegemann]

Hi PacDude,

 

I have mixed feelings, reading Your post. On one hand lots of the older tables are visually way behind current capabilities (sometimes even the lowres playfield images have not been cleared of visible objects and plastics) but on the other hand I can understand Your complaints when I read requests for updates of splendid working and looking VP9.9 tables.

I always understood the opportunity to mod and recreate tables as a chance for new developers to test and hone their skills and to take over responsibility. If someone steps out of the shadows, he/she is doing something remarkably - carrying on the work, even when You and I are not able to contribute any longer.

I always love to refer to old VP8 tables for the Switch and Lamp references or to understand how a toy should work. But to be honest, I would never touch a VP8.exe to really play nowadays.

 

Kind regards

Michael

Edited by mfuegemann, 30 August 2015 - 11:01 PM.

[Guus]

Hell yeah! i second an 'Indiana Jones'

 

And a third vote for 'Indiana Jones', the Williams version of course

[Ben Logan]

Another vote for Diner. "Order up!"

Absolutely love the VP9 version, btw...

Edited by Ben Logan, 31 August 2015 - 12:49 AM.

[vic viper]

PacDude? I haven't heard that name in years

he's still around?

 

He use to make some of the best looking VP and VPM tables, he was ahead of his time when VP was still in its infancy

 

I used to call his tables PacDaddy Style.

[Trinity]

Hahaha. Love it. Gee I wish someone would do a good.....Millionaire, Fastbreak, Vulcan, Agent 777s, Star Trek 25th ann.   I just wish.

[The Dude]

Well, it sounds to me like 90% of the VP8 tables could have at least "worked" in VP9 with 2 changes in the VP source code (for at least VP8 tables).  I was under the imperssion that whomever owned Ultracade simply provided their latest binaries (with the exception of someone like Destruk having access).  So I wrongly assumed no further updates were possible.  So seeing VP10 coming up is what irritates me as I now realize the developers could have FIXED the incompatibilities rather easily rather than telling authors to alter hundreds of already working tables (where is there less work?).  Another 7 years have gone by and I wonder how many table authors are now being left behind once again.  You guys seem to think this has no effect on table authors and they're thrilled to start over.  Well I'm here to tell you it's the #1 thing that drove me away.  Instead of just starting on a new VP9 table, I was left to deal with the fact 32+ tables suddenly didn't work and changing ramp widths is no trivial thing in some cases.  I don't know how long it would have taken to get them all working.  I shouldn't have had to find out.  Is Scapino still around?  His tables are 100% dependent on the decals lining up.  Changing the ramps would kill the tables.  Oh well.  Too bad.  We've got SoAndSo to the rescue to make the first 8 years of VP irrelevant.  It's nice to know we wasted our time for the lack of these 2 changes (and a few minor ones that were easily addresed)

 

1> Change the ball size so they don't get stuck in ramps.  As I understand, the ball was only like a pixel or two larger in VP9 anyway, so it was ludicrous that this problem should have persisted

2> Flipper Settings Changed with the new physics (all this would require is changing the settings for "equivalent" ones worked out so it could be relatively easily addressed.

 

Minor things I noticed:

 

Some thing like table.slope no longer function.  Why?  Someone took them out.  They could be put back in or the options simply removed from those tables.  I haven't noticed any other specific issues so it certainly seems like getting VP9 to work with VP8 tables would have been pretty darn trivial early on.  Yeah, they wouldn't use newer features, but at least they would work and the physics improvements could be utilized with few if any tweaks beyond the flippers.

 

Now maybe VP10 is a lot bigger than VP9 in differences, but it just looks like VP8 tables could have worked in VP9 with minimal changes.  I simply thought there was no chance to fix it.  Now that I see that it COULD have been fixed, THAT is what disappoints me since other than a few tables with dip operation menu slope changes (easy/hard mode), it really does come down to the flipper settings and ramp problem as far as I can tell.  How hard would that have been to fix in VP?  Not very hard.  Change the ball size slightly smaller internally and add back the slope option.  Problem solved.  The point is that it would be easier to fix VP for several hundred tables than to fix several hundred tables for VP.  Tables like my own would benefit from the improved physics (I still think they look pretty good), but the sheer hassle of adjusting them all just to fit a flipping ball difference that could have been solved in VP is ridiculous, IMO. 

 

The problem with NOT carrying backwards compatibility in future VP versions is that no one is going to bother with older versions as posts in this thread have shown.  It's not that SOME of the tables still aren't up to snuff, but rather the idea that the physics have improved so much that it's not worth bothering regardless.  How long before every single VP9 table out there is abandoned and left for dead?  How many authors are going to get sick of having to update everything they ever did if VP keeps making itself incompatible?  I may soon have an install of Windows 10 on my 2012 Mac Mini in Boot Camp once El Capitain comes out and thus it might be a lot easier to update my tables (in terms of CPU power available to Windows, etc. and being on a machine I actually have powered on), but even if *I* bothered to get all my tables working in VP9, I'll jus run into whatever problems there are with them not working in VP10 (which I have no idea what they are).  Is this now Future Pinball Mark2 and real 3D or something?  What the heck is being broken?  Does someone have a run-down of all the issues?

 

As for the compatibility problems I see on here with people not even realizing there IS a problem, why doesn't VP9 check for VP8 tables and WARN that they aren't updated and therefore not work right?  VP9 tables could have had a marker in them from day one.  Why not at least package all the executables (VP8, VP9, VP10 in their own directories) with the newest version so you don't get dozens of people wondering why my flippers are 'weak' in VP (they're only "weak" in VP9) or the table has "errors" (only errors are in VP9).  Whether they "should" know is irrelevant.  Based on the table reviews, it's clearly many don't know.  I just went through all my tables on here (Blackout is missing, though I believe) and saw the same comments over and over and over again right around 2009.   VP9/10 could even be set to recognize the older tables and then load the older executable automatically as a linked program.  It just seems ODD to me that a 'preservation project' like VP doesn't do much of anything to preserve its own tables.  That goes for originals as well.

 

Yeah, I'm sure most users that are just happy to download whatever JPSalas or whatever author cranks out new won't really worry too much, but speaking as an author, it seems like a waste of those authors' time making those tables back then.  Yeah, there were a lot of bad VP tables (some authors just wanted a table for every ROM and used to complain to me for spending so much time on details when I could have been making "more" tables to meet "his goal" of having a table for every ROM.  Well, a table for every ROM is pointless to me if I don't want to actually play any of those tables.  The problem here is getting motivated to FIX all my tables so they at least work and the flippers aim better.  I'm sure many think why bother when such and such table already exists.  Yeah well, I loved Scapino's graphics, but I didn't always love his gameplay, etc.  Some people like bright tables and some people like medium and some like dark tables.  I personally always liked having the DMD right above the top of the table where it is in real life (moving your eyes diganoally while playing is distracting to me) while others want as much space for the table to look as "large" as possible. 

 

In other words, there's more to life than just ONE viewpoint and more to VP tables than just one example/view.  Even Pinball Arcade with multiple camera views doesn't give me a view with the DMD visible at the top of the table, depsite newer tables having working ones present there in attract mode (too bad you can't have custom camera views).  Pinball Arcade seems to have used some of my flasher ideas from tables like TAF to light up the cabinet (hell they look almost just like my effects so it wouldn't shock me if they learned a few ideas from VP tables), but in RoadShow they light up the right side of the table, but not the spot where the ball is actually to aim for (the real thing flashes right on the playfield there) so little things often bug me.  The table plays similar but with too small a table slope so regarldless of which one I think looks better overall, the Pinball Arcade version is too darn easy.  We had a lot of those issues too in VP tables.  One author's table might look great, but play unrealistic and/or too easy and just changing the slope didn't help as the ball behavior was optimized for a single slope and would throw off the entire table.

 

Oh well, I'll disappear back into the shadows now.  Maybe I'll tinker with my tables at some point, maybe I won't.  Clearly they mean more to me these days than to anyone else (a few excepted from some comments I've gotten elsewhere, especially about tables like Centaur where I added additional rule options some seemed to enjoy).

Edited by The Dude, 01 September 2015 - 08:43 PM.

[Ben Logan]

PacDude (or The Dude),

 

As a relative newb to the scene, it's probably not my place to comment on VP development. But...

 

As a teacher and now "educational consultant," it's so often my responsibility to tell the ivory tower folks (not that I'm comparing VP10 developers to ivory tower folks directly) that what they're proposing makes lots of problems for teachers, i.e. "boots on the ground" -- problems that might be avoided altogether with a few comparatively simpler tweaks on the administrative end. A consultant always risks sounding grouchy, oppositional, or subversive when he or she does so. But, I think its vital in any healthy ecosystem to encourage people to speak up about their own personal experiences when big changes come down the pipe. From my perspective, you've done a nice job of explaining why "legacy" table builders might be so frustrated the VP engine evolution, that they just throw their hands up in despair. I'm guessing no one wants that. I'd be really excited to see you release updated versions of the tables you created, which I already love and play frequently.

 

I'm happy you're offering your perspective around here, and sincerely hope you don't creep back into the shadows. That said, I can't help but think that the observations might have been even more helpful while VP10 was in its infancy stage of development. I don't mean that to sound critical. Just observing a "missed opportunity" (?) I don't know. Maybe its not too late to incorporate many of your suggestions. It would be so nice to see a framework that allows for more fluid evolutionary development of existing tables.

 

Lastly - THANKS so much to all you developers. My kids are playing VP in the other room on our little cabinet this very moment. You guys have given our family the single great entertainment gift ever. We really limit iPod time, but VP is family fun that's always welcome around our house.

[hauntfreaks]

you will have to excuse my ignorance, as I am pretty new to all of this... but if someone was passionate enough to want to play vp8 tables why not have vp8 installed, alongside of vp9, vp9pm5 and vp10... its not like these are mega programs... there tiny... I know I'm kinda out of the norm where I run all my VP versions in separate folders as well as every table is also in its own folder (I like a clean file structure)... but thats here nor there.... so what i'm getting at I dont know what it would matter if vp8 doesnt work in vp9 or 9 in 10...just run them all....  maybe I'm misunderstanding... 

 

oh and dboyrecords has converted 100's of vp8 tables to work in 9

 

anyway thats my 2 cents

Edited by hauntfreaks, 02 September 2015 - 12:08 AM.

[Trinity]

Correct me if I'm wrong, VP8 still works with vp8 tables. You can load multiple versions of VP side by side. I run mine through PinballX and am seamlessly running VP9, VP9(PM5), and VPX. All of them on my cab. If I choose to put a VP8 exe. in there, and load up some vp8 tables, I believe it would work just fine.  Am I wrong here?

Edited by Trinity, 01 September 2015 - 10:38 PM.

[hauntfreaks]

now that I been thinking about I think I know where this is going.... I believe what people are looking for is to have all the vp8 tables and also the newest features of vp10? I guess i can understand that, but havent all the best vp8 tables been redone for vp9??.... just thinking outloud....

[bent98]

Let's also run voodoo 2 cards with p2 300 MHz cpu and win 95 while we're at it and make sure vp 10 supports it.

Edited by bent98, 02 September 2015 - 01:01 AM.

[randr]

Oh! Loved the voodoo card!

[Trinity]

Was a great card for it's time. I'm suddenly feeling old.