237 replies to this topic

[Macro]

well, my copy now has your shading for the font stuff, just waiting for UPS to deliver so I can try it out!

[Steve Paradis]

Sorry to bother with that..

 

Is there a document to trouble shoot what is going on...it doesn't work anymore and I cannot guess why

 

DMD is pluggeg, When I open FP it switch to Macro splash logo as usual but when I start a game nothing...I just hang on the logo like there is nothing else send to the board.

Rebooted a couple of time. Unplugged every cable...nothing work..

 

Any clue?

[Macro]

what table(s) are you using - also, have a look into the glilog.txt file, that sometimes gives an indication.

[Steve Paradis]

very weird dmd behavior... when not using the backglass DMD don't send info to the PinDMD

as soon as I move the DMD to the primary display (Playfield) it is back in duty 

 

Anyone notice that?

maybe this info should be in a trouble shooting document

 

 

Message Glilog.txt

trigger located 23

stencil 4

Edited by Steve Paradis, 01 February 2013 - 06:11 PM.

[Zablon]

I think that's because the DMD is on the backglass, so if you don't use the backglass it won't send info. If I understood correctly, it doesn't work with the playfield DMD (even if it's DMD1?)

Edited by Zablon, 01 February 2013 - 06:44 PM.

[Macro]

not sure I understand you - if you mean that you are not displaying the DMD on either screen then I guess FP does not send the information to it, so that the plug-in cannot pick it up. (although it does seem to fins the stencil, so it must be doing something with it!)

 

it does work with hud-dmd's that are hidden, so that may be a way around the problem.

 

both my cab and main PC have two screens, so I have never tried it without having the backbox displayed - will have to give it a go and see what happens

 

glad you found the problem anyway, that was confusing me!

[Steve Paradis]

My dmd was not on the hud Macro, it was on the backglass and I was not using the second monitor so it was off.

good thing is that it work now. but since it happen to one person, I thought it was important to share because someone else can really

bang is head on that.

[Macro]

did you have the main screen in arcade mode ?  (I tried it last night with a normal main screen and it still sends the data)

 

I'll put it in the read me file once I understand exactly how it happened.

[Zablon]

On the topic of games with large size DMD screens not showing up. I have fixed the issue by exporting all the DMD textures, grayscaling them and resizing them to 128x32 then reimporting them into. Let me just say, on some this is quite tedious, so I asked Slam for permission to either release a DMD users mod of the tables in question or just and updated library, or maybe he will edit them himself as an update. You do have to grayscale them because they turn out pretty dark if you leave them in color.

I have finished Nightmare on Elm Street and am currently working on PoTC. I think there's a few others as well that will need done. Works great now!

Edited by Zablon, 03 February 2013 - 07:51 AM.

[jasonsmith]

That's great, keep us in the loop.

[Macro]

don't get too carried away - the version sitting on my machine resizes the oversize textures as they load (anything up to 512x512 at the moment)

 

mind you, it will still use colour averaging, but hopefully with the right output shades will give usable results.

 

once I've managed to sort the correct shades to use out then hopefully it will be ready to update the release files. (basically I really need 8 or so linear shades for Version 2)

[Zablon]

OK, good to know, I wasn't sure what the time frame was and from your last post I got the impression you didn't think it would fix the issue.. I've actually already completed both tables, but haven't finished testing yet. I do have a concern about the coloring though because for darker scenes, the frames were way too dark and dropped much of the detail if I didn't grayscale them first. I already talked to Slam and he gave permission to release the changes and I mentioned what I found and he sounded like going forward he will make them pinDMD compatible - but I know from an editing/updating standpoint he may leave them colored.

 

All of this is just a learning tool for me because I've not really dove into the scripting, VP and FP workings prior to now so I don't mind the effort.

Edited by Zablon, 03 February 2013 - 10:58 PM.

[Macro]

what version PinDMD do you have - everything on version 2 seems to be too bright because of the way I did mapped the output of the brightness averaging against the 16 shades. Version 1 uses the same algorithm but linearly across the 4 shades. (where FP itself uses 5, so we definitely lose some contrast there)

 

hopefully, with some test screens and some changes to the default settings we can fine tune it to work for *most* graphics - there are always going to be some that are just too different!

 

I need to find out how FP does it itself, since if they look OK on the FP DMD, then they should look OK on the real one as well.

 

n.b. algorithm I use is basically brightness = ((red*4 + green*3 + blue) / 8)  giving 0-254 or so as an output, then it just uses top 2 or 4 bits for the shade to use (but next version will remap to get a more linear spread)

Edited by Macro, 03 February 2013 - 11:19 PM.

[Zablon]

I'm on a version 1. I can see a few shades that don't match what is on the original screen due to the mapping, but overall it looks decent. There are some that are probably too bright as well.

[Zablon]

I have finished with Pirates and Elm Street. I probably won't release them if Marco gets everything figured out soon as there won't be any point to it

 

I have however been busy making HyperDMD work with Hyperpin, VP and FP. Making it work with FP was a pain at first, but I found a workaround. It sucks not being a programmer

I will post videos and the code changes later today. It's pretty sweet and I have no idea why more people aren't using it, and even harder to believe no one has posted any info on HOW to use it. There is room for so many possibilities.

Edited by Zablon, 06 February 2013 - 07:34 AM.

[Macro]

I have made a change which (once it works!) will allow you to do your own mapping.

 

It breaks the brightness into 32 sections, and you can then allocate shades across those via a text file (if you don't like the default mapping)

 

FP does not use equal sized bands, with the 100% band only half the size of the others.

[Steve Paradis]

super news..can't wait

[jasonsmith]

Great news, thanks Macro.

[Zablon]

Here's a short video showing what I was talking about with integrating HyperDMD into Hyperpin and VP and FP. Still a few bugs to work out, but you get the idea. You see the scrambling that happens upon loading FP until it starts? Is that still there in the new DLL?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28b7u8JeYJk

Edited by Zablon, 08 February 2013 - 03:47 AM.

[Slydog43]

wow that is totally cool.  I want, I want