3889 replies to this topic

[Shoopity]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, so if this has been covered, sorry; if there's a work-around, please point me in the right direction (I still don't know what the purpose of the Flasher object is now since I can't control the size of it).  So I'm giving a shot at doing Scared Stiff in VPX and I'm trying to implement the flashers.  As we all know, this was done, mostly, with the Flasher object previously, but I'm finding a near perfect effect just using a regular light and enabling the Bulb option (which as has been stated a million times, I freakin' LOVE).  I say near perfect because the halo isn't a sphere, it's a 2D disc.  But since this isn't a program where you can change the angle of viewing during the game, this effect can be faked by simply facing the 2D disc towards the player/camera.

 

In VP9.9 I could do this with the Flasher object (though still not 100%) by setting the RotX to be equal to the Negative of the Table's inclination at run time (it's not 100% because the RotY should be rotated too, but that depends on how far from the center and what the FoV and Layback settings are as well).  Is there any way to easily throw this functionality in?  Should it wait until the next version?  Is there some other work-around in the mean time?  Is volumetric lighting at all on the To-Do list?

Edited by Shoopity, 28 May 2015 - 05:19 PM.

[freneticamnesic]

The only way I've done it is by shaping the flasher like an egg.... making it longer on the x axis than the y axis. Effects are decent but not perfect. We discussed having the light objects rotatable (we were discussing things like their use as reflections) but it appears to have not gone anywhere.

[cyberpez]

I'd +1 a rotatable light!!  For my Black Hole table I'm using the same old flashers (as lights and GI) and they seem out of place with the new lights on the upper playfield.  

 

Also,  can you not swap images of a ramp on the fly anymore?  I'm using the same code I had before.... ramp1.image = "imagename"  but it does not seem to be changing.  My lower playfield is a ramp and it just stays dark now when the lights come on...

[fuzzel]

Regarding the ramps: activate the opacity of the ramp material will change the ramp into a dynamic element like the old VP9 alpha flag did. Then you can use images as before via script. But I recommend not to use ramps for that any more but to use flashers for this instead.

[toxie]

The next build will fix issues with the new bulb light option for the backside lighting of transparent materials (like playfield plastics). Especially on FS setups there should've been a ton of weird issues with this new feature so far (lights not lighting anything, or being cut off, etc).

Thanks to bodydump for the test table.

[jimmyfingers]

Cool to hear about the fixes to the transmit function and that some progress and improvement on the kicker behaviour / physics is being investigated.  Because of the potential aspects of how it behaves while a WIP - but also for a final result) and for potentially leaving old scripted methods as an option, could you leave / program in such a way a parameter or separate object for kicker object to be set as a "legacy" mode kicker, to behave as it has / does up to this point?  

 

Also, I would agree that the shape of the area around the kicker lip / edges for it's "funnel" would likely need to be definable somehow as with tables like Mata Hari, Trident, or Power Play, it's a larger radius, lower sloping and more shallow lead-in to the kicker hole, which would still have a slightly different behaviour when right at the middle.  Maybe something like having two options for the surrounding "funnel" - radius and depth - then a final option for the kicker cup itself as to how deep to the sensors.  

 

This variation is also why I suggest allowing a selectable "legacy" mode so that again (and seems to be the essence of VP) authors could take a stab at scripting alternatives if tastes and preferences vary - and as with all things pinball, they likely will

[lodger]

Now that we're getting to a place where we have some really amazing physics modeling (with flippers etc its pretty amazing to see the variety out there) it seems like it would be really helpful to start to consider whether presets for different types of objects (i.e. letting users save the replica 70's era bally flippers they created or having basic template ones that can be refined...without having to open another file copy paste, etc) would help workflow and would help authors audition different ideas.

 

I am thinking that especially with things like materials (as everyone seems to be harvesting theirs out of the same tables) this would help people make much for effective use of the GUI.

 

I am super excited about the direction vp is going...and feel this is a fantastic platform to develop on

Edited by lodger, 28 May 2015 - 05:38 PM.

[Shoopity]

OK, I think I've built up enough of a list to put some stuff down.  As always, if this has been discussed, I sincerely apologize (but I AIN'T runnin' through no 104 pages, yeesh):

This is Rev. 1993

• The Shift+Click for collections seems to be opposite of what I've seen discussed, it's backwards (regular clicking selects all the object, shift clicking selects only the one object); I saw lots of discussion on the matter, so this may be intended
• This also affects the Selection arrow.  If I select an object by using the arrow next to the Selection button (with the mouse pointer icon) that's in a Collection, it still selects the whole Collection.  However, I can still use the Shift+Ctrl+E search box to find/select the individual object.
• VPX (and possibly 9.x) can't handle 32 bit bitmaps.  Almost everything is pink.  I had to save the file as 24 bit (I was editing the black rubber-post-t1-black image instead of just finding a yellow one; I was using GIMP)
• Ctrl+Mouse Wheel does some funky zooming, to the point of losing the table.  I'm sure it's still a work in progress, but just in case you thought it was great, it's not, at least for me.
• Twice now I've gotten an Overflow crash (sorry, didn't copy the message verbose); not VP crashes (so no dump file generated), running table crashes.  It said it was related to Csng in the following line of code:

• Pan = Csng(tmp ^10)

• As you may recognize, this is copied from the default New table and is related to ball rolling panning.  An important note, I've been editing + testing/running the table for many hours, running the table more than 20 times without restarting VP; it is taking up more than 1.3 gigs of memory.  I realize this may be related, so I know I should probably just restart VP, but if this is pointing out a memory leak, then I just want to help make the program better.  This error also popped up twice in the same place on the table, somewhere between the coordinates (24, 620) ~ (160, 1000).  The ball was shot with decent speed both times.
• I do have a 1.1 gig .dmp file from when VPX crashed the other day in case you want me to get that to you somehow.

 

One suggestion:

• Is there any way you could add middle click (i.e. Mouse Click) to pan the table?

 

Keep up the awesome work!!

Edited by Shoopity, 28 May 2015 - 10:17 PM.

[Shoopity]

I'm fully aware I may be missing something here, but... is there any way to force a Bumper animation without actually hitting it?  Ideally, for "accuracy's" sake, if you go into the settings menu to test the solenoids, you should be able to select the bumper solenoids and watch them animate.  I know you might be saying to yourself "Who does that, who cares, let's not waste precious dev time on something no one is going to use, and if they do, they won't really care."  I'm not sure about any other games, I just know in Scared Stiff there are times when the solenoids fire in game (when you select the Lab reward from the Spider Wheel).

 

I didn't see anything in the command reference (at least, under the Bumper section)

I've tried tying the SolCallBack to include Bumper_Hit

 

Somewhat related, when the Boogie Men are dancing, the ROM randomly (though in time) fire the Slingshot solenoids; I don't know if the game turns off the reaction of the slingshots getting hit during this time.  This would affect game play.  Is there a way to manually fire off VP's slingshots too?  Not just the animation, but the actual, physical slinging.  I also can't think of a way to turn off the slingshots during the dance routine (how would VP know what mode VPM is in).

Edited by Shoopity, 29 May 2015 - 12:28 AM.

[lodger]

I'm fully aware I may be missing something here, but... is there any way to force a Bumper animation without actually hitting it?  Ideally, for "accuracy's" sake, if you go into the settings menu to test the solenoids, you should be able to select the bumper solenoids and watch them animate.  I know you might be saying to yourself "Who does that, who cares, let's not waste precious dev time on something no one is going to use, and if they do, they won't really care."  I'm not sure about any other games, I just know in Scared Stiff there are times when the solenoids fire in game (when you select the Lab reward from the Spider Wheel).

 

I didn't see anything in the command reference (at least, under the Bumper section)

I've tried tying the SolCallBack to include Bumper_Hit

 

Somewhat related, when the Boogie Men are dancing, the ROM randomly (though in time) fire the Slingshot solenoids; I don't know if the game turns off the reaction of the slingshots getting hit during this time.  This would affect game play.  Is there a way to manually fire off VP's slingshots too?  Not just the animation, but the actual, physical slinging.  I also can't think of a way to turn off the slingshots during the dance routine (how would VP know what mode VPM is in).

In the help section a month or so ago, we had this sort of discussion regarding the manual sling sort of mechanism in the new stern wrestlemania. there were several options discussed, but they were all of the work arounds using things like invisible kickers

[freneticamnesic]

<<< solution was ignored for the slingshots

[freezy]

Just came across this. Also read the comments. Maybe it's time to move to a more serious source code repo? Alternatives.

[Talantyyr]

Try that:

https://github.com/jsm174/vpinball

[fuzzel]

hmm I never had problems with SF so far. The sources are hosted there and only some old releases too. Maybe we should move to github or any other site don't know, we have to discuss that.

[Talantyyr]

Is that github link i've posted not the official repo? 

 

i was wondering why no one uses the bug tracker though

[fuzzel]

no it's not the official repro just the one jsm created for his own work

 

rev2003 is up:

 

- fix wrong zbuffer reads when rendering the bulb light buffer for the transparent material pass

- add legacy switch for the kicker to switch back to the old VP9 kicker handling
- reworked kicker physics needs some fine tuning
- exporting a single mesh fixed
 

The new kicker physics are far from perfect but when the ball doesn't hit the kicker straight the ball's motion is diverted from the kicker bevel but just a bit.

[hmueck]

no it's not the official repro just the one jsm created for his own work

I think the "Visual Pinball SVN clone of https://svn.code.sf....p/vpinball/code" on the top gave it away.  
EDIT: but wait - the sourceforge is at 9.1.5 - no updates since then. How's that official?

github last updated two hours ago by fuzzel?!
 

rev2003 is up:

Getting close to 2015! (final version???)

 

- fix wrong zbuffer reads when rendering the bulb light buffer for the transparent material pass

fix the what now? german please! i mean.. english please!

Edited by hmueck, 29 May 2015 - 11:17 AM.

[Hyper]

With rev2003 the kicker in JP's WOW-monopoly doesn't work anymore 

[fuzzel]

I don't commit to github the official repro is https://svn.code.sf....ball/code/trunk but the github link is a clone of the official sourceforge repro. It was installed for convenience so that someone can also use git and isn't forced to use svn. But all commits are forwarded to the SF repro.

 

rev 2015 would be a cool revision number for a release but I doubt it

 

"- fix wrong zbuffer reads when rendering the bulb light buffer for the transparent material pass"

what's wrong with that? I you like we can send you each commit message to verify the gramma

[fuzzel]

With rev2003 the kicker in JP's WOW-monopoly doesn't work anymore 

select all kickers and check "Legacy" for all of them.