328 replies to this topic

[louizou]

Hey guys, need some help here 

 

Working on IJPA , i can't figure how the "dual solenoid" TOP POST (on top of the POA) work !

 

looking at destruk's vp table, i see he uses a kicker and walls to achieve this, but i'd like to have a real post (FP popup element) driven by the two solenoids.

 

Can someone explain what is the role of each of these two solenoids on the assembly ?

[destruk]

One is a power solenoid, and one is a hold solenoid.  Typically the power solenoid fires first to move the post (one direction), and the hold solenoid provides a steady stream of power to keep the post up or down.  You shouldn't need to use both of them, just use the hold solenoid and ignore the other one.  The only reason I use both is because I wanted to have separate actions animating/holding the ball without using an actual post.  A lot of DCS games use Power and Hold solenoids where we only need one for VP or other simulators - to prevent the power solenoids from burning up by being active too long in the real machines.

[BilboX]

One is a power solenoid, and one is a hold solenoid.  Typically the power solenoid fires first to move the post (one direction), and the hold solenoid provides a steady stream of power to keep the post up or down.  You shouldn't need to use both of them, just use the hold solenoid and ignore the other one.  The only reason I use both is because I wanted to have separate actions animating/holding the ball without using an actual post.  A lot of DCS games use Power and Hold solenoids where we only need one for VP or other simulators - to prevent the power solenoids from burning up by being active too long in the real machines.

Thanks! I have the same problem for diverters on Addams and Scared Stiff, also for the crate's gate... I see now, it is like the "EOS" switch to prevent flippers coils to burn... am I right?

[ringorian]

Any chance of getting a new alpha this weekend ?   

[skeleton60]

even if we have 99.9% chance to get it this week end there will be still 0.1% that make me sad 

Edited by skeleton60, 15 February 2014 - 02:11 PM.

[louizou]

One is a power solenoid, and one is a hold solenoid.  Typically the power solenoid fires first to move the post (one direction), and the hold solenoid provides a steady stream of power to keep the post up or down.  You shouldn't need to use both of them, just use the hold solenoid and ignore the other one.  The only reason I use both is because I wanted to have separate actions animating/holding the ball without using an actual post.  A lot of DCS games use Power and Hold solenoids where we only need one for VP or other simulators - to prevent the power solenoids from burning up by being active too long in the real machines.

Thanks for the tip, Brian. Gonna test it tomorrow.

 

even if we have 99.9% chance to get it this week end there will be still 0.1% that make me sad 

Sorry to say that there is 0.1% to get it before the end of the week end.

 

 

But 100% chance to get it during the next week 

[destruk]

 

One is a power solenoid, and one is a hold solenoid.  Typically the power solenoid fires first to move the post (one direction), and the hold solenoid provides a steady stream of power to keep the post up or down.  You shouldn't need to use both of them, just use the hold solenoid and ignore the other one.  The only reason I use both is because I wanted to have separate actions animating/holding the ball without using an actual post.  A lot of DCS games use Power and Hold solenoids where we only need one for VP or other simulators - to prevent the power solenoids from burning up by being active too long in the real machines.

Thanks! I have the same problem for diverters on Addams and Scared Stiff, also for the crate's gate... I see now, it is like the "EOS" switch to prevent flippers coils to burn... am I right?

 

 

You are close.  With a flipper the EOS (End of Stroke) switch signals to the cpu that the switch has reached the end of travel.  Without the EOS switch the high powered flipper solenoids would remain on longer than necessary.  Then when it notices the EOS switch closure it switches to the hold solenoid for the flipper and turns off the high power solenoid.  The EOS switch isn't really necessary - the game could simply fire the high power solenoid and immediately engage the hold solenoid (assuming the high power was enough to complete the range of travel) -- or it could pulse the high power solenoid without a hold solenoid involved to ensure it remains cool.  In our emulation you don't need to worry about much of this stuff.

[lettuce]

I havent posted on these forums in well over a year probably due to the fact of The Pinball Arcade coming out and couldnt really go back to Virtual Pinball emulator (becuase of the flat 2d look of it) and Futrue Pinball (becuase of the physics). Image my supprise when i stumbled across a Youtube video of something called Unit3D Pinball, to all involved you have done a tremendous job here, and really does improve upon the work of what FarSight have achieved in The Pinball Arcade, the lighting on the tables is just astonishing and that video of Class of 1812 and the animated hand is miles better than the hand in The Pinball Arcade...Bravo, bravo indeed!

 

Have a few quesitons about Unit3D Pinball, does it use PinMame or VP in any ways, do tables still have to be made from scratch or can they use some resources from VP?. I really hope some of the guys from Future Pinball get in on this (francisco666, cypher80b, glxb, rom) too.

 

One request, I would love to see, Bram Stokers Dracula on Unity3D Pinball for halloween, any chance???

 

This things going to kick arse with the retial release of Oculus Rift!!!!!

Edited by lettuce, 16 February 2014 - 02:49 PM.

[LoadedWeapon]

Yea as far as I can tell this FP with PinMame added.. so it will have graphics of FP while using the Roms of VP and both of those with custom lighting and physics.I know there is alot more to it than that but thats the main look . Should be great if they can optimize and keep the frame rate up.. can't wait to test the next one

Edited by LoadedWeapon, 16 February 2014 - 02:55 PM.

[lettuce]

Yeah well i think the graphics look much more superior to FP, FP has a kind of caricature/cartoony look to them where UP looks more realistic. So i take it as its called 'Unit3D Pinball' it actually uses the unity engine, so real life physics for plastic, wood, rubber, water, mud, air, grass, concret, metals etc?? SO no actual alteration to the physics engine need to be done depending on the table, as it uses universal real life physics?

Edited by lettuce, 16 February 2014 - 03:10 PM.

[BilboX]

Yeah well i think the graphics look much more superior to FP, FP has a kind of caricature/cartoony look to them where UP looks more realistic. So i take it as its called 'Unit3D Pinball' it actually uses the unity engine, so real life physics for plastic, wood, rubber, water, mud, air, grass, concret, metals etc?? SO no actual alteration to the physics engine need to be done depending on the table, as it uses universal real life physics?

Hi. And thanks you guys for all kind words. This statement is not quite true. To be clear, NO PHYSICS ENGINE can reproduce real ife physics . That is for the "sad sentence", nothing will ever replace a true pinball. But, what is sure, is that physics engines will get better and better and, for us, the faster way was to use NVidia PhysX embedded in Unity. For the records, I think there are better engines out there... That is why we will try to provide tweakable parameters, though it is hard to get into the physics main loop without induce some instabilities. We are quite happy with current settings, but the whole community will need to contribute to it as it is really hard to "compare" with real pinball without playing a lot... on both.

 

Yea as far as I can tell this FP with PinMame added.. so it will have graphics of FP while using the Roms of VP and both of those with custom lighting and physics.I know there is alot more to it than that but thats the main look . Should be great if they can optimize and keep the frame rate up.. can't wait to test the next one

This is not completely exact: for now, we import FP tables, so we use meshes for those tables (or make new ones for topys for example). But the lighting is not the same, materials can be reworked in post-process with better reflections and we hope to introduce Lightmaps and fast shadows in the future (though this is a big work ahead). But you are right: VPM connection + FP "3D", that is why we call it "Unit3D Pinball", plus it is under Unity engine...

[louizou]

One is a power solenoid, and one is a hold solenoid.  Typically the power solenoid fires first to move the post (one direction), and the hold solenoid provides a steady stream of power to keep the post up or down.  You shouldn't need to use both of them, just use the hold solenoid and ignore the other one.  The only reason I use both is because I wanted to have separate actions animating/holding the ball without using an actual post.  A lot of DCS games use Power and Hold solenoids where we only need one for VP or other simulators - to prevent the power solenoids from burning up by being active too long in the real machines.

I have a strange behaviour.

When i wrote the message asking help for the Top Post, i didn't have set up the POA and solenoid 36(the hold one) was fired after the 35(the power one).

 

Since i have done the POA mech(which works perfectly) the solenoid 36 doesn't fire anymore.

 

Using our Slot Explorer feauture(which shows in realtime the state of the solenoids) ican't see it beeing activated during gameplay 

 

I've tried to attach my top post object to the 35 and it seems to work as you may notice in this video.

 

 

 

I've not tested all missions that use the POA, so it needs more testing.

 

Other things to do to this table:

 

-Timing adjustment of the subway

-Handling all the GI lamps

[Glxb]

OMG!
Do you have the poa as a model then?
That was the only thing I was never happy with with my fp table.
Great work.
Glxb

[louizou]

Nope, the POA is yours !

 

I've just attached the surfaces , triggers, lamps , etc to a new empty object which is used as pivot, that's all.

 

Personally, i find it very near of the original one ;-)

 

You have done a great work by designing tis table 

[lettuce]

 

 

I've not tested all missions that use the POA, so it needs more testing.

 

Other things to do to this table:

 

-Timing adjustment of the subway

-Handling all the GI lamps

 

Looks fantastic.

 

Man i really do not see the need for table builders to carry on with just making Future Pinball tables, how easy going forward is it for FP creators to make their FP tables convert over to UP in the building process?

 

I mean for example, Rom has finished building Bram Stokers Dracula in Future pinball all thats needed is for it to be scripted for Future Pinball, would this table still need to be scripted if it was imported into UP...or is scripting a thing of the past where UP is concerned??

Edited by lettuce, 17 February 2014 - 06:16 PM.

[destruk]

If one of the solenoids isn't firing, then you should delete the nvram and then thoroughly test your implementation of the POA toy mechanic.  Usually the game either learns that something is broken and eventually ignores it (which deleting the nvram will correct until the next test), or it isn't firing it because the POA isn't at a required position for it to fire.  Whenever you change the code for a playfield toy it's a good idea to delete the nvram so it is forced to re-test itself with the new range/interval and settings in your simulation.  I'll add the IJ table from your video looks amazing.   You have a credit dot after the Credits 3 - so that says something on the game is broken.

Edited by destruk, 17 February 2014 - 06:42 PM.

[louizou]

 

Man i really do not see the need for table builders to carry on with just making Future Pinball tables, how easy going forward is it for FP creators to make their FP tables convert over to UP in the building process?

 

I mean for example, Rom has finished building Bram Stokers Dracula in Future pinball all thats needed is for it to be scripted for Future Pinball, would this table still need to be scripted if it was imported into UP...or is scripting a thing of the past where UP is concerned??

 

 

Of course, this table still would need to be scripted, but just linking lamps, solenoids and switches as it's done in VP.(and not the entire scripting as in FP)

 

Ask ROM if you know him, and if he wants, i could convert the fpt table to a Unit3d pinball table format and send it back to him if he wants to try scripting in UP3D.

 

If he doesn't want to start playing with c# scripting, i could do it if needed.

 

 

 

If one of the solenoids isn't firing, then you should delete the nvram and then thoroughly test your implementation of the POA toy mechanic.  Usually the game either learns that something is broken and eventually ignores it (which deleting the nvram will correct until the next test), or it isn't firing it because the POA isn't at a required position for it to fire.  Whenever you change the code for a playfield toy it's a good idea to delete the nvram so it is forced to re-test itself with the new range/interval and settings in your simulation.  I'll add the IJ table from your video looks amazing.   You have a credit dot after the Credits 3 - so that says something on the game is broken.

 

I've deleted the nvram and it's the same thing....

 

I'll try to disable the POA mech handling to see if it really comes from this.

 

Thanks a lot ;-)

[lettuce]

Ask ROM if you know him, and if he wants, i could convert the fpt table to a Unit3d pinball table format and send it back to him if he wants to try scripting in UP3D.

 

If he doesn't want to start playing with c# scripting, i could do it if needed.

 

I'll ask him, i know rom doesnt do scripting anymore and usually passes it on to francisco to script. So i guess we'd be on our own here, i know JP did BSD for VP back last year so maybe we could use his script (if his willing) for an easy convert??

[JohnIV]

I asked ROM in his gopinball Dracula table thread just now.

 

John IV

mameui.info

Edited by JohnIV, 17 February 2014 - 07:27 PM.

[Glxb]

Nope, the POA is yours !

 

I've just attached the surfaces , triggers, lamps , etc to a new empty object which is used as pivot, that's all.

 

Personally, i find it very near of the original one ;-)

 

You have done a great work by designing tis table 

Wow, thats a cool feature. Moveable ramps will be easy then.

yeah I've very proud of the work myself and Highlnder00 did, but not having the poa tilt was a minor annoyance.

 

GLXB