321 replies to this topic

[CyclonePF]

Aha! Thank you dstott! It's good to know that I may eventually be able to have color DMD and video modes that work. From a quick look at the github comments you linked me to, it seems like the fix may be close.

[webby]

HI Guys,

Can I ask if anyone has actually got any roms coloured and working using Pinball Browser.

I have been playing with Walking Dead 1.56 in PBv7.03 unregistered (maybe this is the problem?)

My Process. 

1. I open the [unzipped rom] Bin file, select display, change a few of the DMD images such as Stern Logo and AMC logo colours. 

2. Click Save (firmware) It Creates new BIN, PBM and DAT file (I thought was the p...Pal file but its not)

3. zip this back up as originally named and drop in Roms folder.

4. Run the Game and it always errors.

 

Anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong?

Anyone had any success this way?

 

Thanks in advance,

Webster

[Thalamus]

@32assassin is the only one I know for sure have some experience with pinball browser and coloring.

Edited by Thalamus, 04 April 2020 - 02:07 PM.

[32assassin]

did you enable "Ignore CRC Errors"  in  your PINMAME settings.

unmodified roms do not need bin names inside the zip file  to be exact

 Modified roms need the exact name

 

what happens when you do a rom check/test in PINMAME

 

 

 

You need the license to apply  the PINMAME patch,   without the patch your pallets will not trigger.

 

 

My CSI and WPT projects don't have the PINMAME patch  so I did all the coloring in Pinball Browser  but did all the Pallet switching in the PINtwoDMD editor. 

Your rom should not error out when you load it,  it should play as normal but you will not see the changes you made until you trigger the pallets for each scene you modified.

 

And finally you need to create a smartdmd.txt file 

 

I attached a basic smatdmd.txt file  as an example. 

 

as You can see you need to create a new Palette and give it a name for each scene you color

 Capture.PNG   321.98KB   2 downloads

 

if you don't plan to get the PInballbrowser license  you can  do what I did and import your   smartdm.txt file  that contains all your Pallets

into the other editor.  Capture and cut the scenes;  Import your smartdmd.txt  file  and apply the pallets you created in PinballBrosser

Attached Files

•  smartdmd.zip   959bytes   12 downloads

[webby]

HI 32,

Thanks for the reply.

The rom errored in Game and testing.

See the attached image.

I open the ROM [WTD is not patched] , load Smart DMD text (in-frame) created 2 new palettes, link 1 palette to the image I edited, (logo)

Then Save and it creates the files as per the image, the bin, dat and pbm. I zipped the bin file renamed it to twd_160h and started the Game, OK now, but youre right the edited logo does not show.

 

what I did is copy the colour scheme from my smartdmd palette to a new pal and now it works but only 1 palette.

 

What exactly are the next steps though? How do you import edited frames (record?) into p2dmd editor?

Thanks, again.

Webster

Attached Files

•  1.PNG   129.08KB   0 downloads

Edited by webby, 05 April 2020 - 07:08 AM.

[32assassin]

if you are asking for a tutorial ,  I suggest you go to vpu.

vpu is the default home page for the other editor you will get allot more help their.

 

 

 

the only thing I can tell you is why you need to jump trough all this hoops

 

The other editor  does not modify the rom that's why you don't see any rom patches for non SAM roms.

 

it just places masks over the DMD images.   the most basic  method to add color to your project is to use a "Color Mask"

their are other type of ways to add color but for scenes like this (see pic)

Scenes that contain Dynamic content.  (score and initials that change as you play the game)

 

You have to use a Color Mask,  but the bad thing is that Color Masks don't!!!!!  work on SAM roms.

You have to color this scene in Pinball Browser.

 

 

take a look at this image

I colored this frame in Pinball Browser

 

I created a Book Mark (red arrow)

 

Smartdmd.txt config window I created a Pallet  called NBA Finals

 

I assigned the NBA finals pallet to my Scene

( got an error saying you can't apply the mask but I don't care I will apply the mask in the other editor)

 

Using the 5 color samples (blue line),  the scene was colored

 

saved the rom   

made a copy of the rom and renamed it from

NBA_V8-02_E.bin ------>  nba_802.bin

as you can see their are now CRC errors so I made sure that Ignore CRC errors is enabled 

 

 

 2.PNG   346.88KB   1 downloads

 

 

 

 

In the "Other" editor

I  made a capture for the scene  as you can see the scene is already colored

the only thing I need to do 

Cut a Scene and make a Keyframe that triggers the Pallet  (9- NBA finals)  for when this scene is played.

 

once I have a keyframe I can export a   pal and vni file 

with that the NBA finals pallet will switch when the scene is played

 

 Capture.PNG   644.35KB   1 downloads

 

 

 

 

Whats new with my picture is that  Most SAM projects you see out their

they do not have  multiple colors for  Numbers and letters

 

at least my CSI and WPT do not have this because I did not know how to do it

(you can do this with Color Masks but again Color Masks don't work on SAM roms)

 

I spent a few hours playing with Pinball Browser and figured out how to do it.

 

 

Scroll through the scenes in Pinball Browser and You will find all the Letters and Numbers

 

they are all assigned to the  last (white) color spot.

 

if you want different colors   

designate a Numbers and letters   Color swatch  ( Yellow Highlight for me)

 

and change all he letters and numbers to your designated color swatch

 

 3.PNG   91.91KB   1 downloads

Edited by 32assassin, 05 April 2020 - 09:46 PM.

[webby]

Hi,

Thanks again for the explanation.

I really just want to know how you got from Pinball Browser to the p2 editor.

What did yo import to p2 Editor?

Did you record the dmd changes?

 

I think I will stick with using 1 palette of 16 colors, works OK for me.

Webster
 

[32assassin]

the only thing I imported from the Pinball Browser project to the p2 editor is the smartDMD.txt file

 

this file contains all your pallets

Pallets/Mode  ---> Load Pallet (in the lower left corner  pull-down menu select smartDMD)

 

before you do this make sure to delete the default pallets

pal1-pal8  or  the colors of the pallets you created will be lost.

 

(I use pal0  as the default pellet its set to all PINK,  Broken/ Uncolored scenes use the default pellet)

this is how I test my project to find what I need to fix

 

 

 

The rest is done as if you where coloring a non SAM rom  

(this is why I suggested you go to look at the available tutorials in vpu

you need to know how to use this editor)

 

 

1. 

to create a recording 

Use  external dll  and ShowDMD/display on your PINMAME  PER ROM SETTING!!!!!!

!!!! do not set it up as a default setting or you will create a recording for every game you play

 

disable ShowDMD/Display if you do not want to make a recording

or delete the dmddump folder you are about to create

 

2 

create a folder in your PINMAME folder

Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\dmddump

 

your recordings will be saved as Romname.txt

 

3. 

rename it to something significant; you will end up with  allot of recordings

 

compress the txt file using Gzip format

 

4.

Import your recording into the editor

Scene/Recording --->  Load-recording(s)

 

5

Proceed to cut individual scenes  and make keyframes for those cut scenes.

[webby]

Hi Guys,

Heres some progress images for the Walking Dead and Iron Man.

I only use Pinball Browser to Colour the Rom DMD images and create a p2dmd.pal file to match the 16 colours used through the PB.

16 colours are not perfect and as you will see im using You tube videos of Colour DMD

 1.PNG   27.95KB   4 downloads

 2.PNG   29.21KB   4 downloads

 3.PNG   904.96KB   2 downloads

 4.PNG   43.36KB   4 downloads

 im1.PNG   19.34KB   4 downloads

 im2.PNG   791.58KB   4 downloads

 

 

is it worth me doing it this way or creating all the palettes i need [in PB] to make the frames smooth like the color DMD then import and do all the work in p2 Editor? (Compare Image 3)

Its a lot of hard work and like I said im not an artist!

Webster

Edited by webby, 07 April 2020 - 01:18 PM.

[webby]

HI,

On a slightly different topic,

i watched a video on replacing sounds in the Sam roms using Pinball Browser, but it was Mono.

I also saw a tutorial on converting sounds to 5.1 surround.

 

I wondered if anyone has replaced music and sound in a Rom with 5.1 sounds and music?

 

This would give an better overall sound experience and may eliminate the need for SSF?

Thanks,

Webster.

[LynnInDenver]

HI,

On a slightly different topic,

i watched a video on replacing sounds in the Sam roms using Pinball Browser, but it was Mono.

I also saw a tutorial on converting sounds to 5.1 surround.

 

I wondered if anyone has replaced music and sound in a Rom with 5.1 sounds and music?

 

This would give an better overall sound experience and may eliminate the need for SSF?

Thanks,

Webster.

SSF, as I recall, is really meant as Surround Sound Feedback for the sounds of what would be physical things in a real table - the ball rolling, solenoids firing, motors turning - and is independent of the bleeps, bloops and sampled sounds of a ROM file.

[webby]

Hi,

So has anyone has replaced in built FX or music and sound in a Rom with 5.1 sounds and music?

Would it actually add to the experience?

Webster

[LynnInDenver]

Most of the PinMAME tables won't support more than stereo sound from the ROMs - remember that, in spite of needing to be rugged enough that they would survive location use, pinballs were always and still are built to a price and purpose, and surround sound doesn't make a lot of sense from something that isn't meant to be wired into the room any further than tying into wall power and whatever swipe card system a location would be running, as well as competing with the sounds from all the rest of the machines.

 

You might be able to use PinUp Player on DMD tables to effectively replace the sounds (you'd just be turning the ROM sounds off and using PinUp Player to provide substitutes), but I don't think that would add enough to the experience to make it worth the extra effort.

[obatupinball]

I am hoping someone can help.  I did this,

i changed table script const cGameName = "st_161hc"

but i get and error 

Line: 630

game name not found!

 

any ideas?

[Outhere]

Run Setup.exe in your VPinMame Folder and test the rom

[wiesshund]

HI,

On a slightly different topic,

i watched a video on replacing sounds in the Sam roms using Pinball Browser, but it was Mono.

I also saw a tutorial on converting sounds to 5.1 surround.

 

I wondered if anyone has replaced music and sound in a Rom with 5.1 sounds and music?

 

This would give an better overall sound experience and may eliminate the need for SSF?

Thanks,

Webster.

I think the amount of ROM derived sound that would benefit from multi channel ac3 encoding would be minimal.
ROM sound is not typically table location oriented but simply backglass in your face oriented.
Flipper Kicker Bumper etc sounds, the physical sounds do not come from the ROM, and those are the positional things you are trying to recreate with SFF

The ROM has no idea in what physical 3D space the bumper exists, it was never told, It never needed to be told, as the Pinball machine does not have the audio hardware
to play it back anyways, nor would it know anything of ball velocities etc.

Those things are best done by the system we have and are using now, which is aware of ball position, velocity etc.
Anything you encode in AC3 is going to be fixed, where as the table script is dynamic.

For any ROM sound where it would actually make sense to have the sound be TABLE positional, you would be better served to replace the rom sound with a silence audio clip
and script the table to play a sound at the ball or object position (and or based on ball velocity)
 

[KrakenByte]

I am hoping someone can help.  I did this,

i changed table script const cGameName = "st_161hc"

but i get and error 

Line: 630

game name not found!

 

any ideas?

The same, here in my PC with Windows 10, dmd-extensions 1.8 and Vpinmame 3.3.

The problem could be that Vpinmame doesn't works with the colored version "st_161hc" because the coloured versions of the roms aren't in it pinball roms list.

Then I tried to bypass this issue moving the old rom "st_161h.zip" to my BAK folder (or, if you prefer renaming it to "st_161h.BAK", for example) and renaming the new patched file "st_161hc.bin" to "st_161h.bin" and compressing it to a new "st_161h.zip" instead "st_161hc.zip" to cheat the Vpinmame error.

And now, Vpinmame doesn't crash any more and everything works fine IN FULL COLOR!!! Thanks everybody for the hard work to have it so awesome!

I hope this could help you. THX!!!

[Slydog43]

I didn't think that would work, as I thought VPinMame checked with Roms with a CRC.  I need to try this out, thanks

[Outhere]

 

I am hoping someone can help.  I did this,

i changed table script const cGameName = "st_161hc"

but i get and error 

Line: 630

game name not found!

 

any ideas?

The same, here in my PC with Windows 10, dmd-extensions 1.8 and Vpinmame 3.3.

The problem could be that Vpinmame doesn't works with the colored version "st_161hc" because the coloured versions of the roms aren't in it pinball roms list.

Then I tried to bypass this issue moving the old rom "st_161h.zip" to my BAK folder (or, if you prefer renaming it to "st_161h.BAK", for example) and renaming the new patched file "st_161hc.bin" to "st_161h.bin" and compressing it to a new "st_161h.zip" instead "st_161hc.zip" to cheat the Vpinmame error.

And now, Vpinmame doesn't crash any more and everything works fine IN FULL COLOR!!! Thanks everybody for the hard work to have it so awesome!

I hope this could help you. THX!!!

 

 

I didn't think that would work, as I thought VPinMame checked with Roms with a CRC.  I need to try this out, thanks

Color DMD ---  http://vpuniverse.co...s#comment-42753
 

[KrakenByte]

 

 

I am hoping someone can help.  I did this,

i changed table script const cGameName = "st_161hc"

but i get and error 

Line: 630

game name not found!

 

any ideas?

The same, here in my PC with Windows 10, dmd-extensions 1.8 and Vpinmame 3.3.

The problem could be that Vpinmame doesn't works with the colored version "st_161hc" because the coloured versions of the roms aren't in it pinball roms list.

Then I tried to bypass this issue moving the old rom "st_161h.zip" to my BAK folder (or, if you prefer renaming it to "st_161h.BAK", for example) and renaming the new patched file "st_161hc.bin" to "st_161h.bin" and compressing it to a new "st_161h.zip" instead "st_161hc.zip" to cheat the Vpinmame error.

And now, Vpinmame doesn't crash any more and everything works fine IN FULL COLOR!!! Thanks everybody for the hard work to have it so awesome!

I hope this could help you. THX!!!

 

 

I didn't think that would work, as I thought VPinMame checked with Roms with a CRC.  I need to try this out, thanks

Color DMD ---  http://vpuniverse.co...s#comment-42753
 

 

Thank you, Outhere, for this extensive COLOURING COURSE, it make me think and go deep to find the real problem.

I was at the right clue: All goes around Vpinmame, mine was outdated.

I was working with an OLD version V.3.3 (dated on 2020-08-10) from VPForums and I could verify that doesn't work but I noticed that when I go back to the V3.2 (dated on 2019-10-06) then it shows the colored versions in its rom list. Then I updated with the NEW V3.3 (dated on 2020-09-25 and referenced as "r5150") from VPUniverse and all works like a charm.

I found the NEW version 3.3 (SAMBuild_r5150 dated on 2020-09-25) from VPUniverse in this link:
http://vpuniverse.co...33-beta-thread/

REMEMBER: Beware of this other older version that I found in the fisrt page of this thread in VPForums because it could be the OUTDATED version (dated on 2020-08-10) that doesn't works:
https://www.vpforums...ic=27063&page=1

 

Thanks and may the full world of colors be with you!