1388 replies to this topic

[lionheart88]

How much more money is needed to get the software, I've got a refund check due soon and may be willing to pay the remainder of the cost?

[louizou]

I don't know what is the amount of the donations at that time , you should ask destruk about this.

As i said earlier in this thread , i do have problems with vpm timing ......

I prefer focusing on this , which is IMO , the most important part of the project.

What i've posted on gopinball is just 2 screens of the class of 1812 table i've started drawing.

I want to thank JPsalas for permitting me using his blasting artwork on this.

Day mode :




Night mode:

[destruk]

For the $1500 goal, we still need $704.48. As for the timing issue(s) - maybe work on a single ball game and when that works reliably, come back to a williams game with a standard multiball trough, and come back to gottlieb's funky system later?

Edited by destruk, 24 March 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[ChrisP]

If someone needs help with french to english translation I'd be happy to help.

Cbeers

[Slydog43]

Do you have a link, I tried to find it by no go.

[louizou]

maybe work on a single ball game and when that works reliably, come back to a williams game with a standard multiball trough, and come back to gottlieb's funky system later?

you're right , as badcats works correctly , i must solve bk2k crashes first.

I don't remember if i already mentionned that but, unity doesn't handle events from the controller.
So i'm obliged to test the solenoids state manually (at a freq of 25Hz).
I do this on each ballstack so it's not synced with the main vpmtimer.
Could this be the source of the problem ?

if so , should i test first solenoids or switches ?

If someone needs help with french to english translation I'd be happy to help.

Cbeers

Thanks, but i don't have translation problems at the moment.
If that happens ,i won't forget to ask you

Do you have a link, I tried to find it by no go.

A link for what ? the donation ??
here is the paypal donation address: [email protected]

[destruk]

I suggest you have two routines - regular solenoids are fine at 25hz/40ms - these would include pop bumpers, slingshots, single ball saucers, etc. However, you'll also require a second routine much faster to handle specific playfield toys that require faster response - probably one at 8ms or faster - to get items like the Corvette drag strip toy, Johnny Mnemonic glove, and other playfield motors working properly.
Except for specific games - like Fireball or Strange Science, or Spinball machines, I don't think your solenoids would be the issue for ball troughs - most likely the order and timing of the trough switches is more important for those.

For the Class of 1812 trough - ball hits the outhole and holds down switch 54. When Solenoid 29 fires, switch 54 is released, and the ball is moved into the main trough. If the trough was empty, then the ball that was just pushed in rolls over and closes switch 44. If a ball was already there prior to the second ball being kicked in, then switch 54 is released still, but no switches change in the main trough - the machine shouldn't ever have both balls in the main trough at the same time - in that case it would fire solenoid 28 first to kick the main trough ball into play, and then fire solenoid 29 to push the second ball into the trough. If you're missing that - then it could be the problem. The plunger lane switch is 43 - so when a ball is put into play the game should be seeing that closed so it knows where the ball is.

For BK2K, (and other games) the trough order makes a big difference - if the switches are reversed then multiball might not work correctly. I don't know how you are handling the trough switches - but you might try releasing all of them at the same time when a ball is kicked, waiting a short period, and then setting or closing on the switches that still have balls rather than cycling them one at a time. So, for the ball release (Solenoid 2), clear switches 11, 12, 13, and then if there are two balls in the trough still, close switches 11 and 12. And then handle switch 53 for the plunger lane switch.

[BitPirate]

I think this is an amazing project, but....

One of my main reasons for using VP instead of FP is the low resources it needs. I can even play VP 8.1 on my eee PC 701 (especially originals work great). I think we will see portable devices that will run XP pretty well (on a virtual machine or on hardware itself) in the future. A portable VP would be amazing!

Unity 3D will probably use a lot more CPU and GPU power so I am a bit worried that if this becomes a success we will see a lot less releases for VP.

I know it is progress and you can't stop it and we need to move forward... so one big for louizou
Hopefully both projects can co-exist and authors will still be interested in VP.

Please, dont slow the revolution down because you have a computer from the beginning of the 2000 century!!! FP works on high for me and my computer is 2 years old and cost like 1500$ (without the monitor)!

FP is awsome now thanks to SLAMT1LT, rom, Fransico666, GLXB and many others! They improved FP alot during the last months.

How about Visual Pinball? Is the source code availible for a good coder if he can improve the psysics in VP?

VP source code can be obtained here: http://vpinball.svn....iewvc/vpinball/

[Darkfall]

This looks awesome. I was super impressed with the last video, with the balls stacking up on the right side and the bottom one slipping out as the stack grew. The physics looked very accurate.

Great work, louizou!!

$100 USD sent. We should be getting pretty close now!

[louizou]

I suggest you have two routines - regular solenoids are fine at 25hz/40ms - these would include pop bumpers, slingshots, single ball saucers, etc. However, you'll also require a second routine much faster to handle specific playfield toys that require faster response - probably one at 8ms or faster - to get items like the Corvette drag strip toy, Johnny Mnemonic glove, and other playfield motors working properly.
Except for specific games - like Fireball or Strange Science, or Spinball machines, I don't think your solenoids would be the issue for ball troughs - most likely the order and timing of the trough switches is more important for those.

For the Class of 1812 trough - ball hits the outhole and holds down switch 54. When Solenoid 29 fires, switch 54 is released, and the ball is moved into the main trough. If the trough was empty, then the ball that was just pushed in rolls over and closes switch 44. If a ball was already there prior to the second ball being kicked in, then switch 54 is released still, but no switches change in the main trough - the machine shouldn't ever have both balls in the main trough at the same time - in that case it would fire solenoid 28 first to kick the main trough ball into play, and then fire solenoid 29 to push the second ball into the trough. If you're missing that - then it could be the problem. The plunger lane switch is 43 - so when a ball is put into play the game should be seeing that closed so it knows where the ball is.

For BK2K, (and other games) the trough order makes a big difference - if the switches are reversed then multiball might not work correctly. I don't know how you are handling the trough switches - but you might try releasing all of them at the same time when a ball is kicked, waiting a short period, and then setting or closing on the switches that still have balls rather than cycling them one at a time. So, for the ball release (Solenoid 2), clear switches 11, 12, 13, and then if there are two balls in the trough still, close switches 11 and 12. And then handle switch 53 for the plunger lane switch.

ok , thanks brian for all those advices .
I've started looking a little at bk2k yesterday, modded some values and my way of handling solenoids and it seems to be better.
Not perfect as i still have some weird VPM behaviour , but i'm on the good way

This looks awesome. I was super impressed with the last video, with the balls stacking up on the right side and the bottom one slipping out as the stack grew. The physics looked very accurate.

Great work, louizou!!

$100 USD sent. We should be getting pretty close now!

this looks awesome , but you .... are awesome
thanks a lot , man
And for the physics , i think the guys at unity3d have made a good choice using NVIDIA PhysX , IMO

[Darkfall]

this looks awesome , but you .... are awesome
thanks a lot , man

No problem!

And for the physics , i think the guys at unity3d have made a good choice using NVIDIA PhysX , IMO

For the ATI people (like me), there are hacked versions of the nVidia PhysX engine to work with ATI. It's unofficial, of course, but it works, apparently.

[louizou]

personaly , I work with a hd6970M , and before that i had a hd4680 ....

i've always installed original physx setup and never had any problem of any kind either with commercial games or within unity.(with both cards)

Maybe there are problems with older cards, i don't know...

did you test the badcats prototype or any other game made with unity ?

Edited by louizou, 28 March 2012 - 06:10 PM.

[destruk]

I'd like to say, thanks for all the support so far - we are $500 away now.

[Darkfall]

personaly , I work with a hd6970M , and before that i had a hd4680 ....

i've always installed original physx setup and never had any problem of any kind either with commercial games or within unity.(with both cards)

Maybe there are problems with older cards, i don't know...

did you test the badcats prototype or any other game made with unity ?

I've never actually tried installing PhysX on my machine, but when I saw nVidia, I did a quick Google search and came across people hacking it to get it to install. Perhaps that was what people had to do early on, but the problem has since been resolved so that ATI people can install it, too. I'm sure it's fine *grin*.

Thanks, Louizou.

[moondrummer78]

Finally got around to donating to this project. Thanks Louizou!

Edited by moondrummer78, 29 March 2012 - 12:00 AM.

[louizou]

with pleasure

[superballs]

Bonjour Louizou,

Il fait longtemps depuis le dernier fois que j'avais suivi ce discussion. Je suis tres excite a voir le progres realize a ce jour.

That being said, I don't get many chances to really contribute to the community but I'm very happy to help as much as I can.
A few questions.

Will we be able to see the effect of ball rotation like when catching the ball in the flippers? Will be be able to perform the dead ball catch (where you release the flipper as soon as the ball hits it and have it stop dead for a second on the middle of the flipper)?

I'm throwing 25$ into the pot, might take a few days to clear but i'm happy to see the developement of one of my favorite hobbies.

Thanks a ton.

[louizou]

hi superballs , and thanks for donating

Moral support is something really important to me as it's a power up to my motivation !! so don't stop

As the ball texture is sphere mapped it's not easy to see the ball rolling during fast moves,but for example,
i can see the ball rotation effect when the ball is locked on a kicker .

For the "dead ball catch effect" , i was able to do it on the badcats prototype thanks to the tips given by my first vpf friend (epthegeek ).

[superballs]

hi superballs , and thanks for donating

Moral support is something really important to me as it's a power up to my motivation !! so don't stop

As the ball texture is sphere mapped it's not easy to see the ball rolling during fast moves,but for example,
i can see the ball rotation effect when the ball is locked on a kicker .

For the "dead ball catch effect" , i was able to do it on the badcats prototype thanks to the tips given by my first vpf friend (epthegeek ).

That's great to hear, being able to use these techniques helps with the suspension of disbelief and i think overall, enables the player to just have more faith in the overall physics representation. This is indeed exciting.

However, while on some tables in VP, specifically JPSalas where he adds a decal, you can see that the ball is always rotating at rest, i'm not so concerned with graphical rotation but the physics of it, as if there's heavy rotation on the ball it will affect how it bounces and can make it easier or harder to trap. Just want to make sure we are talking about the same effect.

Thank you,

Edited by superballs, 29 March 2012 - 03:38 PM.

[ebarlow99]

seems fishy