503 replies to this topic

[flipper]

The talent around our hobby always amazes me.

[Westworld]

I think some B2S have poor quality, as beginners follow the tutorial, like I did. The tutorial says to use 1024x768 as background image, so I rescaled the image and lost quality. So a question to B2S experts: which image size do you use as background? 1280x768 or even full HD?

I've started redoing my first (and only) B2S and quickly noticed that the quality is visible better with a higher scaled background image.

Another reason for bad quality, at least in my case, is missing Photoshop skills to create iluminated spots, they don't look real.
I'm sure that this tool this greatly enhance it, it seems to be so easy with it. So I'll delay redoing my B2S background (KISS) to use the B2S Designer to create the highlighted parts.

[Aurich]

Can I ask how you're doing the actual illumination effect? Some kind of soft mask inside of the bounding box that utilizes some sort of layer blending mode?

As for image sizes, I don't know what's possible or practical, but it seems to me that it would be wise to stick with 1080p if possible, as it becomes easier to use cheap 1080p smaller TVs for the backglass. Would be the most future proof if you have access to a high enough rez image to start with (always the sticking point).

There are a fair amount of good high rez backglass images out there.

Edited by Aurich, 10 September 2012 - 06:45 AM.

[Bob5453]

As with most things concerning VP, authors usually use what works best for their own system. My backglass monitor is 1280x1024, so when I make a B2S backglass, that is the size image I use. It obviously isn't going to look great on a 1920x1080 monitor, but then that resolution wouldn't look very good on my monitor. Too bad you can't edit the image in the B2S.exe file, but then B2S is just a workaround for VP not having 2 monitor support, which unfortunately isn't being worked on as no one knows how to do it at the moment. Maybe we should try a kickstarter.

This backglass designer project looks awesome!

Edited by Bob5453, 10 September 2012 - 08:01 AM.

[Flying Dutchman]

Can I ask how you're doing the actual illumination effect? Some kind of soft mask inside of the bounding box that utilizes some sort of layer blending mode?

As for image sizes, I don't know what's possible or practical, but it seems to me that it would be wise to stick with 1080p if possible, as it becomes easier to use cheap 1080p smaller TVs for the backglass. Would be the most future proof if you have access to a high enough rez image to start with (always the sticking point).

There are a fair amount of good high rez backglass images out there.

This is exactly what I mean about images used for B2S .. using those it's like going back to where we came from. Matter of taste I suppose ..

Because at the moment there's not the possibility to change the image used, it would be good to add this as a feature to be more flexible on the choice of image used for B2S.

Thanks,

Cheers,
FD.

Edited by Flying Dutchman, 10 September 2012 - 02:20 PM.

[pinuck]

My backglass monitor is 1280x1024, so when I make a B2S backglass, that is the size image I use.

Same for me.

[Aurich]

It would be incredibly rude of me to tell people who are volunteering their time how to do things, and of course you want to do what works on your system, only makes sense. It just seems to me that if you're going to spend all this time on these projects with the intention of sharing them that working at 1080p would be the smartest thing.

Does using that high rez scale down badly on a lower rez monitor? Generally going down is pretty painless.

Edited by Aurich, 10 September 2012 - 08:07 PM.

[Itchigo]

Same here, 1280x1024

[pinuck]

Seeing how the difference in resoution between 1280x1024 and 1080p is a rather negligible 5% (vertically) the only significant difference (50%) is the width; that makes this an aspect ratio issue rather than a resolution issue.

"and of course you want to do what works on your system, only makes sense"

[Aaron James]

as long as someone does a "space station" b2s or uvp...I'm good..lol...it can be any size you want


...oh yeah...and a space station table too....

[arngrim]

What ratio is mostly used for your tv screens?

Is it not 16:9 for most of us?

Mine is 1080p.

Maybe it would be best to provide 1080p backglasses, and have the option to resize the image, and the lights effects respectively, according to the resolution you desire, with the backglass designer.

Edited by arngrim, 11 September 2012 - 07:21 AM.

[open6l]

in my case I have a 1920x1080 resolution backglass turned sideways and I only use the top 1280x1024 half for the backglass image (with the DMD filling the lower half). Rosve's latest B2S files all work fine with his auto-scale. In this case I would hope the B2S designer could also auto-scale regardless of the original image resolution (but thats my opinion).

[strangeleo72]

WAITING ANXIOUSLY!!

[arngrim]

But IMO it would be better to do a scale down from a HQ backglass, if necessary than a scale up from a LQ backglass.

[rosve]

But IMO it would be better to do a scale down from a HQ backglass, if necessary than a scale up from a LQ backglass.

Most of my B2S BGs are 1200*1400 (or 1600 on some).
Using too high resolution can make the backglass very heavy for lesser PCs. I don't like the idea of making things that only runs well on high end systems.

For newer DMD tables a monitor with an aspect ratio of 16:10 is the best (5:4 with the speaker panel), For older tables 5:4 is best so I guess your prefered type of pinball machines is an important factor when deciding witch monitor to use in your cab.

[arngrim]

I think that b2s hq backglasses are less cpu consuming/works more accurate than uvp, so i think it deserves to try.

[Westworld]

Thanks a lot for all your comments regarding B2S size and scale. I hope it is OK to answer in this thread, even it was created to be a thread for the B2S Designer, not about the content.

First, the code behind B2S is clever enough to scale automatically, both up and down. So a designer can make the backglass smaller (as 1024x700) or bigger (as 1920x1080) and both will be displayed fine for 1280xsomething.
Scaling means both backglass itself and all objects on top.

I thought that a B2S backglass has a limit in size such as of 1460x920, but now learned that this comes form the computer of the designer, or in other words, the current resolution of the main screen gives the limit for the backglass. This is "standard behavior" of Microsoft Visual Studio. As my notebook has 1400x900, I got this limit. By connecting an external screen or using a virtual screen, you can assign larger values, so I will try to make the next one with 1920x1080.

I fully agree with everyone saying that it should also run on older/smaller computers.
For me, that's why I started with B2S at all. On my test PC (Pentium 3 GHZ, 6800 graphic card with 256 MB for two screens) B2S run fine and UVP not at all.
Now (i5 + GTX 670 supporting 3 screens) all runs fine, easy.
That was why I asked around - do you think larger B2S will make it slower - or are you using bigger screens already. Seems that most use smaller ones but nobody knows for sure, so I will try with a bigger then we can test.

I'll currently try to create the backglass with a native resolution of 2980x2692. Strange values?
Bally pinball machines of the late 70's did not had DMD. They had a big backglass, higher than wide.
I used the proportions of such an screen and scaled a background from Flying Dutchman (great site by the way, thanks a lot for all your work). The image was scaled to fit to 16:10 screens, but in original it was more like the numbers mentioned.

Why I'm doing this? I had the feeling that all fonts are wrong. I searched a while to find fonts fitting to the original used onces and all was too tiny, not fat enough. Till I realized that the background itself is scaled, as our modern screens are 16:9 or even 16:10.

So by designing in the original proportion I hope to get the original look. As a result I expect to have a Photoshop document allowing to get an image of backglass with all lamps off - and one with all one. These two pictures can be scaled to 16:9, maybe reduced to 1920x1080, and then used for B2S. Of course I will store the original picture, so if we get in the future a screen supporting these size, I could redo the B2S in some minutes with higher resolution.

That opens the next question. I think it could make sense not to publish only the B2S.exe, but also the B2S project, containing used VB scripts, all used images, and maybe even the Photoshop (or Paint.NET) document with all layers, which would allow others to see how it was done or even to improve it. These additional documents would be large. Would it make sense to publish them?

[Itchigo]

That's my only issue with b2s- the font of the numbers. Obviously they are not all the same, but imo they are not even close to the real thing. As for the Backglass, you have to remember that it's being represented on a computer monitor- it will NEVER be proportional.

[Westworld]

That's my only issue with b2s- the font of the numbers. Obviously they are not all the same, but imo they are not even close to the real thing. As for the Backglass, you have to remember that it's being represented on a computer monitor- it will NEVER be proportional.

ah,sorry, I was not clear. I mean fonts as of "Game over" or "Ball in Play". Most backglass pictures have all lights off, so you need to "create" the image with the visible text. Sometimes you find in the Internet some (low resolution) pictures with lamps on, so you can see how the font looked and where the lamps was. To have a nice quality, I think we need to recreate them, using similar looking fonts.

Of course they don't look proportional as they are resized to 16:10, but if you use fonts directly on 16:10 they are itself correct, while all fixed written text on the backglass has a different look.

So let's say, they all should look similar.

Regarding numbers/scores:
for mechanical backglass B2S uses one image per digit. To have a different look, you just need to replace the digit 0, 1, 2, 3 and so on.
For LED's it "draws" them dynamically by drawing a line.
I'm not really happy with that. The author of the B2S designer has already told me how to enable antialias, which makes them look much better, but still more like a 7 segment LED of 2010 and not of 1980.
I tried to find old pictures and it seems that Gottlieb, Bally, Stern, Williams, they all used different types, some straight lines, some with little triangles, some looking as rectangle, all different.
And as in that time it was more little tubes, they often had different lights, some lighter, some darker, some with little damages.

To make them look more real is an important thing, I fully agree - but I fear it is a tough job.

[Itchigo]

Ahh, ok, sorry. I meant the number fonts. I really haven't had time to play at all with it though.