491 replies to this topic

[TedB]

I just found there are even sounds for menu stuff; e.g. if you're in the Switch Edge menu and push the right flipper, the game will actually say "right flipper" (spoken by BH himself).  So maybe I can get rid of the maintenance stuff initially (since I would only add test menu stuff later, if at all).

 

That is awesome!!  

 

I would love to see the game with all those features and best sound quality. I wouldn't mind a large file-size, but I assume setting it up like that is also more work.    

[Shoopity]

Not 3D models, but Adobe Illustrator models.  The ramps are just cut-outs of metals, I'm assuming they just a laser cutter; so no models, just accurate measurements (which is what he uses AI for).  What I ended up doing was opening the .AI in XNView (InkScape is way too slow), exporting as a png, importing in Sketchup, then making flat, simple planes around the objects in the picture; then oriented things (so for example, the right ramp is really just three flat planes).  Exported as a Collada file, imported into Blender, and used Cycles Render.

 

I then went into GIMP, selected all the white, inverted the selection, and painted black so I could have some very crisp/clean lines.  I filled in the shapes with a brown color, added some dirt using the airbrush, and there's the texture to use in Blender.  In Blender (again I'm using Cycles), I applied a bump map using the dirt, a diffuse shader, a gloss shader, and a transparent shader (why I have to use that to take out the alpha of the texture is beyond me).  I baked out a texture to make some shadows.  I may do another bake to get some reflections, but baking in Cycles uses the angle of the face or Normal, so looking straight up from, say, the bottom produces no reflection (since the banisters are perpendicular to the floor); so I would have to angle the banisters to bake a reflection.  But I think the shadows look good enough now.

 

If you want more step-by-step how I did this, I'd be happy to share.

 

I may have spoke too soon about the sound files.  It would seem VP only accepts Signed-Integer coding, which doesn't go down to 8-bit, only 16-bit.  So the smallest I could make all the sound files is around 70 megs.  Should I just provide the sound files separately and give instructions on how to import them.  We're lookin' at an over 100 meg table now.

[Shoopity]

All right, I went ahead and uploaded the newest version of the table.  This has all of the sounds in it (so if you want to go to sound manager and listen to the stuff, you can), but no music yet; it's just over 100 megs in size.  Not sure if there's anything I can do about that (just be glad it's not 500 megs).

 

There is but the slightest bit of actual coding in.  You'll notice when you start the table, everything is disabled (well, you probably can't tell that stuff other than flippers don't work, but the slings and bumpers don't work), you need to put in two coins to get a credit, and push the start button to add a player (yes, I realize the credits don't decrement yet, and right now there's no multi-player).  You'll then notice the light show changes and is accurate (don't look at the GI, that's still doing fancy stuff)... and that's it for now.  Still no modes, switches don't do anything, etc., but you can practice your shots if you want to.

[freneticamnesic]

Sweet ape.

[Shoopity]

Is that a good thing?

[The Loafer]

This is looking pretty freaking good!  Well done thus far!

[Shoopity]

Hey Frenetic, just so you know, I've been looking at your pics you uploaded a lot, so thanks for posting them.  Even having all of the source material, it's still good to make sure I have things right (e.g. I haven't found anything the clearly shows where the GI lights are).  I did notice in your pic that there are some spot lights that aren't in the PAPA video of when they got the game.  Do you know if that was an "after market" mod, or something Spooky Pinball added later?  Also, many of the pics that don't have flash, things look really purple-ish; are the GI's that color (not the color changing RGBs on the walls of the cabinet, I'm talking about the lights under the plastic)?  Also, does the GI (again, the lights under the plastics) change color at all?  Any reference I see in code for that lighting is showing more machine level coding so I can't tell.

 

I also have two Play Field pics, one is more purple-ish near the bottom.  Do you know if that's the difference between the green and blue side art choices?

 

Like, for the Global color changing RGB strips, there's code that says something like (I don't have the code in front of me at the moment):

GlobalGILeft(0, 255, 0)  (meaning the left strip gets set to full green)

for a green color, but anything I see that seems to reference the under-plastic GI is something like:

GIPF(B11100000)

which is more of a direct instruction to the Propeller.

Edited by Shoopity, 28 November 2014 - 01:32 AM.

[freneticamnesic]

I think it had some lighting mods - I'll try and get you info this weekend. Pf is the same on the two different artwork versions.

[lodger]

extremely cool

[Zablon]

Awesome! Ben Heck seems like a swell guy. Here's hoping this gets completed some day  

 

He also gave permission and resources for his other Bill Paxton table some time ago. Not sure whatever happened with that one.

[Shoopity]

I worked on the BPP table, there's one lingering around, but I didn't officially upload it, I just provided a link to it in one of my posts.  It's riddled with bugs though (and somehow the submarine mode broke... I think because what was in his code was different than the most recent version and when I tried to update it, I broke it).  It can also get kinda hectic because there's no sound queuing or priority system built-in to VP and I never programmed one myself; with as quote filled as that game is, you'll hear two or three quotes talking over each other frequently.  I'll see if I can find that post.

 

As for this game, I'm up to over 2100 lines of code so far.  It's tough to test since everything is so tide to everything else.  You write a routine that calls two routines, and both of those routines each call 3 routines.  It's easy to lose you place.  And because they're so intertwined, it's tough to test because you can't test things until you've got everything in.  I think later today I'll post a link to the new code that you can copy/paste so you don't have to download the whole table again.

 

***Edit***

Yeah Zablon, you were the first person to comment on that thread/table.  I haven't put much more work into it because the code he had for that game was terrible.  Not much commenting, highly cycled.  Meaning the majority of the code was in the main loop, to convert that into VP would mean to put it in a timer that was constantly looping and I don't know what that would do to performance; the alternative would be to try to put every possible thing in the appropriate event.  Or, you could pour over the code to understand every little nuance that's going on so you understand every little rule and program it from your knowledge of the game.  Plus, he's updated the game but not the publicly available source code.  For example, the U-57 mode used to just be to shoot the ramp; he thought that was too easy and made it so you had to hit the oxygen tanks to load a torpedo, then shoot the ramp.  I didn't learn about this until I spoke to him.

 

AMH is much better commented and more routine/event driven (as opposed to cycle driven).

Edited by Shoopity, 03 December 2014 - 04:54 PM.

[Shoopity]

OK, go see the first post for some more links to the most recent code that you should be able to just copy/paste into the table.  I haven't made any changes to the table (I don't think... I may have added a text box or something), just the code.  We now have the following:

• An actual game of 3 balls, including an ending.  Still only one player though
• The only thing that scores points currently are the pop bumbers; since the ball is always saved if you haven't scored anything, you HAVE to hit at least one bumper to advance the ball
• You read that right, there's a ball saver; it's currently set to 5 seconds
• The right VUK/Basement is working, including lights and sounds (no points as previously stated); the Left VUK (i.e. the spooky door VUK) is NOT working.  You can either disable it in the editor for now, or just restart the table.
• I think all the lighting is correct; but remember, none of the switches/targets are working so nothing advances (there's no table indication of the War Fort/Bar progress).
• You can hold either the left or right flipper to select either Fort or Bar mode for the pop bumpers; the bumpers make the appropriate sound (various gunshots or various bottle clinking).  Or you can let the game randomly choose which mode for you.
• The table will crash if you start Fort or Bar mode and then drain, as I haven't coded anything for failing those modes yet.  (If you really wanted to, you could just put in a blank sub for failing, as I have plenty of blank subs in there, I just didn't have one for those modes when I uploaded the code).

 

Maybe some other stuff too.  There's going to be a point when coding starts moving faster once I get the bulk of the shared stuff in (like, just about everything uses the Timer sub).

 

*****Edit*****

Oh yeah, I provided a link to the Music too.  Remember, you need to have a folder located in the same folder as you VisualPinball.exe called "Music".  Then you put all the MP3s in that folder.

Edited by Shoopity, 04 December 2014 - 06:59 PM.

[gorilla1]

nice definitely going in my collection cant weight  

[rtkiii]

this looks very cool!

[PinballShawn]

Pretty damn cool man.

[Themer]

Just tried to run the new code, but I get an error on TiTimers which is said to be an undefined variable. In your comments it says that all game function timers are checked, but since you use 'Enabled' on the variable, it can't be a collection. Furthermore, wouldn't it be interesting to look into the possibilities of emulating the Paralax Propeller in VPinMAME? When you look over the internet, there are some stand-alone emulators fpr Spin-code. Yet I haven't tested any of them, so I don't know what they're worth

[Shoopity]

You probably just need to add a Timer object to the table and name it TiTimers, then set its timer interval to 1.

 

Bill Paxton Pinball was on a Parallax Propeller too; I tapped Destruk about it when I started working and he said no for a couple reasons.  1) he didn't want to run into an issues they did wit Stern, 2) No one else uses that processor/chip.

[Themer]

I'll add the timer later today and see if it works, thanks for the tip

 

1) Ok, I understand that, yet since nobody else uses the processor at this time and Ben is happy to share everything with us, I don't see why not.

2) There are two games right now and more may be on the way, so it could become interesting to actually integrate it.

[Shoopity]

Well, it's open source, so someone could add support if they really wanted (I don't even begin to have the skills to do it myself).  I don't know about the drama that happened when people started adding recent Stern support or when that was; I think it went against the wishes of the original VPM devs so a bunch of them just left (like Destruk), but I may have the completely wrong.  I do believe Destruk said he was OK with adding the Propeller, but the dev team just wasn't interested in doing it themselves.

[Joe]

Well, it's open source, so someone could add support if they really wanted (I don't even begin to have the skills to do it myself).  I don't know about the drama that happened when people started adding recent Stern support or when that was; I think it went against the wishes of the original VPM devs so a bunch of them just left (like Destruk), but I may have the completely wrong.  I do believe Destruk said he was OK with adding the Propeller, but the dev team just wasn't interested in doing it themselves.

Can ben help with the coding on the EMU part?