28 replies to this topic

[Noah Fentz]

With VP open source, it should be possible to change the shadow routines to be a ball reflection. I'd much prefer a reflection to a shadow, since the light source for the shadow is fixed from the ceiling.

[The Hermit]

With VP open source, it should be possible to change the shadow routines to be a ball reflection. I'd much prefer a reflection to a shadow, since the light source for the shadow is fixed from the ceiling.

Agreed that would be the ideal solution!

Rascal, the only idea I have for the moment will only work with a single ball, and probably won't do that correctly, but without trying it I can't be sure... If I get time over Easter I'll do it and let you know.

[daveboy6]

Specific ball direction animations?

Let me start by saying a big 'THANKS' to Rascal for opening this can of VP worms and igniting alot of ideas in my head for stuff that might now be possible with VP. So heres my question to the VP community...

I'm very interested in implementing specific ball direction animations in a table I'm working on. With specific ball direction you could have an animation of something like a character instead of a ball running as if he/she/it is going in that direction. Which means a reverse order of an animation would not work for say up/down, left/right, diags ect ect as the character would not run backwards in reality. I know this idea is a bit whacky but I have a history of thinking a bit outside (ok, way outside) the box with my creations (Quake 3 game engine game stuff, Q3a, Star Trek Elite Force, RTCW, ect ect). Has anybody tried implementing specific ball direction animations yet, and could what I am suggesting actualy be done?

Thanks and VP rocks!

daveboy6 AKA drumndav

[Rawd]

I am too stupid to understand anything that is going on in this thread. But it sounds good! Keep it up!

[wtiger]

I'm not quite sure if this is what you are looking for, but possibly take a look at JP's The Simpsons Pinball Party. Homer's head rotates left and right to follow the ball. Same thing for The Party Zone as well.

[rascal]

Specific ball direction animations?

Let me start by saying a big 'THANKS' to Rascal for opening this can of VP worms and igniting alot of ideas in my head for stuff that might now be possible with VP. So heres my question to the VP community...

I'm very interested in implementing specific ball direction animations in a table I'm working on. With specific ball direction you could have an animation of something like a character instead of a ball running as if he/she/it is going in that direction. Which means a reverse order of an animation would not work for say up/down, left/right, diags ect ect as the character would not run backwards in reality. I know this idea is a bit whacky but I have a history of thinking a bit outside (ok, way outside) the box with my creations (Quake 3 game engine game stuff, Q3a, Star Trek Elite Force, RTCW, ect ect). Has anybody tried implementing specific ball direction animations yet, and could what I am suggesting actualy be done?

Thanks and VP rocks!

daveboy6 AKA drumndav

Yes, I believe it can be done by setting a timer at a 0 interval to poll the X, Y, and Z values of a ball. You can adjust the speed of the animations by watching the VelX, VelY, and VelZ of the ball and adjusting an animation timer accordingly. You could even go as far as to stack multiple balls to make an object bigger then the size of one ball, chopping the images into sections (the use of three balls to make a plunger is an example of that). What you are talking about doing, would take a lot of frame images and the switching of directions would have to be sync monitored as such so that the last frame before the change of directions would flawlessly change to the new direction. With a ball this is not too noticeable, but with arms and legs swinging it would be important. If a man object is on his left leg before changing directions, then he should pick up from his left leg when changing directions. So the frames would have to be synchronize in this fashion. I believe a frame count would take care of this. If on frame 8 of one animation, then start from frame 8 on another. Same model only pointing in another direction.

I was thinking of trying to do this with my dog model, as I have a skeletal structure for him in TrueSpace and can animate his actions. Lack of time and energy has prevented me from starting. Plus I don't know if I have the brain power left to take on such a project. Starting is not the problem, it finishing that always seems to be my problem.

[Shockman]

With VP open source, it should be possible to change the shadow routines to be a ball reflection. I'd much prefer a reflection to a shadow, since the light source for the shadow is fixed from the ceiling.

Perhaps a pseudo reflection, but for a true one I think you would need a full 3D environment. Maybe a semi-transparent 'white shadow' would work well enough though. That should be very easy for the likes of say, destruk.

Specific ball direction animations?

Let me start by saying a big 'THANKS' to Rascal for opening this can of VP worms and igniting alot of ideas in my head for stuff that might now be possible with VP. So heres my question to the VP community...

I'm very interested in implementing specific ball direction animations in a table I'm working on. With specific ball direction you could have an animation of something like a character instead of a ball running as if he/she/it is going in that direction. Which means a reverse order of an animation would not work for say up/down, left/right, diags ect ect as the character would not run backwards in reality. I know this idea is a bit whacky but I have a history of thinking a bit outside (ok, way outside) the box with my creations (Quake 3 game engine game stuff, Q3a, Star Trek Elite Force, RTCW, ect ect). Has anybody tried implementing specific ball direction animations yet, and could what I am suggesting actualy be done?

Thanks and VP rocks!

daveboy6 AKA drumndav

Yes, I believe it can be done by setting a timer at a 0 interval to poll the X, Y, and Z values of a ball. You can adjust the speed of the animations by watching the VelX, VelY, and VelZ of the ball and adjusting an animation timer accordingly. You could even go as far as to stack multiple balls to make an object bigger then the size of one ball, chopping the images into sections (the use of three balls to make a plunger is an example of that). What you are talking about doing, would take a lot of frame images and the switching of directions would have to be sync monitored as such so that the last frame before the change of directions would flawlessly change to the new direction. With a ball this is not too noticeable, but with arms and legs swinging it would be important. If a man object is on his left leg before changing directions, then he should pick up from his left leg when changing directions. So the frames would have to be synchronize in this fashion. I believe a frame count would take care of this. If on frame 8 of one animation, then start from frame 8 on another. Same model only pointing in another direction.

I was thinking of trying to do this with my dog model, as I have a skeletal structure for him in TrueSpace and can animate his actions. Lack of time and energy has prevented me from starting. Plus I don't know if I have the brain power left to take on such a project. Starting is not the problem, it finishing that always seems to be my problem.

Yes it has been done before. F-14 Tomcat I believe. Also nicolas.b' billiard engine. I have accomplished it myself, but had nothing to implement it into.

A U-D O merge.

[daveboy6]

I need a little help... ok maybe alot of help :-)

I created a couple of cool ball animations and got them working 100% in the test table, I even created a third timer and split the roll sound from the animation script so that the animation is uneffected by the ball speed. Now heres where the help comes in...

I thought I would try to modify an already existing table with this code so I could learn more about how a script is put together before I tried creating my own (learn to crawl before walking). The table I am using to do this is one of my all time favs, it is Gorgar v1.43 (Williams1979) by Apoc, Destruk, Desangel, Gottlieb. The problem I am having is that two balls are created at the same time. One is the animated version and the other is only using the first image. I messed around with the script most of yesterday but never got it 100% working. I looked but cant find a tut on scripting. As I metioned in my last post/question I only recently stumbled across VP about a month ago (AKA NewB, lol). The bulk of my past projects have been Quake III engine based stuff but scripting for that is an entirly dif beast compared to scripting for a Visual Pinball table. Can one of you VP vets help me out, please.

Thanks

[Shockman]

Are you adding code to create a ball?
VPM creates a Ball. You are probably getting that one and the one you scripted.
What you need to do is find where VPM is creating the ball and add your animation flag to that function.

Look at the third bar down on this page.

GETTING STARTED TUTORIALS 4:3 TABLE DOWNLOADS etc.

Look in DESIGN RESOURCES and you will find the VP documentation.