3889 replies to this topic

[jimmyfingers]

I like this... (I exceeded my "like" quota for the day but this needed to be 'LIKED' so I posted a message instead )

 

You're a moderator, how is it you have a "like" quota  They're not paying you enough around here

 

Here's a couple FS shots of the Firepower VP10 conversion WIP with the ball up table and down table plus the view settings for these shots.

 

 Capture of Firewpower FS Test View (ball up table).PNG   1.13MB   26 downloads

 

 Capture of Firewpower FS Test View (ball down table).PNG   1.13MB   26 downloads

 

 Capture of Firewpower FS Test View Settings.PNG   3.39KB   24 downloads

 

Like I said in the other post, not settings that would necessarily be used in VP9 FS but not bad here maybe.

Edited by jimmyfingers, 06 February 2015 - 12:17 AM.

[pincade]

In VP 10 night/day slider erased the shadows? Even the ball has no more shadow.. Or maybe it must be activated somewhere?

 
You now can enable the ambient occlusion in the video preferences instead. Its not the same as before of course, but IMHO better. 

Ambient occlusion is a good new toy but the old Vp9 shadow was the thing that gave deepness to a table and was a feature desired by all future pinball table builders and players .
In my cabinet occlusion eats much more fps than old shadow

[freneticamnesic]

I use ramps for playfield images so I can swap the image during GI events

With 2 of these (one for light text overlay, and one for the pf) it drops a current wip from 53 fps (pretty unacceptable) to 35fps (really unacceptable)

GTX 650Ti, Intel i7

[freneticamnesic]

desktop mode gets 21 more fps (35% increase) over fullscreen, no other changes

[unclewilly]

Now that walls have transparency as well maybe try it with a wall instead to see if the fps are better.
im about to try the same thing with mb as it also uses a table sized ramp for the playfield image. For insert text overlays i just use a small ramp per light so i can use higher res images for the text

[Slydog43]

jimmyfingers, what are your graphics settings in your nvidia control panel?  Your flippers look so smooth, like I used to have but somehow lost (FXAA I think, but read not to use)

[jimmyfingers]

 

 

In VP 10 night/day slider erased the shadows? Even the ball has no more shadow.. Or maybe it must be activated somewhere?

 
You now can enable the ambient occlusion in the video preferences instead. Its not the same as before of course, but IMHO better. 

Ambient occlusion is a good new toy but the old Vp9 shadow was the thing that gave deepness to a table and was a feature desired by all future pinball table builders and players .
In my cabinet occlusion eats much more fps than old shadow

 

I would say that that is a bit too absolute of a statement - not all future pinball table builders and players want or need shadows.  For instance, I don't, as I like my tables darker and the look of no overhead lighting, which in that scenario, makes sense to be free of the old style shadows as they used to be drawn from virtual overhead lights / positions above the table.  But that is based on a preference for darker tables essentially negating the need to worry about overhead shadows (GI / playfield object shadows become much more of thing in that case). I totally get that for some the shadows were something they liked and added some depth but hopefully AO can be more optimized and as it is has some control for the amount of the effect that may help to try adjusting to potentially suffice some shadow desire.  

 

Of course I get and totally understand being reasonably adamant about a point (I am frequently) and we all have different ones we our passionate about, however, suggesting any one preference is desired by "all" is not necessarily fair to "all".

 

jimmyfingers, what are your graphics settings in your nvidia control panel?  Your flippers look so smooth, like I used to have but somehow lost (FXAA I think, but read not to use)

FXAA was enabled for that screen shot as it was a VP9x table and that was still the only general method available either via VP preferences or nVidia control panel.  I liked the look and performance (from my recollection of my testing which is a while ago now) from the control panel so stuck with it.  At the moment I think there are aspects of using FXAA from the control panel with VP10 that Toxie mentioned further back in the thread.  I actually didn't have anisotropic filtering on either but one key thing to mention is that I made that capture with VP playing on a 1440p monitor so even with the forums downsizing the image a bit, the image get's in a way a form of additional anti-aliasing.  And 1440p at 120hz is really nice for VP as the extra refresh rate is amazing for adding fluidity, realism, and decreased input lag with more frames drawn per second while still being smoothed out by the vsync settings.  But on the HV views you lose a lot of real estate so it's pretty important to fully utilize whatever AA methods you can if in 1080p or if possible use a 1440 monitor even better one that can overclock to almost theoretically impossible speeds

Edited by jimmyfingers, 06 February 2015 - 05:16 AM.

[ICPjuggla]

I finally got a chance to to check out VPX. I'm really exited about it, you guys are doing an awesome job so far... :-)

 

I know it's going to be tough to convert VP9 tables to VPX so I guess I have a stupid question. maybe I missed it somewhere in this thread.. I brought over whirlwind why is everything pink?

 

 VP10_Whirlwind.png   1.36MB   28 downloads

[bodydump]

default material is pink.  Each item on the table will need a material assigned to it.

[ICPjuggla]

Is there documentation somewhere I missed about this material feature?

[jimmyfingers]

I finally got a chance to to check out VPX. I'm really exited about it, you guys are doing an awesome job so far... :-)

 

I know it's going to be tough to convert VP9 tables to VPX so I guess I have a stupid question. maybe I missed it somewhere in this thread.. I brought over whirlwind why is everything pink?

 

VP10_Whirlwind.png

That's a really nice FS view ICP, I'm curious (and maybe other's might be) what your settings are?  Is there also any unique ramps along the side or at the back or in front of the table that alters the "normal" view in a way so slightly different settings had to be used at least when in VP9?  I checked out the night mod and it seemed that my usual HV settings didn't quite work, which is normally an indication of a ramp or something else altering the settings a bit, however, I did notice that this table is somewhat long and narrow and seems you guys used the real world dimensions - nice! - which may be just making it a little different with it's slightly longer length to width ration than a lot of previous tables that go built a bit too wide and a little short (1000x2000 or 1024x2048) before the dimensions discussions / information became more popular.  

 

Have you been able to launch the ball in that VPX view and determine how it looks as far as symmetry?

[bodydump]

Documentation...this is vp.

Each item (wall, ramp, flipper, etc)  needs to have a material assigned to it.  It changes the way the lighting effects it.  You can export some materials from the default table and import them into your table.  Then when you click on an item you'll see the material dropbox and you can chose a material.

Edited by bodydump, 06 February 2015 - 05:55 AM.

[freneticamnesic]

And don't forget to adjust lighting, here's settings I'm using

 

And make sure the "Leave At Black" is ACTUAL 0,0,0 black........by default when you import a table it's like a dark grey, messes everything up

[ICPjuggla]

 

I finally got a chance to to check out VPX. I'm really exited about it, you guys are doing an awesome job so far... :-)

 

I know it's going to be tough to convert VP9 tables to VPX so I guess I have a stupid question. maybe I missed it somewhere in this thread.. I brought over whirlwind why is everything pink?

 

VP10_Whirlwind.png

That's a really nice FS view ICP, I'm curious (and maybe other's might be) what your settings are?  Is there also any unique ramps along the side or at the back or in front of the table that alters the "normal" view in a way so slightly different settings had to be used at least when in VP9?  I checked out the night mod and it seemed that my usual HV settings didn't quite work, which is normally an indication of a ramp or something else altering the settings a bit, however, I did notice that this table is somewhat long and narrow and seems you guys used the real world dimensions - nice! - which may be just making it a little different with it's slightly longer length to width ration than a lot of previous tables that go built a bit too wide and a little short (1000x2000 or 1024x2048) before the dimensions discussions / information became more popular.  

 

Have you been able to launch the ball in that VPX view and determine how it looks as far as symmetry?

 

 

JF here are the settings that I'm using on Whirlwind.. If you want me to send you the table I'd be happy too, just shoot me a PM.. I have nothing hanging off the sides etc. and yes we used the real world dimensions when we did it back in VP9..

 

 whirlwind_settings.png   6.44KB   17 downloads

Documentation...this is vp.

Each item (wall, ramp, flipper, etc)  needs to have a material assigned to it.  It changes the way the lighting effects it.  You can export some materials from the default table and import them into your table.  Then when you click on an item you'll see the material dropbox and you can chose a material.

 

lol............ ya what was I thinking documentation :-)

 

Thx for the info BD. Maybe it's time I just retire, this material thing is confusing.....

[freneticamnesic]

Now that walls have transparency as well maybe try it with a wall instead to see if the fps are better.
im about to try the same thing with mb as it also uses a table sized ramp for the playfield image. For insert text overlays i just use a small ramp per light so i can use higher res images for the text

If walls could have imagemodeworld I would absolutely....

[ICPjuggla]

And don't forget to adjust lighting, here's settings I'm using

 

And make sure the "Leave At Black" is ACTUAL 0,0,0 black........by default when you import a table it's like a dark grey, messes everything up

 

Good info fren I didn't do that yet. I'll play more tomorrow with it, it's late and I'm frustrated right now.. lol

[gigalula]

Hi guys maybe one of you can help me to find out how to get ball anti-stretch to work in FS cab ... all other VP version was fine for me until VPX did I miss a special setting ? 

 

 

In DT mode the ball looks perfect but soon as I use FS the ball have too much stretch on top half of screen. Table looks is perfect it is only a matter of ball stretch and any setup in video setting and also using 16:9 or 16:10 didn't fix it for me?

 

DT:

 

FS:

 

 

Thanks for your help!

Edited by gigalula, 06 February 2015 - 07:54 AM.

[fuzzel]

This is a known issue. It comes from the fact that FOV and the scaling values have influence to the ball shape.

[toxie]

And don't forget to adjust lighting, here's settings I'm using

 

And make sure the "Leave At Black" is ACTUAL 0,0,0 black........by default when you import a table it's like a dark grey, messes everything up

 

Setting the Light Range this low, you actually disable the two light sources above the table completely.

 

Try to always have contribution from both the two lights and the environment. You can test this by pulling down the emission for the environment to 0. In your example you get black then. (the two lights above give some nice punch to materials IMHO, so they should always have a noticable contribution)

I use ramps for playfield images so I can swap the image during GI events

With 2 of these (one for light text overlay, and one for the pf) it drops a current wip from 53 fps (pretty unacceptable) to 35fps (really unacceptable)

GTX 650Ti, Intel i7

 

Yup, the issue here is that you'll get quite some overhead from this as the whole playfield will be shaded again and again, whereas the 'normal' playfield is rendered statically in the beginning, and then never again.

 

EDIT: the same slowdown should happen with walls, btw (maybe not that drastically, but almost). what about using flashers or bulb(!)lights to brighten/darken the existing playfield (with modulate = 1 or close to that)? This should be faster. So just insert the playfield (as normal) at 'neutral' brightness, then apply one quad of a flasher or light as a basic GI lighting 'tweak'.

 

EDIT2: as a rule of thumb: everything that has a real material on it will take a while to render, whereas elements like the flashers and bulb(!)lights will be faster, as they only modify existing materials.

Edited by toxie, 06 February 2015 - 08:35 AM.

[toxie]

 

 

In VP 10 night/day slider erased the shadows? Even the ball has no more shadow.. Or maybe it must be activated somewhere?

 
You now can enable the ambient occlusion in the video preferences instead. Its not the same as before of course, but IMHO better. 

Ambient occlusion is a good new toy but the old Vp9 shadow was the thing that gave deepness to a table and was a feature desired by all future pinball table builders and players .
In my cabinet occlusion eats much more fps than old shadow

 

 

We have some todos to rework the shadows. But the way the shadows worked before, its not feasible anymore with VP10, now that a lot of elements are real primitives (the shadows were mostly done by drawing scaled circles/ellipses and the like, hand-tweaked for each table element).

Thx for the info BD. Maybe it's time I just retire, this material thing is confusing.....

 

 

For some 'guideline' what parameter influences the material look in what way, take a look at the second post of this thread (http://www.vpforums....e=1#entry295319). There you find some material example tables.

I know that this is a steep learning curve, but the look of the smurfs table and the new default table for example show that it can be worth it.