64 replies to this topic

[Wizards_Hat]

better? nah! Longer? maybe... this is out of Itchigo's template:
<snip>

Swing and a miss!

Faralos - the whole point of this thread is about using "dropping" ramps, and trying to find new ways to use them.
You have just posted the well known, and well used, code for using dropping walls.

Regards,
Dan.

[Bob5453]

better? nah! Longer? maybe... this is out of Itchigo's template:

....

Code snipped

....
by no means easier and a heck of a lot longer too, so you win here... yours is an easier way to do it than what I have been using with Itch's table template

Try his in your tables and it won't work for you Faralos.

BTW, that was my crappy code I snipped.

[faralos]

better? nah! Longer? maybe... this is out of Itchigo's template:
<snip>

Swing and a miss!

Faralos - the whole point of this thread is about using "dropping" ramps, and trying to find new ways to use them.
You have just posted the well known, and well used, code for using dropping walls.

Regards,
Dan.

the guy who posted had said he was looking for the code for pop bumper rings that is why I had posted that as it pertains to pop bumper ring wall animation

[Wizards_Hat]

better? nah! Longer? maybe... this is out of Itchigo's template:
<snip>

Swing and a miss!

Faralos - the whole point of this thread is about using "dropping" ramps, and trying to find new ways to use them.
You have just posted the well known, and well used, code for using dropping walls.

Regards,
Dan.

the guy who posted had said he was looking for the code for pop bumper rings that is why I had posted that as it pertains to pop bumper ring wall animation

I'll try & explain again...

I know what "the guy" who posted was doing - he was suggesting a way of using the idea of "dropable" ramps in bumper animation code. He was asking if anyone could use the idea of "dropable" ramps to make better code than he had.
He was not asking for any old code to do with animating bumpers.
i.e. his post was on topic...the thread topic being about dropable ramps.

I understand that you are "only trying to help"...I'm just suggesting that you think about the thread topic before posting an answer.

Regards,
Dan.

[EalaDubhSidhe]

Done it - a complete animated pop bumper system using the same principles as the drop ramp demo. It's not actually that hard to do, as the script is very close to how dropwall bumpers are presently done, but this is IMMEASURABLY more flexible - a single bumper can be copied and pasted to another table, or moved along the playfield, and no other image textures will be needed. What's more, the transparancies work just as well with acrylic rather than alpha ramps if it starts to clog your system up, though the rendering quality with acrylics suffers from no anti-aliasing.

The thing to keep in mind with this is that to display all the ramps properly with no glitches, they must be stacked in the correct priority order, with the highest ramp brought to the front (the lit cap) to the lowest kept at the back (the base).

Attached Files

•  ramp_bumpers.zip   443.23KB   32 downloads

[unclewilly]

Can you post a pic of the bumpers done with ramps as I won't be able to test this out for a few days
Thanks

[EalaDubhSidhe]

I already have; it has its own upload thread.

Here

[melon]

Hi guys. I've been testing this feature to make some "alpha" flashers:



To use the demo: Left flipper flashes the left flasher and Right flipper flashes the right flasher.

It's ready to be used with JP's 4 step fading system.
The most important procedure is FadeRamp:

CODE

Sub FadeRamp(nr, a, b, c, d,aLight)

Where nr is the number of the light, a to d are the ramps to be faded (a is on and d is off), and aLight is the light to be used.

As the demo doesn't use any rom, the LampTimer event has only the updateLamps Call, as the lights are manually set in the key's procedures. In a real use, the lamptimer event would be the one that has allways been used by JP.

 testFlash.rar   37.67KB   24 downloads

If it works for you and anybody is interested, I can upload a tutorial with more options (and comment some code if necessary)

[EalaDubhSidhe]

A bit unsubtle, but yes, the principle is sound. All these animated artifacts are going to work in much the same way; the difference will be in how to position the ramps - whether flat or inclined.

[EalaDubhSidhe]

And here's a twelve-ramp plunger system and the necessary textures and script to go with it. Again, essentially a tangent from the dropwall type I've been previously using, but without the image layers. Plus, no more need for finnicky ball images either, folks.

Attached Files

•  ramp_plunger.zip   327.33KB   20 downloads

[rascal]

Beuitiful! Simply Beuitiful! All these fine ideas coming to life with alpha ramps.

VP just keeps getting better and better!

[FDSystems]

I do not understand, just enough to nee that great progress is being achieved, but I´m ready to experience the results with the next (re)creations.
Thanks to Eala & all the others participating to this common effort to make VP even better than it is!

Edited by 1234fd, 26 June 2011 - 10:57 AM.

[maxfx4u]

Just downloaded that flasher demo from Melon. Cant wait for that to start being used. Very cool effect.

[oooPLAYER1ooo]

Thank you Melon !
I was going to play around and try to do exactly that !
I have added fading flasher effects to a table I'm working on and have noticed no slow down
Also works great added to your new fading gi script Scott

Edited by oooPLAYER1ooo, 26 June 2011 - 12:48 PM.

[unclewilly]

Thank you Melon !
I was going to play around and try to do exactly that !
I have added fading flasher effects to a table I'm working on and have noticed no slow down
Also works great added to your new fading gi script Scott

Sweet. I need to mess with this flasher stuff, sounds like it will make for nice flash effects. I'll look at the demo today

[dokworm]

This is great news, it addresses what I saw as one of the key shortcomings in the current VP.

From a VP codebase perspective, it means that some cool features could be incorporated directly into a new release of VP, as realtime partial or full table redraws appear to be possible.

Will do some thinking of this and put in some feature requests based on it once I understand it a bit better.

[faralos]

if a ramp can be dropped to the table height then can it also start out at table height then get dropped down into the lower level? like say a flat area of pf now opens up to reveal a ramp leading down to a lower level, can it drop that way too? to a lower level? would it render properly for the ball travel?

[unclewilly]

if a ramp can be dropped to the table height then can it also start out at table height then get dropped down into the lower level? like say a flat area of pf now opens up to reveal a ramp leading down to a lower level, can it drop that way too? to a lower level? would it render properly for the ball travel?

If there is a lower level to the table you could have the ramp leading to the lower level already there and raise a ramp that sat on the upper level like a trap door covering the hole

[faralos]

that's what I meant like can you have the ramp look like the pf then have it lower to allow access to a lower area so it would be hidden until it actually lowered

[unclewilly]

A question I have about this, maybe one of the devs can chime in or destruk may know. Are ther other scriptable properties for the alpha ramp. I don't have much knowledge of the source code or time to experiment.

Since widthtop, heighttop. Widthbottom, heightbottom are scriptable,
Are the top and bottom position values also scriptable (meaning the x,y coordinates)

The reason I'm asking is for a raisable ramp like the one in pinbot for instance.
If the x/y position were scriptable you could just use one alpha ramp to do the whole raising animation, as the flat ramps appear to get longer as the go from the downward angle to horizontal position.

That is why j use a gate for the animation currently.

Any info is appreciated