834 replies to this topic

[jpsalas]

B2B Collision by Steely & Pinball Ken v6

Is this script still needed in VP10?

 

No. Only a very simplified one.

Edited by jpsalas, 24 January 2015 - 02:58 PM.

[chepas]

Does it still include the "CreateballID" ? It's really a problem for me at the moment the way a table doesn't work like the real world. If I was purely in vbs it wouldn't be that much of a problem. Workaround city...

 

Cheers

Edited by chepas, 24 January 2015 - 03:10 PM.

[mukuste]

No, thanks to the GetBalls function you don't need to keep track of the balls manually anymore, the engine does it for you.

[dark]

 

Static primitives are already collidable in vp 9.9. Just need to uncheck the istoy box.
mukeste was going to work on making dynamic primitives collidable when he wasdoing the physics modifications if i remember correctly

 

Yes, (static) primitives can be collidable since the later versions of VP9 already. To be fair, though, their collision code has always been somewhat buggy and I still want to fix that for VP10.

 

The dynamic collidable primitives are still on the list. There are unfortunately a whole list of complications associated with them, one of them being performance; I worry a bit about having to check collisions against thousands or even more triangles for high-poly meshes every physics frame. How would table authors think about creating a second, much lower-poly mesh purely for collisions? I think modern 3D programs have fairly decent options for detail reduction, so hopefully it wouldn't be much extra work?

 

It's not difficult to 'decimate' or 'optimize' models to be low poly but they start to look bad with only modest optimizing and worse with a lot, but since this would be just for collision and not have any effect on the visuals it would be easy to do.

Edited by dark, 25 January 2015 - 01:50 AM.

[unclewilly]

Honestly aside from a few toys like say the dracula in mb. I would rather have a nice looking and use an invisible vp object for collision.

Even in fp, the models arent collideable. There is a colidable low poly mesh attached to the models.

So maybe that would be possible to create a low poly not visible mesh to move along with the high poly mesh for collision.

Ive found even with some of the flat ramp meshes when i make them static. The collision is still Off

So i guess some of the code needs rewritten.

It would be nice though to have a scoup or vertical uturn ramp that works with the physics

[Shoopity]

Since we're all getting excited after a bit of lull (partially due to Mukuste's triumphant return), I'll ask this now (/again):

Is there going to be some better sound system built in to VP10?  Namely the ability for VP to know what sounds are currently playing and/or for an event to be fire when a sound stops.  Currently there's a MusicStop Event (making it easy to loop music), but not for a sound (that I know of).  I realise this may cause some performance issues, but I would think it would be negligible if VP can handle every hit event during multi ball.

 

My current work around is to use a timer to "clear" a channel, but that requires knowing the length of every single sound (and currently I'm working on America's Most Haunted which has over 700 sounds).

[mukuste]

Ive found even with some of the flat ramp meshes when i make them static. The collision is still Off

So i guess some of the code needs rewritten.

Can you explain what you mean there? Why is the collision still off.

[chepas]

No, thanks to the GetBalls function you don't need to keep track of the balls manually anymore, the engine does it for you.

 

Nice, I can remove it.

 

I have to ask because I haven't been reading every single comment (far too many months of pages to go through) have you also done away with having to need a script to fade lamps and nudging?

 

If so, all of that sets me down to just 800 lines of script . Time saved to the extreme.

[mukuste]

 

No, thanks to the GetBalls function you don't need to keep track of the balls manually anymore, the engine does it for you.

 

Nice, I can remove it.

 

I have to ask because I haven't been reading every single comment (far too many months of pages to go through) have you also done away with having to need a script to fade lamps and nudging?

 

If so, all of that sets me down to just 800 lines of script . Time saved to the extreme.

 

 

Not me specifically, but one of the other devs implemented fading lights, I think. UW should be up to date on that?

 

Nudging shouldn't be much code I think, simply, "on that keypress, call that nudge function". Would be possible to do in the engine itself, but, is it really much of a bother?

 

And, @shoopity: that should be doable, will have a look when I have time.

[chepas]

Nudging shouldn't be much code I think, simply, "on that keypress, call that nudge function". Would be possible to do in the engine itself, but, is it really much of a bother?

 

 

No nudging isn't, you're right. Just getting a little over excited of all the time it's going to save me.

[toxie]

 

Is there going to be some better sound system built in to VP10?  Namely the ability for VP to know what sounds are currently playing and/or for an event to be fire when a sound stops.  Currently there's a MusicStop Event (making it easy to loop music), but not for a sound (that I know of).  I realise this may cause some performance issues, but I would think it would be negligible if VP can handle every hit event during multi ball.

 

i agree.. sound/music should come next.. its also not that difficult as it sounds to support all that, just a 'bit' of work..

maybe we can even sneak some more of that in during beta..

Edited by toxie, 25 January 2015 - 09:22 AM.

[fuzzel]

The whole bulb/light insert handling has been reworked. You don't need multiple lights anymore just to fake blending. A light has an intensity value and you can increase/decrease it from the script.

[tttttwii]

Is there going to be some better sound system built in to VP10?  Namely the ability for VP to know what sounds are currently playing and/or for an event to be fire when a sound stops.  Currently there's a MusicStop Event (making it easy to loop music), but not for a sound (that I know of).  I realise this may cause some performance issues, but I would think it would be negligible if VP can handle every hit event during multi ball.

 
i agree.. sound/music should come next.. its also not that difficult as it sounds to support all that, just a 'bit' of work..
maybe we can even sneak some more of that in during beta..

One other question: I assume that pinball arcade is using the same rom files as vp containing the pinballs sound samples. Pinball Arcade's sound quality of nearly all systems being emulated is much better than in vp. I read numerous threads of adjusting the sampling rate, but effect of that was minor. Shouldn't someone also look at the sound emulation and playback routines. I don't know how stong this is embedded into the code.

My opinion is, that graphics and speed have improved a lot since vp9 but sound is lagging behind.

Don't get me wrong. I love vp and appreciate the work of the DEV team. The improvements in vp in the last 12 month are simply awesome!

Edited by tttttwii, 25 January 2015 - 10:29 AM.

[freneticamnesic]

that sound is a pinmame issue and separate from vp10, who is working on vpm now? just toxie?

[unclewilly]

Mukeste. For the collision of primitives.

If i take the flat ramp from bride of pinbot which was pulled straight from the fp table.
I can make it static but when you try and shoot a ball up the ramp it will start to go up the ramp and then hop over the ramp wall. I can provide a demo table if you'd like

Other static primitives seem to do fine for the most part. I do have some issues in fire where is you hit a hard shot and hit one of the yellow or black rubber posts, rather then bouncing back the ball goes airbourn

On the nudge, where is the check box to turn off the screen shake?

[toxie]

@tttttwii&fren: gaston is still the main guy when it comes to emulation knowledge and VPM in general (and he also still actively improves emulation). i just help out here and there and ported some core updates from the standard MAME.

I guess Pinball Arcades emulation is based off the PinMAME source, but don't know for sure. So it could well be that they improved the emulation, although in principle the emulation in PM is already pretty close to the original, at least for the most common hardware (WPC, Whitestar, etc). Maybe they also added some post-processing on top?

[unclewilly]

From what ive read at paf. Its one guy doing the emulation for there games. He was a pinmame dev. He says he has rewritten the emulation specifically for tpa. he also said they use a lot of samples for the sounds in tpa so they are better quality

[Noah Fentz]

Yeah, from what I've gathered, it was necessary to emulate the ROMs without MAME for commercial use.

This would lead me to believe it's an entirely different emulator.

[Scorp.ius]

just an idea did I read it right, that there will be no need of night mods in the future, because you can set the light by yourself?

this is just one of the killer features in VP10 for me now (besides all of the others )

 

now the (perhaps completely insane) idea

what about an automatic mode, which regulates the light per system's clock or light sensor

Edited by Scorp.ius, 25 January 2015 - 04:26 PM.

[fuzzel]

Yes VP10 has a night/day illumination slider and it's on a per table basis. You can tweak the lights globaly but it all depends how a table was built.