1394 replies to this topic

[fuzzel]

I had a quick look into the timer thing but I can't see the problem why it doesn't work below 10ms. I hope it is hidden somewhere and not some strange limitation of the COM/VBA interface but I hadn't enough time to dig deeper.

For the ramp lighting: I don't have the code in front of me but as far as I remember the additive alpha blend it just another texture filter and shouldn't use lighting, but I have to check that...maybe it was included together with lighting and would look odd if you don't apply it, but again I have to check that...

[jimmyfingers]

@fuzzel - thanks for looking into those two things.  To be clear on the additive alpha thing, I'm not requesting that additive alpha be made available without the disable lighting that it's bound to right now, that can / should stay the same I imagine.  What we need is a way to disable lighting on it's own for a ramp regardless of and without having to enable additive alpha to achieve that result.

[ICPjuggla]

fuzzel, I've had a ton going on in my personal life lately that I'm not going to go into, but today I had a chance to update my cab to the latest rev. the ball reflection is awesome, however I am seeing some anomalies with the shadow.

Fore example: if you play the BreakShot mod the shadow sits on top of the middle lock post and also bleeds though the top right lane when going behind it slow. Sorry if this has been brought up already. Just thought I should report it.

[fuzzel]

fuzzel, I've had a ton going on in my personal life lately that I'm not going to go into, but today I had a chance to update my cab to the latest rev. the ball reflection is awesome, however I am seeing some anomalies with the shadow.

Fore example: if you play the BreakShot mod the shadow sits on top of the middle lock post and also bleeds though the top right lane when going behind it slow. Sorry if this has been brought up already. Just thought I should report it.

Do you mean the ball shadow?

@fuzzel - thanks for looking into those two things.  To be clear on the additive alpha thing, I'm not requesting that additive alpha be made available without the disable lighting that it's bound to right now, that can / should stay the same I imagine.  What we need is a way to disable lighting on it's own for a ramp regardless of and without having to enable additive alpha to achieve that result.

Copy that!

[ICPjuggla]

To me it looked like the ball reflection that was added.

[fuzzel]

The reflection can look odd if the ball is over another alpha ramp. Because the reflection is nothing more than a texture with additive alpha blending and the combination of different blending options and colors can give you strange results.
A workaround can be that the alpha ramp is a tad higher than the ball reflection map but this isn't always possible.

[ICPjuggla]

I'll take a few screen shots when I get a chance.. :-)

[toxie]

So, maybe I should upload the table here, just for testing and to see how it works in your computers.

 

...

 

AFM_VP916_TEST.zip

video_settings.jpg

 

 

late to the party, but that indeed looks pretty cool JP!! 

[jpsalas]

 

So, maybe I should upload the table here, just for testing and to see how it works in your computers.

 

...

 

AFM_VP916_TEST.zip

video_settings.jpg

 

 

late to the party, but that indeed looks pretty cool JP!! 

 

Yes, I think so too It is a much faster way to build a table since you don't need to build so many playfields and plastics images and I think the lights and GI looks much better. It is similar to what teppotee and aaron are making the GI in their night mods (using alpha ramps).

Edited by jpsalas, 16 October 2013 - 02:23 AM.

[bent98]

Hey Fuzzel or Toxie

 

I noticed a bug with Nitro Ground Shakers FS version. Not sure when this bug was introduced but it seems as if the backglass is superimposed onto the playfield. I test with a very old version of VP 476 and it didn't have the issue. Other people are experiencing same issue. Its related to VP.

 

http://www.vpforums....ic=24235&page=2

OK, I traced it down to specific version. It started to happened at version 646. So something you guys did then caused the bug.

[bodydump]

Hey Fuzzel or Toxie

 

I noticed a bug with Nitro Ground Shakers FS version. Not sure when this bug was introduced but it seems as if the backglass is superimposed onto the playfield. I test with a very old version of VP 476 and it didn't have the issue. Other people are experiencing same issue. Its related to VP.

 

http://www.vpforums....ic=24235&page=2

OK, I traced it down to specific version. It started to happened at version 646. So something you guys did then caused the bug.

The error has to do with decals on the backdrop with the enable decals checkbox unchecked.  When Eala converted to FS, he left the decals on the backdrop and unchecked enable decals.  If the decals are deleted there's no problem.

[fuzzel]

Ok I checked the timer code and the reason why the timer doesn't react under 10ms is because the physics engine update interval is 10ms. So I can decrease the update interval to 5ms but I don't know if this has a negative impact on the physics engine or on the performance.

[unclewilly]

I wouldn't mess with the timer if it could adversely effect the physics.

I was just looking at the vpm documentation.

With the vpm class wouldn't it be possible to have a vpm timer running lower then 10 nd.
Not sure, but it looks as if you use the bmp addtimer method you should be able to get a smaller interval.

I could be wrong in my interpretation.

[fuzzel]

Please check out rev 681. I added another small feature to the primitives: 'Static rendering'. With this option you can decide if your 3D mesh/old primitive should be pre-rendered or not. This is helpful if you want to use 3D meshes for non animated elements on the table (like posts, non animated toys....). If this opton is checked the primitive is pre-rendered like walls, bumpers and so on. If you change parameters from within the script these changes won't do anything on a static primitive.

I know I said I wouldn't add new features to VP until we release 9.16, But I'm working on my first EM table (Slick Chick) and I like these round posts and the only solution to get posts in this shape is to use 3D meshes Now with static primitives you won't get any performance problems if you have a lot of static primitives on the table only dynamic primitives can drop the FPS.

[unclewilly]

Can you still use alpha textures on static primitives?

[fuzzel]

Yes you can use them. The basic rendering function is the same. But you will get problems if a big static primitive with an alpha texture covers parts of the table where the ball rolls beneath it. In that case the ball disappears while under the static primitive.

[Slydog43]

Slick Chick, yeah that table really needed a makeover to bring it into the current vp looks/physics.  Can't wait, Thanks 

[LoadedWeapon]

Awesome this should help the performance on future table releases.. Great work! I really need to try and learn to make a table in vp

[unclewilly]

This will work well for the tz gumball machine as I'll only need the clear part as an active primitive

[jimmyfingers]

Hey Toxie / fuzzel, I discovered an odd performance / behaviour aspect (bug?) with primitives and the setting of them being visible or not (.TopVisible) via scripting.  After starting a table with a group of primitives and their “visible” options disabled (in the editor), I get one high level of FPS, then in the script I enabled visibility on the group of primitives using a timer routine 10 seconds later and the FPS drops considerably (to be expected).  However, after setting the .TopVisible back to 0, the primitives disappear from view again but only about 60 % of the performance / FPS returns to that which was witnessed at the start when they were off initially.

 

With RU enabled, I get lower FPS in general but, even maybe more oddly, after the first dip in FPS, it essentially doesn’t come back up at all.  Alternatively with RO, I get much worse FPS out of the gate, even with them off from the editor / start-up, but general low FPS is typical for that setting as far as I have witnessed on my systems, however with RO on at least it seems that the dip in FPS all happens at the start and no perceivable change occurs at any point (start with them disabled from the editor, on from the script, nor back off from the script).  I’ve verified this with both my systems that are Windows 7 32-bit and nVidia graphics cards (slightly different driver levels between my development and mini-cab – 327.23 and 306.97 respectively).  I've even tried with not just disabling the .TopVisible but also setting the X,Y, and Z sizes to 0 as well as transposing up, to the side, and below the table all in efforts to get it to no longer try and process whatever it is about the prmitives that dropped the FPS.

 

See the screenshots below and I’m attaching a test table for which the problems can be reproduced and observed.  I’m wondering if this might have something to do with the fact that the .SideVisible setting (as apparently described as existing in a couple forum posts and supposed code inspection) doesn’t appear to be working and the .TopVisible “appears” to make the primitive not seen.  However, maybe it’s not disabling as much of the processing as possible for the primitive considering it’s only the .TopVisible we’re setting somewhat like older alpha processing where the bottom and top width were set to 0 and it was not on screen visibly but indeed still took a hit on performance (until the alpha = 0 /1 was discovered).  It could make some sense in this regard and as to why I mention it being that this oddity is results in only approximately getting half of the performance levels back after it’s disabled again using just the .TopVisible (i.e if we could set SideVisible would it restore the FPS back to the initial levels?).

 

Curious if this could be remedied as there’s definitely some performance being lost considering that it appears after enabling a primitive’s visibility, it will never be back at the same levels during the game again no matter whether it’s visible or not.

Attached Files

•  Capture of Primitive Performance Issue - FPS at Table Start.png   202.06KB   7 downloads
•  Capture of Primitive Performance Issue - FPS when TopVisible first enabled.png   225.15KB   7 downloads
•  Capture of Primitive Performance Issue - FPS after TopVisible set back to disabled.png   202.89KB   7 downloads
•  Primitive Visible Performance Test Table with TopVisible Changing.vpt   108KB   5 downloads

Edited by jimmyfingers, 23 October 2013 - 03:59 AM.