103 replies to this topic

[Noah Fentz]

Last known, cupid was having difficulty finding it in the source (which is open to anyone, btw, and found on SourceForge), so if anyone else would like to have a looksee, please do.

I've always been curious about this, if correct and I'd say it is, it indicates to me there is no and never was a change log documentation created or provided with the changes that were made to VP7 to create VP9 (as it was incorrectly named). Yes that's right VP9 was a hack or mod of VP7, VP8 was Randy's attempt of assimilating the changes made and I gather he had no change log to work with either.

Yeah, I don't know of any such documentation. I could and should ask about it, though.

As for being a 'hack', that's a bit of a dirty word as far as I'm concerned. It was modified with authorization from Randy.

[toxie]

i would love to have a go at this next, but i'm heavily confused on what currently is (ab)used in what kinds of places.

so to my understanding there is code that handles the nudging inside VP itself and was added in the ultracade/ultrapin age.

but then there is also the separate handling in the 'default' .vbs core scripts. and then there are the modifications of these scripts (i.e. this thread).

is there in addition to this even stuff on a per-table base? or is this rather seldom?

and the final question: how do these things interact with each other in practice? if somebody who already has more experience with this could help out, i would be pleased, as it would save me a lot of staring at random code.

[Slydog43]

wow this sounds very interesting, wish I could help, but good luck toxie with this. Nudging is so important to me and my pincab, it just makes is more like real pinball. Thanks for all that you do.

[The Loafer]

The best players in the world I've talked to all agree you can change the direction of the ball without it hitting an object, and I'll take their word for it.

Hey Noah,

Just an FYI, that statement above is 100% true but the problem is, the average pinball player doesn't nudge a machine to that extent that the effect on the ball (without hitting an object) is visually seen. But I agree, your statement is true, just not how most see it. Most nudge when the ball is about to hit something with the effect that you nudge towards the left when an object is about to his an object and you want it to move more to the left.

Physics as they are, I don't think you can please everyone, but I what I typed is my 2 cents on it. Its almost like VP should have both nudging solution built it, where the user selects what he/she prefers: "nudging on collision" model or the "pro version" which is more like you describe and is more realistic.

[rob046]

Yes I would agree with that. That technically the ball probably does move a bit when nudging without the ball colliding into anything. Well obviously it moves, the question is whether it perfectly moves back right on the path it was on. For the most part I say yes. & while the ball can change course a little bit, it is usually too little to notice.
Or, most pins will TILT before they allow you to hit the table enough to really knock the ball off course.

Btw, there is a more updated version of this core.vbs than what is in this thread. I took it & tweaked it a little, & shared it in another thread, because I always felt he added some nice options with this code, but that it was never optimized properly. & blur actually came along too & helped with it, & its based on the latest vbs, 3.36 I think.

While it isn't perfect & I would love an even better fix here, I do think it is a clearly better option than default VP9 nuding, but I wonder how many people even know about it or use it. When you combine it with reasonable nudge settings within the table itself, you can get very realistic results, especially on the side nudging. & I do think aspects of it could be improved even more for anybody who wants to spend more time tweaking it. The forward nudge is better too but I think that is what needs the most work. Just in general it would be great if I got better nudging not through a hack, but a more official method.
& hey, nudging is something important to both desktop & FS users, so it is more than worth the attention of everybody to get this sorted out.

Edited by rob046, 12 November 2012 - 08:16 PM.

[Aurich]

While it isn't perfect & I would love an even better fix here, I do think it is a clearly better option than default VP9 nuding, but I wonder how many people even know about it or use it.

I'm guessing almost no one knows about it, all these little 'unofficial' tweaks tend to be buried in the forum, and you have to stumble upon the right thread to find them.

[StevOz]

I could and should ask about it, though.

 

So how did this not go?

[Rincewind]

Last night I got myself a Microsoft sidewinder freestyle Pro for nudging and I had a pleasurable experience with the nudging system... so I'm gonna try this core.vbs. My question is, does this core.vbs work with the latest VP 9.1.5?

 

thanks

[uberpinball]

Last night I got myself a Microsoft sidewinder freestyle Pro for nudging and I had a pleasurable experience with the nudging system... so I'm gonna try this core.vbs. My question is, does this core.vbs work with the latest VP 9.1.5?
 
thanks

You don't want to replace the whole core.vbs, you just want to create your own NudgePlugin.vbs file and paste in Blurs code from here...
http://www.vpforums....e=4#entry218474

Then the file just drops into the same dir as core.vbs.

Edited by uberpinball, 24 April 2013 - 11:30 AM.

[blur]

with sidewinder you don't need any fixes in core - sidewinder has analog nudge detector and works directly with vp

[uberpinball]

with sidewinder you don't need any fixes in core - sidewinder has analog nudge detector and works directly with vp

I was thinking the same since it would be analog nudge, but for some reason I think he might have it wired to hit contacts.

Digital nudge = hitting keys
Analog nudge = accelerometer

[Rincewind]

Well the problem I forgot to mention in post above is ...the controller calibration. 

I tried to use the analog nudging option in VP 9.1.5 but for some reason the physics and movement of the ball became really wrong. Like if the ball is being constantly pushed into one side... I know I placed the gamepad properly flat and horizontal,  and in Windows calibration it shows a cross centered. When tip the controller with my finger it moves just slightly to the tipping direction, and then just propels back to the opposite direction. Hm... I think it must be something about the dead zone and sensitivity values which I can't configure under windows usb controller setup.

 

Then I tried to use digital nudge with xpadder. It works a bit better, but I sometimes have double nudges and very often a tilt than a slight nudge, even though I nudge the cab just slightly.

 

any clues?

 

@uberpinball: Should I name the file NudgePlugin.vbs or whatever.vbs with the blur's code and just plain copy/paste it into the tables folder?

[uberpinball]

Well the problem I forgot to mention in post above is ...the controller calibration. 

I tried to use the analog nudging option in VP 9.1.5 but for some reason the physics and movement of the ball became really wrong. Like if the ball is being constantly pushed into one side... I know I placed the gamepad properly flat and horizontal,  and in Windows calibration it shows a cross centered. When tip the controller with my finger it moves just slightly to the tipping direction, and then just propels back to the opposite direction. Hm... I think it must be something about the dead zone and sensitivity values which I can't configure under windows usb controller setup.

 

Then I tried to use digital nudge with xpadder. It works a bit better, but I sometimes have double nudges and very often a tilt than a slight nudge, even though I nudge the cab just slightly.

 

any clues?

 

@uberpinball: Should I name the file NudgePlugin.vbs or whatever.vbs with the blur's code and just plain copy/paste it into the tables folder?

I post these instructions often on accelerometer calibration:

 

Forget windows calibration and do this:

1) Grab this DXTweak tool, it will allow you to get perfect calibration. http://db.tt/uW6MZJio

2) Grab this table for testing. It's zero slope http://db.tt/37iwTuoP

3) Start adjusting the mid values of the X and Y axis, choose the proper tabs on top. Keep the low and high values in line with your adjustment of mid, move mid up 5, you move low and high up 5. Make sure you don't have the x and y Axis to tight in DXTweak. By this i mean...make sure you are at least 300-500 from center each way. So if X Axis mid is 2000, the min should be 1500 and max 2500. The same for the Y axis. The closer you get to mid, the tighter and less forgiving the nudge is. if it's to tight, the chip will start to fight itself causing the jitters and ball wandering.

4) Start the test table with zero slope in VP and see how the all reacts. Your goal is to have it standing still. Go back and forth between the DXTweak tool and restarting the zero slope table. You need to restart the table after each DXTweak tweak.
 
5) If you still find a slight wander in the zero slope table, adjust the deadzone. In VP, go to Pref>Keys and check your gains and deadzones. I'm at 500% for x and y, and a 3% deadzone. The deadzone will give the ball a buffer before it acts to a nudge.
 
I give credit to koadic for helping me back when with this. I just ended up organizing it all for my use if I ever upgraded my pc.

Let me know how it goes.

 

If you want to stay with digital nudge, yes create a file called NudgePlugin.vbs and paste in his code. You tweak the variables in the code to get the nudge just right for you.

Edited by uberpinball, 24 April 2013 - 12:54 PM.

[blur]

yup for digital nudge - just get latest official core and nudgeplugin from uberpinball's link and put tiempofiltro to around 1000 or 2000

that will solve double nudges and tilts

[Rincewind]

Thanks guys for your help, will try this out tonight and see how it goes!

[Rincewind]

OK, I tried the digital tilt with NudgePlugin.vbs, indeed much better performance, mora reliable and stable nudge response but one thing troubles me now, I just can't tilt the table anymore. The only way to get the tilt is to press my keyboard buttons like 4 - 6 times. Long story short, nudges fine but no tilt.
One more thing left to test is analog nudging but my eyes are heavy from long working day... must not sleep, eyes closing, must no.... zZz

[uberpinball]

OK, I tried the digital tilt with NudgePlugin.vbs, indeed much better performance, mora reliable and stable nudge response but one thing troubles me now, I just can't tilt the table anymore. The only way to get the tilt is to press my keyboard buttons like 4 - 6 times. Long story short, nudges fine but no tilt.
One more thing left to test is analog nudging but my eyes are heavy from long working day... must not sleep, eyes closing, must no.... zZz

Look in the script, you'll see tilt sensitivity which you can adjust to override the tables tilt setting.

[Rincewind]

OK, I tried the digital tilt with NudgePlugin.vbs, indeed much better performance, mora reliable and stable nudge response but one thing troubles me now, I just can't tilt the table anymore. The only way to get the tilt is to press my keyboard buttons like 4 - 6 times. Long story short, nudges fine but no tilt.
One more thing left to test is analog nudging but my eyes are heavy from long working day... must not sleep, eyes closing, must no.... zZz

Look in the script, you'll see tilt sensitivity which you can adjust to override the tables tilt setting.

 

Yep did that too, set mSensitivity and pSensitivity to max. level 10, but still no significant improvement.

 

OK now back to analog tilting... uberpinball thank you very much for pointing me to the right direction. The DXTweak helped a lot, although I cannot tweak the ball to stand perfectly still (theres always a bit of downforce) but I solved it setting the VP values deadzone 22% . Gain values are now at 350 for x and y. The analog nudging in my case showed itself as a better option... slightly hitting the table got me a fine nudge, hitting it more aggressive produces a tilt warning but no tilt, and rocking a cab just about more tilts it. So I'm satisfied with the overall result. Now I don't know for sure what would be the sweet point for for real life simulated nudging reaction in VP keys settings? Should a nudge follow buy slightly hit of the table or should it follow after hitting the cab with some force - the fact is, if I lower x & y gain in VP I have to "put some english" on the cab to get the nudge but that will certainly, through a longer period of time, leave some marks where the legs are attached to the cab... don't wanna even mention the wooden floor parquet I'm about to destroy.

Edited by Rincewind, 25 April 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[blur]

it's normal that you can't tilt cause you filtered all consequent nudges with tiempofiltro

 

if you put tiempofiltro to 2000 and nudge count interval to 1000 that means you can nudge every 2 seconds, but after one second tilt counter goes down, and till next nudge it is on 0

tilt counter makes tilt when it goes over msensitivity!

 

so to get tilt sometimes you can reduce tiempofiltro and/or enlarge nudge count interval

and you can reduce psensitivity and msensitivity to 1-5 not 10, putting msensitivity to 10 makes opposite of what you want to do

[Rincewind]

it's normal that you can't tilt cause you filtered all consequent nudges with tiempofiltro

 

if you put tiempofiltro to 2000 and nudge count interval to 1000 that means you can nudge every 2 seconds, but after one second tilt counter goes down, and till next nudge it is on 0

tilt counter makes tilt when it goes over msensitivity!

 

so to get tilt sometimes you can reduce tiempofiltro and/or enlarge nudge count interval

and you can reduce psensitivity and msensitivity to 1-5 not 10, putting msensitivity to 10 makes opposite of what you want to do

 

Before I axed the question here, I did google vpmNudge.sensitivity and found the *.vbs documentation stating:

·        Property: .Sensitivity = sens

Specifies the tilt sensitivity between 0 (low) – 10 (high).

Example:

vpmNudge.Sensitivity = 5

 

according to the statement here, the higher the number the higher tilt sensitivity should be... hm, maybe I was wrong, I did that like 2am and at that time of day(or night) logical mistakes tend to multiply

Will see, when I get back home from work I'll test the vbs code with tiempofiltro around 200 with count interval 1500, msensitivity and psensitivity to 1. This should increase tilt probability.

Edited by Rincewind, 25 April 2013 - 09:03 AM.