834 replies to this topic

[unclewilly]

So excited herein all this dev talk.

I'm much appreciative of everything you guys do

[fuzzel]

I'm working on the lights especially the inserts because they were always difficult to make them good or at least acceptable. While I'm changing the lights I realized that this is one of the first real incompatibility change to VP because you can't use the lights in the same ways as you did it in VP9 anymore. Because we (the devs) would like to make a first VP10.0 without breaking everything I don't know how to proceed further. The new lights are totally shader based and only usefull for inserts (for GIs you can use the flasher object). I know some tables use lights in a different way (mostely for updating ramps in older VP9 tables) but I don't know all of them.

So to make things short I decided to release the very first pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha VP10.0 version so you can have a look for yourself what I did with the lights and perhaps some of you can give us some hints what hack/effect isn't possible anymore.

 

This test version includes the following changes:

- backdrop/layback settings were changed, mainly because of old bugs in the VP9 code. It's a bit easier to scale a table based on inclination, layback, fov and so on. Just start with scaling factor 1 and offset 0 (mukuste)

- mesh ball. The ball is a true 3D mesh ball and shader based. You apply a sphere map for the ball and you can assign a decal map to it which is mapped around the complete ball (fuzzel)

- some settings (backdrop,grid) were moved to the View menu (mukuste)

- in the editor you can switch the drawing mode from solid (old drawing mode) to outline. This can speed up the editor reaction time because only the outline of all elements are drawn in the editor (mukuste)

- light inserts (fuzzel)

 

The new light code only works for custom lights. I would like the remove the old circle light because the custom version is much more powerful and it's easier to maintain just one version of the light.

To work with the new light create custom light on the table and select the playfield as off image. The "Radius" setting defines the size of the light, so increasing this value too much will result in a flat colored light without shade steps.The "Intensity" option is a multiplier to brighten the light to see something this value has to be at least 1.

I added a light.vpx demo table to show you some settings.

 

Please keep in mind that this is a WIP. I would like to know what things aren't possible with these lights. Maybe I have to add old behaviour to the lights object again or perhaps I add them to another object or what ever.

 

Happy testing!

Attached Files

•  VP10_LightTest1.rar   7.97MB   83 downloads

Edited by fuzzel, 19 May 2014 - 10:19 PM.

[unclewilly]

yay.  trying it out now

[unclewilly]

I played with this a little yesterday.
It's looking to me as if these light objects are using something like the light map object.

The only thing I would suggest is allowing the light image to be swapped like the vp990 lights.
I like the lightmap look on these lights, and will make it easy for people to do tables.
Sometimes I think I can get better results using photoshop.
So if you could just make the off image shapable that would be really awesome.

Like light1.offimage = "pfOn"

I can see that the lights seem to fade out when they go to the off state. If you maybe had an option where you could set the time in Ms for the fading that would be really cool.
If the off image was swappable with the command I used above, I believe my fire table would work now.
But it crashes vp now because I assume that command isn't available

[fuzzel]

I played with this a little yesterday.
It's looking to me as if these light objects are using something like the light map object.

The only thing I would suggest is allowing the light image to be swapped like the vp990 lights.
I like the lightmap look on these lights, and will make it easy for people to do tables.
Sometimes I think I can get better results using photoshop.
So if you could just make the off image shapable that would be really awesome.

Like light1.offimage = "pfOn"

I can see that the lights seem to fade out when they go to the off state. If you maybe had an option where you could set the time in Ms for the fading that would be really cool.
If the off image was swappable with the command I used above, I believe my fire table would work now.
But it crashes vp now because I assume that command isn't available

 

Yes it's a kind of light map but generated by the shader not with an extra map. I will implement a fading function so the lights don't just go on/off but they will fade into the next state but I wanted to wait for some comments on this early implementation first

I have to check why VP crashs if you define a different off image via script but I think it's just a missing check . So one other question: do you prefer to have an optional on image again? That would be easy but you won't get the fading option if you use the old on/off image technique.

 

Edit:

I've just tried swapping the off image with the script but it worked for me!?

Edited by fuzzel, 20 May 2014 - 11:25 AM.

[mukuste]

Yes it's a kind of light map but generated by the shader not with an extra map. I will implement a fading function so the lights don't just go on/off but they will fade into the next state but I wanted to wait for some comments on this early implementation first

I have to check why VP crashs if you define a different off image via script but I think it's just a missing check . So one other question: do you prefer to have an optional on image again? That would be easy but you won't get the fading option if you use the old on/off image technique.

 

Wouldn't it be possible to do a simple linear blend between the off/on image?

Edited by mukuste, 20 May 2014 - 12:17 PM.

[unclewilly]

I'm happy with just an off image that you can swap. No need for and on and off image that way.

You want me to send you the table

[fuzzel]

 

Yes it's a kind of light map but generated by the shader not with an extra map. I will implement a fading function so the lights don't just go on/off but they will fade into the next state but I wanted to wait for some comments on this early implementation first

I have to check why VP crashs if you define a different off image via script but I think it's just a missing check . So one other question: do you prefer to have an optional on image again? That would be easy but you won't get the fading option if you use the old on/off image technique.

 

Wouldn't it be possible to do a simple linear blend between the off/on image?

 

That's possible but I don't know if the result is a good one...have to do some more tests on this.

 

I'm happy with just an off image that you can swap. No need for and on and off image that way.

You want me to send you the table

That would help to find the bug.

[unclewilly]

https://www.dropbox..../Fire.Wip36.vpt

[unclewilly]

Is this based on the vp990 build but with mesh ball and new light object?

Maybe I didn't have the mesh ball set up correctly.

A feature that many talked about which may not be possible is shown in that table also, would be the ability to set individual heights for each control point of a ramp.
The 2 ramps on either side had to be made of multipul ramps to get the correct sloping effect for th ramps.

Also withe a few minor adjustments, you could use it as a test table for dynamic primitive collisiins. All the dropping ramps are made from primitives.
As of now there is an invisible ramp below them for the collision, but I could add an option to remove that ramp when you get to adding dynamic primitive collision

[fuzzel]

Is this based on the vp990 build but with mesh ball and new light object?

Maybe I didn't have the mesh ball set up correctly.

A feature that many talked about which may not be possible is shown in that table also, would be the ability to set individual heights for each control point of a ramp.
The 2 ramps on either side had to be made of multipul ramps to get the correct sloping effect for th ramps.

Also withe a few minor adjustments, you could use it as a test table for dynamic primitive collisiins. All the dropping ramps are made from primitives.
As of now there is an invisible ramp below them for the collision, but I could add an option to remove that ramp when you get to adding dynamic primitive collision

Yes this is based on the VP9.9 build and we haven't changed the ramps at all in this version only those I mentioned in the list.

 

Anyway here is another light test. This one doesn't crash anymore if you swap the off image. I removed the old circle light completely and added a new fading feature. Now if you let a light blink or switch it on/off it will fade

Attached Files

•  VP10_LightTest2.rar   7.97MB   59 downloads

[kiwi]

Edit : @VP10_LightTest1

 

The ball does not have the correct aspect ratio, is crushed, sometimes is transparent and seems to be made of glass, very cool effect.
After a few launch of the rendering, the frames go down and make VP unplayable.
Entering and exiting a couple of times from the rendering VP10 returns to work fine.

 

Thanks

 

Max

Edited by kiwi, 20 May 2014 - 06:58 PM.

[unclewilly]

Will test when I get home

[lio]

Nice start & thanks for sharing!

 

Even though this is entirely wishful thinking the absolute ideal in my opinion would be that if you create a new light it would by default actually only create the plastic insert and the color you set the "light" to would be the color of the plastic insert.

By default it could also place one bulb below the insert that you can move around (much like you can move the bulb halo position of a light in FP) within the area of the insert - by default it would just be a "white" bulb but you could also change that color to anything (also during gameplay via the script to simulate color changing LED bulbs) and when the bulb lights up it would blend the color of the insert above correctly with the color of the bulb that lights it for the final render result.

Also you could place more than one bulb below any insert... just dreaming here but I think this would be the ultimate solution concerning playfield light inserts.

 

One thing I don't quite understand:

Why do you want to get rid of the "round" lights? What is different about them that wouldn't make your current shader work with a round light - I would expect shapeable lights to be much more of a challenge than a round one?

Round lights are very common in pinball and even though you can try your best to create something round out of a shapeable light I don't quite understand why we could not just have the round light object in there as well with a definable radius - personally I'd miss the round light object.

[javier1515]

I can not test this version, use windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit crash and closes vp to start the test table. 

 

Any suggestions ...

[fuzzel]

Edit : @VP10_LightTest1

 

The ball does not have the correct aspect ratio, is crushed, sometimes is transparent and seems to be made of glass, very cool effect.
After a few launch of the rendering, the frames go down and make VP unplayable.
Entering and exiting a couple of times from the rendering VP10 returns to work fine.

 

Thanks

 

Max

Yes the ball has some issues and I'm not satisfied with that "glass effect". With what table do you get these slow downs after some launches? And finally what type of aspect ratio do you have set in the video settings? I set "At full screen anti-stetch..." to 16:9. I haven't tested out all combinations yet

[fuzzel]

I can not test this version, use windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit crash and closes vp to start the test table. 

 

Any suggestions ...

what kind of graphics card do you have? The light shader uses shader v3.0 at the moment.

 

 

Nice start & thanks for sharing!

 

Even though this is entirely wishful thinking the absolute ideal in my opinion would be that if you create a new light it would by default actually only create the plastic insert and the color you set the "light" to would be the color of the plastic insert.

By default it could also place one bulb below the insert that you can move around (much like you can move the bulb halo position of a light in FP) within the area of the insert - by default it would just be a "white" bulb but you could also change that color to anything (also during gameplay via the script to simulate color changing LED bulbs) and when the bulb lights up it would blend the color of the insert above correctly with the color of the bulb that lights it for the final render result.

Also you could place more than one bulb below any insert... just dreaming here but I think this would be the ultimate solution concerning playfield light inserts.

 

One thing I don't quite understand:

Why do you want to get rid of the "round" lights? What is different about them that wouldn't make your current shader work with a round light - I would expect shapeable lights to be much more of a challenge than a round one?

Round lights are very common in pinball and even though you can try your best to create something round out of a shapeable light I don't quite understand why we could not just have the round light object in there as well with a definable radius - personally I'd miss the round light object.

Bulb lights aren't implemented at the moment but will come in later

 

The round light as it was implemented was very limited compared to the custom one. I know that some people will miss this and maybe I will add them again but I would like to focus on the custom lights first and then apply them to the circle lights later. There are more recreations than original VP tables and even if you have a round light on the playfield the playfield images have some inclination and a round light won't fit to the image. But your suggestions and options are exactly what I'm after at

 

 

Don't get me wrong with these test versions. They are more a test platform for my tries and changes to improve VP. So what you get here doesn't mean that it will be in a final VP10.0 version. It's just a playing around

Edited by fuzzel, 20 May 2014 - 07:38 PM.

[unclewilly]

The fade is nice.
And fire works now.
Don't know if you want bugs or not.
I did notice the flippers are super dark with this version.

I'll play more with it..

[LoadedWeapon]

I love it.. kinda like the lights in FP and very easy to work with... thanks for all your work and keep it up! keep the test versions coming.. 

[mukuste]

The fade is nice.
And fire works now.
Don't know if you want bugs or not.
I did notice the flippers are super dark with this version.

I'll play more with it..

 

That's some WIP stuff I was doing with the lighting... since we're using SVN, we can't just release a test version with only a single new feature, we have to include everything that happened since 9.9.0, even if it's not done yet.

 

I can not test this version, use windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit crash and closes vp to start the test table. 

 

Any suggestions ...

what kind of graphics card do you have? The light shader uses shader v3.0 at the moment.

 

 

I can really recommend wrapping ALL D3D calls in the CHECKD3D() macro that I introduced during the DX9 port, it was extremely useful in tracking down such problems.