813 replies to this topic

[freezy]

@Rawd Nice! Be aware that saving to .vpx is a really fresh feature and there are probably still bugs (for starters I think the textures are screwed up) - and it only works if you "Import VPX as asset". Save backup your files before saving

[toxie]

ray tracing to the rescue then.. 

[tictox]

ray tracing to the rescue then.. 

 

Will wait to see some clever solution here a quote from Nvidia guy : "David Luebke, an engineer at Nvidia, made the following remark, and it's totally in line with reality: "Rasterization is fast, but needs cleverness to support complex visual effects. Ray tracing supports complex visual effects, but needs cleverness to be fast."

One of the fast things is bundling rays .. and of coarse , that technique does not work well with alpha testing So it not that it cant do it. It is whether it can do it fast enough.  look on this page , where this info comes from :

 

https://www.tomshard...ion,2351-6.html

 

They have an image of rendering cost for transparent pixels with ray tracing on a certain game and they are heavy hitters. 

 

Hopefully some clever folks at unity solve this, or some other clever developers , definitely not me

 

old article I know, but it is an old problem , maybe RTX hardware solves all this  

Edited by tictox, 14 February 2020 - 04:31 PM.

[DJRobX]

You know you gotta post a pic or better...a video, right? What table?

 

High Roller Casino.    

 

 Screen Shot 2020-02-14 at 8.14.07 AM.png   569.1KB   25 downloads

Edited by DJRobX, 14 February 2020 - 04:16 PM.

[DJRobX]

. I Personally just hid it, then I would grab the pixels myself from VPinMame and recreate the DMD within Unity .. so I could control it. 

 

 

Yes I think this is how it should be done for a large number of reasons.   We just need to figure out something to get the DMD colorizations working with this method.     The VPM API has a colorized pixel variant, but of course the colorizer lives in DMDext, so we need a way to retrieve those pixels.  

[freezy]

dmdext is mainly a c# library, since the .exe and the .dll use the same code. So that would be pretty easy to integrate.

Edited by freezy, 14 February 2020 - 04:31 PM.

[DJRobX]

Looked at your branch. So a guy named syllebra created it and already used it in Unity at some point? That was mid 2017, then you guys maintained it for another two years?

I've been watching Toxie's commits for years.   He is positively relentless, constantly doing "behind the scenes" type of cleanup work like this to keep the chaos organized and preserve everyone else's contributions.   It's so valuable, even though it's not the sort of thing that gets a lot of attention.   He is amazing, full-stop.

[toxie]

 

ray tracing to the rescue then.. 

 

Will wait to see some clever solution here a quote from Nvidia guy : "David Luebke, an engineer at Nvidia,

 

..who is by now the head/VP of gfx research at NVIDIA, btw

[Iain1986]

@freezy

 

Looks amazing! I'm an ex-professional Unity3d game developer, been a while since I've done any fiddling in Unity3D but I've starred the github repo and if I manage to get some time in the future I'll let you know if I spot any areas I could hop on and help out with.

Just in the process of quitting my job and getting a new one though so time isn't the best at the moment :S

Looks super exciting though and going to keep my eye on it closely!

[tictox]

NICE! Yeah The article is old but does conclude that ray tracing is probably the future of rendering , regardless of performance , just like high level programming languages became the future of programming even though assembly was faster. 

[toxie]

The future is already here.

At least Quake II RTX is fantastic, and also at least it can also be fantastic for pre-processing additional information in VPX IMHO.

 

For handling raster transparency i'd think that Unity would offer solutions like https://casual-effec...nded-order.html or stochastic transparency?

[blindpeser]

@freezy
 
Looks amazing! I'm an ex-professional Unity3d game developer, been a while since I've done any fiddling in Unity3D but I've starred the github repo and if I manage to get some time in the future I'll let you know if I spot any areas I could hop on and help out with.

Just in the process of quitting my job and getting a new one though so time isn't the best at the moment :S

Looks super exciting though and going to keep my eye on it closely!

Yes please!

[tictox]

The future is already here.

At least Quake II RTX is fantastic, and also at least it can also be fantastic for pre-processing additional information in VPX IMHO.

 

For handling raster transparency i'd think that Unity would offer solutions like https://casual-effec...nded-order.html or stochastic transparency?

 

I cant remember what they implemented with HDRP now , but that is where to look. I quickly googled and I see something I remember , a checkbox or something named "Transparent Depth Prepass" was available in HDRP

[Practicedummy]

Unity has the ability to port to many different platforms, does this mean that we potentially will be able to play VP tables on android and linux without needing wine? Maybe even play on a raspberry pi?

Awesome... I can finally retire

 

NOOOOOOOOO PLEASE!!!!

I predict many a Pi death before they make one powerful enough to run VP lol

[DCrosby]

I predict many a Pi death before they make one powerful enough to run VP lol

 

I disagree, the Pi is only responsible for the DMD, so right now realDMD and [[Pin2DMD uses stolen and/or infringes IP. PinDMD is the genuine product ] uses stolen and/or infringes IP. PinDMD is the genuine product ] are using small serial interfaces, and definitely nothing as powerful as a pi, since all they have to do is interpret the signals (switches) from the PI, and fire off a pixel matrix.

If we're talking about a full on VPX game on 1-3 monitors, yes I'd have to agree, that'd be a fire hazard any way you slice it...

 

BTW my contribution Secret Service in Unity :

 SecretService.jpg   80.18KB   14 downloads

Edited by DCrosby, 15 February 2020 - 12:16 AM.

[Practicedummy]

I think Rascal was implying that VP (with Unity) can eventually be played on the Pi, not just using it for DMD display therefore my attempt at humor.

Edited by Practicedummy, 15 February 2020 - 12:25 AM.

[gtxjoe]

Hmm. I am upgrading to 4k and deciding between a GTX 1660 ti vs RTX 2060.

Should VPE influence my decision on which card to buy?

[rascal]

I think Rascal was implying that VP (with Unity) can eventually be played on the Pi, not just using it for DMD display therefore my attempt at humor.

My thoughts for a pi would be more so like a handheld pinball console, not a cab. probably just VP and VPM only, not any feedback or led lights. Something with like a 7" screen. Kind of like I did with a windows tablet only smaller.

 

Edited by rascal, 15 February 2020 - 01:41 AM.

[fuzzel]

Hmm. I am upgrading to 4k and deciding between a GTX 1660 ti vs RTX 2060.

Should VPE influence my decision on which card to buy?

Yes. If you want to go 4k I would recommend agfx card with at least 8GB ram. I have a 1660ti it's a great card but it only has 6GB and you notice that if you use really high res textures. As long as you stick to HD everything is fine.

[chepas]

I would go Godot over Unity but that's just because of my bad experiences with Unity and Unity3D. I've barely scratched the surface in Godot3d though.

 

I do have a good prototype with a PROC, VP, COM, GODOT combo which I named PinGo to use on a real game.

 

With this, at least there would probably would be no need for COM?