1488 replies to this topic

[toxie]

In theory one could pass anything one likes to the internal DMD of VPX (and then access via flashers or textbox), but then you have the problem that people with hardware DMDs cannot see anything.  :/

[Shockman]

Haha, Shockman, you never fail to surprise me.

 

So i'll still try to be constructive and tell you that no VP ever (at least) from VP8.1 onwards (as the older versions we don't have access to) moved the actual table. The table (or rather playfield) is static. It never moves. End of story.

That it seems to move on screen is simply a 2D effect, nothing more. So also the code in VP8.1 only ever moved the ball. Read the code, it's all there, check for yourself.

 

-> https://sourceforge....ath=/tags/vp8.1

(this is the original code as we received it, completely in its original state)

Search for "nudg" in all files. Read the snippets. It's not difficult to piece that together.

 

If you find something else, even better. Then point me to it, and i'll see what i can do.

You realize don't you that there is no playfield or ball involved in the VP program. What's more, there has never been a ball or playfield in VP. It's ALL only a 2D screen effect. That's why I said simulated nudging. NOTHING that resembles a pinball machine or feature or function of a pinball machine in VP is real, regardless of how proud you may be of it. If I thought like you I would not be capable to understand how anything could be damaged in an earthquake. Do you think the earthquake that disconnect my porch from my house was either my porch or house moving? Don't. Or maybe the earth moving under them? If you want to simulate something, you first need to understand what it is you're simulating. If you are going for a visual effect, which is are far as you can go, that is easier, but still requires some level of realism. VP8.1 has the only nudging simulation that could be called legacy. So the table moving was effect. I get that. THE BALL MOVING WAS AN EFFECT TOO. There is nothing better than VP8 nudging for Desktop users. Some might like VP9 nudging, but no smart person would say they like it most because it is the most realistic. Unlike most everything else JP said above you could not only save a ball when it was close to a flipper by nudging from the side but it could be saved by nudging straight up (off nothing at all) and if you keep nudging you could send the ball all the way up to the top end of the table. How many nudges it takes depending on the strength set. This is neither nudging in pinball terms nor VP legacy nudging, nor in any other pinball simulation (video game) out there.

 

You label your legacy feature as "unrealistic" in the program it's self and that is only half true. The feature there (VP9) is indeed unrealistic, you are honest in as much as that, but the legacy half is a lie and you know it.

 

No. To answer your question. I will not find anything better that VP8 nudging in the history of VP.

 

So why don't you go with that ???????

Edited by Shockman, 16 October 2019 - 04:24 PM.

[Shockman]

About nudging:

 

Here it is a small table for you to try:

 

nudge_test.zip

 

The strength of the nudge in the script is set to 4, which is stronger than what we used to use in VP8 and older.

 

In VP8: nudge left and the ball will move to the left, the screen will shake, and the wall will hit the ball as it stands quite close to the ball.

If you nudge right the ball will shake, the screen will shake but nothing happens, since the ball is not hit by any close wall.

This VP8 nudge was very good for desktops but it was not good for cabinets as the screen and the ball shakes visually and the cabinet also moves, so it was kind of disturbing to watch.

 

In VP9: the ball will move as with "magic" it doesn't need to hit any wall. Even it will move upwards until the top. Any nudge will move the ball in any direction. That's why we needed to add a lot of code to the scripts to make it behave. Some people liked this nudge as you could save a strait ball to the drain just by nudging to a side. Magic!

 

In VP_physmod5: the screen shake is gone, and the ball moves visually in the direction you nudge and the wall will hit the ball if it is close enough. If the ball didn't hit anything then it goes back to its rest position, this is similar to the VP8 nudge. But in the table the nudge strength needs to be increased to about 20 so the ball moves enough to hit the wall in this test table, even if the visually shaking of the ball is quite strong.

 

In VPX: the screen shake is separated from the nudge, so it can be turned off, and that's good. The ball doesn't move either, as it did in VP8, VP9 and VP_physmod5, and that is even better. Good for desktops as they have a visual shake of the screen, and it is good for cabinets as they don't need any visual shake.

So if you turn off the screen shaking, then you'll see that a nudge will not move the ball at all (after the nudge the ball will move a little due to a friction, and that's good ) But the ball will not come close to the wall unless you increase the strength to about 20, just like in VP_physmod5. Then the wall will hit the ball, as a nudge it should be. And to me this nudge is perfect for desktop and for cabinets, better than the older versions.

 

But the problem I have with VPX is that a nudge higher then 6 will make the ball move as it has been hit by a baseball bat. So with a nudge of 6 the nudge feels good, but the ball needs to be really really close to a wall, almost touching the wall, so the nudge will work. Here is where the code could be enhanced, so you don't need a nudge of 20 to get the wall close enough to hit the ball. I don't need any visual movement of the ball, as in VP_physmod5, a simple screen shake is enough, and that's already in VPX.

 

To me the nudging in VPX could be fixed in two ways:

 

1- increase the distance that will qualify for a hit between a nudge and the object that's closer to the ball. That must be a kind of variable in the code. With this change, the tables will keep compatible with the values we have been using (from 2 to 6)

2- reduce the strength of the hit after the ball hits an object. This will break compatibility since we'll need to increase the nudge strength to about 20 to make it work.

 

JP

 

 

I like number 1. If distance is indeed taken into account. I doubt it though or it would not be set to zero.

 

I don't think the second idea would do anything as far as nudging not off an element but on the table. If the only nudging we have is when the ball is already in contact with an element then I don't care if the ball breaks in half, doubles in size, slows down, speeds up, nothing (where we are at), anything. It would not matter because nudging is then not simulated, or barely simulated if you really want to argue about it.

 

Funny that it was no problem 15 or so years ago, but the Devs today are so perplexed by what exists right in front of their faces.

 

I still did not get an answer. Would you personally, Toxie, rather have nudging that is proven, legacy, and works for desktop users, or for me, and maybe JP as well shut up about it?

 

I'm interested in what Noah thinks about this too, because he seems to only be interested in nudging for his commercial use. 

Edited by Shockman, 16 October 2019 - 04:42 PM.

[Shockman]

 

But if it is and you are ok with that then you should have never touched the source of VP.

 

Unless you're capable, willing and able to step into that vacuum immediately by taking over development of Visual Pinball and dealing with every little request, please stow that attitude. We need everyone we can in the hobby, and an issue with breaking nudging in desktop mode, regardless of how it came about, is no reason to dump on someone who's taking their own free time to develop this software.

 

In this case breaking desktop nudging is a reason to dump on someone. Mukuste gave them what they needed, but they seemed to hate him for it and kicked him off the team, so any talk about anyone else contributing is disingenuous. Yes, I could probably fix this myself, though I have never looked at the source since VP9, but it would surely break everything but that keyboard function. That is not what I am after. I did get it working in VP9 for my own use, and did much more with VP8 source. It was called hacking by the Admin.

[fuzzel]

Wow Shickman you're making a fuss here. It is a hobby and we are not here to satisfy you. If the current nudging is a problem for you, support us instead of complaining. One reason why we don't implement everything immediately is backwards compatibility. The nudging effects also cab setups and changing something here can break all current tables out there it's really hard to test every situation that's the reason why we don't change the nudging completely at the moment. Let's see how it works out in VP11 some day.

[fuzzel]

wow, scoop, there is a vp11 in preparation ?

Not at the moment. But we are planning something. I can't tell you when you will see a first beta version but sure there will be a next big version some day.

[toxie]

I could probably fix this myself, though I have never looked at the source since VP9, but it would surely break everything but that keyboard function. That is not what I am after. I did get it working in VP9 for my own use, and did much more with VP8 source.

 

Then provide us that tweaked source of VP9 of yours and i will eventually port the tweaks to VPX. Problem solved.

[Shockman]

That was a couple of computers back. It was putting .8 code into .9 though. At the time Devs and Admins were arguing that VP9 nudging (that is now labeled as unrealistic in the program) with a keyboard simulated real nudging to a tee.

I know I still have it somewhere though and it's on the same disc as Visual Bagatelle which I continued to work on in VP8 because of VP9 Nudging which prompted my work on this problem. We are talking about flipperless Pinball that had only nudging as control. The VP8 version of Visual Bagatelle worked well and I could provide that. The VP9 version of that is lost and of no use because I know for a fact without being able to test that I broke or removed too much cab support. I'll look for it just to show I'm not lying, but I know there is nothing you can do with that that you can not do using VP8 like I did, and you could probably do it better and I know for a fact you would do it without breaking your cab support.

 

VP10 does not do it. VP9 does not do it. VP8.1 did. If that code is beyond you I can't help. I have never even peeked at VP10 source.

 

It is absolutely unbelievable that nudging is unimportant in VP anymore. Every table released is lame because of this. VPX is lame for this. Not all pinball machines have flippers. For those nudging is the primary control method. I trust you did not know that. 

 

Desktops don't use your targets base so you don't care if Mukestes' nudge works or not. It does with action simulating nudging whether the ball is at rest on an element or not. He released that fix a couple of day after a request.

 

Flippers on the other hand. Mukestes' code improved flippers in cabs so you guys were all over that.

 

I again say you should have never touched VP. You just basically admitted another complete cycle of not even looking into it when you said look for it in VP11 after posting that there will be a VP10.7

 

This is a promise that this sites admin.s' promise that this was not going to ever happen was not the truth and the untruth is going to continue indefinitely.

 

Thanks for the direct answer though. You will not hear about this again till the end of the .7 cycle, if then.

Edited by Shockman, 17 October 2019 - 01:15 AM.

[toxie]

All of his VP9 PM5 work is completely inside of VPX, too, 100%. So point me to this special nudge fix that you mention that you think was apparently released at some other point and i'll include it.

Otherwise dig out your VP8 -> VP9 nudge code, and i'll include that, too.

Easy as that.

[Shockman]

I just again, though knowing the results from MANY such investigations into this, and Physmod 5 updated responds to keyboard nudging whether the ball and closest element is in contact or not. That's your point to. VP8.1 the other. 

 

Ok. Though I'm not a real good hand at  visual C++ I will volunteer to join the Dev. team. I'm not saying anything is or isn't there, but I argue that if it is it is not working. I could add a number of things that work in other programs, but I myself understands that adding it does not mean it's going to work, or I could change enough settings that even I know before hand if it will work or not. 

 

I'm am willing to buy the full version of the Visual Studio. Is 2013 the one I should get?

 

I'm also willing to pay to contract someone to do this task if I fail.

 

I'm also interested in the UI and presentation.

 

As for the other option, providing you, that has been done, though it has always been there and you say you have access to 8.1.

Edited by Shockman, 17 October 2019 - 07:29 PM.

[Thalamus]

Here you go @shockman

 

https://sourceforge....ree/tags/vp8.1/

 

Now, please dig out the code and stop being a complete ass AGAIN. Toxie has already said he would add it if you dig it out.

 

I however, recommend that you instead go searching for the pill cabinet, for the medicine you've seems to have forgotten to take in a while.

[toxie]

About nudging:

 

...

 

Following up on this: Could you please show all your settings for nudging in the preferences?

I just again, though knowing the results from MANY such investigations into this, and Physmod 5 updated responds to keyboard nudging whether the ball and closest element is in contact or not. That's your point to. VP8.1 the other. 

 

I'm am willing to buy the full version of the Visual Studio. Is 2013 the one I should get?

 

And i'm willing to believe that there could have been something that changed inbetween VP9 PM5 and the first VPX release that may cause keyboard nudging to be different and i'll follow this path in the meantime, although so far the only thing i saw is the (optional) nudge filter that was added.

 

EDIT: not even that is true, as it seems like that one was also already merged to PM5 back then.

 

As for Visual Studio: Simply use the free community version of VS: https://visualstudio...ommunity&rel=16

Edited by toxie, 17 October 2019 - 09:50 PM.

[Shockman]

There was an update to PM5. You may be looking at a previous version. The whole point of PhysMod was to address issues I myself brought up to Mukeste (sic?) who in very little time completely resolved those issues. I believe he put into it hours, not days.

 

Thanks for looking into it. I found some work I did on this issue in converting VBagatelle to .9 but only .exe not source code. I would not revisit that. Any work I would do with VP at this point would be with VP10.

[toxie]

The updated PM5 versions you mention included MODs and fixes by mjr, DJRobX and myself, and i tried both the latest one of that branch (which is also shipped with the VPX installer from this site) and the very original PM5 from the original physics update thread.

 

So far the only explanation i have for the different behavior is, that PM5 had several issues and loose ends that were fixed by me for the VPX release, so directly from the release notes:

 

  -> additional changes since physmod5, note that these will also -force- you to revisit existing physmod5 physics table settings:
     - friction is no longer ignored (e.g. it was always constant at 0.3 before) on the playfield, walls, slingshots, primitives, ramps, gates (and more?!)
     - scatter is no longer ignored for kickers and all kinds of collisions. also the global fallback behavior was changed: only if scatter < 0 then the global scatter value (=0.5) is used (before it was also used if scatter=0)
     - elasticity, elasticity falloff and scatter are now exposed as new playfield properties (before these were fixed at elasticity=0.2 and the other two at 0)
     - import/export of the physics options sets is fixed and can be used again
     - flipper properties strength,mass,return are wired up correctly and can be used from the script again
     - collision heuristics are adapted for all ball sizes (e.g. different from the default radius of 25), so it should be safer to use strange ball sizes now
       (note: remember to always also tweak the ball mass if changing the ball radius (the kicker now supports CreateSizedBallWithMass),
       as otherwise you will get a "floaty" ball (mass = k*radius^3)), thus (hopefully) no more ball-falling-through-playfield problem

 

So maybe it's simply these previously fixed settings that differ for the same table in PM5 and VPX that causes this?

[toxie]

And JP and Shockman, just so that we are sure that we are really really looking all at the exact same thing, here is the original pm5 release from the original physics thread and the very latest pm5 MOD, so please tell me if both react the same to you, or if not, which one is the better one in your opinion

Attached Files

•  PM5s.zip   1.28MB   6 downloads

[Shockman]

They both work the same. They are not meant to be two options. Anything before the last was beta, or WIP release. I would go with the latest anyway, unless there was breakage and there was not. They lack visual feedback of the table, but that is not a big deal when compared to the physics. It was not billed as a visual mod but as a physics mod. Even the latest version was not meant to be the last. You know that story.

Edited by Shockman, 18 October 2019 - 12:55 AM.

[Slydog43]

wow, this has gotten completely out of hand, I was excited for new info about 10.6 but this is out of control.  Please stop fighting

[toxie]

Actually by now we reached a more constructive phase i hope, cause i'm willing to believe that we might have broke something going from VP9 PM5 -> VPX without noticing (although i did not find anything in that direction yet, and i think there is rather some stuff in PM5 that was hardwired to some constants back then (without documenting it :/) but is now configurable in VPX).

They both work the same. They are not meant to be two options. Anything before the last was beta, or WIP release. I would go with the latest anyway, unless there was breakage and there was not. They lack visual feedback of the table, but that is not a big deal when compared to the physics. It was not billed as a visual mod but as a physics mod. Even the latest version was not meant to be the last. You know that story.

 

Could you please still just compare the two and tell me if those do the same thing for your setups that you test? I want to make 100% sure that we are testing and speaking about the same issues.

 

As for "the latest version was not meant to be the last": That's not true, as all of PM5 was merged into the main development branch (by me, because nobody else did it, the PM5 branch was not kept up to date at all, going out of sync with the rest of development, and so the PM5 branch actually rotted away). After that, development continued in the main development branch (i.e. what became VPX), incl. newer commits by Mukuste!

as for sounds , possibility of encapsulating the music with table vpx

without external folders.?

 

on my todo list since ages.  :/

it's not even hard, but not much fun either.

Edited by toxie, 18 October 2019 - 08:25 AM.

[jpsalas]

as for sounds , possibility of encapsulating the music with table vpx

without external folders.?

 

on my todo list since ages.  :/

it's not even hard, but not much fun either.

 

I know, I have been waiting for ages too

[toxie]

..but now you are busy anyways with validating my nudge theories, right?  

(please JP, bring some sanity to this.. is my theory in https://www.vpforums...=41180&p=436709 true? Thanks! And to test the 2 PM5 releases, please?!)

Edited by toxie, 18 October 2019 - 09:36 AM.