369 replies to this topic

[Noah Fentz]

I found an image of the ID ship, and cleaned and prepped it for use with VP.

[kruge99]

During my lunch break today I fiddled around a tiny bit and managed to link up the bumper sound to the top 3 bumpers and the left and right slingshot in the script!

Also, as my notebook is not "hardware render friendly" something occured to me about the size of the playfield image and the plastics image and I solved some of the graphical glitching on my notebook! All I did was use The GIMP to "scale" the plastics image and the playfield image down to 909wide x 1024long (originally 909x2048) and the table rendered perfectly! So now I have two tables to maintain one with hardware rendering and one without! If anyone else is having trouble with graphics issues in VP9, let me know and I'll upload the scaled images. btw - the graphical difference is not noticeable!!


Best Regards,
Todd.

I found an image of the ID ship, and cleaned and prepped it for use with VP.

wowie! That's fantastic!!

Edited by kruge99, 08 June 2009 - 11:04 PM.

[neoblood]

[in my sleep last night I figured out how to make this better - I'll work on it some more and upload another one soon.]

While I was waiting for the next lesson from wtiger, I decided to work a little bit on improving my skill with The GIMP so I spent some time improving the black and yellow "warning tape" that was around the edge of the plastics. I'm not sure if anyone will use it but here's a link to download a copy of the .JPG file.

here is the new version

and for comparison:

here is the old version


Todd

I found an image of the ID ship, and cleaned and prepped it for use with VP.

Thanks you guys. Texture cleanup is on my list and I'm also planning on modeling the ship and rendering out whatever views we need. This pic will help with the texturing and normal maps.
Real life exploded in my face, my work cut fridays for all employees to save cash from the bad economy. This is a good thing for my hobbies but a 20% pay cut is a bad thing for my house payment

[wtiger]

@kruge99, way to go. Keep on playing around with things and tweaking. Thanks for uploading your modified plastics image. As for the playfield image, you can resize it to 1024 x 1024 to maximize the quality of it and still not mess things up with your one computer. I believe all of JP's playfield images are that size.

@Noah, thanks for the ship graphic.

I didn't get around to doing the next write up, and I've got some other things I need to do still tonight, so I'll possibly have something tomorrow evening.

[kruge99]

While looking at the photos of ID4 that Noah provided, I noticed that the plastics that cover the slingshots are transparent. I tried to colour them and save them in .BMP format and then import the new image as a BMP, but the plastics did not become transparent. Does anyone know if it's possible to make transparent plastics? or what if instead of a giant triangle, I make a wall for the plastic that goes around the image on the plastic itself and then make a tiny wall to make it look like there is an outside edge???? (this is all for the plastic pieces that sit on top of the left and right slingshots just above the flippers...


Regards,
Todd.


U P D A T E:

This actually turned out better than I thought it would:



What do you guys think?


Regards,
Todd.

Edited by kruge99, 11 July 2009 - 01:10 PM.

[Noah Fentz]

You'll still need transparency.

Can you post what you have?

[kruge99]

Here is my GIMP format file I was messing around with to try and make the plastics "transparent"... a pure testament to my amatureness!!

You'll still need transparency.

Can you post what you have?

Edited by kruge99, 10 June 2009 - 01:22 AM.

[Noah Fentz]

I can't do anything with that file format...I use Photoshop

[ynneBBenny]

I can't do anything with that file format...I use Photoshop

Its a good thing that The Gimp can export as a PSD, though I'm not sure that PS can export as a Gimp file. BTW Gimp is free and not a big file size and is worth having on hand from time to time.

I tried to upload the PSD version but the 4 meg limitation blocked it.

http://gimp-win.sour...net/stable.html

[Noah Fentz]

I don't need any other image programs.

Thanks, though.

I was looking for the .bmp anyway.

[kruge99]

As requested, deleted the GIMP fmt file and uploaded the BMP file... I'd be happy to try and do it myself if someone would explain it? I'm really interested in learning how to do this stuff on my own.


Best Regards,
Todd.

Attached Files

•  ID_guide_plastic3_1.zip   2.41MB   21 downloads

[wtiger]

kruge99,
I'm glad to see you experimenting. Here are a couple ways of accomplishing transparency without changing anything with regards to the plastics image.

Take the sling object you already have and uncheck the top visible. Make a wall object in the shape of the saucers on the slings and set the top height to a couple units higher than the sling object itself (like 52). Bottom height can still be 50. Uncheck side visible for them.

The other way is similar to above, but instead of using a wall object for the sling you can use a ramp object. See the image below for the two examples.

[wtiger]

Lets build the cabinet around our playfield. Import the following lockdown bar image into your table:




We need to add an object with a height higher than our apron so we can have our lockdown bar image appear at this height. Add a wall object to the right side (off the table) and set it’s top height to 110. Uncheck Top and Side visible. Rename the object Lock-height. By doing this we make the object invisible (or not show).




Add a decal object to your table and set the dimensions to:

X=501
Y=3281
Width=1075
Height 110

Tell it you want the lockdown bar for the image. Under Surface, select the Lock-Height object:




Add a wall object at the top edge of your table. Set the top height to 225 and leave the bottom at 0 and set both the top and side colors to black.

Set the left edge control points X value to -31. Set the upper left point Y value to 17.5 and the bottom left point Y value to 26.5

Set the right two control points X value to 1035 and use the same Y values as you did above:




Now add a wall object on the left edge of your table. Set the top and side colors to black and the top and bottom height to 50.

Set the upper left control point to X=-30, Y=17
Set the upper right control point to X=6.5, Y=17

Set the bottom left control point to X=30, Y=2314
Set the bottom right control point to X=6.5, Y=2314

Now perform a copy and paste of this wall object. Set the bottom height of the pasted object to 0 and the top height to 100.

Now add a ramp object to the left edge of the table. Set the color o black. Bottom height=0, Top height=125, top and bottom width=35, left and right visible wall=100. Set the bottom control point to X=-14, Y=2313. Set the top control point to X=-14, Y=17. Perform a copy and paste on this ramp. Set the copies bottom height to 100 and the top height to 225. Set the left and right visible wall to 0. You should now have four objects (two walls, and two ramps) all stacked on top of each other:



Now zoom out so you can see the top and bottom of these four objects on your screen and make a selection around them. Perform a copy and paste and then move the pasted objects to the right edge of your table:




Click on the play button and your table should look like this:

[kruge99]

Thanks for the update wtiger!! btw - you were right, unchecking the side visible box made the plastics look more transparent!! I can't hardly wait for the next step!


Best Regards,
Todd.

p.s. where can I find a metalic graphic to go on top of the left and right sides of the pinball box we just built that matches the lock down bar? or should it be black like in your picture? I am guessing vp table builders have saved up bits and pieces like that over the years from various places. It doesn't feel right to pilfer a graphic from some other table! Is there a place that has a standard set of pinball graphics for things like the lockdown bar and pinball box rails or is it all hand made?

[Noah Fentz]

p.s. where can I find a metalic graphic to go on top of the left and right sides of the pinball box we just built that matches the lock down bar? or should it be black like in your picture? I am guessing vp table builders have saved up bits and pieces like that over the years from various places. It doesn't feel right to pilfer a graphic from some other table! Is there a place that has a standard set of pinball graphics for things like the lockdown bar and pinball box rails or is it all hand made?

I will be uploading a wide variety of demo tables soon. These demos were created by some great authors from the past for guys like you to use. Here's the images from PacDude's cabinet rail tutorial...


Left Rail


Right Rail


Lock Bar

More will be available soon.

[kruge99]

Thanks Noah!

[kruge99]

Thanks to Noah and the pictures of the side rails! It took me a while to figure out the "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade leap of faith optical illusion" to make it look like the side rails were in the right position. Have a look:




Best Regards,
Todd.

p.s. I hope no one minds me skipping ahead like this and I hope it won't make working on the table difficult later so please warn me if I should stop!!

Edited by kruge99, 11 July 2009 - 01:12 PM.

[wtiger]

Looks good Todd. I don't think that the real machine has silver rails (or a lockdown bar) but that's OK. Also, no problem experimenting and moving ahead.

[kruge99]

You're absolutely correct, it doesn't have them, but after you explained how to put in the lockdown bar I was curious how the silver side rails would look. So I put them in as the texture on the topmost ramp itself and that didn't work. The left rail looked sort of "alright" but the right rail always remained dark. (Probably an ATI driver issue - but it happened on my notebook as well so I can't say with 100% certainty why the right rail was dark - almost black.) After an hour or so I figured I'd try adding them in as a decal. After 2 minutes I realized, the decal method would have to work as an optical illusion because I couldn't seem to find the setting that would "tilt" the decal to the same angle that the topmost ramp had. (top height 225, bottom height 110.) So basically I rotated the decal by a few points and set the decal height to 225 and messed around until it was positioned in such a way that it "looked" like it was right on the table when in fact it is actually stuck way up above the table at a height of 225. (Which is why I said it was the "Last Crusade leap of faith" optical illusion in my previous post. ;-)



I'm sure this is the most insane way of putting rails on a vp table and I bet no one would actually use this method. LoL! But I don't know for sure because all of this a totally new learning experience for me.

Best Regards,
Todd.

Edited by kruge99, 11 July 2009 - 01:13 PM.

[wtiger]

Hey Todd,
Once again, I like the fact that you are playing around with things and trying to figure an idea out. That's the best way to learn!