184 replies to this topic

[highrise]

hey Brian - sorry, I think you misunderstood what i was saying. I'm not talking about the images you are using being distorted, they look fine.

What I said was IF you distorted the video into a trapezium shape, then it would look like a rectangle when seen by a player using a FS cabinet. They are looking at their screen from a different angle, so as long as you got that angle right, then you could overlay such a video and have it look like it was correctly proportioned. This is what they do on sports pitches - they paint advertising onto the pitch in trapezoid shapes that then look rectangular when viewed at the angle the game camera is at.

[unclewilly]

hey Destruk,
If you have a pf and plastics, apron image and such, maybe i could have one of my art guys work on redrawing them for you to get nice crisp images for you for the table part of the project.
Just curious? is pinmame running the rom part and you hard code the video interaction or is it all coded by hand like an original?

I'm really impressed with this. i just recently got to play ep1 and revenge from mars and was very disappointed we couldn't pull them off in vp as i really liked both the games.

You are amazing, i appreciate all the various contributions you make to the community, without you, vp wouldn't be where it is today.

Do you have any plans to do revenge from mars after this project is complete?

unclewilly

[destruk]

hey Brian - sorry, I think you misunderstood what i was saying. I'm not talking about the images you are using being distorted, they look fine.

What I said was IF you distorted the video into a trapezium shape, then it would look like a rectangle when seen by a player using a FS cabinet. They are looking at their screen from a different angle, so as long as you got that angle right, then you could overlay such a video and have it look like it was correctly proportioned. This is what they do on sports pitches - they paint advertising onto the pitch in trapezoid shapes that then look rectangular when viewed at the angle the game camera is at.

There is a Revenge from Mars local to me so I can get video of the display for comparison - I was considering going up there later this week just to confirm the display orientation in relation to the rest of the playfield. The vpdisco window itself will always be a square or rectangle - no other options exist. The graphics inside could be skewed for some kind of depth perception. I'd really like to get the features vpdisco has into vp as standard options sometime, as a few bugs exist with how it does things.

Unclewilly - If your art guys want to work on this, give me couple of weeks - I need to contact TAB and see how he is doing and I don't want to upset him by passing off the art stuff too soon. The game is all hard coded by hand. As for Revenge from Mars - I'd love to do it for VP. TAB made a table layout for it with basic graphics too.

[unclewilly]

hey Brian - sorry, I think you misunderstood what i was saying. I'm not talking about the images you are using being distorted, they look fine.

What I said was IF you distorted the video into a trapezium shape, then it would look like a rectangle when seen by a player using a FS cabinet. They are looking at their screen from a different angle, so as long as you got that angle right, then you could overlay such a video and have it look like it was correctly proportioned. This is what they do on sports pitches - they paint advertising onto the pitch in trapezoid shapes that then look rectangular when viewed at the angle the game camera is at.

There is a Revenge from Mars local to me so I can get video of the display for comparison - I was considering going up there later this week just to confirm the display orientation in relation to the rest of the playfield. The vpdisco window itself will always be a square or rectangle - no other options exist. The graphics inside could be skewed for some kind of depth perception. I'd really like to get the features vpdisco has into vp as standard options sometime, as a few bugs exist with how it does things.

Unclewilly - If your art guys want to work on this, give me couple of weeks - I need to contact TAB and see how he is doing and I don't want to upset him by passing off the art stuff too soon. The game is all hard coded by hand. As for Revenge from Mars - I'd love to do it for VP. TAB made a table layout for it with basic graphics too.

I think they'd definately be interested, and that way they would quit piling up pf images for my list of recreation. i can't build quick enough to keep up with them.
Basically they could use the textures you already have made just blow them up and redraw them, that way it would just be a simple import to replace them
I'd be willing to do the FS conversion for the cabinet guys as well, so you could maybe work on revenge from mars

I talked to grizz and he is more than willing to do some redraws for you. when you talk to tab, tell him i wish him a speedy recovery.

-Scott

[njamont]

Nice, to more help to better right?

[studmuff]

Would you mind taking this discussion to another thread? I'm making it for 4:3 because I have to sell my cabinet. Feel free to mod it for FS after it's released. btw - I just got actual scoring displays working now for in game - it works just like the real thing. I was surprised - if your player name is too long, like "Darth Maul" then after 100 million points it will cover up the middle Ball number and free play text, heh. At least I got that part right.

Just trying to help.

Edited by studmuff, 28 July 2010 - 09:01 PM.

[highrise]

if you're hard coding and want to use any of the stuff I've been working on recently, like fading light sequencing effects or whatever, I'd be happy to help. Most of it is just window dressing but I guess if you want that kind of thing without using a rom, I can help.

[destruk]

hey Brian - sorry, I think you misunderstood what i was saying. I'm not talking about the images you are using being distorted, they look fine.

What I said was IF you distorted the video into a trapezium shape, then it would look like a rectangle when seen by a player using a FS cabinet. They are looking at their screen from a different angle, so as long as you got that angle right, then you could overlay such a video and have it look like it was correctly proportioned. This is what they do on sports pitches - they paint advertising onto the pitch in trapezoid shapes that then look rectangular when viewed at the angle the game camera is at.

You are correct about this. On the stock machine it uses a concave CRT screen. So to make it look perfectly identical there is a 3.75 degree trapezoid effect as well as barrel distortion on the source image. With a flatscreen LCD and NuCore installed you could eliminate the barrel distortion requirement but the 3.75 degree effect would still be present due to the inclination of the playfield glass. That being said I don't think I really want to spend the time correcting each object of each frame and reconstructing all the fonts to accomodate this extremely minor presentation difference. I mean, at 320x240 - the resolution I'm using for the display itself, we are talking about it being a total of 30 pixels narrower at the top - meaning 15 pixels per side and I just don't think the amount of work involved editing each image source the game uses would be a good investment of time, not to mention having to barrel distort the four sides to get the centers of the sides arced outward.

As for fading lights, I'm going to have to see exactly how much cpu time is being taken by VPDisco when all the animations are added before I start thinking about adding more timers for added value effects like that and GI and stuff.

A real machine --


The emulated machine --


Overlayed to line up with the top and bottom of the real machine as a trapezoid --


Angle measurement in VP --





btw - the real machine had a credit dot, LOL... wonder what it has broken on it...

I still don't quite understand what you mean by a rectangle though.

[Rawd]

Joe Dillon looks like he would have been a fun guy to have beers with.

[highrise]

I think I'm still being misunderstood. Let me explain again. What I'm talking about is nothing to do with the real game, or the graphics you've made, all of which look really good.

What I'm talking about is this. When someone plays a table in full screen mode, in a cabinet, they are looking at the screen from a top down angle. Because the table is actually a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object, it cannot take into account perspective.

This means that if you were look to look at a full screen version of this table in a cabinet, with the video on the table itself, the video would not look upright. It would look like it was lying flat on the table. However, what I was suggesting was that if you were to distort the video into a trapezoid shape when played on a full screen cabinet system, then the player, looking at it from a high angle, would actually see an optical illusion of a screen that was upright. Their perspective would make the trapezoid look like a rectangle, and the eye would thus interpret it as an upright screen.

That's what I meant.

I hope that is clear

[highrise]

to demonstrate this perspective, take a look at this picture. On the left, you can see the image in the editor. This is how the screen would look if you looking at it top down. Then on the right, is how it would look if viewed from a playing angle. As you can see, the eye is tricked into thinking it is an upright image.

To stress - I'm showing this to show a possible solution to getting the video to look right in a cabinet table using a full screen display - I'm not suggesting you do anything like this for your standard VP version. Someone would have to go through all the images and distort them to make it work. Seems like a lot of effort, but I think it would work.

Attached Files

•  perspective.jpg   14.05KB   49 downloads

[destruk]

I used a 45/0 angle for every table on my cabinet - and I think most people use similar settings to that in their FS tables as well. So it is reasonable to say that if the table itself is 45/0 for the 4:3 version it should look fine on a FS or spanned cabinet table. The Episode 1 table layout uses 43/45 - but it'd look about the same as 43/0 on a cab setup - I didn't have to adjust the perspectives of any emreels or decals in any of my cabinet conversions. We'll just have to see. And the point is absolutely moot if they are going to want to move it to the backglass monitor as was previously mentioned in this thread too.

Edited by destruk, 29 July 2010 - 03:39 AM.

[unclewilly]

That would be retarded to move it to the backglass, IMO. I't is suppoesed to appear on the table, that is what makes it pin2k

[destruk]

I'm not so sure - if you have a 3-lcd cabinet - 320x240 should fit in the DMD holder area, and if you stretch out the table playfield past the upper limit of your rotated playfield LCD, the inch or two separation between the main PF and the DMD display might not be too noticeable.



Something like that might work rather well with the dmd and marquee being verticle on the backglass and the vp table properly positioned. At least it'd be quick and easier than reworking all the graphics and script intil a proper conversion could be completed.

[highrise]

well, I don't have a cab myself so I can't say exactly how it would come out, but I'm pretty sure that if you had the video rendered on an FS screen in a cabinet without adjusting it, it would look like it was flat on the table, not standing upright.

But I'm not trying to have an argument here and never have been. What you're doing is excellent, I'm not knocking it at all, and you don't need any pointers from me in that respect. Knowing how generous you are, I assumed you would be making all your video work available to the community so someone else could make an FS conversion if they wanted to. So I was just making some points about how someone might make it look correct were they to do that.

[studmuff]

That would be retarded to move it to the backglass, IMO. I't is suppoesed to appear on the table, that is what makes it pin2k

I agree unless there is a way to reflect the image off of the backglass to the playfield. This, however, will likely be impossible IMHO. Pinball 2000 used a special mirroed glass to reflect the image from underneath the backglass to the field. The image is turned 180 degrees on the monitor. When I owned SWE1 I would have to put the glass back on to read the diagnostics when something didn't work instead of arching my head to see it so I won't strain my back or neck. Ah the memories.

By the way awesome job destruk on your recreation so far.

[Sabbat]

Has the playfield been drawn at all? I'd like to see some screens of how thats coming along

[TAB]

I am short at home now.
But trying to get a perfect pf pic from a owner.
The problem is the small types on the pf after rendering it in VP.

[Grizz]

We could enhance that type my friend ?
maybe enlarge a bit ?

I am short at home now.
But trying to get a perfect pf pic from a owner.
The problem is the small types on the pf after rendering it in VP.

[TAB]

Than we get ...
you know - not the same pf