10 replies to this topic

[blur]

I'm moving toward mini pin and experimenting with full screen tables.

For start I tried future pinball in arcade render mode and I see that lights on playfield are very dark, even when they are turned on, I remember someone mentioned this also a years ago but can't find that thread.
Is there a way to make lights brighter?

Another thing is FP in arcade mode has very peculiar viewing point - the point from which the renderer renders the 3D table, so for example you can't see the ball when it goes through left or right lane because apron is getting in the way - I know this was also mentioned in some old topics, but can't find it (or maybe it was for VP).
How can I fix this viewing point for FP arcade render mode and set it to some more realistic location - like just above flippers?

[Rawd]

I'm moving toward mini pin and experimenting with full screen tables.

For start I tried future pinball in arcade render mode and I see that lights on playfield are very dark, even when they are turned on, I remember someone mentioned this also a years ago but can't find that thread.
Is there a way to make lights brighter?

Another thing is FP in arcade mode has very peculiar viewing point - the point from which the renderer renders the 3D table, so for example you can't see the ball when it goes through left or right lane because apron is getting in the way - I know this was also mentioned in some old topics, but can't find it (or maybe it was for VP).
How can I fix this viewing point for FP arcade render mode and set it to some more realistic location - like just above flippers?

I think this is the thread that you are looking for. Have fun! (This will change the angle and overhead lighting on a table)

http://www.vpforums....l=arcade render

Edited by Rawd, 03 November 2010 - 01:58 PM.

[blur]

yeah that's it

thanks man - you rock


this lighting that you describe is very useful to make apron more readable but there is another problem on some tables - lights are very dark when turned on, they don't shine, and they are almost black when turned off, when they are on it looks like they are off, this is strange cause they shine quite nice in non arcade mode
i see this only on some tables, not all - for example khomodo's spiderman
maybe it's something I'll have to live with


another thing about this amazing spiderman 1.1 table, i see that dmd is moved one character to the right so you can see big blank before first digit, but last digit is not visible, I was looking how to move dmd but didn't find what should i move, there is just one object - maybe i should change script

and i see that ball number is not updated on backglass, i will chech how to update it

I fixed table logic so that two A and B lanes on table act as one, so when you turn off one A another is also turned off, same for B
and I fixed extra green light that you get on 5 targets bank each time you turn of all 1 2 3 holes

Edited by blur, 04 November 2010 - 05:22 PM.

[blur]

ups, looks like rawd's thread has also lights fix on second page by bigraceusa settings, will try it tomorrow

[blur]

tried today lighting options and they work great
in the end I use 14a for camera z, and 450 and 1000 for light y and z and everything rocks
by the way problem with lack of "glow" in lights was not because of arcade render mode but because i switched of flares on lights in video options
I was minimizing setup for wild west to go faster and ended with everything turned off
today I turned everything on and maxed out and found that i have good "lights" (and let there be light ) but everything was slow
so I turned off glass, mirrors, anisotropic ..., anitaliasing from tri to bi, 6x to 2x and so on...
everything can be turned off, but not flares, they don't use much cpu but make much better picture

Edited by blur, 07 November 2010 - 05:53 PM.

[blur]

so my cab test case saga is going on. i played with two screen setups in the last few days. i had thousands of problems

first i configured FP to run in arcade render mode as you can see from previous posts, that went very well. after that i installed hyper pin, and tried to run FP tables through HP. it worked very well, specially with new camera angle and lighting settings and with flares . i tried few oldies and khomodo's great "amazing spiderman I know you are here stop hiding from me" table and DoCam's great xenon table, there is a ton of new great FP tables with complicated rules being developed now. recently only oldies till 75 were available

only problem with fp is you can't save it from HP so you have to translate it in FP and save and then play in HP,

anyway, enough fp for test case, had to move on to vp cabinet config - ultra vp saga begins

I downloaded this new manual for ultravp and HP configuration and that's were problem started. i could not get ultravp to work, tables were playing on playfield but no backglass was loaded. uvp server opened a window in a corner but no backglass. As you can guess from my forum picture i tested with bob's legendary amazing spiderman fs table, and backglass from flying dutchman, but no luck. i've read thousands of posts about uvp problems, checked manuals from top to bottom and nothing. I moved all my Hyperpin files to c:\hyperpin, put ultravp there, removed & from xml's, scripts changed, all uvp and png files changed to match the table name and still no luck. ultravp was loading but only with blank black screen over first monitor. i've checked my driver version and it was 176.something so i thought gee I'll have to go to 182.50. I was trying on friday evening till late hours and didn't make it, went to sleep without ultravp running, will try tomorow, morning is smarter then evening

so saturday first thing in the morning i tried again, checked some posts and saw that jpsalas has his stern spiderman mod completely fixed to work with ultravp in fs. so i downloaded it, put files in proper dirs, png in backglass dir, uvp in ultravp dir and tried table outside of HP... and uvp worked - great - jpsalas you are god !!!! so my ultravp install was good after all, tried in hyperpin, it worked also, morning really is smarter then evening

now i had to check what was wrong with my tables. i checked what files did jpsalas used and found that he had different file names for table and uvp and png. what the heck, why different file names work, when all manuals say that all file names should match. so i'm checking xml and guess what?


table file has to match game name tag
but png and uvp files have to match description tag

why do all the documents tell that you have to match game name, when really for artwork and for uvp you have to match description??? this is totally different from hyperspin concept. so let's move on, now I tried to change description to match bob's table name, so that should work, as you probably know table name is "Amazing_Spiderman_The_2010_vp9 FS", so i changed description but nothing, nada. again it's not working, uvp is not launching backglass and HP is not showing background. ups, what now? again i check my xmls - which are almost empty with only few games - for problematic & and check xml structure with notepad++ which has syntax highlighting, but nothing. let's try some shorter name, I thought, and i set name to "amazing spiderman" to everything, table, uvp, backglass, wheel image, ... and now miraculously - it WORKS!!!!

so there is another rule, for HP and UVP - description has to be as simple as possible

letters like "_" don't work in description, uvp and png name or in a directory path

yup directory name for HP can't have "_" also - I found it from another guy on hyperspin forums, who could not load uvp because he had C:\_____Hyperpin for Hp install folder

and another thing, i'm not 100% sure but i tried hyperpin in c:\hyperpin and latter moved it to d:\.... and just run uvp again and everything is working from d:, so c:\hyperpin is not the only possible location, don't know if it will work if I go to d: without going to c: first

Edited by blur, 16 November 2010 - 10:11 AM.

[DedRok_V]

Great work blur,
might help others down the road.

[blur]

thank you dedrok

here is another finding: How to save FP table position directly from Hyperpin
I asked if there's a way to translate tables and save positions from inside HP
there was no answer (or answer was no don't remember) so I checked it my self.
Here is what I found:
you can go to fplaunch.ahk and remove /exit from future pinball command line, like this:

CODE

;    RunWait, "%emuPath%\%executable%" /open "%tablePath%\%tableName%.fpt" /play /exit /arcaderender,,hide UseErrorLevel
    RunWait, "%emuPath%\%executable%" /open "%tablePath%\%tableName%.fpt" /play /arcaderender,,hide UseErrorLevel

first line is commented old command line, second line is new one, you have to recompile fplauncher after change
this leaves you with a ton load of oportunities, cause every time you exit your table you will be in fp editor
it will be hidden and you won't see the window but you can still press Alt-F and get the menu or you can press Control-S and Save table and finally Alt-F4 and exit to HP.
You can also move your FP window to second screen (run FP outside of HP to change window position) where it will be visible and from there you can do anything with table - remove objects from backglass, and so on, first unhide mouse with T, this is very usefull to remove score from backglass since that score appears on playfield in arcaderender mode
when you are finished with editing of all tables move fp window back to first screen and it will be invisible again
another option - you are sick of forgetting to save, you want to save automatically every time, but don't want to see anything on the screen
also can be done, leave fp on first screen (so that it is invisible during launch) and change closeFP function to look like this:

CODE

CloseFP:
;Future Pinball must be closed this way instead of killing process or it wil not save your last game information.i.e score/credtis
    Send {Escape}
    Sleep, 5000
    Send ^{s}
    Sleep, 1000
    Send !{F4}
return

this will save you every table after you exit from FP, and you will not see any window during save
you can reduce sleep if you have fast comp, i gave it a little time to recover

so wot do you think?

This autohk is amazing (just like amazing spiderman) - you could even make it bring you beer while you play also

Edited by blur, 17 November 2010 - 12:11 PM.

[DedRok_V]

Whaaat?

How did you come across that, just when you think that you've seen it all.

That is very handy.

[blur]

Just short info on this thread topic - this last feature - setting fp table positions from hyperpin and saving it is covered and developed further in latest versions of fplaunch (right now it is 1.295 wip 2, but new versions will come) - http://www.hyperspin...ead.php?t=10528

[DedRok_V]

You have been doing a great job Blur.
Thanks for all that you do.