18 replies to this topic

[pinnyboy]

I was just wondering what everyone thinks of Coloured Instruction Cards?
This is not my site or my work (links below) but I have put them in my Hyperpin. I would love to see
more of these. If anyone has the know how too do them. It would be great to have all of them
for all of the pinballs I have loaded. I have downloaded them and converted them to .swf files and they look fantastic. What everyone thoughts?

Web site Link: http://www.pinballcards.com/
Link: https://www.dropbox....ind-01.png?dl=0

 whirlwind-01.jpg   186.82KB   26 downloads

Edited by pinnyboy, 17 February 2015 - 01:50 PM.

[Pinball999]

Love it. Will need to check this

[Les73gTx]

Just curious as to what ones you have done and if you have plans to upload them to the FTP?
Or maybe zip them and share them on your dropbox?

[pinnyboy]

I would do this, but these files are not my work so i don't think it would be fair to the author
I resized them in paint and I used this to convert them  http://www.swftools....ls-0.9.2.tar.gz

 

Edited by pinnyboy, 17 February 2015 - 10:48 AM.

[pinnyboy]

Wow i thought more people would be interested in this. It makes the instruction cards / rules look so much better and not so plan an boring. I will upload load just one here, if it lets me. So people can see the big different it makes compared to the standard one

Attached Files

•  Whirlwind (Williams 1990).rar   105.96KB   60 downloads

[Pinball999]

Did you try to add them to vp tables?
I'm thinking to contact the author and see if he would be fine with it.

[pinnyboy]

They will not work until you resize and change files format to .swf

[LoadedWeapon]

That is cool but nobody ever takes the time to even look at them so I just dont bother even putting them on the cab now

[boiydiego]

pinboy , pinball999

 

https://www.dropbox....5jHTMtn3sa?dl=0

[Pinball999]

Nice collection boiydiego

[boiydiego]

I would do this, but these files are not my work so i don't think it would be fair to the author
I resized them in paint and I used this to convert them  http://www.swftools....ls-0.9.2.tar.gz

 

pinnyboy no resizing needed pinballx will stretch images and why convert ? pbx takes .png files , just microsoft paint and printscreen at large view is enough ;-) i have them 3 month on my cabinet allready the work he did was great nice artist , also not all instructioncards in dropbox comes from his hand

pinball999 credits go to artist i only did some easy task a monkey could do , but at the end they are great addition for pbx i use them allot when playing , i look at them lots of times ..

Edited by boiydiego, 18 February 2015 - 08:59 PM.

[boiydiego]

updated with few more instructioncards on my dropboxlink ;-)  https://www.dropbox....5jHTMtn3sa?dl=0

Edited by boiydiego, 21 February 2015 - 10:46 AM.

[pinnyboy]

Thx boiydiego for your collection, I love it
Ok, But I found for me when running on my Hyperpin. It did not like the high res pic's for me (.swf )
( the cards showed it was there, but no pic )
 But I'm still learning about this pinball software. I have 232 tables in my setup and soon I will make a mini pinball cab. When i get the cash together. I have these running so far inside Hyperpin : Vp/Physmod 5/Future Pinball/Bam. Thankyou for the link to the upload boiydiego. I think these instructions/Rules cards put the finishing touches on this software.That's my thoughts, and also what a great community of people we have for this kind of software. All I can say is once you learn how to get your pinball front end/emulator working, you just want to have every pinball you liked and never played in real life.
I got this pinball sim all up an run in two weeks with 155 tables, and I can't stop adding more tables.
I think I need help, I'm addicted. I can't stop tweaking an add more more tables hahaha
Thankyou to everyone in this community for making this software what it is today.
                                                              FREAKIN LOV IT !
I would still love to see a instruction cards for every table. I think the plain text ones are just too dull and boring for such a cool front end and the table developers and moders

 

Edited by pinnyboy, 25 March 2015 - 07:01 AM.

[robertms]

updated with few more instructioncards on my dropboxlink ;-)  https://www.dropbox....5jHTMtn3sa?dl=0

boiydiego, thanks for sharing these, cool upgrade to the pincab!

Edited by robertms, 22 February 2015 - 03:29 AM.

[Carny_Priest]

Hi, I coded an AutoHotkey script that loops instruction cards in a kind of slideshow on the aprons of VP tables while in-game. Does not require editing any VP tables. Works with png and swf formats, color or B&W, static or animated. You can stick with a favorite set or loop through multiple sets. For cabinets, the solution does require rotating instruction card images for display on a table. I've posted another script that will generate rotated images in batch.

 

Really, the solution is a platform that can add a variety of effects, video or image.

 

This feature is part of a solution that captures VPM, UltraDMD, B2S DMD and streams to the apron in a mini-DMD type display. I've got a dropbox video demo in this post:

 

http://www.gameex.in...-splash-viewer/

 

Currently, I'm thinking through how to better process the custom source images that are out there on the Internet. I like the idea of how the authors were putting together the Hyperpin media packs a few years ago using scaleable vector graphics so that the output looked good at any resolution and there would be no loss in quality. It would be really good if the quality levels were such that you could take an unmodified swf or png file directly to the printer and get a high quality card that you could proudly put on a real table. That may be too high a bar in practice. We would be dependent on the artist providing the custom card in getting the dimensions right which may or may not be the case. As such, the tool just uses a single set of dimensions corresponding to a later model Williams, Bally, Stern and it works OK.

[Carny_Priest]

Well, I have a good workflow process for producing custom card images for use in the PinballX/Media/Instruction Cards folder. I try to obtain or produce media with very high quality, and it is do-able here but with limitations. I was pleasantly surprised that the majority of images that I have worked with so far do have dimensions consistent with the manufacturer documented dimensions found here under Card Sizes:

 

http://www.pinballre.../pinball/cards/

 

So, producing images although still a manual process is pretty quick and easy.

 

I use GIMP 2. It will open just about all image types and import from pdf. Open an image or import a pdf page with images. I just drag and drop and select what I need in dialog windows. 

 

Tools/Selection Tools/Rectangle Select. Use the default settings in the Tool Options dialog. 

 

Use the mouse/cursor to draw a rectangle roughly around the image.

 

Image/Crop to Selection

 

Then Autocrop Image.

 

In a small portion of cases, the resulting image might require some additional cropping (if the image includes cut guides or was specifically providing larger borders for trimming printed reproductions. Use the mouse/cursor to draw a rectangle, and the size of the crop area can be fine tuned with the Position and Size options in the Tool Options dialog

 

After cropping, check Image/Print Size...

 

the dimensions should be consistent with a real card from that manufacturer. Most of the time it is. Sometimes you have to change the X/Y resolution. To retain the aspect ratio of the cropped image make sure the chain symbol is linked. Change the resolution until the print size is consistent with a real card. Click OK

 

File/Export As...

 

Choose a name. Select File Type. Use PNG image. Click Export. You will get a dialog where there are settings that can be toggled on/off. Just use the default as it appears and click Export. The file is ready for PinballX with no loss in quality. You could take the output to a printer. You'd probably still want  to take the source file to the printer rather than the output though.

 

A couple of downsides. If you already have SWF files associated with a specific table, PBX will display one format or the other for that table. But not both. All files for that table must be one format to display all the images.

 

You could use all PNG, but PinballX stretches PNG images to fit the BG dimensions defined in PinballX.ini (Settings Wizard). The aspect ratio of the actual card may be quite different and the image will be stretched or squashed as a result. It's not bad, if you have a cabinet then you would be used to this. Direct.B2S also stretches the BG to fit the space defined in screenres.txt.

 

When PinballX displays SWF, the image is stretched to fit the space while retaining the aspect ratio of the image, rendering in letterbox if needed with white bars at top and bottom; or left and right. Most of the SWF in the HP media pack files have white backgrounds so this looks great most of the time.

 

The right way to produce a high quality SWF involves vectorizing the image and compiling it into an SWF (Flash) container. I don't have access to any Adobe tools, and I just could not find a comparable workflow using open source tools. That isn't to say that you could not use the swftools direct converter png2swf.exe, but there is a noticeable degradation in quality. It's "Ok" quality. I would not publish it in that kind of state, but it might be "good enough" for the cab when there are not any better options that don't cost $$$.

 

So, a compromise must be made in using custom card images. Go with PNG for the quality displayed in incorrect aspect ratio. Or go with SWF for correct aspect ratio and some loss in quality. I put in a feature request at PinballX.net to display PNG with correct aspect ratio or possibly provide users a choice in the Settings Wizard.

 

http://www.swftools.org/

 

A command for converting a PNG ro SWF might look like

 

png2swf.exe -o "Attack from Mars (Bally 1995).swf" -j 100 - z "Attack from MARS (Bally 1995).png"

 

It would be pretty easy to batch process this conversion for multiple files in a singe run.

 

Is it all worth it? Maybe. It's worth checking out as there is some really good work out there that can be used as extra enhancement in the enjoyment of a pinball cabinet.

Edited by Carny_Priest, 20 July 2015 - 04:58 AM.

[pinnyboy]

Wow that's so cool thx  Carny        

 

https://dl.dropboxus...5430846/afm.MOV This video you posted is it possible to get it working on Hyperpin too?
What would I have to do to get it working? mod the .ahk ? I'm still learning

[Carny_Priest]

I'd say that it is possible if you have some familiarity with FPLaunch and ahk programming language. You'd insert the code or insert calls to an executable based on my script. I'm not looking into it. I only use PinballX; it's easy to add these sorts of things under their system. But you are welcome to give it a try.


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[PinballShawn]

We try to use those type of cards on the machines we sell. They look great if they are done right.