6 replies to this topic

[rascal]

File Name: Calming Talking Word Clock

File Submitter: rascal

File Submitted: 07 Jan 2017

File Category: VP 9.x Originals

Author(s): Rascal
Permission to MOD?: Yes, without approval

 

This is just a brain storm of mine. It is not a pinball table, it is a clock. I was inspired by a Word clock that I saw on the internet. I took it even further and added other features to this clock.
 Every five minutes the word time changes, so when you first start the clock, you may not see anything happen until it reaches the nearest 5 minute increment (00, 05, 10, 15, etc...).
Here are the features of this clock.

• Displays a background of the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
• Animated water scene.
• Gradual Day to Night and Night to Day images which change on the hour.
• Ambient sounds, listen to water, birds, and crickets during night hours.
• Big Ben chimes rings out every 15 minutes and strike the hour on the hour.
• Word Clock, every 5 minutes the clock will light the words to say the current time.
• Talking Clock, using windows built in sapi text to speech, Every 5 minutes you will hear the time being spoken.
• Clock hands on the tower actually work and change every minute.

NOTE: Through script you can change the sapi voice used with the clock. Windows normally comes with a couple of built in sapi voices and these change with versions. For instance, on Windows 10, the default voice is the Cortana voice. Open the script editor in VP and look towards the top of the script for a comment on how to change the voice. If you increment the voice beyond what you have loaded, it will throw a "null" error, This simply means you went to far and ran out of sapi voices loaded on your computer. You can google search "windows sapi voices" to find some download to install more voices.
Unfortunately, VP needs to have the focus for this clock to run. If you open and click on another program, the clock will be in like a paused state until you click on it again to give it the focus. This is a calming and relaxing program that you should run in the background when you just need to relax. I think its kind of cool, it's kind of like a screensaver that you can run when you aren't playing pinball or working on the PC.
Enjoy.
 

 

 

Click here to download this file

Edited by rascal, 08 January 2017 - 02:36 PM.

[StevOz]

mmm...nice Rascal does it do fireworks every new years or just plain explode on Guy Fawkes Night..?

 

Either way got to say very good old chap, though maybe a FS version would have better mileage, like when in attract mode, perhaps...

Edited by StevOz, 08 January 2017 - 07:28 AM.

[rascal]

Thanks, Steve, but I think WS would be better during attract mode on a desktop or on the backglass of a cab. I wouldn't want to stand at a cab and look down just to see the time.

 

I actually made a word clock out of a Kodak digital picture frame too. Set the interval to 5 minutes each picture and then loaded 144 pictures of the time changing. Silly, I know, but I do stuff like that.

[Rawd]

Nice work as always Al.  Was fun to watch this progress.

[lodger]

clever idea- always neat to see people use an engine for something it wasn't intended for

[Johngreve]

I like this idea......and all the neat features that are built into it. I'm wondering if there is a way to display it on the BG of a cabinet?
I think that's where it would really shine....when it can be viewed as you walk past the cabinet.
Nice job and very creative to be sure!!

[rascal]

Thanks guys. VP is like therapy or like a jigsaw puzzle. Something to pass the time and stimulate the mind. I can't do any large projects anymore, I burn out too quickly. I'm retiring from my job at the end of this month, so maybe, I'll get back to making some strange new VP projects.