Meteor WIP for learning

[Ryan450]

Hey gang,

I'm pretty new at creating tables, and havent been around for too long. But I told myself that I'm going to learn how to make these tables and keep at it till its done. Undoubhtly I've ran into some bumps in the road, and this is my cry out for help.

Basicly all this table is for me to learn my way around the editor and scripting via hands-on approach. I've attached the resulting .vpt file I've been working on. I've finished creating the playfield and put in some models. The idea is to get this table functioning, not looking amazing yet. But I'm more then happy to improve things out when I get the darn thing working. A quick note the meteor manual can be downloaded off the ipdb.org.

If any of you expierenced authors out there would be so kind as to tell me how you determine the scripting part I'll figure this out much quickly as there isnt a whole lot of documentation.. There is some documentation but unfortuantely its all cluttered with Technical Jargon.

I've gone and downloaded JP's version of taxi from AJ table's site, along with the manual from there.. Using that script as an example has made the most sense to me so far and I believe I've figured out the switch and solenoid assignments..

I have started some on the scripting, there are comments of what I'm unsure of, and what I have no idea of.. if you expierenced authors dont mind going over it quickly, putting some insight on the tasks at hand would be very much appreciated..

Also if any of you would be willing to try and help me out via Instant Messaging, my MSN is [email protected].. If your willing to teach I'm more then willing to learn..

At the end of it all once its all said and done, I'll heavily comment the script and try my very best to document my learning expierence in plain english, how I determined how things work and release it as a guide/tutorial..

This table recreation is all about learning the ropes, and providing others with my expierence.. And of course I'll give credit to those that are willing to help me out in this adventure..

 

[jpsalas]

I am myself quite new to this VPM table building, and the way I learnt it was to look at how others had coded their tables. First thing for me was to separate what belongs to VP and what to VPM. I did that by making some original tables first based on all the demos and examples I found on this site. Then I moved to VPM, since my original ideas came to an end quite fast. To learn VPM I went through as many tables as possible, looking at the scripts and trying to figure out each subroutine until I understood enough to build a table.

The script in Taxi was written by racerxme, and it is very well written. It helped me a lot.

My advice: start win an easy VP table, with a short script, and see what you can understand. Then take another easy table and compare them. When you have understood enough of VP and the editor then make a VP only table. Why not start with a flipperless? This way you will learn which parts are needed to build a table.

JP

 

[davidsss]

I'm lucky enough to be interested in EMs so I don't have to worry about VPM but I think the advice above is good. Learn VP first and then learn how to make it interact with VPM. Or you could just make VP tables, plenty of EMs out there which haven't been done, if you can get good pics go for it. And welcome to the ranks of the authors :)

DS

 

[Ryan450]

yea, jps advice does sound good.. I'll start looking over some original works and tweak for educational purposes.. then we'll see what happens.. But expect to see at least a few tables come out of me :).

 

[bob]

Look for table templates, I use a Bendigo template, because I tried once for 2 days to get a high score to be saved and most templates have that stuff already scripted. Here's a link to his site that has his templates....

http://www.freewebs.com/bendigovp/tabletemplates.htm

Now all you need to do is add a Spidey picture and you're a table author.

 

[forchia]

jpsalas,
thanks for your nice and interesting walkthrough about VPM learning.
Which table do you consider the easiest to use for VPM learning?

 

[jpsalas]

Well, any VPM table from the early 80's will be ok for learning. For example two of my tables are quite easy: Big Game and Panthera. They just include the standard pinball objets, like bumpers, flippers, targets, droptargets and rollovers (lanes). I'm not so good at commenting the scripts, but it should be easy to understand. I don't remember all that tables I went trough, but for example, Punk by Destruk has a short script that may be easier to understand the relation between VPM and VP.