Flipperless Original Table BAM FP Bumper Pool and Billiards (Original) v2.0 BAM

[Gimli]

As suggested by IKE, I will try to have a link to the most recent version of BAM billiards and the current keycodes posted here at the top of this thread. Always use the most recent version of BAM.

DOWNLOAD
8 ball

https://pinballnirvana.com/forums/attachments/billiardsmarch1-zip.17129/

Avengers Bumper Pools Version 2c

https://pinballnirvana.com/forums/attachments/avengersbumperpoolv2c-fpt.19920/

'Game keys
'1. left and right arrow to aim

'2. Up arrow changes view to Camera over cue or zoomed out view

'3. Down arrow flips cue during aiming

'4. "M" on keyboard to turn aiming arrow on /off

'5. Plunger key hold and release for variable strength and hitting cue ball, see 9. belwo

'6. "B" on keyboard will swap players

'7. Special2 key will rotate zoomed out camera view by 90 degrees

'8 Special 1 key brings up options menu. Follow instructions. Flippers to switch between options , plunger to select. Special1 key to return to game

'8. If a foul is assigned ( for Wiffed ball, no rail hit, hit wrong suit, no ball hit) then next player gets "ball in hand"
'Use arrows to move Green Marker ball and press "Plungerkey" when happy and it should place cue ball at that location

'9 Adding Top and Back Spin when enabled in Menu are accomplished in Camera over cue zoomed in mode (see above)
'The first press of plungerkey will activate the add Spin feature and move the cue out of the way, use up and down arrows to set spin.
'Press plungerkey again to confirm spin the cue will move back to resting position.
'Now you can use the plunger key to take your shot as per usual.

'for shots in zoomed- out mode the plunger key is just for shooting ( not for adding spin)

Original start of thread below:

Ok I am on the theme of flipperless tables ( Labyrinth, Rat Race)
So I thought I would try a simulate either Bumper Pool or Billiards using BAM ball tracking code.
It may be a fools errand.....

This will involve some help from Ravarcade as always

Starting challenges:

1. Create a flat table with zero slope. I believe I can use BAM/ table editor and set slope to zero. So I think this is easy.
.-I will likely need a surface / miniplayfield like wild and I are currently using for Rat race.
-I will grab the pinball table and make it disappear to get it out of the way like we did in Rat Race
- I will need a table toy at some point

2. I will need to figure out BAM ball id tracking code.
**SLAM used this in DSA. The Current Code from Rav seems to limit 6 ball identification...I will need 16
I need to identify which ball is the 8 ball or 15 ball or whatever.

3. I will assign a ball toy to each BAM ball that has an ID
For instance (fpBallId = 0 ) will be the cue ball
and (fpBallId = 1) will be the 1 ball etc... etc...

4. I will need to add a cue model and animate it maintain collisions and enable it to track the cue ball location

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
I can currently track only one ball and attach an object to it....
.I will try to track 16 balls....................... fpBallId = 0 - 15 and attach 15 ball toys.


Here is my progress so far:
1. imported Sphere Map for all 16 balls and attached them to ball objects
2. Assigned the first 6 balls to fpBallId = 0- 5

3. Problems the balls toys don't stay on the assigned Balls...I am tracking based on kicker location and not location of fp balls

See Video below:

 

[Paolo]

Nice....pm for you.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Nice!

You know I was indeed wondering the other day how FP - BAM might improve on my billiards simulation I was working on a long time ago:

VP8 - Flipperless - Recreation - Billiards Engine

A WIP template for building pool and billiards games in VP. This was built with VP8, and may not work with VP9 and VPX. Although I had intended to follow this all the way through in order to build some finished games, such as bumper pool and...

pinballnirvana.com

English (spin) on the ball was the one thing I could never bring off properly.

One thing I'm proud of is that I did manage to get the table to rotate to four different views... something usually impossible with VP... or at least the VP version of that day.

Go, Bob!

 

[Gimli]

@wild
@Ike Savage
@JonPurpleHaze
@polygame

Ok here is an update.
Rav indeed was able to provide code to do the following:
1. Rapidly assign Toy Balls to real balls
2.Each ball can be tracked
3. All balls maintain shadows and reflections
4. Use a magnet pulse on cue ball only to cause collisions.
5.Using BAM physics tweaks we can set table slop to zero
6.Using FPModelEditor imported a Billiard Table model as a TGA
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
To Do:
1. Import a Cue toy and figure out the animation
2. Figure out an aiming system of assigning Cue angle to Magnet pulse trajectory
3.Consider how to add "english" or spin to cue ball
4. Complete Pool table surface with pockets etc...
5.Start 8 ball rules and logistics

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Funny how most of the ball images seem to spin correctly, but some get kind of 'locked in' or rotate in unusual ways. I wonder if that's an issue with the image or the physics, or what.

Somewhat related: for the game I was working on, you couldn't directly address cue ball english / spin through VP8. A co-developer was suggesting using a separate (hidden) area of the table to generate the desired spin on the cue ball by deflecting another ball off of it, then swapping the cue ball from that area to the actual table area desired. It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it worked for one reason or another. Possibly because VP8 simply didn't handle true spin effects other than to represent a ball decal moving around.

However, what I was able to kludge up was to artificially modify the vector of the cue ball after it first struck a target ball, simulating draw or masse (i.e. spin created by aiming the cue low or high on the cue ball). That doesn't work at all though for side-english, though.

No idea if any of that is relevant to FP, but just thought I'd ramble it off.

 

[Gimli]

Funny how most of the ball images seem to spin correctly, but some get kind of 'locked in' or rotate in unusual ways. I wonder if that's an issue with the image or the physics, or what.

Somewhat related: for the game I was working on, you couldn't directly address cue ball english / spin through VP8. A co-developer was suggesting using a separate (hidden) area of the table to generate the desired spin on the cue ball by deflecting another ball off of it, then swapping the cue ball from that area to the actual table area desired. It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it worked for one reason or another. Possibly because VP8 simply didn't handle true spin effects other than to represent a ball decal moving around.

However, what I was able to kludge up was to artificially modify the vector of the cue ball after it first struck a target ball, simulating draw or masse (i.e. spin created by aiming the cue low or high on the cue ball). That doesn't work at all though for side-english, though.

No idea if any of that is relevant to FP, but just thought I'd ramble it off.

Ya I have no idea yet how this will pan out.
I too will save "english" for later.
Rav did indicate that "Newtonphysics Tick" allows for setting rotations but wasn't clear how that would work yet

 

[Gimli]

Ok I am making progress.
I have come up with a system of aiming but the math is off and I am waiting to see if Rav can help again.

Also I have to figure out how to destroy these balls and identify them for the game logistics.

And I have to animate the pool cue

The Bounce and physics still needs a lot of attention obviously

 

[Gimli]

@Ike Savage
@wild
@Gin
@polygame
@GeorgeH
@ravarcade
see above
it's kind of fun figuring out how to implement some of this stuff using BAM

 

[GeorgeH]

This is cool! I never thought it would be possible on FP.

 

[Gimli]

This is cool! I never thought it would be possible on FP.

We'll see ....it all hangs on accurate aiming and bounce physics

 

[Paolo]

Very nice,Bob...brilliant.

This is cool! I never thought it would be possible on FP.

I'm not surprised that Bam can do this too, after the MiniPlayfield, Bam can do anything for me, thanks to Rav, of course.

 

[GeorgeH]

We'll see ....it all hangs on accurate aiming and bounce physics

It seems like you would need to set the table slope to 0 but I think the lowest it can go is 1. ...But then you have probably figured out a way around it.

 

[Gimli]

It seems like you would need to set the table slope to 0 but I think the lowest it can go is 1. ...But then you have probably figured out a way around it.

Yes I had to compensate with an X Rotation = 1 in miniplayfield code.

Rav fixed the math so the now the Aiming is great !
I tweaked the physics a little but nowhere near what it should be yet....

If anyone wishes to try it. Here is the demo...remember we are still early in the process.
Instructions:
1. use left and right arrow keys to aim
2. use up arrow key to fire
3. use down arrow key to rotate aim by 180 degrees
4.use "M" key to turn aiming arrow on /off
5. "special1" or "special2" keys will rotate your view

 

[Gimli]

@wild
@Gin
@polygame
@GeorgeH
@Ike Savage
@ravarcade
@JonPurpleHaze
@TerryRed
oops I forgot Terry and sorry anyone else that I didn't flag who may be interested


See above. I keep forgetting flag you guys in original post. And if I add later you don't get notification.
I flag you guys because you are interested in BAM concepts and ideas

 

[Paolo]

Bob,I wonder if it's possible, put a force level bar of the cue shot, I mean..... you inserted an arrow indicating the direction of the shot, right? a level bar that quantifies the hit of the cue? it would be nice to see and use.....but of course if it is possible to make it possible to choose the strength of the shot

 

[Gimli]

Yes exactly...in order to do that I was going to ask your help in FP toy animation.
Can you show me code on a new table to make a toy cue or stick simply move up and down (away from you and toward you)?

 

[polygame]

Very impressive Bob, I doubt I could play it on my cabinet but it certainly is something else!

 

[Gimli]

Very impressive Bob, I doubt I could play it on my cabinet but it certainly is something else!

Thanks Steve !
Actually a cabinet is my end goal...to have a full billiard table in overhead view. You will see the end of the cue and aiming arrow.
The cue will be animated for shot strength like a plunger in pinball. If we can code "english" it will be decided by placing a dot on the cue ball where the impact point will be.

 

[Paolo]

Yes exactly...in order to do that I was going to ask your help in FP toy animation.
Can you show me code on a new table to make a toy cue or stick simply move up and down (away from you and toward you)?

ok,no problem, time to do it and I'll show it or send it ?

 

[Gimli]

ok,no problem, time to do it and I'll show it or send it ?

Great ! I discovered in the past that FP toy .x .y and .z code works independently of BAM animation.
So I can grab Paolos princess from NES pinball or Steve's Cowboy from Shootanza and let the Authors animations happen freely at the same time I move and rotate them in a "minplayfield" box with BAM.

So if you code a simple cue stroke toy move with fp...it will translate nicely with my BAM stuff.

Otherwise it is a near impossible task

I will modify the fp toy in a graduated way like a plunger and correlate that to shot strength

 

[Gimli]

oops
Here is the BAM.dll I am using

 

[AnonTet]

@Gimli
This is version 294. Where should we look for the latest version? Or is this a beta version, not yet recommended for general use hence not in Ravarcade's website.

 

[Paolo]

Great ! I discovered in the past that FP toy .x .y and .z code works independently of BAM animation.

ok,Bob.....here is an example, I will explain it here, so that maybe someone else can it can be useful to see,and so understand how to make a simple movement with FP, I hope that I do not create problems if I show it here.

1)place the model on the playfield, for your use..... so this will be the position of origin


2)added this on script..... in red is the model name
Sub FuturePinball_BeginPlay()
' seed the randomiser (rnd(1) function)
Randomize
AddDebugText"TXStecca= "&Stecca.Tx
AddDebugText"TYStecca= "&Stecca.Ty
AddDebugText"TZStecca= "&Stecca.Tz

3) press F9..... and you will see your model coordinates


4) to create your movement, for example a direct hit
A: put your model (in this case the cue) all back,NOTE: always on the same line (x Position), see the squares to understand
B: press F9


C; copy the coordinates



5) return the cue to the neutral position (first picture)

Continue--------------------->

 

[Paolo]

Then done all this, you have in your notebook or diary or sheet of paper to write, the your coordinated

6) now I will explain the codes to insert in the script, to do this simple movement, with a video, and you can see and understand the code yourself in the script.......search wild in green
7) press F and G, to see the two main movements that a cue makes while playing billiards, back and forth
8) press H for a slow movement
9) press J for two fraction movement
10) if you have questions or don't understand something please tell me, I will explain better
View attachment crue 3mode.mp4

 

[Gimli]

@wild
Perfect !
I will study !
I forgot that "Tz" is parameter to change not "Ty"