Cactus Canyon WIP

[PacDude]

This is the latest screenshot of my Cactus Canyon table's WIP.

 

[Kalm]

It's a nice place here and i hope it stay's peacefully O:)

PacDude, what of your 3 WIP's will be the next candidate for release?

 

[Jive]

The best table's author on the most beautiful forum I have ever seen!!!
The best tables ever made were my only motivation to register here, as far as I thought that this forum was dedicated to flipperless tables.

Many great thanks, Dude.
I will try to be an :angel: here, and to don't hurt you anymore... But, hey: I will need your help!

 

[PacDude]

PacDude, what of your 3 WIP's will be the next candidate for release?

I'm thinking of finishing Earthshaker first. I just worked out the remaining playfield items (skill ramp now works and all 3 vertical ramps are animated). I've also added the playfield lights. I'll need to do the building lights with reels (so it can drop) and I might do the backbox lights like that as well (not sure yet). I'm ready to start scripting it in any case. Dirty Harry will probably be next as it's nearly ready for scripting also. Cactus Canyon has a ways to go yet (hopefully not too far though).

 

[Kalm]

I tried my Earthshaker again (Andre & Dorsola version) and got no sound problems after restart!
btw. I'm absolute amazed of your Cactus Canyon pre picture. looks so real!!
Das ist der Hammer :D

 

[wrenchien]

mmm.

i guess i'll have to keep in touch with you here then, pd, by coming here...

forgive me if i look a little off, but well..

this is just one of those places i wouldn't monkey around with.

And trust me on this.. i ain't lion.

welcome,

wrenchien.

P.S. now i guess i'll have to go shopping for a new lion icon next month.. noone knows what zoo in texas, has lion skulls?!?!?

 

[PacDude]

I tried my Earthshaker again (Andre & Dorsola version) and got no sound problems after restart!
btw. I'm absolute amazed of your Cactus Canyon pre picture. looks so real!!
Das ist der Hammer :D

It seems it's a Mame releated problem. Exiting VP will cause VP to exit completely also and release its memory and reset, etc. So sound comes back when I exit VP and then restart it.

 

[PacDude]

Hmmm, I was thinking of working on CC today, but all this "discussion" from the past night has convinced me I need a break instead and so I'm going out to the pub to play Lord Of The Rings, watch the Survivor Series, eat wings and drink beer. :D

 

[PacDude]

Ok, I'm back and the Survivor Series sucked, the wings were too darn hot, but the beer wasn't bad and I won two games of NTN trivia (#1 locally and I placed #111 on the entire nationwide network on one game and #126 on the other game with 9600+ points and 11050 points, respectively). :D

Sadly, the Lord of the Rings pinball game was gone.

In its place was a Ripley's Believe It Or Not pinball machine. It looked brand new, but something was wrong as the DMD was dark and the GI lights just kept flashing on & off. It looked like a ball got stuck on the one auto-plunger like device on the right side, but apparently the machine was unaware of it since it refused to kick the darn thing. So, I never got to play it, but I did get a good look at the game. It looked wholly unremarkable, IMO. Maybe they'll trade it out for an Elvis within a few months if I'm lucky.

 

[StevOz]

Don't suppose you would consider doing a non fading, ordinary VP lights version for those of us with lower spec machines? :)

 

[PacDude]

Nope. It'll be wall lights. Select non-fading for fastest speed. It'll be way faster than Joep's table, though. The train will able to be disabled and be wall-based, not ball-based.

I just spent a bunch of time trying to adjust the table dimensions and retro-fit my existing decals. It didn't work well at all. I decided to say the heck on it. I'm leaving it 1000x2000. It'll just have to do as I don't feel like making all new decal cut-outs right now. Shouldn't be any worse than No Fear or Dirty Harry anyway (both play fine, IMO).

I just printed the manual pages. Bloody 'ell, now I remember why I started making '80s tables. This thing is a bloody monster ramping pain in the backside. Maybe I should go back to Monopoly. It's more fun to put together.

 

[StevOz]

nah, didn't think so....oh well...

Actually makes no difference here speed wise whether the lights are on or off. For whatever reason having all those drop walls overloads my system whether they are in use or not, go figure..I suppose I could mod it, but then again perhaps I'll just hope for a win fall and hopefully get a new setup.

 

[kristian]

Steve, can you play my current (1.4) Black Knight table with dropwall lighting or does it overload your system too?

 

[StevOz]

The only fading lights game that works skip free here is Firepower. I'm pretty sure it's a lack of memory thing. I've only got 256MB and a 32MB GF2 MX400 vid card. So I maybe able to fix it if i can pick up another 128MB or 256MB of sd133 ram, perhaps a better vid card, I'll have to see what's floating around 2nd hand.

 

[PacDude]

I've only got 288 megs of memory (128+128+32) and I don't have those issues. My graphics card doesn't have more than 32megs either (shrug). If Firepower works ok (it's all drop walls too), I don't think it's the drop walls.

 

[PacDude]

Alright, here's the latest WIP:

 

[kristian]

That sure looks sweet!

I played this table just a few weeks ago. Lots of fun!

 

[PacDude]

The table is now about 85% functional. It still needs the toys animated, gameplay tweaked, and various lights added.

I also still need to make the mine mech, but all other solenoids and switches are connected now, the table script is in place, etc. and you can play a game (without lights) minus the mine stuff.

 

[StevOz]

The table does look rather nice, never played it, though now I have another 256mb of ram in the pipeline, just picked up a deal at OCAU forums, $40AU, costs $120AU new. I also have problems with scapino's later releases OT onwards, so I'm sure it's a memory thing, either way more can't harm.

So I'll should have it Friday, I'll see one way or the other.

The reason I think Firepower works is because it has fewer lights and the VPM emulation is not very demanding, same with scapino's earlier vintage bally tables.

 

[StevOz]

I can ney believe this, I was looking for a picture of a beer mug in google image search and checkout what I found, maybe you've seen this, still something on this site maybe of some use, great looking pics all the same. :)

http://www.robertwinter.com/pinball/restorations/cc/sold/

 

[PacDude]

I've saved the pictures from there, Steve. Not sure I need them, but good to have anyway. Thanks.

I've got temporary mech handlers installed and a temporary drop wall mine door in place (drops wrong direction at the moment) just for testing purposes. This makes the table more or less fully playable (needs gameplay work in many areas, IMO though, but I'll deal with that later and as I go). I need to add some preliminary lights next.

I've also fixed the decal graphics so the side standup targets line up properly now. The slingshot posts need redesigned:

 

[kristian]

Making a table like this with (mainly) decals is very tough. Hope you get the upper playfield play accurate. It looks really, really good so far.

One trick that I used with updated LCA: I _sharpened_ the decals and adjusted brightness/contrast to get rid of the "foggy" looks. You know, sometimes the decals don't exactly match with the playfield brightness and stuff. Maybe the right and left side decal pieces (in the lower playefield) look a bit "foggy". I realize it's just early wip though, and it looks great nevertheless. Very impressive.

 

[PacDude]

Early? Heck, I hoped to have this done this week.

 

[Mitchell]

Hmmm.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Oh yah.

This is going to be good.

Looks real there PacDude.

I will kick the old one and download this one after it is released.

 

[PacDude]

Cactus Canyon must have really been rushed out the door at Bally/Williams. Just watching the attract wipe patterns makes it obvious. They just wipe up/down/left/right. That's it. Compare that to the more complex patterns found even on older games like Firepower and Sorcerer. Ah well.