Mr. & Mrs. PAC-MAN (wide screen (VP9))

[Shockman]

I reworking this for VP9.

No nudging yet. left nudge turns GI lighting off and right nudge turns it on. It has to be on to play because off is a tilt situation unless the ball is in a saucer.

 

[Shockman]

I don't know guys. Either my system is whack or VP9 is.

- Colors set for transparency in the image editor is a waste of key presses.
- Ordering (stacking) of objects simply is gone. They are not saved.
- Nudging lacks recoil and is utterly useless. This was not a surprise though.
- Often the lights come up differently.
- Sometimes the game runs behind the editor.
- Sometimes the flippers don't respond.

Also my graphics card is HD and does not do 16 bit. Any compatibility mode either gives a black screen with the game running somewhere or the DMD is no longer hidden, but flashing on the side of the game.

Also I am still locked out of VPF so I lack any support.

Obviously VP9 works and quite well, less the nudging, image manager settings for transparency, and stacking order, but it must not be much of a problem when building from scratch (except nudging of course). This was an attempt to convert a VP8 game that was running in 16 bit to get solid textures which VP8 required as well, as this was built.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Hope you can overcome the obstacles, Shocky... looking forward to the update on this one! Your VP8 table is one of the few I still play. It really looks fantastic!

 

[Shockman]

Thanks.

On the plus side, it runs very nicely on my system. It is not angle dependent, but as built now and the later version released even it is a bit resolution dependent for some reason. This referring to the words that light up on the backglass. I'll see what I can do, I might go back to lights, I think it is the drop walls on the backglass that causing the moving around at different resolutions.

I got a better maze going on. The colors are wrong, but the ghost is more visible. I'm also using a different lenses that the light comes through without the distortion I at least had with the other.

The editor negatives are not a killer yet. If anything kills this it will be the player physics. Flippers at there very best in VP is crap. Set anything less than crap is in my opinion a waste of time to build or play. Most, I would say 99% plus of the tables I download (beautiful tables too) gets deleted because of worse than crap flipper physics that I could not fix. So I'm striving for crap flipper physics.

Nudging will have to at least have a better recoil than I have seen in a script, or the .vbs file dedicated to this effort. But separate nudge and shake will fix it right up .... LOL.

Most obstacles are no ones fault, but damn. Bugs fixes should ALWAYS come before features. There is so many routines in this program that need fixes and as the features grow so does that number.

 

[Shockman]

I should say that I am using 9.2.1 rev 908. 9.1.5 will give problems. I don't know what the lowest version this can work with, but I suspect it's the first one with the modeled and textured plunger. I might have fixed the problems with the flippers not flipping, or staying up.

 

[Itchigo]

It looks good so far.

VP9 nudging sucks though. It makes me feel like it's a video game.

 

[Shockman]

Thanks.

Here's the first go at it.

I'd like to know if it looks the same for you.

I went through the physics settings, but not in earnest. It's a steeper, bouncier table. Still a lot of posts and rubber remodeling to do.

The VP plunger seems to have the same fire speed regardless of how far the spring is compressed. This makes the slight pulls seem to launch the ball too strong, and the hard pulls not enough.

Notice the middle POP compared to the left one. This is an example of what I am having to do with all the walls. And the each post has 8 walls. The drop targets have 5. Down dark, down lit, halfway up lit, up lit, and up dark.


VP 9.2.1 required

 

[Itchigo]

Yeah, the middle one looks a bit taller. Normally that would be a bit too tall, but not for this game. Looks great and plays great. (I played in desktop mode).

 

[Shockman]

I was talking about the artifacts that were cleaned up though. I agree it's a bit too tall. I will average them out when I clean up the other one. The POPs have a lot of walls each.

 

[Itchigo]

I'm sorry. It did look good.

What I meant before was normally this would be too tall of a bumpertop, but this game had tall ones from what I remember (I think I had 1 on the street), like EBD.

 

[Shockman]

Mr. & Mrs. PAC-MAN (wide screen (VP9)) WIP2

I sorted the walls and uncovered the special light. Changed the lighting and the time when it works.

All that is left to do is get the lights to come back on before the ball is kicked out of the saucers, and tweak the settings. The plunger is giving the most grief but the flippers need tweaked too, but that is probably personal settings.

The download is in the first post of this thread.

 

[Itchigo]

I use the default plunger in vp 9.2. It looks nice and I no longer have to worry about animation. It uses stock code, and 2 default images. That's it. Open a new table in 9.2, and copy and paste from a new table. Export/Import the 2 default plunger images.

I won't get any time to look at this until tomorrow night.

 

[Shockman]

This is using the stock plunger with no code (just relying on the settings)

I do not exaggerate when I say I personally get only a few results from any pull. The plunger is extended with a linger stroke than default and slowed pull compared to default. This table requires a good working plunger, a nice looking one, not so much. The numbers returned is nowhere near the number of animations. As a matter of fact I have no found a setting that would kill the ball in the loop more than two places, let alone make the skill shot. It is way short and comes down the right side of the circle, or flies through the circle. and even using a joystick where I can gauge each shot.

Nudging is not worth a try. I recommend using the special .vbs file so you get the as close as you can in every table.

The flipper settings did not make the upgrade. I had to redo them and they are still whack.

Basically if it has to do with actually playing the game (control) on a desktop computer it is screwed up. And if they could not screw it up enough, they took it out.

 

[Shockman]

This is the first I have used VP9 other than the mmpac that was released before that just gave the ball room to move and nothing else, so I have not given up on everything just yet. I just think I have to go back to a work-around for some of the basic control elements, if I can not find workable settings.

If anyone has Ideas or settings that they want to share it would be great.

Like I said before though I would have scores more VP9 tables if the settings was not such an insult to VP.

This will NEVER make it out of this WIP thread if I can not hit each element, plunge inside the circle but at least 6 places short of skill shot (should be at least 40 though, this is a computer and it handles pretty big numbers if given to it. 200 would be short of realistic.)

A release speed settings is anti-physics like scatter angle is. Spring strength makes sense, and the release speed should have nothing to do with anything other than how far back it is pulled. Release speed setting would work, it's just a name, if it was relative.

I know. It's just a game. And I'm a grouch.

 

[StevOz]

To at least partially address the VP9 nudge physics you can or maybe already have I dunno not a fan of this table.

That aside this solution by Rascal can do that. Ya just need to place a huge trigger covering most of the centre of the table or wherever you don't want that nudge to effect the ball abnormally so much, then script that nudge to be different on a Hit/Unhit event.

You can use my VP9 tables uplaoded here as an example of this.

 

[faralos]

hey Itch since you use custom plunger and images in yourt templates
and now that vp9 has a few as defaults would you please make templates that fit with vp9?
what I mean is can you take out the coding for the custom plungers'
since every time I try it crashes the pin

 

[Shockman]

The VP plunger object does not have enough resolution. In fact it seem very very low resolution. Speaking of data (numbers generated), not graphics resolution.

Do you wonder why the default table has a slope of only 6 and the flippers are shallow? I think it is obvious that it is because if you take it away from it's match to FP physics in this regard then you end up with worse physics than FP. The plunger can not handle realistic table slope and neither can the flippers.

To this end, the nudging I am working on sets the slope to 33 when the center key is pressed and back to normal with a very quick timer. This stops the problem of controlling the ball like a race car game at least with the center nudge and does it very well. The side nudging is harder, but what I am working on is the way I nudge. I don't walk to the side and shove, or slap the sides but nudge up on the corners so my settings are not 90 and 270 or there about but 340 and 60. This helps and requires the slope change as well. Side nudging WILL NOT climb walls of the slightest angle, because it WILL RECOIL or this will never be finished. The problem is that these quick timers are unreliable. It will work great for a while then fail.

The highest resolution for a launch I have found is not the plunger of course, or a kicker, but activeball given a speed value. So back to syncing a dummy plunger to the ball launch.

Damn I miss VP8. VP1 as well when it comes to VP9

 

[Shockman]

Nudging code is scrapped. There is simply no way to get the recoil correct. I installed the core.vbs with 'better nudging'. It's better than VP9, but not as good as the earliest version of VP (I think VP3) that I started playing with.

The flippers I can dial in nicely if I lower the slope and have slow flippers with a FP style lackluster ball, but that's not going to happen. I knew flippers was going to be a problem. I will settle for crappy flipper physics, but I am far below that yet.

There is currently no plunger though

I killed the slings on tilt, but Fuck. I think I am wasting my time. It was pretty arrogant of me to think I could make a fine playing table with this when I have never seen anyone else do it.

 

[Itchigo]

hey Itch since you use custom plunger and images in yourt templates
and now that vp9 has a few as defaults would you please make templates that fit with vp9?
what I mean is can you take out the coding for the custom plungers'
since every time I try it crashes the pin

Actually I did it this week at work.:) When I get time over the next few days I'll repost my templates here and at Rogue.

For your wip I'd recommend this:
Delete all plunger coding and plunger images/parts from my template.
Open a new table (vp 9.21) and copy/paste the plunger itself, and the stock coding form the new table.
Copy/paste the plunger images from the new table too (white tip/blacktip- whichever you want).

As Shockman said, the vp9.21 plunger isn't perfect, but it does look better than what I had in there.

 

[Shockman]

I managed to get 3 landings in the top loop and one is the skill shot and that was not plunger settings. If the resolution is not there settings is not going to put it there. It was done by lowering the slope as much as I was willing to. It's unacceptable, but I can say I tried.

The stock plunger is much better, visually speaking, than what I was using before too.

If I can figure out the exact time the tip is hitting the ball with any stroke (it was easy with the old drop wall/timer method) I will use it with a high resolution impulse (trigger, not kicker) plunger for the actual launch.

I think I'm getting the flippers dialed in. My misses are close misses now.

Sorry about what I said about other peoples tables. In a perfect world, and as for these tables the VP program is their whole world, and perfection is also the program used as well as it can be, those tables have a new respect from me.

With nagging bugs that are known and with no attempt made to fix them, year after year, and the small numbers used for flippers and plunger data etc, VP can hardly be called a simulation. Just a very nice video game in a lot of respects, and a mediocre one in others. Piss poor in a couple, unfortunately a couple of the most basic and crucial elements (those of user control).

 

[Shockman]

Mr. & Mrs. PAC-MAN (wide screen (VP9)) version 1.0

I'll make a release thread later. I forgot to rename the table inside the .zip. It says WIP4. Also the screenshot failed. No gifs it seems though if you click on the missing screenshot box you will see it.

This table will work in 32 bit color mode. Most of the work was being forced to do that due to lack of native 16 bit color on my gpu.

I think the lighting works right now. The table should boot up dark then light up. It should go dark when 1 is pressed if game over and light again at ball feed. Lights should go off if in the saucer and ready to play maze.

Skill shot will probably need a timely center nudge to hit.

This can of course be modded for personal use. A mod can under no circumstances be uploaded to any other site but Pinball Nirvana. No full-screen mod or upload to VPForums will be permitted.





.

 

[Shockman]

First bug

The rubber in the pic is not set to collidable. I'll fix that for an update.

It can be fixed by selecting it in the editor and setting it to collidable then sending it to the back and setting the second one in the same place collidable as well. When sending to the back you will have to deal with other walls. Be careful to set the 2 walls, one with rubber_dark side and the one with rubber_lit side.


EDIT: There is now a release thread with it (fixed) attached, and the link to the database in this thread has been deleted. I will have to get with 'Oz to get that entry fixed, then I will replace the attachment in the release thread with a link to the database entry.

 

[Shockman]

I finally got a satisfactory plunger back in. It's the same impulse plunger that has always been in, but the graphic plunger, which is a fully functional, as far as VP goes, from VP9.2 is used. As mentioned the plunger looks good, it's just useless as a physical plunger with just a handful of results.

If my math is correct a pull will have any of 1800 results, meaning you can hit anywhere in the lane and learn to repeat fairly closely.

It's well disguised though. The ball falls with the plunger tip and looks as though the plunger is pushing it up when fired.


Other work is the lighting of the plastics that are against the back wall, which I have not done before. The yellow words "pacman aggressive on the clear plastic shows better when the table is lit. Many other things reflect light now as well (almost everything).

On to flippers now. Another pet peeve.

 

[StevOz]

Actually you might want to try the new direct X 9 beta test build, the flippers are now rendered via a continuous manner using floating point arithmetic.

StevOz, on 20 Feb 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

mukuste, on 19 Feb 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Yes, <acronym title="Visual Pinball" class="bbc ipSeoAcronym">VP</acronym> has a full simulation of angular velocity which is independent of linear velocity and which takes into account collisions and the inertial tensor.

As for the mass, yes, I was only talking collisions. Certainly it has an effect on the rolling speed. One of these days I have to do the math and see if changing the mass gives new effects which you couldn't also achieve by changing the playfield slope and the friction.

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With the few tables I have made for <acronym title="Visual Pinball 9" class="bbc ipSeoAcronym">VP9</acronym>, gravity (mass) does have a different effect then that which can be recreated via friction and/or slope settings. I would argue that friction is an almost useless parameter as on a real well maintained table, it is virtually zero anyway. As for flipper physics I think they are fine with the correct setting each table, although perhaps too digital in nature and did wonder how many steps the flipper go through in a swing arc, could this number of steps be increased?


​

The flipper angle is simulated as a continuous value, there are no discrete increments (disregarding floating point accuracy of course, but that's no issue). It used to be that the flippers were rendered in discrete increments, but in DX9 I changed this too to be continuous. Some tables (SS, e.g.) do still use their own discrete flipper sprites, but this has no bearing on the physics.

I'll attach here the latest beta for your testing.

 

[StevOz]

New VP9 DX9 beta build, just released..

Changes since Test5:

• primitives with transparent textures should now be properly depth sorted
• depth sorting algorithm has been reverted to purely Z-based (Test3) as opposed to view vector-based (Test4 onwards). This should fix some depth sorting issues while breaking others; let's find out which version works better.
• fixed bug where EM reels were not animating (Triple Strike and many others)
• many memory leaks fixed
• textures smaller than 8x8 are now scaled up to 8x8 to work around some drivers having problems with them
• pure black gates are now invisible (Centaur)
• fixed a depth bias issue (Seawitch, probably others)
• (toxie) fixed per-table vsync
• (toxie) keyboard now works in exlusive mode; please check if this helps with the exiting problem

As usual, if you find glitches, screenshots and exact table names/versions help a lot to track them down!

Happy testing!​

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