NanoTech Entertainment (NTEK) Partners With VirtuaPin Cabinets

[unclewilly]

I personally think you would make a great dev team leader phil.
With your knowledge of pinball and attention to detail i think you could produce an exceptional vp version with a little help.

 

[Shockman]

If I was a C++ developer I would have been from day one of source opening. Probably the the very same team, but perhaps another.

When I work with C though I can only use the most basic functions, and I have to fully understand the structure, something I have never been able to do with someone else's code.

VP might still find that guy, and I believe there are many. There are just none to choose from. They themselves are going to have to choose to. Given the history and legacy of VP, I think the continuing of the code as is has merit. A rewrite from scratch does as well, but it would end up being something else. This from our point of view as the challenge, to overcome the limits.

A lot of what makes the tables of today better than those of a dozen years ago was slowly built into the editor, but the biggest part was not.

 

[sleepy]

There is nothing stoping you guys here at pinball nirvana from putting out a call for developers and setting up a dev forum, to try to get some devs on board to try and implement the changes you want.

But you know unclewilly, many of us are old dogs and so we are slow.

There is one thing stopping most of us from trying, and that is the matter of VP being bound to the commercial editions of Visual Studios which goes for $900 or more just to try fooling with VP without a clue. Now we could find a crack of VS and go that route, but the fact that VP source files are not compilable on any of the free compilers without first doing heavy research into existing alternatives to the Visual Studios ATL/MFC/COM bindings and dependencies is going to pretty much keep development in the hands of the few.

The free Express editions of VS block the use of ATL/MFC and Redistribution procedures.

And then, the dedicated devs may not appreciate the effort if and when using non-VS compilers and editors interferes with the VS ATL (Active Template Libraries.
In that case, the devs would need to be open to no-standard source code and be willing to translate it back to the VS ATL standard.

Btw, does anyone know if the Cygwin libraries will cooperate with VP source files when compiling with Code::Blocks or WxDev C++ because everyone I've read who tried compiling VP without using VS ATL says it can't be done?

 

[Shockman]

In a community that was not split, as Paul and I argue the case, this conversation would not exist.

What can we do to make the 'official' version work for us, and why is the basic function of nudging, that has always been a part of VP, stripped out to make room for commercial endeavor.

What has become of the VP spirit and legacy.

Even if I had succeeded in restoring nudging to Visual Pinball, it would have been in a version from 5 or 6 revisions back. And I would have no way of testing the analog devices.

I am not a C++ coder, but I have made things with C++ for DOS, I have used other languages, and I have succeeded in altering some things and building that. I am convinced that a C++ coder could restore keyboard nudging in one setting, without touching the analog device control, with an existing routine as a reference, if not a cut and paste, by binding that routine to the keys. I could be wrong, but I know what C++ is capable of, and I have seen reasonable response to a nudge key in terms of direction, force, and recoil before. In fact I think at least one of the versions of Visual Pinball before 9 is where.

I'm not saying no one has the right to make it a commercial product, limiting it in that regard. We have all, including them, said that.

 

[sleepy]

I think the splits started with Black and his promise of VP7, then going to FP instead.
I was looking at the COM/OLE Objects in Black's F1 last night and found a couple of interesting items.

The F1 project included Flash ForMs (Black's use of the M as it appears in the code; *I think* it's a custom Light and not a Shockwave Flash Object, though I could be mistaken. A Shockwave Flash Object could be avalable as a COM Object if and when the devs fix the ActiveX COM Object insert which has been broken for years), a Bumper Lens Image for wrapping the image to a Bumper Object, and the much sought-after DMD Object for simplifying same.

I think Randy had the right to implement these. It was Randy's project.

The file attachment (below) is the COM Library read-out from the F1.exe

 

[Shockman]

Chris did a few good things for VP, but your right. He got selfish and fucked the community over. He was cleared to release VP7 and was expected to do so. He deleted that post and many more. The worse thing he could have done is not what he did though. The worse thing would have been for him to continue with VP. He could have killed VP outright, but he chose to try to kill it by making a killer program. He wanted to delete active ball, set all the settings to a 'realistic' range, and make it not possible to create anything other than straight forward pinball games with it.

The only motive for ever taking anything away from the community or the program is selfishness.

 

[sleepy]

and make it not possible to create anything other than straight forward pinball games with it.

But as it's turned out, unless you can program the VP source code and can acquire a commercial version of VS or a serviceable compiler/editor, then that's almost exactly what we have now.

VPinball and the VPPlayer is nothing but a Shell containing Com Objects as Bumpers, Plungers, etc., but just try to use anything like

Dim MyTable
Set MyTable = VPPlayer.CreateObject("Table1.Bumper").

I don't think we can do it. It's locked out.
If it weren't locked out/restricted, then we could inject custom Objects as COM components. As it is now, the broken ActiveX Object can only be placed on the Backglass, that is, when it doesn't crash the editor or player. Some will, others won't.

 

[Shockman]

I was talking about the capability of the editor. Things like making the ramps to be made to have to be wider than a ball, and other tricks that are used to create elements outside the box.

As for the potential of the program, I'm stuck in a rut, talking about nudging and basic function. Without this I couldn't care less what VP does, does not, or potentially can, or can't do.

How do you make a car without wheels perform better?
a) Turbo charge it
b) Paint in another color
c) Put wheels on it