request updates thanks

[GeorgeH]

Ah, yes it does. It opens with '=== PHYSICS XML === and continues on... looks like 163 lines total until that final message. Wow, that's a lot more than I remember.

Sound about right?

Btw, I'm working with a table version that I'd successfully added a static BG image to via an "ornament," thanks to your help here. A question now occurs:

The background effect of stars (see other thread for pic) looks so dang excellent that I'm wondering if it could be kicked up a notch to become animated? For example, if I replaced the current GIF texture with an animated GIF, might that work? Or might there be some other way to bring off the effect?

Quite a while back I seem to remember... maybe Steve, Terry or Bob showing off such an effect, altho they were doing it with PF objects IIRC.

My memory doesn't serve me too well. But you have to have an animated Gif. I have only applied an animated Gif to a wall and a surface. I am not sure if it will work on a game room ornament. The code is below. In the code, movie is the name of a surface and !BackWall is a texture applied to it. The code replaces !BackWall with an animated gif named gif. The other sub that turns it off replaces !BackWall with a transparent texture AAtransparentPerfect.

Sub GifViden()
If BAM_VERSION < 295 then Exit Sub
xBAM.SetTexture "movie", "!BackWall", 0
Dim g
Set g = xBAM.LoadGif("gif")
g.ReplaceTexture "!BackWall"
g.UpdateInterval = 100
g.Frame 0, g.NumFrames-1, g.NumFrames-g.NumFrames
End Sub

Sub GifVideff()
If BAM_VERSION < 295 then Exit Sub
Dim g
Set g = xBAM.LoadGif("gif")
g.ReplaceTexture "!BackWall"
g.RestoreTexture
xBAM.SetTexture "movie", "AAtransparentPerfect", 0
End Sub

 

[GeorgeH]

The background effect of stars (see other thread for pic) looks so dang excellent that I'm wondering if it could be kicked up a notch to become animated? For example, if I replaced the current GIF texture with an animated GIF, might that work? Or might there be some other way to bring off the effect?

Quite a while back I seem to remember... maybe Steve, Terry or Bob showing off such an effect, altho they were doing it with PF objects IIRC.

I think that a game wall is an unnamed object. I think there is a way to do that don't know how. I think @Gimli knows how.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Thanks, George,
let me do some tests with animated GIFs, and at least we can say we tried, yeah?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@GeorgeH,
Okay, finally doing some more testing.

1) Using the attached ani-gif sample, I tried setting that as the ornament-backwall's new texture.
As expected, FP grabbed a single frame and displayed it thusly.

(I mean, if something like this was so easy, table creators would already have been doing animated backgrounds for years, right?)

2) Then I dropped in your code sample, substituting the ornament surface name for "movie" and the ani-gif name for "!BackWall" and came up with the same result. Then tried omitting the ani-gif as the ornament texture name in the editor, but that just defaulted to a pinkish table BG.

So, question--
do you know of any tables (examples or full) where an animated surface is being used like this?

I'm thinking maybe I could start with that and see if I can transplant the code over to a wall surface on Commander Cody, then see if I can persuade it to work with the ornament.

 

[StevOz]

@Isaac Sauvage

Not in the know with things FP, though the FP Pink Floyd table uses animated sidewalls, maybe that table could be a useful example?

SS - Original Table - BAM - FP - Pink Floyd (Original) BAM MOD

Pink Floyd (Original) v2.6 BAM MOD Hi All, MOD 2.6 with BAM updates, cheers! Authors: @francisco666_b, @SLAMT1LT, @NitroNimbus. THIS TABLE MAY NOT WORK WITHOUT THE LATEST VERSION OF BAM...

pinballnirvana.com

 

[GeorgeH]

So, question--
do you know of any tables (examples or full) where an animated surface is being used like this?

I'm thinking maybe I could start with that and see if I can transplant the code over to a wall surface on Commander Cody, then see if I can persuade it to work with the ornament.

When you mentioned this from the beginning, something kept ringing a bell about it having been done before. Finally, I thought of Jaws. It was done in a manner that would probably not be done today. Bob created several overlays for walls and the floor. He used Bam's miniplayfield option to turn them so they are vertical. He used individual JPG files as frames for the video that is played in the same way that Slamt1lt has added video to tables for a long time. In the download look at the "VR Extreme" table.

SS - Original Table - BAM - FP - Jaws (Original) ULTIMATE

by GeorgeH, Gimli, rom, SLAMT1LT at 2019-01-15 Type Original Custom Physics Description NOTE: This table uses Dynamic Flippers that require use of BAM version 1.4-233 (or later) that was released on July 15, 2018. It is very...

pinballnirvana.com

This was all done before we could add animated gifs to tables. I still think there is a way to add an animated gif to an unnamed table object but don't know how to do it. You might ask TerryRed or Bob. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about miniplayfields either.

Another possibility would be for someone to create a model of a room model that is named.

 

[GeorgeH]

I have thought a bit more about it and I checked Bob and my version of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (full room version). To my surprise, it has separate models of the backwall and floor that are Toys and are named (there are walls too if you want them with doors and other stuff). ...So you should be able to code walls and floor the same as a wall or surface. The models for the walls are hard to work with because they are so narrow s you have to zoom all the way in to click on them.

The only way to add a toy to a table is to copy it from another table. Open one of the tables in the FP editor and then click on file>open again for the second table. This will result in 2 tables opening in the same editor. Then you can copy stuff from one table to another.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@GeorgeH
Thanks for thinking about this.

I remember the 'frame-by-frame' video approach even from early VP days, directly because I helped someone with the coding for that. I don't think there was ever a good way to do that for a backglass though, up until at least VP7-8, not sure.

The question here would still seem to be-- for FP, could this work for for a faux-background in the form of a massive ornament? Alternatively, could an animated background be created via walls / surfaces?

Anyway, I'll do some more testing based on what we talked about above...

 

[GeorgeH]

@GeorgeH
Thanks for thinking about this.

I remember the 'frame-by-frame' video approach even from early VP days, directly because I helped someone with the coding for that. I don't think there was ever a good way to do that for a backglass though, up until at least VP7-8, not sure.

The question here would still seem to be-- for FP, could this work for for a faux-background in the form of a massive ornament? Alternatively, could an animated background be created via walls / surfaces?

Anyway, I'll do some more testing based on what we talked about above...

That is why I posted message 32. You should be able to use the models from the full-room version of "Creature from the Black Lagoon". The room models are toy objects that have names assigned and should work with the code I posted previously in message 26. In the code below, movie would be the name of the toy, and !BackWall is the texture.

xBAM.SetTexture "movie", "!BackWall", 0

The "Toy" models should work with the code.

 

[HZR]

@GeorgeH,
Okay, finally doing some more testing.

1) Using the attached ani-gif sample, I tried setting that as the ornament-backwall's new texture.
As expected, FP grabbed a single frame and displayed it thusly.

(I mean, if something like this was so easy, table creators would already have been doing animated backgrounds for years, right?)

2) Then I dropped in your code sample, substituting the ornament surface name for "movie" and the ani-gif name for "!BackWall" and came up with the same result. Then tried omitting the ani-gif as the ornament texture name in the editor, but that just defaulted to a pinkish table BG.

So, question--
do you know of any tables (examples or full) where an animated surface is being used like this?

I'm thinking maybe I could start with that and see if I can transplant the code over to a wall surface on Commander Cody, then see if I can persuade it to work with the ornament.

Well as Ive been working on elmstreet mod and there is a shaking background, I have had it happen a few times. unless its a glitch

 

[AnonTet]

You sure that shake is not there on purpose? Like on Total Recall table? I'm just asking since have never played Elm Street table.

 

[GeorgeH]

I'm sorry, I guess I missed answering the question back in February. Getting old I guess.

The name of the surface where the video is displayed is "movie" in the example and the static image is named "!BackWall". The name of the gif file is "gif.gif" and you use the name "gif" (not the extension) in the code. Rav probably set this up like he did because he couldn't load the gif file directly into the texture for the object so he had to replace an existing texture. The "0" at the end of the code identifies the face of the object where the video is displayed.

I pulled the example from Avatar. The code in Avatar is a little different because the video was added to two objects, a wall, and a surface.

You might want to review this. I have never added a video to a toy before. Gimli knows more about this than I do. The face of the object might be different than "0" but I would try it first. Try reading this:

Tutorial - BAM - BAM Feature How-To Guides

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' TABLE OF CONTENTS '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' The following are now part of this thread: 1.Intro and Preamble 2.xBAM texture swapping for texture swapping of table and room...

pinballnirvana.com

 

[HZR]

You sure that shake is not there on purpose? Like on Total Recall table? I'm just asking since have never played Elm Street table.

it is there on purpose, it would be an example of an animated image if its a backwall... its a table that has either animated backwall or it changes the backwall to simulate a shake. anyways it may have been helpful.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Note: I got derailed from testing on the Commander Cody table, but this is bookmarked, and I plan to get back to it at some point.