the new VP build

[Shockman]

Does the joypad mapping work for any of you? i can assign buttons, but not axis.

Also using the stick converts VP to more a marble madness game than pinball.

The new plunger is looking good so far.

The primitives. I hope they are not taking as much time and energy as I think they might.

It still looks like VPdev is a matter of add, add, add, and no fixing. Would not be quite as bad if what was added was not bugged or incomplete. VP is going to be a big friggen mess if this continues. Like the earth, code can only take so much, until it is lost.

Yeah I said it. VP9 gets buggier with each release. Ban me if you can't take the truth. I never said it was a waste, just that it needs stuff that works. There is little point in stuff that don't.

If VP gets the dev with the right mindset, it is going to be great. There are good ideas, but there are known issues which as long as they exist, VP is going to be continue to look amateurish no matter what is added.

 

[Shockman]

On my system, with the starter table the plunger flashes, and is going up and down constantly with a dead zone at 99%.

On unclewilly's BBB it works better. It does not flash, but hardly ever engages. But when it does, it is better.

Is this an official version? It is labeled as Un-official, but Paul told me no links to un-official builds would be allowed. Maybe he just meant my builds. I could have did most of this.

 

[druadic]

Shocky;

I don't use a gamepad since what i have is 15 pin and I have no USB adapter for it.

As for the VP version, which version are you using? I'm using 9.09 (9.10 in the info area within VP) and I've not had a single problem.

9.12 has serious issues with many things, but I'm using 9.09 with no major malfunctions.

 

[Shockman]

I was talking about the new one that has gamepad mapping with the key mapping. It also has a new plunger, and a primitive 3D model. I don't know what else. Little if anything is working though. it's still labeled as 9.12

I have tried 9.09 on my last computer and it' had serious errors. I might give that build another try. FP has had some un-official work done and the guy that did that is saying the physics are better than VP's. Though this, if true, would put FP in VP's second to last place as far as modern Pinball physics, it might be worth another look as well being that it is a editor too.

 

[sleepy]

No, the Kodiak build of VPinball was released for the MS Sidewinder,
but my logitec has no pad axis/stick axis showing in the ScoreText.Text = keycode routine. Only buttons work.

Unless you have a working code??

Hey Thanks! I didn't even see the Primitive before you mentioned it.
Why the heck can't devs do that?
Oh yeah. One dev in post wanted to know why I would even want to highlight two or more Control Points at the same time...
I wasn't even asking for a dev upgrade. I was explaining that you can highlight two or more Control Points to help make sizing and scaling faster, for instance, resizing a Square Wall as a rectangle.

 

[sleepy]

The Primitive is only imaging as a side wall. Everything else is not visible.
That's a shame. It could make a very quick Slingshot.

I hope Kodiak is working on it. :)

 

[Shockman]

You can select more than one control point. You always could and you still can. Just hold shift and select all you want, unless there is a limit.

 

[sleepy]

Yes I know, but when I was explaining it to others, this dev wanted to know why the heck anyone would need to.

It's like the fading light routine. It takes four times the resources and four times the Lights for One Light.
Why not code the Light Object to accept on-the-fly RGB control from a Timer in the script instead?

I think RGB control of the ScoreText.Color is still available. Why not do the same for Lights?

The ScoreText routine is/was:

ScoreText.Color = RGB(255, 0, 0)

Put that in a Timer and replace the numbers with Dim values from a counter routine and the ScoreText/TextBox.Color will act exactly like a fading Light, changing intensity and color depending on the Dim values and the Timer's Interval.

ScoreText.Color = RGB(Dim, Dim, Dim)
Dim = Dim + 1 'or Dim = Dim - 1, whichever the desired direction of intensity/color/fade.

For Image Lights they could implement the DX Transforms for Images to tint or fade or control Opacity (Transparency).

 

[sleepy]

EDIT: The correct syntax for changing the color/intensity for the TextBox or ScoreText Object is:

ScoreText.FontColor = RGB(xxx, xxx, xxx)
TextBox1.FontColor = RGB(xxx, xxx, xxx)

Replace xxx with a number from 0 to 255, or use a Dim containing a value from 0 to 255.

You can change the color of the TextBox/ScoreText Object in script by using:

ScoreText.BackColor = RGB(xxx, xxx, xxx)
TextBox1.BackColor = RGB(xxx, xxx, xxx)

So why can't the same be done for Lights?

 

[Shockman]

I always wondered about the lights too. Stacking is kind of silly in this day and age. So much effort has gone into making lights fade and if someone wants it then they have to go through it all over again.

It's funny I know what you hear from devs. One I contacted once said to me 'it's only a game' though he turned out to be very nice and helpful. Control points are made like that for a reason, and there is a number of reasons for moving more than one. Just today a dev asked, "doesn't the game tilt' in reference to another member, not me, mentioning the ball can be driven with the nudge keys. Well no, sir, it most certainly does not always. Besides this happens the first nudge, with a single nudge, the machine better not tilt.

At least work is being done, but work for the sake of work, and not something that works is odd.

 

[unclewilly]

The fading lights actually only use 2 light objects and imo having rob control really wouldn't matter as the default vp lights look like crap.
The custom light object allows for global images to be mated to them the same as walls and using the on and off states of each of the 2 lights allows for the 4 step fade on 2 lights with uses way less resources than the old dropwall method. I can even do a full 8 step fading general illumination lighting in a table like totan with very little hit to the pc

 

[sleepy]

Thank you Uncle Willy. You got me thinking.
Yes, you use Images for Lights and I JUST REMEMBERED THAT, some time ago, I downloaded the source code for VPinball and discovered that the default Light Object is, I think, only an Image itself.
I think there's one for "On" and one for "Off" except that they can also be "colorized" by VP the same as an ActiveBall can have both an Image And a Color setting applied to it, but in real time from script. This can be useful when a ball passes under a colored Light.

So, the Image-Mapped Light Object was done by allowing substitution of the default Images for the Lights.

But, even the Image-Mapped Light might be more useful with a dynamic RGB control of the "colorizing".

Correct me if I'm wrong. I may have made the wrong conclusion, but I did see what looked like the Lights as grey Images in the Image files for VP source, along with the default Ball.

 

[unclewilly]

Im not sure sleepy.
The source code for vp is a little above my head.
It makes since that you should be able to change the color as well as the image via the script the same as you do for the ball. The only thing i can think is it either has an adverse effect on performance or it has something to do with the rendering.

I think the issues with development are mostly due to the mish mash of programmers that are involved and that they are trying to work with unfamiliar code. Trying not to break stuff as they add new things. I also think that the majority of the development team is clueless when it comes to building tables so some things that seem obvious to us that work in the editor and create tables so are not so obvious to a person who just writes code.
Like i said, imnot sure.
Imo just grateful that someone works on the source even if it is random and long between updates. And i would imagine the few that do contribute just work on things they are familiar with and that they know they can improve. I don't think too many of the des are actually that familiar with real pinball and how the machines work or someone surely would have taken on improving the nudge

 

[Itchigo]

9.09 works? Lmao! I had constant problems with 9.09! I was VERY partial to 9.07. In fact, I didn't upgrade 9.07 until I got an experimental version of 9.10. I use 9.1.2 with no problems, I've had that crash only a few times at the most.

 

[sleepy]

It sounds like I'm carping, but I am also very grateful for the Devs and for the program.

It's just that, with reams of platitudes (platitudes??) heaped on the program and the devs by most of us users, it pretty much leaves me with little new to say!

 

[unclewilly]

I don't think you're carping. There is a lot of stuff id like to see added or fixed with the program. I just wish i had the technical ability to do it. Makes you feel helpless and at the whim of developers who are just messing with the source code for fun in their free time.

What i personally would love to see but what i know will never happen, is for someone with a lot of experience with direct x knowledge to rewrite the code to work with the current version of direct x or at least dx 9. i think this would solve a lot of the hardware compatibility issues and allow the program to run smoother on current hardware and operating systems. Then someone could go back and fix what needs fixing.

But after a conversation with cupid, the guy who added the alpha transparency and was working on the primitives. He said updating to dx9 would be huge task and it would probably be easier to just rewrite the whole program.

I don't think he is currently developing the source anymore, i guess life got in the way.

The primitives was a good idea and would have made playfield toys such as the trunk in theater of magic possible with one object rather than 20 or 30 dropwalls .

I think the only hope for something better will be if someone writes a new editor from scratch with a decent physics engine. If i ever win the lottery ill commission someone to do it.

I thought maybe the slammit pinball guys would do it but they dropped off the face of the planet right before their editor was complete.

Now my hope lay with 2 possibilities.

Farsights the pinball arcade claim that they will eventually have an editor for the pc version of their game. Hopefully it can be coupled with pinmame.

Then there is the unity3d fp pinmame project. If the physics are as good as they claim, that may be the future for this hobby.

 

[sleepy]

Yep, that bothered me when the devs ignored the VP ActiveX Object and appear to refuse to fix it. It's there, but it's not working.

With that Object, there is a chance that we might be able to use it for sounds, for 3D Objects, etc.

There are old school DX Transforms, available loong ago for dynamic HTML at dial-up rates of baud, that would offer Light Effects (spotlights with surface casts at rotational angles), image rotation, Opacity/Transparency to control Images, but devs nixed the idea. If VP would convert the image of Objects to Image file format in the player display, then the DX transform filters could be used on the Objects, but that suggestion also went nowhere.

 

[unclewilly]

Yeah i haven't checked the sourceforge page for a while to see who is still even contributing code.
For a while toxie and cupid were contributing a bunch of code. Toxie mostly optimization updates and cupid was adding stuff. But i don't think either one have done much lately.

That's the thing also. The mish mash of codes can really only work on stuff they know how to do so we basically get what we get

 

[sleepy]

Well no.

The ActiveX Object was soundly nixed by a certain Dev who wanted to know why the heck I would use it, in spite of the Object being available but broken.

It was something that Randy added to *I think* VP6. It was buggy, so Randy disabled it.

Main problem with it, apart from being broken in VP, is the need to distribute the .ocx file (.ocx files are the ActiveX files containing the functions for the particular ActiveX Object) with the table.

As is, you can still use CreateObject in a VP script using a system-installed COM Object, preferably using .ocx files common to Windows. This is how the VPinMame.Controller is used, by installing the VPinMame.dll and by invoking it in script using the CreateObject method.

I found a way to invoke the Windows MediaPlayer invisibly in script as a COM Object for using midi files and other music files not recognized by VP without the need to install an add-on (VPMidi, VBRUN 6), but said dev wasn't interested in that either. You could conceivably use it for in-game video and tracking, say, an interactive Dragon's Lair game.

 

[unclewilly]

That sounds pretty cool.
I would imagine i know who said developer is.
He probably could have used that object for that pin2000 star wars project he was working on before the c&d order.

My friend Phil is working on a com object that will work with flash. It is primarily for dmds for originals but i would imagine it would work for video as well.

 

[Shockman]

...

 

[Shockman]

Being that this is your first post, it would be hard to argue that you never said...

Devs with the right mindset, and coding knowledge are the last people to expect features for VP from, in my opinion.

Such a person, or group, in terms of mindset and coding knowledge, I would expect would consider nothing less that a re-write.

The elemental structure is good enough for reference in my limited ability to analyze the source code, but it needs modernized.

It could be modernized and have full backwards compatibility, with advantages like a template which shows the new settings as it does the POV for example, and more visual structure to objects settings, and many bug fixes and features put back, but I suspect in the process so much more would be added, re-structured, and optimized that it would not be backwards compatible. But it could also get there and then advance to a second super version as well.

The mindset that there will only be one version though puts it in a box, and stagnates it's potential, in my opinion.

I agree though. With the right dev it would be great. 10 years ago it was already great, and for a long time it slowly got better. Inside the box it is still getting better, but the box it far too small for everyone and there is no indication that the box is getting an upsize. If it would split into two builds and break the chains that make full function across the variety of users and potential users a reality, it would break out of the box altogether.

Look down. You will see a keyboard. We all do. There is no complete keyboard in the box.

 

[Shockman]

It's nice that VP has advanced to supporting the layout for cabinet display and control hardware, and there is no point in suggesting I think otherwise, but if I could create a build that had a flipper restructured to act like a nail, reflective ball, plunger tip and spring, rails, and such in the template (starter table) in a week, which I did, then the nudging should be able to be fixed in a short time as well.

Looking at VP in the best light possible though, it has lost too much of it's basic function. Nudging for example to be written off so easily is something none of us would have ever believed would have happened to VP until it did. To read that it is right as it is in VP9, better than VP8, that competitive top players said the ball can be steered, suggesting that recoil is not needed or substantially less than the initial force, needs to be further complicated by making the result separate instead of a logical relationship to the force, is something that we would have all argued to 3 years ago when there was no examples of banned people that did, all point to the fact that VP did not just fall victim to the non functionality it now suffers, but that that was fought for for some reason.