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Paolo

No Bam no Play
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A big thank you to the staff administrators, who accepted that Bam was also here
 
I'm still wondering about the way the BAM and the Tutorials and Guides categories are setup, I'm not a huge fan of a Sub-Forum drop down for navigation and just found a setting that removes the drop down and lists the sub-forums instead, need to get some opinions about this.

Another thing I don't like is the newest post in the Categories only shows that last post made in the entire category, think we might want to consider Adding Bam as a top tier Category instead of under Future Pinball and just Label it BAM for Future Pinball or something, wondering if the Tutorials and Guides forums could also be moved into the Bam category or if it should also be a separate top level category.

Maybe it's fine the way it is currently, a drawback of my idea above is it would make the Forum listings larger.

:tetter:
 
Personally, I think it is fine the way it is. All you have to do is the click on "BAM" or "Tutorials and Guides" and you see everything blown out. I would rather not have BAM as a separate category because folks may not think it is a part of Future Pinball.
 
@JonPurpleHaze,
I tend to agree with you, Jon. Some people are probably going to straight-up miss the subcats the way it's set up right now. I mean, if there were a tonne of true subcategories, then yeah it would make sense setting them up this way, but as of now, it's hard for me to see the point keeping them relatively buried like this.


Maybe it's fine the way it is currently, a drawback of my idea above is it would make the Forum listings larger.

Agree with that also, although the site does have room for optimization IMO. Not sure whether to give you examples in this thread or take it to the staff area, but I have a couple ideas on slightly streamlining the forum listings that would hopefully be pretty painless.
 
We can have Future Pinball / BAM discussion combined

but instead of BAM as a heading what I meant when I suggested headings is "Ravarcades Corner" for BAM Release and Beta Notifications. some place where we can update users on BAM as it evolves. Uncluttered by General conversations.

George is correct there is no Future Pinball without BAM anymore.
 
George is correct there is no Future Pinball without BAM anymore.
But Gimli, isn't it true that devs like Tii, Mark1 and others are still working in vanilla FP, and that the audience who plays their tables don't need BAM to do so? (in any case, that seems to historically reflect PN's FP uploads / downloads for the most part)

Btw, if I'm understanding right, "ravarcade" is both an individual (Polish guy?) and a site / category of releases? Kinda confused on all that.

Also, did ravarcade post much at GoPinball, such that we might expect (him?) to show up here one day and share thoughts?
 
But Gimli, isn't it true that devs like Tii, Mark1 and others are still working in vanilla FP, and that the audience who plays their tables don't need BAM to do so? (in any case, that seems to historically reflect PN's FP uploads / downloads for the most part)

Btw, if I'm understanding right, "ravarcade" is both an individual (Polish guy?) and a site / category of releases? Kinda confused on all that.

Also, did ravarcade post much at GoPinball, such that we might expect (him?) to show up here one day and share thoughts?


Tii seems to be a graphics guy and has some visually appealing tables and Mark does cool stuff with holograms

BAM is backward compatible so they still can release their tables even uder the FP BAM banner.

But we are hoping for rennaisance of creativity with FP using BAM.

Rav has is own page but tends to respond at GoPonball he checks most days.. I havent pm'd him about PN .

Terry is on dischord with Rav regularly re: BAM pinup

Rav is very soft spoken
 
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But we are hoping for rennaisance of creativity with FP using BAM.

That's what I was pretty much gathering, yeah.

I don't mean that in a negative way. I love how you guys are kicking booty upon this stuff. More of a devil's advocate sort of Q, because I wonder about the long-time users used to tables from meklek, Francisco, Mark1, fastdraw etc.

AFAIK vanilla FP is 'normal' for such users, and they might not care in the slightest about BAM or need it to run the tables they like.

Again, sorry if I'm being a pain. I tend to hash out future possibilities in order to save trouble down the road. Sometimes I'm just a clueless trouble-maker, though. I figure Jon and Paul can maybe vouch for that!
 
Hi...to all you....any menu setting, Bam, for me it is already a finishing line ... and I thank you again (staff-administrators), I think you can only improve it and make it become appreciable for users, who love Bam.

the main goal was: to give users a chance, first of all, here in this place, and then of course for those who want to know BAM, and what can offer him ..... then everyone is free to choose what to play with, and what program use

I still don't understand what this is "AFAIK vanilla FP".... but Bam is the evolution of FP ..... normal FP has many flaws and bugs, (physics, scores, lights, gravity. and much more) but this is because the author of FP has not been available for further updates, which as we all know an update of a program is fundamental for the survival of the latter.

now BAM, do all this, it makes FP much better than we can only imagine:eek:
and for those who love to play pinballs (whatever it is), they would like to play at their best, don't you agree with this?
if we buy a 1000 euro phone, after 2 years, you have to update it, if you want the top, or those 1000euro spent go up in smoke.

what you say is true there are many users who don't want to use Bam .... this is very sorry to me, for me they don't want to use Bam, and always create the same tables, always the same soup sooner or later I don't like it anymore.....
but without BAM, a table like Krull, or Rat-race, it is not possible to do make and play.

anyone boy, is free to choose to play in better mode or to stay as he wants, after all we only give a suggestion to be able to play in the best mode, and for free

FP, alone is like the same soup, but with BAM, it is always a different thing to eat ..... and it is good for the body:bigdance:

I forgot, this .... I want to share this with you all, never done before, this is a gift from Gianfranco (Franzleo)...it is the icon of Bam, insert it to the fploader....use it I recommend :cool:
 

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Even if the table developer does not use any of the new BAM functions, BAM still fixes some bugs in the FP program. Remember whenever we would update anything on the Table Info screen that the fonts on the loading screen would turn black? Also, BAM fixed FP's memory leaks. Plus, you can always apply an XML to change the physics. So BAM is still worth using even if the table does not need it.
 
When I first started using FP, I was amazed at what it did by itself and had a lot of fun using it. However, to some degree it did not feel or look how I wished it could. I had heard about BAM a little later, but felt "intimidated" because it sounded complex, I did not understand what it really did and was not sure how to install it... At that time there just was not much info about it. Eventually, I installed it and was stunned! What a huge difcerence it made! Even on tables that don't require BAM, it was night and day. I now have a cab setup and it is even more crucial to have. The Install is easy. And thanks to people like Terry, there are easy guides, and combo installers that make it simple. So, yes, you can use FP without it, but you miss out on a lot features for tables both old and new. In a way, I consider FP and BAM to be a single new program that has backwards compatibility, along with great enhancements. When people ask about installing FP, I always recomend installing BAM as well.
 
There is no FP today without BAM as far as I'm concerned. It's really that simple. A table developer doesnt have to use BAM features in their tables... but they should always be using FP through BAM... everytime. To play...edit...anything. They have nothing lose, but everything to gain.
 
The pup-plugin support for PinEvent is coming along nicely. You now have the options to display a pup stream on the FP Backglass, PUP FullDMD on the BG (with stern style grill), Left Apron Card, Right Apron Card, Left HUD and Right HUD.

I'm using Overlays for everything..the wood frames, the BG, Full DMD, Speaker Grill, the HUD Displays, and using two holograms for the Apron cards.

This works in all modes, and is smart enough to only allow the HUD on Desktop mode...but it's also smart enough to not display a specific option (Apron, HUD,etc) if the window its set to stream from is not detected. It will use a transparent TGA instead of switching to the texture the stream is using).

You can choose what window is displayed on each one...so it doesn't have to be like what I show with the same thing on everything.

That said... you wouldn't want more than 2 different window streams probably as the fps will drop in the video streams after that. (but you can use any stream as much as you want with no drop in fps)

Halloween_ULTIMATE Pro 1.02 PE (PinEvent 1.2) pup test.png

Halloween_ULTIMATE Pro 1.02 PE (PinEvent 1.2) pup test2.png

Halloween_ULTIMATE Pro 1.02 PE (PinEvent 1.2) pup test3.png




Man.... this forum software is amazing....so much nicer than others as it lets you just copy and paste images or drag and drop them in.... and not so restricting on size...so much nicer guys!
 
Thanks for all the feedback, examples and info. I may only retain about 15% of it for the time being, but hopefully I've learned the important stuff-- that BAM is pretty much an essential, fantastic, organic advance in FP. I guess it was highly fortunate that Black allowed this kind of future plugin / expansion before he abandoned FP, eh?

That reminds me about something I don't think I ever properly learned the answer to. Namely, where does FP/BAM stand in regard to interfacing with pinMAME?

Also, has anyone yet made the supreme effort of doing a workaround by re-creating the complex DMD-style tables from the late 80's / early 90's onward?

Btw, yeah, I like this forum software a lot, too. As Jon said, we're still kinda learning it ourselves. It does also have some annoying limitations that we're trying to find workarounds for, such as limitations with the resources system. It wasn't really built with something in mind like what we're doing here, which I guess covers simulation software in general. Still, even at it's most troublesome, it's not bad.

There's also the fact that XenForo is a cutting edge suite actively being developed and improved, unlike vBulletin, which has been a dead duck now for some time.
 
Man.... this forum software is amazing....so much nicer than others as it lets you just copy and paste images or drag and drop them in.... and not so restricting on size...so much nicer guys!

compliments to all the staff and administrators :cool:
 
Thanks for all the feedback, examples and info. I may only retain about 15% of it for the time being, but hopefully I've learned the important stuff-- that BAM is pretty much an essential, fantastic, organic advance in FP. I guess it was highly fortunate that Black allowed this kind of future plugin / expansion before he abandoned FP, eh?

That reminds me about something I don't think I ever properly learned the answer to. Namely, where does FP/BAM stand in regard to interfacing with pinMAME?

Also, has anyone yet made the supreme effort of doing a workaround by re-creating the complex DMD-style tables from the late 80's / early 90's onward?

Many real tables from the 80's and 90's DMD era have been made for FP over the years. They didn't use any roms at all though.

As for VPinMAME... "today" that is now possible using the new iCOM BAM plug-in that allows FP to use any com objects (which is what VPinMAME, PUP, DOF,etc use). The plug-in is what allowed me to create PinEvent for full direct support of Pinup Player's features and DOF.

So if someone wanted... they could adapt most of the same scripts that VPX uses for VPinMAME to use on FP... and then create / edit a table to use VPinMAME. It's a matter of someone smart enough to get it all working correctly...and making a table to use it. I've done a test to have FP startup VPinMAME and even a directb2s backglass...but that's it.
 
... It's a matter of someone smart enough to get it all working correctly...and making a table to use it. I've done a test to have FP startup VPinMAME and even a directb2s backglass...but that's it.

I am afraid that is not me. I am barely able to figure out the new BAM stuff, some of which I still do not understand. What does VPinMAME do for us anyway?
 
I am afraid that is not me. I am barely able to figure out the new BAM stuff, some of which I still do not understand. What does VPinMAME do for us anyway?

VPinMAME is what emulates the roms for various pinball machines. It also outputs the dmd and other displays for those machines to a window. So if a FP table was made complete but had no code...then essentially all the "game code" is ready to got in the rom. FP would just start VPinMAME and the "game" would start. FP tells it what switches are hit / triggered, and VPinMAME will respond based on the input from FP. It also would output the state of all the light / flashers back to FP,etc.
 
TerryRed said:
As for VPinMAME... "today" that is now possible using the new iCOM BAM plug-in that allows FP to use any com objects (which is what VPinMAME, PUP, DOF,etc use). The plug-in is what allowed me to create PinEvent for full direct support of Pinup Player's features and DOF.
Thank you, and wow... how about that?

Upon reflection, I guess doing ROM emulation the 'workaround way' is greatly enhanced by being able to use pinMAME to grab all the audio and visuals. Still a pretty fearsome task to me, but... yeah. I'll have to look at some of the FP tables you alluded to in order to see how it comes off.

So if someone wanted... they could adapt most of the same scripts that VPX uses for VPinMAME to use on FP... and then create / edit a table to use VPinMAME. It's a matter of someone smart enough to get it all working correctly...and making a table to use it. I've done a test to have FP startup VPinMAME and even a directb2s backglass...but that's it.
Can't help thinking that someone like @destruk would be a natural at that, probably some other authors as well. Maybe others at VPF, as well.
 
Thank you, and wow... how about that?

Upon reflection, I guess doing ROM emulation the 'workaround way' is greatly enhanced by being able to use pinMAME to grab all the audio and visuals. Still a pretty fearsome task to me, but... yeah. I'll have to look at some of the FP tables you alluded to in order to see how it comes off.


Can't help thinking that someone like @destruk would be a natural at that, probably some other authors as well. Maybe others at VPF, as well.

Much more work from the coding side for sure. The benefit to that has been being able to have tables that not only have the equivalent to the rom's game modes...but also additional new modes and better sound / music compared to the original rom...and without the need for Pinsound or other solutions like VPX does.

Some tables have... in my opinion... been made MUCH better on FP than the original game. Some examples are Iron Man Ultimate Pro and Indiana Jones (Stern) Ultimate Pro, F14 Tomcat Ultimate Pro,etc.

Here's some gameplay from Indy

 
Much more work from the coding side for sure. The benefit to that has been being able to have tables that not only have the equivalent to the rom's game modes...but also additional new modes and better sound / music compared to the original rom...and without the need for Pinsound or other solutions like VPX does.

Some tables have... in my opinion... been made MUCH better on FP than the original game. Some examples are Iron Man Ultimate Pro and Indiana Jones (Stern) Ultimate Pro, F14 Tomcat Ultimate Pro,etc.

Here's some gameplay from Indy

2I0U54ex_AA
Well, I'll be danged.

I have a VPX version somewhere, and I don't remember the full-color video at all. Looks awesome! Is that speficially an example of new content added in FP?

Apart from that, the source graphics look better in this version, too. I didn't care for the VPX version much, which is a shame, since I love this movies and Williams' Indy game. Are you the author?

Anyway yeah, I'm thinking we should get that table uploaded here(!)
 
Well, I'll be danged.

I have a VPX version somewhere, and I don't remember the full-color video at all. Looks awesome! Is that speficially an example of new content added in FP?

Apart from that, the source graphics look better in this version, too. I didn't care for the VPX version much, which is a shame, since I love this movies and Williams' Indy game. Are you the author?

Anyway yeah, I'm thinking we should get that table uploaded here(!)

I'm definitely not the author. :)

Any table that is designated Ultimate Pro are made or modded by SLAMT1LT.
 
I'm definitely not the author. :)

Any table that is designated Ultimate Pro are made or modded by SLAMT1LT.
Okay, I see his profile page over at Wixsite. Any idea what his stance is on his work being uploaded to different sites? If there's any doubt, I could always contact him.

Would love to see what the FP downloaders here think of his enhanced IJ re-creation.
 
Slam says we can modify any of his tables as long as long we don't convert them to VP but he hasn't said anything about posting them unchanged. I have modified some and Terry has added DOFLinx to some.
 
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