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JonPurpleHaze

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Just a preliminary note about this forum, added it a long time ago after seeing some comments from users about it being missing, it hasn't been visible or active until now. Thinking about renaming the category to exclude "New", haven't introduced myself before, been here over 17 years..

My name is Jon, PurpleHaze was added due to my combined appreciation for the Minnesota Vikings football team, purple and gold uniforms, PurpleHaze was a defensive team name years ago some what due to the artist formerly being named (and alive), Prince, from Minneapolis, this defense was a much lower rated "D" than the feared defense called The Purple People Eaters of the 70's.

Also loved Jimi Hendrix years ago, discovered pinball when I was about 10 in my grandfathers restaurant/bar in PA, in the late 60's, he spoiled all of his grandchildren (6) with lots of coins!

:pinball:
:welcome2:
:welcome1:
(edited, Thanks Ike, lost 4 years somewhere)
 
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been here over 13 years..
Eh, didn't you co-found the site with Tilt, 17 years ago?

.

My name is "Nic," but "Ike" works just fine. English is technically my third language and the USA is the third country I lived in, but I'm basically a Yank at this point. I first played pinball on a regular basis not in the arcade, but via cool computer simulations of Black Knight (David's Midnight Magic) and Firepower (Raster Blaster) by the same genius who created Pinball Construction Set, which of course, VP, FP and others are derivatives of. That was via Commodore 64 and Apple ][. Back in that day.

I used to own some EM's, and greatly enjoyed fixing them up, but my health isn't the best anymore, and I don't get out much to play real machines, nor usually have the mental reflexes and energy to play all the cool, latest stuff in VP and FP. But that's okay, because as an artist, writer and historian of sorts, I still enjoy curating the older VP tables, most especially the originals, which are chock full of ideas never yet implemented in real-life games.

I'm also a regular reader and reviewer of bandes dessinees (Euro graphic novels), a tournament-level table tennis player, amateur zoologist and public karaoke singer. What a combination, huh?
 
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Greetings,
My name is Bob from Ontario, Canada. I have been a Family Doc since 1992.
I have been a part of the GoPinball group for the past 6 years.
I am a tweaker and know a lot of the BAM features and some general future pinball tricks.

I can code most things ( in my own self taught, inefficient way)

I am not a table designer or builder and I tend to love concepts and ideas and innovations , but am fairly weak on the detail side of things :)
 
Don't really need to introduce myself, I'm pretty sure everyone knows who I am by now.

I'm the mad scientist of the bunch, someone who dreams up stuff but never seems to be able to pull it off. When I do though... :)

Like all the best guys, I'm Canadian, live in the Banana belt on the west coast. I spend most of my time being led around by my family, and spending large amounts of time stuck in women's clothing stores with my girl friend. I've been part of pinball in one way or another since 1979, when I was just a kid and go on routes with a old time operator. Since then, arcade owner, distributor, websites, old vp dev, and now just another table designer.

I've alway tried to do something special for the community, hope I can continue to do so. Jungle Girl's next release will have a new version of shivaFlippers, which could be something we all deserve, superior FP flippers, (hehe, I did say I dream up stuff) fpxEngine, and then maybe I can finally start work back again on my frankenpin so I can get people to help pull it off. :)

Over 20 years I have been part of this. Time does fly
 
My name is... shocking... Terry from Ontario Canada.

I've been an electronics technician for about 25 years now. Worked at a company for 15 years doing electronics repairs for Chrysler and consumer electronics until Windsor got hit hard by the automotive crisis and lost that job at a time when Windsor had the highest unemployment rate in the country.

Since then I joined the military and have been an Army communications and electronics technician for 5 years... and now the same thing for the Airforce for 5 years. There are times where I can be far away from home for months at a time.

Got heavily into virtual pinball about 5 years ago, and built my cabinet barely knowing much about real cabinets, since I hadn't played a real pinball table in 20 years prior :( (no access to any)

I am pretty involved in most virtual pinball communities... as I very knowledgeable with VPX, FP, BAM, FX3, cabinets, hardware lighting and feedback, pup, ssf, vr...etc.

I have done a lot of work on both the FP and VPX side for adding DOF (hardware feedback and lighting for cabinets), adding pup-packs (videos,etc) and more.

I have very recently created my own PinEvent standard which is aimed at making FP tables up to date to support DOF, SSF, PuP, PUPDMD, and now PUP stream, as well as updating older tables to use new BAM features properly to make them look and play much better than they were able to before.

Here is a demo video that gives you a better idea of what I do with PinEvent:



...and my Youtube channel will show you the crazy amount of other things I have done.




My "plan" is to progressively update the tables I like to PinEvent. Some will be major updates like RetroFlair BAM Edition was...other will be more BAM modernizations. The great thing with PinEvent and the way I update tables is they will work for everyone. Desktop, Cabinet, VR, etc. If you don't have pup or DOF...then the table works like normal without those features.

I'm starting with SLAM's latest U-Pro tables...and then from there I'll probably update some older tables. I was definitely planning on modding Steve's tables (@polygame) for PinEvent...and along the way updating to use newer BAM features as well.

So much has changed with BAM that the older methods of doing things that were restrictive are no longer needed (playfield surface swaps, dark playfield textures,etc). With the right new modern lighting setup for the entire table dialed in correctly...a table can have a complete transformation to look so much nicer without needing to change up the table's core look and gameplay.

Once I'm done with updating PinEvent 1.4 for PuP Stream and release it (along with the updated tables)...and I do some install and setup videos for it to help you guys who want to try it out... then I'll get on to doing more table updates.

The biggest thing is... it's possible I may be deployed to Alert (the north pole) for 6 months come August. If that follows through then I'll be working on a lot of tables while I'm up there... but the Internet acces is very slow and restricted to say the least (its a military sat comm link). So I may come back with a whole bunch of new updated tables...who knows.
 
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no problem Terry, I 'd like to revisit my table as well and put maybe more animated sequences and updated graphic for DarkQuest, lunch taketOut, etc...
I feel so much far away from where you guys have progressed, it's insane. anyway...also please...call me Steve, I hate nickname.

does BAM make it possible to connect with the web now? I could build a nice Scoreboard in HTML5 and Php!
 
no problem Terry, I 'd like to revisit my table as well and put maybe more animated sequences and updated graphic for DarkQuest, lunch taketOut, etc...
I feel so much far away from where you guys have progressed, it's insane. anyway...also please...call me Steve, I hate nickname.

does BAM make it possible to connect with the web now? I could build a nice Scoreboard in HTML5 and Php!

BAM's COM Extensions plug-in makes it possible to use any COM object with FP now. So that is how I'm able to directly use Pinup Player (to display videos and pupdmd on a "separate" window from FP) and DOF for the cabinet support.

So I imagine it's possible to make it work somehow for web server or browser access of some sort. PuP uses javascript and also has a webserver... but my knowledge of javascript is limited. (when I created new themes for Pinup Popper, it was painful to learn javascript, and I've already lost everything i knew about javascipt already, lol).

If you want a nice new up to date install and setup guide for both FP and BAM on cabinets... my new video will help you out and my Mega Guide will answer some questions. If followed and using the same settings I show, you will have no issues running all tables in cabinet view correctly without crashing, etc. (I hope). The setup is fairly quick (15 to 20 mins)... the rest of the video is all BAM info and settings,etc. I have bookmarks in the video description so you can jump right into some spots.



...and a desktop only version as well...



...and my Mega Guide...

 
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thx so much for that...I was afraid I'd have to read a lot of stuff...which I hate...
Definitly, this is what I am doing tomorrow
 
I guess since we are all introducing ourselves, I am GeorgeH and probably the only guy that uses my real name online. I found out a few things about these guys I work with that I didn't know. I am retired and living in Arkansas USA. I never played pinball all that much when I was a kid though I did play a few times on some EM tables. I didn't want to spend much money on pinball at the time. I don't have a pinball cabinet but I have figured out how to use BAM's Static Cam menu to orient my single 27 inch monitor vertically. My monitor rotates so it it easy to set up so I rotate it back to landscape orientation for other uses.

I have been updating tables with the new BAM features. In fact, you might recall I updated two of yours. I started out adding custom physics to tables and expanded to add new BAM features as Ravarcade created them. I have had critics of my physics say the ball plays too slow on my modded tables. I am getting older so my reaction time is not as fast as it used to be although my slower physics may also be reminiscent of the few EM tables I played as a kid. I am really into lighting now because Ravarcade has added quite a few new lighting features to BAM. I have not heard too much criticism of my lighting even though I don't make them quite as dark as some tables I have seen. For the life of me, I don't get why some guys make them so dark you can't see anything. I am not all that good at scripting although I do some. In fact, I modded Gimli's code for dynamic flippers that we use now.
 
I have had critics of my physics say the ball plays too slow on my modded tables. I am getting older so my reaction time is not as fast as it used to be although my slower physics may also be reminiscent of the few EM tables I played as a kid.
As a past owner of EM's, and even as a kid who would occasionally play them on trips to amusement parks. I'm generally baffled why so many authors routinely overpower the virtual flipper coils. Even @bob, a long-time member in the VP scene, and someone who grew up with EM's as a kid, IMO drastically overpowered the flippers in the recent upload Knockout (Bally, 1975).

Because even NIB, flipper coils up to maybe the late 70's just weren't that powerful.

Indeed, the playfield layouts of EM-era tables were intrinsically designed such that a really nicely-timed shot, in the right circumstances, was necessary to get the ball up to the top of the table. The point of battling the slingshots, modest flippers and outlanes in the lower-half was to set up opportunities to be Babe Ruth, and slug a fat pitch up in the stands.*

In other words, you couldn't just accidentally slop a ball with a glancing flipper shot back up to the top of the table, which is again, why so many of the EM re-recreations need physics adjustments IMO. I'm thinking modern flippers are probably 2-3.5x as powerful as flippers up to the SS era were.


* American baseball fan stuff
 
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Hello,
I'm Popotte, an old french man living really near Paris (about 50m).
Well, I'm on the scene since 2004 and was registered to a lot of defunct sites (Shiva's site, VPForum (the old one), VPOH, VPGD, ...).
I helped some guys for VP (tiltjlp and mainly Ian). Ian pushed me to recreate table with VP. I tried, but to difficult for me. Then, a miracle with FP!
No more problem to built a table (scripting was never a problem for me). So, I built a lot of tables, mainly EM's (I began to play in about 1965...).
I joined PN in october 2004. A few days later, Jon asked for some help for IRP. Well, why not. A few days after, I was introduced admin for IRP!
Cool site: mainly lovely EM's, no forum...
Well, it's all for the moment.
 
...seems like amongst all the pinball community website in the sea...I found the lifeboat of an exquisite crew. thx Shiva!
 
As a past owner of EM's, and even as a kid who would occasionally play them on trips to amusement parks. I'm generally baffled why so many authors routinely overpower the virtual flipper coils. ...

Thanks for posting this. I have tried to make myself speed the ball up but the speed I create seems to be burnt into my brain. I have watched videos of some solid state tables that play fairly fast but not as fast as some virtual tables play. Even then, I think owners of real tables can change how fast a table plays so the video I saw may have had the ball speed tweaked.
 
Hallo all to you.

I'm Paolo, wild, is the consequence of my email, wildfang @ xxxxxxxx, taken from a game of mame,at the time I didn't know what wild meant in English I'm not a "wildman", I'm Italian, and I live in Sicily. Sicily is not only "mafia", it has many beautiful things to see and good to taste and offer.

Maybe someone already knows...... I am a type, a bit particular, (who is not) and only does not say it ...... I do not like it, the teasing of others, and especially those who ignore me, I always say what I think, directly, without hiding, in fake facades.


9 years ago I met FP, and I immediately fell in love with it, remembering the days spent in the games room, I am a mediocre builder of FP, "someone didn't believe it" but it took me many years to learn, thanks to friends like Franzleo, Popotte , Gimli, and someone else.

Gopinball and Pinsim, was the home of FP, for many years, the site is going through stormy waters, but I think maybe one day it will return to its old splendor.


Now thanks to guys, like.... Shiva, Ike, Jon, and obviously to other administrators, PN, could become the next home of FP... it is especially of Bam,thanks to all of you for this excellent site

Best regards
 
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Hi Everyone!

As a very new Virtual Pinball enthusiast; unlike all of those before me, I found Future Pinball back in the fall ( 'Autumn' ;) ) of 2015; having not experienced many 'real' pinball tables here in the UK (and living in such a rural county...), and thought that it would be a great hobby to get involved in. There were so many different aspects of a table build / design... so surely there must be something that I could do that may assist / support some of the amazing table authors out there. Wind forward 5 years, and I'm still trying to learn most of the basic elements, let alone the now mandatory BAM (if you wish to enjoy some of the newest and awesome features now available ** Thanks @ravarcade ** ? ) - but having great fun in the process.

One day I am hoping to build my own cabinet (yes - another VP table wannabe owner... with no actual building skills) - but do hope to start the build before the end of the year (perhaps one for this site; if you can hang around for a few more years that is...), as I have 'most' of the components to get started, along with plenty of toys - so will be using the video tutorials provided by @TerryRed / @MajorFrenchy to help me along the way.

The 'old git' in me absolutely adores the Dot Matrix Display, so many great memories of coding 'space invader' type sprites (well the 8-Bit alphabet character equivalent) on the ZX 80/81. Therefore, this is where I seem to spend most of my time, trying to use PinMAME to emulate all the required shots in order to see & capture the DMD animations (including 'Easter Eggs' where applicable) for a Future Pinball equivalent DMDClock, along with the Games Music/SFX. I also enjoy creating *dmdf Fonts, either directly in the Future Pinball editor or through the use of other tools (i.e. DMDpaint / Gfx2dmdf), as well as the occasional DMD animation.

So, do I have the skills to help out? Probably not (as DMD's are soooo yesterday - Long live the PupDMD!)... but I have enjoyed being a member at GoPinball, and hope to continue the enjoyment and fun here!

Also, and if still reading - I use the name 'Gin', as a number of years ago (when I had hair) - it was Ginger :eek:; strawberry blond sounds so much better, so have always been known to friends and family as Gin; although my mother calls me Andrew... go figure?. You can probably tell from my introduction - I could (can) waffle for Britain; as the expression goes - so please bear with me if I ever try to reply/respond... I will eventually get there ** may be better to never ask LOL **
 
So, do I have the skills to help out? Probably not (as DMD's are soooo yesterday - Long live the PupDMD!)... but I have enjoyed being a member at GoPinball, and hope to continue the enjoyment and fun here!

If you want to build an authentic recreation of a real table, you still need a DMD. You are the only one I know able to extract them from a ROM. Maybe you could figure out have to use the color DMDs that one of the guys on VP Universe is posting. All you need to do is search for colorization and you will find lots of them.
 
[copy from account steveparadis] Hello there, my name is Steve,

Been around long, been away for a while also. I thought about maybe getting my toes wet again but health is coming and going so full implication on a project might be hard at this time around. we'll see. I have been a javascript /html5 programmer for the last 3 years and in the process, I completely lost my VBscript ability I'm afraid.

I dusted off and old version of BAM/FP to install on my cabinet dedicated to pinballfx3 since it was build, to find out that most of tables are unplayable (crashing down on load). Could be the downloaded source, the Bam version I don't know.

I am pretty amazed at what is has become though (BAM/FP), Rafal and the crew did a really good job!

If someone need help with conceptualization or design...maybe 3d model, please let me know.
 
[copy from account steveparadis]
I dusted off and old version of BAM/FP to install on my cabinet dedicated to pinballfx3 since it was build, to find out that most of tables are unplayable (crashing down on load). Could be the downloaded source, the Bam version I don't know.

I suggest using the 2 in 1 installer that installs both FP and BAM. Just run it no matter what you have installed and it will update it to the current version. There is a screen where you select what to install. I would suggest checking everything.

https://www.ravarcade.pl/files/FP-BAM-setup.exe
 
I suggest using the 2 in 1 installer that installs both FP and BAM. Just run it no matter what you have installed and it will update it to the current version. There is a screen where you select what to install. I would suggest checking everything.

https://www.ravarcade.pl/files/FP-BAM-setup.exe

That is actually his older message just using his new alias (for clarification). He's actually all installed and setup and working now with FP and BAM.
 
Sorry for the miscommunication George
 
Sorry for the miscommunication George
Ooh, so it's a CSIS thing? Never fear, never fear!

(George, we never had this conversation! Er, what was your name again?)
 
Have no idea why I'm posting here but why not since I am home bound. Many people know me and I get along with most but there are some that I have not gotten along with. Not a big deal really since I've been around since the release of VP2 or 3. Most folks at VPF know me as the "flipperless guy" who like to make machines from the 1800's to around 1940.

I've done a few flippered machines but that's about it. I prefer games that REQUIRE usage of nudging and skill. I find flippers are boring and most of the older machines are really forms of artwork considering the wood and play field imagery or graphics. To most VP users, this makes no sense so they pretty much discard or throw me to the wayside which is how I like it and for good reason; less flipperless players means less complaints. I've learned to love my position in the VP arena even though it can get lonely and I've been told "flipperless and skill machines are pretty much worthless" by numerous VP players and authors. I assume they have no appreciation of the artwork or skill by these pioneers of what is known today as "pinball". They know who they are and each day I sit back, laugh at them and enjoy what I do.

I've retired from VP twice but seem to get drawn right back into it because of my passion for these flipperless and non bumper machines. I don't ask then go right back to making them again for some reason. I just love them. No one else seems to want to make them even though they are an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT area from where pinball actually started. I wish I could explain some of the long processes it takes to make a single table especially if the graphics are blurry, dirty or just downright nasty looking but I don't let that discourage me from re creating a table. I LOVE to redraw play fields and graphics from the start to the finish.

Anyway, nice to see others out there that appreciate Visual Pinball as much as I do. A BIG thank you to the gracious Randy Davis whom made this all possible and to the two sites I frequent for keeping VP alive: Pinball Nirvana and Rogue Pinball. Big thanks guys! Hope to see you hanging out around here for some nice chit chat.
 
@druadic,
Oi Will, what's the source of your handle / ID, anyway? I don't think I ever learned that, and we're going on twenty years now, lol.

Guessing there's a Celtic / Gallic angle there... maybe?
 
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