Pinball Arcade with SweetFX - lightness control, bloom, etc.

[mpad]

Not yet, have to do a reinstall of my cab pc first. Next weekend!

 

[Tann]

Wow, that's awesome.

And FS who said that's not possible to add a day/night mode switch function (I don't mean the dynamic lighting, just a basic night mode).

 

[weirdproq]

These are all the screenshots I've taken so far - if you'd like to see how a specific table looks, just ask, I'd be happy to post comparison images.

I'd like to see how Junkyard, No Good Gofers, and Phantom of the Opera look with this.

 

[mpad]

Yeah its cool how do it ypurself this gets. Cab backglass switcher, sweetfx, VRcade oculus support, night mode with sweetfx...
Almost feel like visual pinball

 

[canuck]

Pretty impressive stuff!

 

[Xanija]

Did anyone have time to try the ini switcher?

Yeah, I did. No problems at all. The only issue I see is managing the ini-Files, i.e. not getting too many of them.

It would also be good to try out some other ini files if people want to share them.

Yep, good idea. Here's a setting I created for TOTAN. I have tried it on a few other tables, but I didn't find it useful yet for others than TOTAN.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdaaapgvoqa60qq/PAsettings001.txt?dl=0

Screenshot:




The next setting is for Attack from Mars and Who dunnit (edit: I also like it for Junk Yard, posting this for weirdproq):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iy93brawi9cmv46/PAsettings003.txt?dl=0

Screenshots:








Finally a setting I like for White Water and High Speed:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmhzo4s1vckeaqe/PAsettings004.txt?dl=0

Especially on High Speed I like it a lot when shooting up the ramp. Not posting any more screenshots, I think this is all best experienced when playing it yourself anyway.


Please try it and let me know what you think.

 

[IGoFirstIndy]

wish i played on PC these all look great! I think Whodunnit looks very understated and nice. i like that the light permeates through the entire playfield.

 

[weirdproq]

I also like it for Junk Yard, posting this for weirdproq:



Please try it and let me know what you think

Thanks for posting this picture. It looks pretty nice. I don't know if I'll use it because it might mess up my game, plus I'm kinda fine with waiting for the lighting upgrade.

 

[kane11]

Any chance to do this on PS4?

 

[Tann]

Any chance to do this on PS4?

If I understood well, it could be possible on any platform (even on mobile devices, well the most powerful ones of course). It just a matter of change the postprocessing settings (gamma, blur, bloom, etc).

That was asked to FS since the beginning: add a "night mode" setting but FS argued each time that it would require too much work (new assets, new graphics, and all that stuff).

 

[SilverBalls]

They look good. Will try those files tomorrow when I am back home. btw: The files can be named anything at the end so you can use table names if needed.

 

[SilverBalls]

SweetFXIniSwitcher v1.2

To overcome the problem of having too many config files and not knowing which one you have selected, I have just uploaded a new version of SweetFXIniSwitcher (v1.2) which will look for a WAV sound file with the same filename as the settings file you are switching to, and if one is found it will play the WAV file. This means you can create your own announcements appropriate for the setting file you have selected. eg: 'Settings for Terminator', 'Attack from Mars and Big Shot', 'Night Mode!', etc.

For example if you have a settings file called PASettings_AFM_BigShot.txt the program will play PASettings_AFM_BigShot.wav if found.

Same download link (if you installed a previous version, just copy the EXE and sound files from the zip to your folder. You can keep your existing config and any PASettings files that you have created):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyjm0khcf5xjemz/SweetFXIniSwitcher.zip?dl=0


I included some sound files as examples but you can create your own - just make sure the filename matching your config file but with a .WAV extension.

This website allows you to type text and download a short wav audio version.
http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

Example announcement:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9zzmnvrl60o8pz0/PAsettings001.wav?dl=0

 

[Xanija]

Sounds awesome! Have to try that over the weekend.

 

[MonkeyGrass]

This is hilarious.

FS won't do anything about the lighting on their "premier" platform, so let's crowd-source it among ourselves!! LOL!!

It's so incredibly "hard" or "impossible" for FS to do - yet an open source aftermarket snippet of code can do it.

This is great. I'm going to have to play around!! Thanks guys.

 

[Jim O'Brien]

This is hilarious.

FS won't do anything about the lighting on their "premier" platform, so let's crowd-source it among ourselves!! LOL!!

It's so incredibly "hard" or "impossible" for FS to do - yet an open source aftermarket snippet of code can do it.

This is great. I'm going to have to play around!! Thanks guys.

It reminds me of the person that created the backglass program and it's good to see these mods going on. One thing I'm wondering about with this is does your DMD take a hit and is it real dim due to the effects ?

 

[priested]

One thing I'm wondering about with this is does your DMD take a hit and is it real dim due to the effects ?

DMD does take a hit. It is dimmer but I find it to still be plenty usable. Trade off is worth it IMO. Opinions may vary on that though. I just see this as an alternative way of enjoying the table. I don't see myself using it all the time, just occasionally to create some variety. Glad it is available and easy to turn on and off.

 

[mpad]

If it was somehow possible to mod the textures of this game we would have decent playfields in no time. There are so may high res resources out there.
It just can't be that we are stuck with crappy resolutions (monster bash) on some really great tables, because fs didn't have a propper camera back then an now it is to complicated to disassemble the table or they don't own it anymore.
I am sure there are people out there willing to help out.

 

[mpad]

Hi all,

did you know The Pinball Arcade can be combined with various wrapper programs to change the postprocessing (and possibly more)? At least the ENB Series and SweetFX wrapper programs seem to work. I've especially tried SweetFX, it can change the lightness of the colors in many ways and also add a stronger bloom to lights. While it's not the same as a fully different lighting engine, to me it is more pleasing to look at than the original postprocessing.

To use SweetFX, all you need to do is download it and uncompress the archive into the directory where The Pinball Arcade files are (for example c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PinballArcade). You should then turn off The Pinball Arcade's own postprocessing since it will be replaced.

You can download SweetFx from this forum thread on NeoGAF forums. However, the version I used instead is a "package with Boulotaur's injector that uses CeeJay's latest SweetFX shaders", which is available for download here.

I created my own preset settings which darken the colors in tables (essentially a strong Gamma correction downwards) and then add a strong bloom effect - to me the result looks like playing pinball in a darker room with strongly shining lights. I'll post the contents of the preset in the next post. I've created a gallery of comparison screenshots between the original preprocessing and the one from SweetFX, I'll post them after the preset.

HELP!
I reinstalled my Cab today (Win8.1 64), lates Nvidia Driver, etc.
And I can't seem to get sweet FX to work again?!

What I did:
Dowloaded the guru version. Replaced files with Boulotaur_Injector_CeeJay_1.5.1_Shaders_CA.rar (64 bit dlls).
Put everything inn TPA folder.
Adjusted the Settings, set Keys for my german keyboard.
Now whatever I do it doesn't change anything.
Can this be related to my settings in th Nvidia driver where I control FXAA, Pre rendered framest etc.?
I have no Idea what went wrong.

 

[SilverBalls]

Did you disable the TPA Post Processing?

 

[SilverBalls]

I just found this mPad. Apparently you need to do more things to get SweetFX working with Win 8.1 - although this might be specific to AMD - not sure but he mentions nVidia:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1485750/how-to-use-sweetfx-in-windows-8-1

Edit:
Actually maybe this might be more useful as it covers nVidia:
http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=4858.0