PBA : Free Camera Mod

[mpad]

There is someone who already modded the cam with a launcher and nothing happened. Remember the occlus rift mod? I tried to encourage him to use his skills for a portrait cam mode, but no luck.

I really think this will just ease the wait for cab people until FS brings it's own cab suppor. Soon.
The official cab mode will feature a better cam with keystone correction for the back part of the playfield etc.

 

[hammr25]

That would definitely be cool to play around with.

 

[switch3flip]

Farsight should be thanking you. You rule.

 

[JPelter]

The guy who made the rift implementation says this:

The patch works by hooking the graphics calls made by Pinball Arcade and inserting extra operations to take control of the camera and enable stereo support. The patch doesn't contain any code from Pinball Arcade itself - it simply intercepts graphics calls and retranslates them to a stereo render.

I don't know if that makes it legal or not, or if this works the same way, but maybe?

 

[SilverBalls]

Many games with a strong community following will have mods (or add-ons is a better word) generated for them. If a game is popular it is inevitable that is will happen, and you can't really stop it. Probably better to embrace it and feel flattered that people care enough about your product that they go to the effort to enhance it.

Look at SweetFX. It doesn't stop people buying a game. If anything it creates a buzz around a game - people end up spending many man months of effort tweaking graphical settings, something most small/medium-sized software houses can never do.

If this camera tool ends up being released, people here will spend months coming up with the best settings for all the PA tables and posting them. It won't cost Farsight a carrot, but they can feed off the user feedback and apply what they see fit to the official game.

Yes I want this tool

 

[Dedpop]

I vote this the best first post on the forum, ever.

Really Gord ?
I thought it was mine.

 

[Dedpop]

While the masses are clearly hungry for this, you may want to secure FarSight's legal blessing before distributing/releasing anything. Intellectual property law is notoriously thorny, and even if FarSight is OK in principle with your mod, they may be forced to disallow it for legal reasons.

Yep.

 

[Jeff Strong]

I don't see why Farsight would have a problem. Modding is good for the community, but yeah it's probably best to check. Maybe they should hire you.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

I see it more akin to a script extender/launcher such as skse for Skyrim. Nothing to be worried about from a legal standpoint since all it does is leverage an already exposed API.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I don't see why Farsight would have a problem. Modding is good for the community, but yeah it's probably best to check. Maybe they should hire you.

It's not FarSight I think would have an issue (although this mod would compete with one of the features of the Pro mode) so much as their lawyers might. IP law is tricky, and in some cases if you don't vigorously defend your IP, you may lose the right to do so in the future.

 

[The loafer]

If this works like the occulus rift mod, I see no issue legally. There should not be as long as files aren't modified. If they are, then yeah, might be a good idea to check with Farsight.

Irrelevant of this, I sure hope it's possible to see this released. Seriously, this is awesome!

 

[Pinandy]

I also would like to see this released for my cab.
I hope, Farsight will allow this. It would be a great workaround till we get full cabinet support.

 

[MontanaFrank]

If I was FarSight, I'd be talking giving big cash to this person for his mod. They would make money from most of us for this, wouldn't they. I certainly pay.

Thanks NoEx, I'm bounding with joy. I've been sicker than sick this week. You made my day and my year with your first post. Camera angles in TPA is one thing that keeps from playing 50% of the tables.

 

[KBJAXMAN]

I say bring it on! We can use this until the official cab support is released, whenever that may be.

 

[Pantah010]

Please release me

 

[Crazy Newt]

I don't see why Farsight would have a problem. Modding is good for the community, but yeah it's probably best to check. Maybe they should hire you.

This hack appears to allow the player to have a free camera mode to view the entire table, which is an enhanced option as part of the Pro purchase. That might be a problem.

 

[shutyertrap]

This hack appears to allow the player to have a free camera mode to view the entire table, which is an enhanced option as part of the Pro purchase. That might be a problem.

You mean that option that every other digital pinball allows you to do for free?

 

[Dedpop]

You mean that option that every other digital pinball allows you to do for free?

 

[DornoDios]

In fact I was thinking about this just the other day when using Cheat Engine to change memory values in a different game.

It is far beyond my ability level to do so but I wondered if it would be possible for someone to use Cheat Engine to map the values of the camera and then change them.

Obviously it is possible and the OP has done it with his own custom program!

It seems incredibly unlikely IP holders would have an issue with this when they don't care about the multitude of home made tables that use their Intellectual Property without payment. There are a great number of them for the various other pinball simulators.

In addition he can't be sued by the IP holders as he is not violating any of their IP rights. He would have to alter or replace elements of the table to risk the ire of the IP holders. Simply allowing an alternate camera angle that lets you see the IP in question is not illegal.

Farsight could possibly cause a stink by claiming that he 'reverse engineered' their code which is/was in violation of the EULA. I don't think that would be a very smart move on their part for a variety of reasons.

At the end of the day this is something people have been asking about for a very long time. Whether or not the OP releases this modification the proof of its viability may interest others in a similar project.

I can't imagine Farsight giving their blessing to him prior to release unfortunately. Hopefully they prove me wrong and/or it is released anyway.

I don't even have a cabinet. I just play on my rotated monitor and I can't stand the lack of camera control. This mod in addition to DX11 would make the next release of TPA really special. Here's to hoping that actually happens!

 

[Heretic]

**** it email me the code, ill release it