when will we see cabinet options?

[Roo]

Hey you guys.
First: how to disable the event cam? Must have missed that one...

It's on option in the menu that was added at some point. It will disable things like zooming behind the cannons in STTNG, but some things like the plungers will still always zoom in.

 

[DaPinballWizard]

So when will we see some new features? Back glass, anything. Throw us a bone, how about some updates on the progress or lack of it, problems encountered etc.... Been quite a while now. You guys have your cabinet, what is the state of cabinet TPA progress?

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

So when will we see some new features? Back glass, anything. Throw us a bone, how about some updates on the progress or lack of it, problems encountered etc.... Been quite a while now. You guys have your cabinet, what is the state of cabinet TPA progress?

I got backglass rendering working. It was way more complicated than I had hoped. The next major issue is handling the playfield rendering. If you render at a camera angle similar to the persons eye position, the back of the table is smaller than the front cause of perspective. In Virtual Pinball they have a way to fix "keystone effect", which I need to implement something similar.

 

[chinzman93]

I got backglass rendering working. It was way more complicated than I had hoped. The next major issue is handling the playfield rendering. If you render at a camera angle similar to the persons eye position, the back of the table is smaller than the front cause of perspective. In Virtual Pinball they have a way to fix "keystone effect", which I need to implement something similar.

That's great! Glad to hear you are making progress. If you had to guess, which do you think we will see first: the lighting update to DX11 or a cabinet release?

 

[infernogott]

or the steam leaderboards?

 

[mpad]

Great news!

Especially that you're looking into the camera angle / perspective.
It would be great if you could put in an option to disable the "fly over table cam" and maybe the huge menue between games. It really pulls you out of immersion on the cab and destroys the real table feel.

 

[superballs]

I got backglass rendering working. It was way more complicated than I had hoped. The next major issue is handling the playfield rendering. If you render at a camera angle similar to the persons eye position, the back of the table is smaller than the front cause of perspective. In Virtual Pinball they have a way to fix "keystone effect", which I need to implement something similar.

This is great news.

I think the main things visual pinball does is that it renders to the side wall depth at the rear of the table and gives some back wall as well.

Another thing they do which I think you guys do to a degree already is what was called "layback" though I'm not sure what they call it in a technical sense.

Basically they render the flippers as if you are staring more or less straight down and the further back objects are on the table the more of the lower (closest to the viewer) and inner surfaces (closest to the y axis center) are visible. It really gives an impression of depth to the table as you look from one end of the monitor to the other.

 

[DaPinballWizard]

Sweet. Thanks for the update Mike. I hope you guys are enjoying TPA on your cab. It is a much different experience playing it that way.. I am loving it so far. Keep up the great work and the updates. Look forward to seeing the progress.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

That's great! Glad to hear you are making progress. If you had to guess, which do you think we will see first: the lighting update to DX11 or a cabinet release?

Most likely DX11

or the steam leaderboards?

I'm still working on a steam friends leaderboard solution.

Great news!

Especially that you're looking into the camera angle / perspective.
It would be great if you could put in an option to disable the "fly over table cam" and maybe the huge menue between games. It really pulls you out of immersion on the cab and destroys the real table feel.

There will be no flyby on cabinet version.

This is great news.

I think the main things visual pinball does is that it renders to the side wall depth at the rear of the table and gives some back wall as well.

Another thing they do which I think you guys do to a degree already is what was called "layback" though I'm not sure what they call it in a technical sense.

Basically they render the flippers as if you are staring more or less straight down and the further back objects are on the table the more of the lower (closest to the viewer) and inner surfaces (closest to the y axis center) are visible. It really gives an impression of depth to the table as you look from one end of the monitor to the other.

Thanks. I just know that the camera's I've tried so far all look bad in some way or another.

Sweet. Thanks for the update Mike. I hope you guys are enjoying TPA on your cab. It is a much different experience playing it that way.. I am loving it so far. Keep up the great work and the updates. Look forward to seeing the progress.

Even with the camera needing work it's pretty cool to play with a cabinet.

 

[Larry]

Excellent work as always!

I'm excited and I don't even have a cabinet built yet

Camera imho "needs" to be user-placed. I'm sure it's a programming nightmare but even the backglass angle will be the never-ending subject of debate otherwise.

I am curious to ask about a couple items if it's even firmed up yet....sorry if I missed the answers...I did try a couple searches first..
What will the DMD option be? Real DMD only or monitor based emulation?
ROM state saving? (IE permanent ROM changes)
Does DX11 offer more advanced possibilities that can be leveraged "down the line" such as enhanced physics, 3-d hardware, integrated room and cabinet lighting, integrated firmware matching for peripherals and dependencies, richer "leaderboard/online" functionality, etc. If so, do any of these besides the lighting and score-based leaderboard enhancement have a near future in TPA?

Thanks again and really good stuff so far, you are going to get me to break out the skillsaw yet I'm going to do it, it's just convincing myself to get it done that seems to be the hold up

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

Excellent work as always!

I'm excited and I don't even have a cabinet built yet

Camera imho "needs" to be user-placed. I'm sure it's a programming nightmare but even the backglass angle will be the never-ending subject of debate otherwise.

I am curious to ask about a couple items if it's even firmed up yet....sorry if I missed the answers...I did try a couple searches first..
What will the DMD option be? Real DMD only or monitor based emulation?
ROM state saving? (IE permanent ROM changes)
Does DX11 offer more advanced possibilities that can be leveraged "down the line" such as enhanced physics, 3-d hardware, integrated room and cabinet lighting, integrated firmware matching for peripherals and dependencies, richer "leaderboard/online" functionality, etc. If so, do any of these besides the lighting and score-based leaderboard enhancement have a near future in TPA?

Thanks again and really good stuff so far, you are going to get me to break out the skillsaw yet I'm going to do it, it's just convincing myself to get it done that seems to be the hold up

Not really sure about most of those. I can tell you what I have working so far.

I have a method to draw plasma segment displays on the dmd. It only works with two rows of 16 characters. We have it rendering the backglass in the 2nd monitor. For non DMD tables this means the displays will show up in the backglass. For DMD tables it currently just shows the backglass since we have it working with a dmd.

I'm not sure about a 3rd display, but I could see at least an option to render the backglass with the DMD on the 2nd monitor. I'll look into the 3rd display option when I get some time.

The cabinet we have has 6 speakers. I'd like to set it up so the 2 backbox speakers play the table sounds, while the other 4 play mechanical sounds based on position. Have to do some tests to see how that sounds.

 

[Roo]

The cabinet we have has 6 speakers. I'd like to set it up so the 2 backbox speakers play the table sounds, while the other 4 play mechanical sounds based on position. Have to do some tests to see how that sounds.

My cab doesn't have extra speakers, but that does sound cool. If we would at least adjust mechanical sounds independently of the ROM sounds/music, that would be awesome. Right now the flippers are pretty quiet.

 

[Loadedweapon]

That all sounds good except the dmd cause most people have a 3rd screen not a really dmd so we can post videos and stuff and its a lot cheaper than buying a real dmd..

 

[mpad]

Hey mike, news just get better! I instantly bought all 3 seasons pro packs

Great to hear about the speakers. I used an old 5.1 set in my cab, so this would be pretty nice. Please consider to enable us to control the mechanical sounds seperately as roo and I suggested in another post. Since I don't have real force feedback (yet), this would allow to bump up things a little bit.

Great to hear about the dmd as well. Will it support pindmd1 and/or pindmd2?

 

[SilverBalls]

H
Great to hear about the dmd as well. Will it support pindmd1 and/or pindmd2?

Great news indeed about cab progress. Considering the amount of Cab stuff that Mike just mentioned has being done -ie: Real DMD, Backglass, 2-line segments on backglass, but he still says DX11 might come first only tells me that the progress on that must good as well.

I also have a PinDMD1 so really hope it will be supported.

 

[Larry]

In my humble case at least, I think getting the DMD to fit onto the backglass monitor would work out fine, a lot have places in the artwork already which should help some.

I also think LED drivers for the cabinet and buttons could be worked in without too much trouble. I'm not sure what the actual hardware options are out there, but I'm sure it would get a few folks to pickup a kit if they haven't already. AFAIK, it can all be plumbed via USB to something like an iPac LED board assuming the control logic is implemented.

Speakers, very nifty option indeed!
If the mechanical sounds are "sifted out" it should also lend itself to shaker/vibration motors well.
If any sound enhancements are planned, I'd also suggest using as much "cross-over" as possible to split the 5.1 sub-woofer ranges properly. If nothing else, make sure the samples are recorded at maximum 10Hz-whatever to give some nice banging to the binging.

I appreciate the info! Thanks again!

"user camera"..it's cabinet mode duh, what was I thinking, sorry.

 

[superballs]

Mike. Regarding the camera view...If you look at portrait mode view 3 locked. It looks great in regard to what we were discussing.

The flippers look like you ate staring straight down and the upper play field elements have some of the forward face showing. It's a great place to start from. The only question after that is getting the cabinet to line up with the edges.

I'd really like to hear from unclewilly or anyone here who has designed tables in vp with that view feature as they would be able to provide better info than I can.

 

[mpad]

Mike. Regarding the camera view...If you look at portrait mode view 3 locked. It looks great in regard to what we were discussing.

...almost. I think it should be sth like 3 in the front, and like 4 in the middle and the back, and sometimes a little bit of 2 all over it

It's really hard to describe. In MM you can't see the trolls faces when in view 3, but you should like in view 4, but then the flippers look strange.
So from front to the back of the table the view should go from top down to more and more frontal.

In my case the display is like the glas on a real table mounted at a slight angle and the virtual playfield lies beneath, which I think is best because it's easier to render depth than objects sticking out of the plane. Some cabinets have the display mounted lower in the cab like the real playfield.
I hope you can consider both cases when designing the views.

 

[superballs]

Ilm just guessing but I imagine they are going to design this primarily around the virtua pin as if I'm correct they have one of those in the office

 

[DaPinballWizard]

Plays great so far on my mini virtua cab. Looking forward to nudging and backglass support.