Arcade Collecting > Pinball

Retrofitting EM machines with driverboards and Unity 3d

(1/4) > >>

supafraud:
Hi! I'm looking for a little help with a project I'm working on. If you've ever worked on an old EM pinball machine you know how much of an endless task that can be especially if it was ever stored outside and is really gummed up etc, but i digress.

Unity 3d + minipac + a driver board (pacdrive, or even arduino) = awesome.

More specifically using uScript. I've created a few projects using Unity's uScript visual scripting plugin, some pretty complicated including a fps style training app from scratch. I understand logic, I just don't know syntax and I find visual scripting to be easy for me to work with in uScript it's also very much like expresso in cinema4d which i use as well). It would be easy to read inputs from a minipac and then to fire off solenoids and light lamps using a driver board. The bump in this road is getting unity to talk to a driverboard.

The guys over at uScript.net say they will creat nodes for me that will allow me to plug my game logic into the board if I can get a plugin for unity that will allow me to access the hardware. Again, I'm not a coder so I don't know how hard this is but I was hoping that by using the pacdrive sdk a unity plugin could be created. Another option is to use an Arduino. People have already created a plugin for this but all the examples I have found have been for input and not output. I just ordered an Arduino off of amazon and a high load bank of relays to experiment with.

Tying unity/uscript to an old EM pin would be amazing. You could rescue machines that would otherwise not be worth fixing at add items to the playfield, create custom sound effects and music. Missing back glass? no problem just insert a monitor in the back box and design custom animations. If anyone at all is interested in helping me out with getting unity to talk to a driverboard PLEASE let me know.

ed12:
totaly interesting

ed

supafraud:
Awesome! So here's what I know so far.

pacdrive:
The pacdrive SDK includes a DLL file and examples of code that take commands from that DLL in C##. From what I understand you can copy a DLL into the Unity assets folder and create a plugin in C that makes the commands available. This is more info on writing a Unity plugin (all over my head):
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Plugins.html]
[url]http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Plugins.html[/url]

pacdrive SDK:
http://www.ultimarc.com/PacDriveSDK.zip

This would be easiest I think (just guessing) because from what I saw in the code example there are simple commands to activate the driver board.

If we go the Arduino route there is more code you have to write to get the Arduino to do what you want as well as possible lag (from what i've read on forums)

But here is some stuff I found on the Arduino:

Input from arduino to unity: http://classes.dma.ucla.edu/Spring10/152BC/?p=155

Someone claiming to be working on a plugin: http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,139272.0.html

So again, if I can find someone that can make the pacdrive SDK function within unity we are golden and I can handle the rest. I'd like to ulitmately create an executable that is easy to setup for any machine and easy to modify, maybe have presets you could save and share. I've got an EM machine that has been gutted just itching to be operated on....

....IMPORTANT NOTE: The free version of Unity does not support the use of plugins. I have a lic for the pro version but this might be a problem for you if you are trying to make a plugin you can't test.

ed12:
u have me thinking here

in the term em do u mean electro-mechical ?
if so they are 42-58vac coil's
with a hudge spike
how to walk around this problem we use a triac and opto isolator
the opto can be driven right from a pac

with that in hand we toss out a driver board
do not need it any more

will look into your request
d/l the s/w this afternoon
just cutting my teeth on it now

ed

ed12:
ok i did some fast reading here
it is java scripting,with open scource to c/c++ and of course borland
with the engine i found on there site u can convert to xml
there support look's deep

on to my point ealier
u c if we use ac coil's
we can then use small triac  board's,much like gottileb system 80 game's that used
aux driver board's :haunted-house: is a nice example

i myself have 2 em's that i would love to try this out on
1=fast draw
1=quick draw
sister game's
but would make for a fun to learn project

ed

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page