MaLa Plugin - LEDBlinky Version 2.5

[arzoo]

Please refer to this thread for the latest version of LEDBlinky.
MaLa Plugin - LEDBlinky (v2.5.1)

What's new for 2.5.1 - New LEDBlinky Tool: Animation Editor. LEDBlinky has been updated to use the new LWAX animation format (original LWA format is still supported).

What's new for 2.5 - LED animations can now be played when MaLa starts, before a game starts, and when Mala quits. The screen saver now has a random text feature with Berzerk mode. LEDs can now blink in sync with the speech features. The configuration app has been revamped (again). Cocktail mode lights all player controls for alternating games. I've enhanced the other emulator features and fixed a bunch of bugs!

Here's what it can do:

• Light active and/or inactive controls for MaLa front end (user interface).
• Light active and/or inactive controls for MAME emulation.
• Light active and/or inactive controls for other emulators.
• Remapping controls (MaLa or MAME) will automatically remap the associated LEDs.
• With RGB LEDs, you can specify colors for individual controls or using a pre-defined colors.ini file, match the original game control panel button colors.
• When starting a game, LEDBlinky can play a LED animation (selected or random), speak the game name, speak each button “action” while blinking the button in its correct color, and speak a custom message. When speaking the game name or custom message, LEDs can blink in sync with the speech.
• When starting or quitting MaLa, LEDBlinky can play a LED animation (selected or random), and speak a custom message. When speaking the custom message, LEDs can blink in sync with the speech.
• When the Screen Saver is active, LEDBlinky can play a continuous LED animation (selected or random), and play random custom messages at predefined intervals. Berzerk mode is also available for the random messages.
• Other speech features are available – Choose from multiple voices (downloadable) and set the voice rate and volume.
• Run a second (independent) LED animation for cabinet lights. This animation can run when MaLa is active, when the screensaver is active, during game play, or any combination of the three. This feature requires an additional LED-Wiz for the non-control panel LEDs.
• From the MaLa UI, game controls can be lit as you scroll through the game lists.
• Designate LEDs as "Always Active" for use with coin, start, or administration controls.
• Cocktail Mode lights all player controls for multi-player alternating games.
• Define LED intensities or colors on a game-by-game basis.
• Use the LED-Wiz built-in blinking effects.
• Create your own LED animations using the included Animation Editor. LEDBlinky supports standard LWAX and LWA animation files.
• Support for pre-defined controller files (X-Arcade, SlikStik, etc).

Updating from versions prior to 2.5.0: Just overwrite any existing files. Using the new configuration app, you'll need to reset your file paths and Blinky options. Your input map and color profiles will not be affected by the update.

Speech Capability: LEDBlinky uses the "text to speech" components that come standard with Microsoft Windows. This includes a single voice - Microsoft Sam (sounds a bit like the Berzerk voice). Two additional voices are also freely downloadable from MS - Mike and Mary, but only as a merge module included with the speech SDK. I've compiled the Mike and Mary merge module (Sp5TTIntXP.msm) into an install package which can be downloaded here. After running the installation, you can select the new voices from the LEDBlinky config app.

Please refer to the Install and Config.doc file to get LEDBlinky up and running. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome. There may still be a bug or two , so let me know.

Download LEDBlinky v2.5.1

Here are screen shots of the config apps...

[arzoo]

Here are some videos of the LEDBlinky in action. These are the same videos from version 2.0, so they don't demonstrate any of the 2.5 features, but they still show most of the fun stuff.

The first video shows Asteroids starting. I'm using three game start speech features - name, controls, and custom text.


This next video shows NBA Jam starting. It's a four player game, but my cp only lights up the buttons for players 1 and 2.


Here's the screensaver attract mode. My cp uses two LED-Wiz Controllers and the wiring is rather bizarre. For reasons I won't go into here (mostly stupidity ) I wired all the RGB blue leads to LED-Wiz ID1 and all the RGB green and red leads to LED-Wiz ID2. The animation file I created uses the same buttons and colors as NBA Jam and demonstrates the ability to address each LED-Wiz individually while keeping both in sync.


Here's a single player game that uses TEN buttons, and the track ball!


And lastly, here's a video of the Cabinet Lighting feature. Since my cp doesn't have any cab LEDs, I used the left side buttons wired to LED-Wiz2 for the cabinet animation.

[squirrellydw]

any idea if this is the same version I have or tested?

[Green Giant]

The new features look pretty sweet.  Like how the lights flash when the voice talks.  Makes it feel like the cab is really talking to you. 

I just hope the screensaver stuff gets fixed soon so I can use that too.

Can't wait for the next stuff you have coming out.

[arzoo]

any idea if this is the same version I have or tested?

This version (2.5.0.4) has a couple of minor bugs fixed. You can just overwrite the ledblinky.mplugin file. By the way, thanks to you and everyone else who helped with the testing. 

[arzoo]

The new features look pretty sweet.  Like how the lights flash when the voice talks.  Makes it feel like the cab is really talking to you. 

I just hope the screensaver stuff gets fixed soon so I can use that too.

Can't wait for the next stuff you have coming out.

You're referring to the MaLa RC9 screen saver problem, yes?

[squirrellydw]

any idea if this is the same version I have or tested?

This version (2.5.0.4) has a couple of minor bugs fixed. You can just overwrite the ledblinky.mplugin file. By the way, thanks to you and everyone else who helped with the testing. 

Thank you for the cocktail option, and all your hard work.  testing is easy.

[squirrellydw]

Not sure what I am doing wrong with trying to configure other EMU's to light up buttons.  One player buttons light up correctly but the other player does not.  Actually player 1 buttons are player 2 and they are the one lighting up.  Any help??

[arzoo]

Not sure what I am doing wrong with trying to configure other EMU's to light up buttons.  One player buttons light up correctly but the other player does not.  Actually player 1 buttons are player 2 and they are the one lighting up.  Any help??

Post the debug.log file (with verbose mode turned on) and I should be able to figure out what's going on.

[squirrellydw]

here you go

[arzoo]

here you go

Can you zip and post two additional files: Control-Input_mame.ini and DevicePort-Input.ini.

[squirrellydw]

can't zip them, sorry

[arzoo]

Not sure what I am doing wrong with trying to configure other EMU's to light up buttons.  One player buttons light up correctly but the other player does not.  Actually player 1 buttons are player 2 and they are the one lighting up.  Any help??

I believe the problem is that your mame default.cfg file has no input values defined for P1_Button1 and P1_Button2. From the LEDBlinky config app, try unchecking Use MAME Default Control Mapping for Other Emulators and see if that solves the problem.

[squirrellydw]

duh, that could be it....I was messing around with that the other day.

[Green Giant]

Yeah, the mala screensaver bug.  If that works soon, I can get the attract stuff running.

[squirrellydw]

Not sure what I am doing wrong with trying to configure other EMU's to light up buttons.  One player buttons light up correctly but the other player does not.  Actually player 1 buttons are player 2 and they are the one lighting up.  Any help??

I believe the problem is that your mame default.cfg file has no input values defined for P1_Button1 and P1_Button2. From the LEDBlinky config app, try unchecking Use MAME Default Control Mapping for Other Emulators and see if that solves the problem.

thanks that was it

[squirrellydw]

Here is my log file for the SNES buttons not lighting up right.  They do work correctly when I play the game so  I know they are mapped right, they just aren't lighting up right.

[arzoo]

Here is my log file for the SNES buttons not lighting up right.  They do work correctly when I play the game so  I know they are mapped right, they just aren't lighting up right.

Do you have an entry in the controls_emu.ini file for [zsnesw]?

From the log it looks like you've defined the emulator as using the following controls:

P1_BUTTON1 (KEYCODE_LCONTROL), Blue
P1_BUTTON2 (KEYCODE_LALT), Blue
P1_BUTTON3 (KEYCODE_SPACE), Red
P1_BUTTON4 (KEYCODE_LSHIFT), Red
P2_BUTTON1 (KEYCODE_A), Blue
P2_BUTTON2 (KEYCODE_S), Blue
P2_BUTTON3 (KEYCODE_Q), Red
P2_BUTTON4 (KEYCODE_W), Red

The log shows the LEDBlinky lighting up 8 buttons - 4 for each player. Is this what you're seeing?

I believe this is your cp layout (let me know if I'm wrong):
Player1

P1B1(LCtrl)     P1B2(LAlt)      P1B3(Space)
P1B4(LShift)    P1B5(Z)         P1B6(X)

Player2

P2B1(A)    P2B2(S)      P2B3(Q)
P2B4(W)    P2B5(I)      P2B6(K)

Which controls are used by the emulator for each player - how is the emulator configured?

[squirrellydw]

Yes that is my CP layout
Yes I am seeing 8 buttons, four each

controls used for player1 LCtrl, LAlt, LShift and Z
controls used for plyer2 A, S, W and I

[arzoo]

Yes that is my CP layout
Yes I am seeing 8 buttons, four each

controls used for player1 LCtrl, LAlt, LShift and Z
controls used for plyer2 A, S, W and I

Try adding (or replacing) this section in the controls_emu.ini:

Code: [Select]

[zsnesw]
gamename=
numPlayers=2
alternating=0
mirrored=1
miscDetails=
P1_BUTTON1=Button 1
P1_BUTTON2=Button 2
P1_BUTTON4=Button 3
P1_BUTTON5=Button 4


[squirrellydw]

that fixed, nice job

[lettuce]

Ive noticed some mame roms dont speak the button action before the rom is loaded. Is this down to the actual rom, or ini file somewhere. Can theses roms that dont give button actions be edited so they do??

[Green Giant]

Ive noticed some mame roms dont speak the button action before the rom is loaded. Is this down to the actual rom, or ini file somewhere. Can theses roms that dont give button actions be edited so they do??

If it isn't speaking the button info, it is a problem with the controls.ini/controls.xml or mame.xml file.  What version of controls.ini file do you have? 

You could possibly update the controls.ini file, but I am not positive about that.  It sounds like it is reading the mame.xml file to see how many buttons to use, but it isn't finding the information in the controls.xml file about each particular button.

[lettuce]

not sure what version of controls.ini i have i thoughht it was the latest version, so all games should speak there controls on start up then? Where can i get the latest version of control.ini? should i also have downloaded a control.xml file aswell?

[lettuce]

anyone?

[arzoo]

I think the latest file is for mame .111. You can download from here.

I don't think every game is supported - I've found many that don't speak the controls.

No need for controls.xml - at least as far as LEDBlinky is concerned.

[headkaze]

I think the latest file is for mame .111. You can download from here.

I don't think every game is supported - I've found many that don't speak the controls.

Games currently supported (1068)

Hey arzoo in the docs, it says

Q.   Why are there only parent roms in the dat files?
A.   This will change int he future, however, most of the clones have the same controls as the parent.  We suggest creating an algorithm which check for control information of the rom in question.  If the information isn't available use the output from mame's -listxml to determine if the game has a cloneof parent.  If there is no info there check that clone's clone of and romof.  If so use that control info.  If there is no control info for the cloneof then check the romof parent.  Again, check recursively here too.  Why check recursivley?  There are revisions in mame.  For example, neogeo is a parent rom.  For the most part all neogeo games have the same controls so neogeo is in the dat file.  now, say there is a game called "MyGame" that is a romof neogeo.  Also let's say theere actually is "MyGame (Rev 1) - mygame1" and "MyGame (rev 2) - mygame2".  Rev 1 will have a romof "neogeo".  Rev2 will have a romof "mygame2".  So you see you have to recurse all the way back to neogeo to get the control information for Rev 2.  There are many instances of this in mame.

A bit confusing I know 

http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/supported.php

[ARTIFACT]

this is amazing...

I am getting a LED kit with my Happ 3" trackball, and this thing is making me want to order a LED-WIZ and a bunch of lit buttons now... MUST...RESIST... (I am trying to keep budget down... maybe a future upgrade for my cab)

great work

[arzoo]

Q.   Why are there only parent roms in the dat files?
A.   This will change int he future, however, most of the clones have the same controls as the parent.  We suggest creating an algorithm which check for control information of the rom in question.  If the information isn't available use the output from mame's -listxml to determine if the game has a cloneof parent.  If there is no info there check that clone's clone of and romof.  If so use that control info.  If there is no control info for the cloneof then check the romof parent.  Again, check recursively here too.  Why check recursivley?  There are revisions in mame.  For example, neogeo is a parent rom.  For the most part all neogeo games have the same controls so neogeo is in the dat file.  now, say there is a game called "MyGame" that is a romof neogeo.  Also let's say theere actually is "MyGame (Rev 1) - mygame1" and "MyGame (rev 2) - mygame2".  Rev 1 will have a romof "neogeo".  Rev2 will have a romof "mygame2".  So you see you have to recurse all the way back to neogeo to get the control information for Rev 2.  There are many instances of this in mame.

MaLa passes a romof and cloneof value back to the plugins - both of which LEDBlinky uses to search controls.ini. The thing is, I don't know if MaLa is using a recursive algorithm to populate those values - my guess is no. The other option would be for my code to use listxml directly (rather than the data values passed from MaLa).

Lettuce - can you give me some examples of games that are not working?

[lettuce]

I cannot think of any from the top of my head, i just remember so games didnt speak the controls, ill list some i find in a bit

[lettuce]

Oik heres a few, none of the Raiden or Raiden Fighters games, speak the controls on start up

[arzoo]

Oik heres a few, none of the Raiden or Raiden Fighters games, speak the controls on start up

It seems that those two games are not supported by Controls.dat - which surprises me.
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/supported.php

[lettuce]

Ok i need another question answered please. Ive notice in some games it speaks the button layout but after that gives buttons for UP, Down, Left, Right, with buttons 4-7 (i have a 7 button layout for player 1 and 2) on player 2 side flashing. Obviously im not using these buttons to control im using the joystick, so how do i stop this from happening??

[arzoo]

Ok i need another question answered please. Ive notice in some games it speaks the button layout but after that gives buttons for UP, Down, Left, Right, with buttons 4-7 (i have a 7 button layout for player 1 and 2) on player 2 side flashing. Obviously im not using these buttons to control im using the joystick, so how do i stop this from happening??

Check the keyboard mapping when playing one of these games and see what keycodes are mapped to up/down/left/right. My guess is that those keycodes are mapped to buttons 4-7 in you LEDBlinky device/port input map. If that's the case, then just remap the up/down/left/right controls for that game in mame.

If that's not the problem, then it would help if you posted the debug.log (from the config app - More Options tab - Enable Debug Log).

[lettuce]

Ok done a bit more investigating, and for some reason on the I-PAC4 which i have, some of player 3 joystick direction are the same as some of the buttons for player 2. In this case keyboard letter 'I' is Up for P3 and also button 5 for P2, key 'K' is Down for P3 and also button 6 for P2, and key 'J' is left for P3 and also button 7 for P2. So i guess this is why its telling me these button on P2 are up, down and left with in mala. Is there a way to disable it give joystick commands??

[arzoo]

Ok done a bit more investigating, and for some reason on the I-PAC4 which i have, some of player 3 joystick direction are the same as some of the buttons for player 2. In this case keyboard letter 'I' is Up for P3 and also button 5 for P2, key 'K' is Down for P3 and also button 6 for P2, and key 'J' is left for P3 and also button 7 for P2. So i guess this is why its telling me these button on P2 are up, down and left with in mala. Is there a way to disable it give joystick commands??

No, the control type (button vs. joystick) has no bearing, just the keycodes. Your best bet would be to re-program the IPac so that the joysticks and buttons are all mapped to unique keycodes. I have an IPac4 and that's what I did.

wait... let me think about this for a minute - there may be another option.

[arzoo]

wait... let me think about this for a minute - there may be another option.

Try this, edit your \LEDBlinky\Control-Input_mame.ini file and remove the redundant keycodes for P3:

Change these rows...
P3_JOYSTICK_UP=|KEYCODE_I|JOYCODE_3_UP
P3_JOYSTICK_DOWN=|KEYCODE_K|JOYCODE_3_DOWN
P3_JOYSTICK_LEFT=|KEYCODE_J|JOYCODE_3_LEFT
P3_JOYSTICK_RIGHT=|KEYCODE_L|JOYCODE_3_RIGHT

To this...
P3_JOYSTICK_UP=|JOYCODE_3_UP
P3_JOYSTICK_DOWN=|JOYCODE_3_DOWN
P3_JOYSTICK_LEFT=|JOYCODE_3_LEFT
P3_JOYSTICK_RIGHT=|KEYCODE_L|JOYCODE_3_RIGHT

And don't worry, this has no effect on mame - just the LEDBLinky plugin.

[lettuce]

ok, thanks for your help

[lettuce]

Ok i tried that, but no joy still gives out commands for up down and left 

[arzoo]

Ok i tried that, but no joy still gives out commands for up down and left 

Can you post the cfg file (in the mame cfg folder) for the game in question? Also, turn on the debug option, start mala, run the game, then post the debug.log file.