Visual Pinball

[rchadd]

Is it possible to play it with a vertical monitor and just display the table (remove the surrounding graphics)?

[Lilwolf]

Not directly.  Its not really 3d.

you can rotate your monitor with ATI and Radeon video cards.  But you can't just change the eye of the monitor.

The new version Black is writing is 100% 3d and it will be very easy.  I already talked about it with him.  He isn't planning on writing special code for it but it will be doable (I was hoping to get him to add a feature to be able to set the eye port for all games once... but not a big deal)

[rchadd]

i have a cocktail cab.

ideally i would like vp to have a cocktail mode.

that would be sweet.

are there other pinball games that have a cocktail mode?

[Howard_Casto]

Not directly.  Its not really 3d.

you can rotate your monitor with ATI and Radeon video cards.  But you can't just change the eye of the monitor.

The new version Black is writing is 100% 3d and it will be very easy.  I already talked about it with him.  

A new version of visual pinball?!?  Can you get me into contact with this guy? I would love to give some input (mainly about things the other vp went about the wrong way) while things are still in the early stages.  

[RetroBorg]

A new version of visual pinball?!?  Can you get me into contact with this guy? I would love to give some input (mainly about things the other vp went about the wrong way) while things are still in the early stages.  

Black is an Aussie, his email is: cleathey@iinet.au

His website is: http://members.iinet.net.au/~cleathley/

Looking at his website he's pretty attached to his pu$$y.

I hope you mention to him support for an analogue plunger and make things like the default keys the same as mame default keys.

Retro

[rchadd]

i would like it to have mode for cocktail cabs:

1. support monitor in vertical mode
2. display top down view of the table (fill screen without loosing 3d affect)
3. support display flipping for 2 player games.

[RetroBorg]

i would like it to have mode for cocktail cabs:

1. support monitor in vertical mode
2. display top down view of the table (fill screen without loosing 3d affect)
3. support display flipping for 2 player games.

I didn't think of cocktail mode, that would be an obvious feature to have.

[atog]

I don't know how you guys could play this on a cab monitor.  I play it often on my pc and its one of the few things I actually run at 1600X1200 and I feel that its almost necessary to run it at this high of a resolution just to get a decent game out of it.

[Lilwolf]

The funny thing about vpinball... it kinda sucks at low resolution.

So what to do... my cab can only get 640x480... but I LOVE visual pinball..

FSAA looks AMAZING!  

I have a decent video card in there.. And can pump 8x fsaa for most games (but I drop it to 4x because of a zinc games 8x is too slow).  

So you don't need 1600x1200 on your cabinet.... (and I don't believe you should have a monitor that can handle it)...

but with fsaa... you can't tell (as much).

[Howard_Casto]

A new version of visual pinball?!?  Can you get me into contact with this guy? I would love to give some input (mainly about things the other vp went about the wrong way) while things are still in the early stages.  

Black is an Aussie, his email is: cleathey@iinet.au

His website is: http://members.iinet.net.au/~cleathley/

Looking at his website he's pretty attached to his pu$$y.

I hope you mention to him support for an analogue plunger and make things like the default keys the same as mame default keys.

Retro

I know this guy, but it was my understanding that he had prety much fell off the face of the earth.  

I guess what I am getting at is where did you hear the news that he (or someone else) was working on a new, 3d version of visual pinball?

[DanteBK]

The funny thing about vpinball... it kinda sucks at low resolution.

So what to do... my cab can only get 640x480... but I LOVE visual pinball..

FSAA looks AMAZING!  

I have a decent video card in there.. And can pump 8x fsaa for most games (but I drop it to 4x because of a zinc games 8x is too slow).  

So you don't need 1600x1200 on your cabinet.... (and I don't believe you should have a monitor that can handle it)...

but with fsaa... you can't tell (as much).

I'll admit I'm an idiot beforehand, but what the heck is FSAA and how do I adjust it and why would I want to?

I love VPinball and am disappointed with the way it looks on the TV for my cab, as well.

[Lilwolf]

http://www.futurepinball.com/

And he answered me in a day when I asked questions.

If you ask him any questions, ask him if he would consider adding an analog input for nudging!  And maybe for flippers also (for older games)... but the nudging would be GREAT!

Ok, found the email

I asked about configuring the view port... He said that the table developers have no control.  So you can do it.... Even at runtime.  So this shouldn't be an issue.

He said there shouldn't be a problem with rotating the screen... but since most video cards can handle it, it shoudln't be an issue.

He said that he isn't planning at this point to have any support for frontend developers (not the point).. but that will probably change in the future.

He didn't reply about a pre-pay / beta program (darn)... (yes, he is currently considering a $15 charge

And last... he didn't mention my question about analog nudges (I did ask before... just didn't get an answer)

[Howard_Casto]

Ahh ok... I've seen this one before too.

My thoughts.....  

This is another one of those "I'll belevie it when I see it" apps.  It has several good things going for it but I'm not sure it's going to be useable anytime soon for the following reasons:


1.  The scripting langauge has been changed from vp.  

This is probably a necessary thing, but this means that vp developers can't easily port their 2 years of work that is a vp table into the editor.  The table itself isn't terribly hard to make once you have the textures (especially now that you can actually use models instead of cheap camera tricks), but getting the logic just right takes a great deal of time.  


2.  Apparently no pin mame support yet.  

This is a big deal as pinamme can help out a lot by emulating the logic.  It looks like he hasn't even tackled the problem yet (t2 shots, no scoreboard)  and although it's fine for classics, the more modern pins, which are the ones that truely need 3d models anyway won't be available.  

3.  Sometimes accurate means complicated.  

Those models, although composed of pre-modeled bits, look really complex.  Most vp developers are perfectionists, and if we give them tools like this they could be working on a table for 5 years before it's even playable!  Can you imagine the devs sitting there modeling each solenoid by hand because the stock solenoids are 2 mm higher than they need?  I sure can.  


4.  Can anybody loan me 15$?

It's not a high price at all, but it goes against the whole open-source community thing.  Also it's a little crazy to pay 15 bucks to illegally reproduce a copyrighted table that if it's too good you might get sued over.  It doesn't bother me personally, but my guess is about 50% of the table authors might refuse to use it sheerly on principal.  15 bucks to use the developer tools is crazy.  15 bucks to publish a table?
(i.e. sell it)  Not only is that resonable, I would reccomend it.  

5.  1 developer means a loooong wait.

Looks like this guy is doing this mostly solo.  That could take a while, quite a while.  As he said on his site, hopefully he might get a demo table out by the end of the year.  Hopefully.  I think it could be 2 years or more until this thing is even useable.  


My point is.. this is a great app, when/if it ever gets finished.  Atm, however I think it's too early on for us to even bother him.  I say wait until he has some sort of working demo, then we give the sugestions/comments.  

[rchadd]

hey Howie stop being so negative about this project. its easy to critisise other peoples hard work. if you think you (and your mates?) can do better then you know what you can do!

who said it was a opensource project anyway? it doesn't mention it anywhere - it is going to be shareware. i would say $15 for the finished product would be well worth it - if it turns out as good as it looks. i mean thats like only 10 quid mate!

regards the legality of the tables... jeeze how many mame roms have most of us got with dubious rights to play? why would legality be any different than for vp tables? he is simply going to charge for the runtime engine to play and the development tool to build the tables.

personally i think future pinball looks cool. i hope Black will implement his F1 table for the new system.

...and it looks like he's a fan of jeff minter/llamasoft - so an all round good chap in my books  

Go Black!

[Howard_Casto]

hey Howie stop being so negative about this project. its easy to critisise other peoples hard work. if you think you (and your mates?) can do better then you know what you can do!

Don't give me that stuff about hard work.  Nobody with the exception of aaron giles and other regular mame devs contributes more to the emulation community than me.  I am the human cork that plugs the leaks between the ocean of emulation and the boat of your front-end (insert joke here )

Actually it's you who are being negative.  I didn't say a single negative thing in my comments, I just said why it won't catch on quickly (if at all).  Also I said it's just not ready yet.  Having a simulator with no tables is like having mame with no roms, it's pretty useless. My point is even if this were released tomorrow, for the reasons I mentioned above, it would be quite a while before any tables to play (other than the few black is working on himself)  were developed.  Visual pinball sat like a log for ages until it started to catch on... I expect a similar reaction when this is released.


About the 15$ part.  You weren't listening... it's not about the money, it's about the legal ramifications of charging and the principal of charging.  Since you don't seem to get what I'm saying I'll explain:

To put it simply... game companies don't sue you unless you are taking money away from them, or money is being made off of their stuff.  Charging for the program could be precieved as the latter, especially considering 99.9% of the visual pinball tables are direct recreations, using the copyrighted, images, toys, and likenesses found on the tables.  Visual pinball was free, so this wasn't as big a deal.  Also if you'll excuse my bluntness vp recreations, often pale in comparison to the real table.  The nail in the coffin in this project is it'll be capable of reproducing recrations that rival such commercial projects as m$ pinball arcade and the propinball series.  

When these companies find out they aren't selling their latest recreation because someone already made a very simialr recreation using the new 3d visual pinball, it could be the beginning of the end.  And unfortunately, the table developer, the developer of the software, and potentially even the end users could be caught up in the lawsuits.  

As I've said countless times before, not agreeing with the law doesn't change it. I don't like the sue crazy society we live in, but it is a sue crazy society.  You have to be really careful when you charge for a product that revolves around grey areas of legality.  


I'm a big fan of Black's work, but the fact of the matter is, he hasn't released anything in nearly 3 years.  That's a long time to be working on one project!  When he is done we'll see (should be great, even if only one table is ever made from it), but knowing how much sweet time he's taken already, it could be months or even years before we see anything so why get all excited now?

[rchadd]

howie you really crack me up.

[Lilwolf]

btw, I believe he is using parts of Virtual Pinball.  He was planning on using the physics system (and I thought the scripting) and just put a better 3d front on it.

I'm not sure if he is still planning on it.  He is the only one with the source (thats still answering their email that is).

But your right.  I'm pretty sure it will take longer.  Hopefully he can keep the scripting somewhat the same.  

I'm guessing that he will keep vpinmame support... but not make it a big deal on his page for obvisous legal reasons.

As for the 15 bucks.  I'm not against shareware developers making money at all.   But I think he will get trashed if it ends up hes using any virtual pinball code for charging.

[Howard_Casto]

btw, I believe he is using parts of Virtual Pinball.  He was planning on using the physics system (and I thought the scripting) and just put a better 3d front on it.

I'm not sure if he is still planning on it.  He is the only one with the source (thats still answering their email that is).

But your right.  I'm pretty sure it will take longer.  Hopefully he can keep the scripting somewhat the same.  

I'm guessing that he will keep vpinmame support... but not make it a big deal on his page for obvisous legal reasons.

As for the 15 bucks.  I'm not against shareware developers making money at all.   But I think he will get trashed if it ends up hes using any virtual pinball code for charging.

Ugh.... I hope he doesn't use the vp physics engine.  No offense to him, because vp is still impressive in my book, but it has some of the worst physics in history.  I don't see the point if there will only be cosmetic changes.  I figured the impressive face he's put on it would have an equally impressive back end.  

The vpinmame support.... that's another one of those legal things that bother me now that you've brought it up.  I realize that pinmame is an external com object, but since it is directly controlled by the tables at the scripting level, their would be no denying that the reason pinmame support was included was to directly break the law by using pinball roms.  I'm not sure how copyright holders are gonna feel about this if he's charging.  Again, it's not the fact that I feel him charging is wrong, I'm just not sure if it's wise.  Anything that has anything to do with emulation is a target once it starts making money.  

Your probably right though.... he might already have it in there and just isn't publishing it.  

[FoX]

legality issues aside

Anyone heard anything new with Future Pinball?  Tried to shoot an email but for some reason his email addy keeps coming back as rejected.  Don't see anything really new on the site.