Hello everyone - from Pac-Man to Pinball

[schwabinger]

Hello all,

greetings from Munich, Germany.

Some days ago I found your site; what a great source of  tables from the good old days.
Being a kid from the early sixties, I love those tables from fifties to the seventies.

At the moment I am experimenting with an Arduino Leonardo micro controller for playing with my two screen setup. Arduino is built in a wooden Pac-Man arcade machine that I built some month ago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rigasw/16271640343/in/photostream/

With five decent arcade buttons I can do the following:

Selecting tables in PinballX
Starting game
Inserting a coin
Press a (for older games)
Press 4 (for some games that need a 4 for money ...)
Use flippers and plunger
changing the volume
Exit game (esc).

For some of those you have to press a combination of two buttons at the same time.

Next step is to implement a simple nudge functionality by using a xyz-sensor.

I have a question, though: when I start tables like "Universe", "Ballyhoo" or "Masquerade", most of the bumpers are not shown properly. Instead you can only see a grey area.

I use Vp 9.9.

Any hint on how to fix that? Up to now I tried about 60 tables from other builders and I never encountered that problem.

Anyway, thank you so much for running your website.

Cheers,

Schwabinger

[Itchigo]

Hi, and welcome! For Universe or Masquerade they were made in 9.2. When I switched over to 9.9 I noticed this on PBecker1946's tables. I think 9.9 causes a drawing order/rendering issue which can be fixed, but you have to know how to make tables to do it. Ballyhoo, I'm not sure why. I tested that in 9.9.

[schwabinger]

Hi,

thanks for the info.

Sounds like a long term challenge  - I like PBecker's tables a lot.
So I suppose I have to start learning how those scripts are done. Is there any document that you would recommend to a beginner? 
Or can I run different versions of vp together? I use PinballX.

Sorry for mixing that up: With Ballyhoo I had a different problem: It accepts money, but I never get a ball out by pressing 1. So it looks great, but I cannot play it.

Greetings, Schwabinger

[Itchigo]

Hi,

thanks for the info.

Sounds like a long term challenge  - I like PBecker's tables a lot.
So I suppose I have to start learning how those scripts are done. Is there any document that you would recommend to a beginner? 
Or can I run different versions of vp together? I use PinballX.

Sorry for mixing that up: With Ballyhoo I had a different problem: It accepts money, but I never get a ball out by pressing 1. So it looks great, but I cannot play it.

Greetings, Schwabinger

First, to get it out of the way Ballyhoo uses the S to start, not the 1. I don't know if I put that in there, if I didn't, I'm sorry. See Ballyhoo is different. It's modded from a vp8 version, the graphics were redone, the objects were rebuilt, and the script was able to be re-used because of this. But a lot of earlier tables were made to use the S key to start. Not all of them though. It's just what the author picked as a start key. Because of this in my cab, my start button is mapped to 1 AND S. My credit button is mapped to 4 AND 5. However if you know where to look in the script you can change it with a single keystroke.

You can run different versions of Pinball X which is what I'd recommend. I have not done this yet, but I know how to do it.

Make another folder for 9.2 and name it.

Take your old folder and copy any non vpt files, such as vbs files, screen res, etc. Copy and paste to the new folder.

In the Pinball X settings: 2nd page, check the box for other systems. Got to that page and fill it out. I think you need a separate xml file to do this (not sure, but it's not hard).

I have some tutorials here, but mostly on how to make backglasses.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD56nTvhHq49BAkVzQg4qxg

Here's my cab:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROrxnPiQzGk

   

[schwabinger]

Thanks for all the info.
I will have a closer look after work that evening ...
Greetings,

Schwabinger

[schwabinger]

Hi again,

my micro-controller script now sends an s, when I press the buttons for "start" and "plunger" together. so Ballyhoo can be started. Cool game.

Then I found that I had an  9.15 vp installation on my machine anyway. Wow - all those fifties and sixties tables done PBecker work like a charm. I only can say thank you, they are so beautiful.

Will now try to make both vp version available from PinballX.

Cheers,

Schwabinger