Questions about table modding

[Mlager8]

I was thinking about trying to re-theme a table as a personal project. Originally I was thinking of using a fairly simple table, but as I keep thinking things over, my ideas are getting more grand and thus more complicated. So before I actually do anything just wanted to ask a few questions:

1. Is there a way to edit sounds on a rom based game?

   At first I thought maybe disabling rom sounds and adding in custom sounds to the sound editor and triggering with script, for something like an EM table that would probably be fine, but for a newer more complex table with multiple events being triggered and such this seems less feasible.

   Second thought was pinsound studio, though I don’t really know much about how it works. Also it’s a little more clumsy as it requires a secondary program running and isn’t self contained.

2. Basically the same question but from a dmd standpoint. Is there a way to replace the dmd images but keep the triggering all the same?

   I’m not knowledgeable enough to know, but I see a few mod tables using ultradmd making me think that’s the way to go. If that’s the correct route is there a way to have the original rom dmd trigger ultradmd? (don’t even know if I’m phrasing that right, but hopefully you get what I’m asking)

Any and all insight is appreciated, thanks

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[Tom]

Matt wants to build a Magic Mike table….

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[Mlager8]

Tom wrote:

Matt wants to build a Magic Mike table….

goddammit Tom, blowing up my spot

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Tom

[JR]

Ha.  My GF might like that.  Good luck with whatever you decide to take on.  You’ve really brought some skills to this community.  Much appreciated.

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[Thalamus]

For #1 : Yes and no, It kind of depends on what rom you are trying to change. For SAM tables you’ve got pinballbrowser that can help you replace the rom music. For other machines it will be much harder. There is a many different sound chips that have been analyzed and emulated in pinmame. You kind of need to reverse engineer that routine and match the length etc. Simply too much work. I would say that you are better of going with what you already have though about – pinsound. And, well, I haven’t followed the project lately. Believe you would have to use a old version if you want native altsound ( being able to use altsound – without pinsound running ). Newer version of the program doesn’t even support pinmame anymore – or does it ? I believe I saw that lucky1 over at VPU made some commits to pinmame a while back.

#2 : I highly recommend staying as far away from UltraDMD as possible. It introduces lag and has locale issues. I’m sure that @lynnindenver is able to give you a better answer and solution. Still lacking a bit of documentation ?!

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Mlager8

[Mlager8]

The table Im was thinking of using is Simpsons Pinball Party (complicated ass table i know) but the deep rule-set lends itself nicely to the theme I have in mind (sorry @jfr1 not magic mike lol, but don’t want to say yet in case I abandon the idea). Since it’s a stern table, does that mean pinballbrowser will work? (dont know what constitutes a SAM table, is it just any stern or a certain board/chipset ect?)

Also thanks for the heads-up on UltraDMD, hopefully a better solution will present it self.

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[Thalamus]

SPP is a Whitestar – and this is what it says about support on Pinside :

It can also open WPC games (it can only display DMD frames – no modifications), and Whitestar games (it can only play and modify sounds).

ref : https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/acdc-display-and-modify-dot-matrix-images#post-872012

I would just download it and give it a try. http://tiny.cc/pinballbrowser6

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[Mlager8]

when I try to load the rom zip it says unrecognized format :(

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[Thalamus]

Extract it first ?

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[Mlager8]

Wow that was silly of me, it listed zip in the filetype drop-down so I assumed that’s what I needed to open.

It’s reading now, let me play around and see how far I can get before crawling back here again…

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[JR]

Would love to see that table modded!  let me paraphrase my previous note – – much appreciated…by us moochers.

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[LynnInDenver]

PuP DMD is a much better solution than UltraDMD at this point – it’s a little easier to feed it type, video, images, etc. Plus it’s not resolution locked to early DMD sizes. And definitely less laggy – the PostDMD upgrade I did to MOTU actually eliminated some of the lag when playing it on the cabinet, with the other savings gotten by being able to turn off the playfield hologram screen since I’m using the PuP Pack. There is a documentation issue, admittedly that’s pretty much the case with all the pieces of the VP ecosystem at this point, but we’re starting to not lack as much in actual examples.

Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.

Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.

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[Mlager8]

Thanks @lynnindenver looks promising. I am however, quite new to this portion of vpx and not sure exactly how all the components talk to each other. Is there a way for pup dmd to utilize the triggers from the rom dmd?

I want to mod a table, not create one from scratch so what I really need is a way to edit or re-create the existing dmd so instead of saying something like “itchy and scratchy multiball” I want to display “matt’s custom multiball”.

Sorry if I’m explaining this clumsily, not sure of the proper terminology for everything.

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[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, that I’m not sure how to go about that – most of what I’ve fiddled with is in terms of score mirroring from a solid state ROM into a PuP DMD is for early 7-segment solid state and alphanumeric (non-DMD), where I read the display driver matrix, and translate the bytes of “turn on these segments of the display” and show the resulting character, which doesn’t work with DMDs. What you’re asking about is more like earlier PuP-Pack work, like the various packs @terryred has made for Tron Legacy, where a DMD image frame (or part of it!) is watched for, and when it sees that, PinUp displays the video it’s been told needs associated with it.

Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.

Creator of the first PinupPlayer PostDMD mods for VPX - PostDMD for Masters of the Universe VPX and Jaws VPX.
Head Proprietor of Pisces Pinball, a VPX table developer.
Lead Technician of MC Chase Amusements, a private arcade in our home basement.

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[slippifishi]

If I understand the requirement correctly, then I think you could achieve some of what you are trying to do using the PIN2DMD editor and creating replacement scenes/animations. I don’t want to go into great detail of the limitations of the editor/the projects it can create, but as a rule of thumb, you can (relatively) easily replace full screen animations with your own; for example, a mode intro animation, or mode title card.

If you want to customise the score display – for example, change the text shown on the running status of the multiball with the current score – then you may need to look for an alternative solution.

One note – there is already a custom colour project for TSPP on VPU, so if you do go this route you might want to consider the fact some people may already have that project installed and they will need to replace/backup/etc. Also, not everyone has a great experience getting the colour projects to work and some people just don’t use them :)

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[Mlager8]

Colorization is one option I had thought about but I didn’t think to consider that it will clash with the existing TSPP color rom. That does seem a little problematic… Good point on that.

What Lynnindenver is describing sounds maybe a little closer to what I’d want but think I might have to ask @terryred for a little more clarity. Picking up a frame and triggering a custom frame or video sounds like it could work, especially if I can mask in partial frames so I can keep the score displaying properly.

Thanks for the input!

 

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[CarnyPriest]

You should be able to work around the naming issues with hacks, clones, re-skins of existing manufacturer rom sets. VPinMAMEdev added a feature in the latest beta cycle whereby users can assign an alias to an existing rom set. Then a custom DOF config, PuPPack or whatever can use the alias. I expect it should work with a rom hack as long as the resulting file size of the resulting rom file is the same before and after. Just enable Ignore ROM CRC errors in the game settings.

Think of the situation for missworld which is an identical clone of kissc.

No build for the current beta cycle yet, but soon.

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[NailBuster]

pup-dmd is designed for original tables, and some have been able to grab scores via alpha-based roms to show those values on BG/DMD.

but when it comes to hiding/modifying a rom like you’re thinking,  i doubt it’ll work,  especially with hardware dmd as having both freezy/pup sending frames to same dmd device.

 

 

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[Mlager8]

Hmm that’s a little disappointing, thought pup-dmd was the answer. Don’t know much about pin2dmd or the editor, but it seems like those colorizations take massive amounts of time. Would using pin2dmd be something realistic or am I barking up the wrong tree?

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[NailBuster]

IMO I’d first try this and see if its something you can work with:  https://orbitalpin.com/home-holding/

 

 

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Mlager8

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