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First off, I want to thank everyone involvled in getting PinUP to where it is today.
I consider PinUp player to be a true game-changer. Having videos really adds to the gaming experience.
I own a Hobbit pinball and have loved playing it – ever since I bought one some two years ago.I have been involved with the video pinball hobby for 10 years now (and on a video cabinet).
As a result of this new feature, I have been inspired to create\update a number of tables with PinUP.In order to help the player with various modes and features of the game, I think it would be nice
to display at a glance – various progress of the game. As an example, take a look at the attached screenshot
for LOTR (vp). In the unused portion of the border, I am using PupOverlays to display which members
of the Fellowship are Collected. Using a ‘Layering’ technique is working great! Unfortunately, the current
limit to the number of ‘screens’ (virtual as they are) – is currently set to 20. And since I dont
want to use any of the standard slots allotted for Topper, DMD, etc, I actually have only 9 left to use.
This is exactly the number of members in the Fellowship. (note: they are grayed out – until collected).In my testing of using all 20 screens, I have not seen ANY performance issues! This begs the question for
my table- why can we not add more virtual screens? Has adding more been tested at some point?
For my LOTR (VP) table, I estimate I would need ~17 more ‘virtual screens’.My request is to help make PinUP even better! I would be happy to beta test any
new version to aid in my request. I have much planned for this pinUP pack, but until I can add more PupOverlays,
I will mostly likely not release this version.
Current WIPs: Mystery??? Pup Pack, X-Files Pup Pack, Shrek Pup Pack, NHL Stanley Cup (FP + Pup Pack)
Pup Completed: D&D Pup Pack. Tables Completed (all in FP): Shrek, Heavy Metal (MTV & Rowamet verson), NHL TableHockey, Nehwon
Some say I have too much time on my hands, I say I don't have enough.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
First off, I want to thank everyone involvled in getting PinUP to where it is today.
I consider PinUp player to be a true game-changer. Having videos really adds to the gaming experience.
I own a Hobbit pinball and have loved playing it – ever since I bought one some two years ago.I have been involved with the video pinball hobby for 10 years now (and on a video cabinet).
As a result of this new feature, I have been inspired to create\update a number of tables with PinUP.In order to help the player with various modes and features of the game, I think it would be nice
to display at a glance – various progress of the game. As an example, take a look at the attached screenshot
for LOTR (vp). In the unused portion of the border, I am using PupOverlays to display which members
of the Fellowship are Collected. Using a ‘Layering’ technique is working great! Unfortunately, the current
limit to the number of ‘screens’ (virtual as they are) – is currently set to 20. And since I dont
want to use any of the standard slots allotted for Topper, DMD, etc, I actually have only 9 left to use.
This is exactly the number of members in the Fellowship. (note: they are grayed out – until collected).In my testing of using all 20 screens, I have not seen ANY performance issues! This begs the question for
my table- why can we not add more virtual screens? Has adding more been tested at some point?
For my LOTR (VP) table, I estimate I would need ~17 more ‘virtual screens’.My request is to help make PinUP even better! I would be happy to beta test any
new version to aid in my request. I have much planned for this pinUP pack, but until I can add more PupOverlays,
I will mostly likely not release this version.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
To start… I myself was already working on a LOTR pup-pack for Stern’s table (VPX). I also planned on doing a DOFLinx / PuP update to the Ultimate / Pro Edition of FP as well :)
Not that you can’t do one either…just giving a heads up.
Many people have performance problems running with just up to 8 pup screens with pup-packs. You also have the issue of layering those screens and keeping that all working correctly. I assure you you won’t be able to manage 17+ video screens layered without some overlapping issues.
Using transparent videos would result in huge performance hits…and also VERY large video files.
As for 20 screens… using that many would be a problem…and keep in mind, PuP uses VLC to play videos, and PuP itself for Overlays. You can change Overlays for things like you describe, but if there are a lot of changes happening quickly, Overlays can be a bit slow to update and change…especially if your screen resolution is different than the overlay resolution.
With some creativity, you can mix up videos and overlays to do similar things…but again…with VPX you can’t do this practically because you have no way to know what the proper state of a game is, or how to control it….you can only react to DMD images, and b2s triggers. It can get messy real quick.
The biggest limitation with rom based tables in VP with pup-packs is you don’t have control over table events. So that makes it difficult to track correctly what to keep displayed for things like characters. Yes you can do Light States from the Rom, but those are very unpredictable…and from a lot of experience I tend to no longer use them, as you will have videos playing at times you don’t want,etc.
For something like FP…well you can do whatever you want for control since you have complete control over the game’s code.
The reality is, that with rom based tables you are very restricted compared to an original table… and wanting to use that many pup screens in reality would be difficult if they need to overlap. This isn’t the same as B2S Backglasses that just use one screen and layered BMP / PNG’s. Using multiple VLC and PuP windows at one time has its limitations.
“Wanting” something for pup is not the same as the practical reality. Start simple before going big….just ask trochjochel. There have been a few times I needed to fix up his pup-packs because he was trying to do too much beyond what VLC can tolerate.
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Just replying to a couple of your points:
“… I also planned on doing a DOFLinx / PuP update to the Ultimate / Pro Edition of FP as well :) …” => This site should consider a ‘WIP’ section for PinUP packs, etc. This has worked very well on other sites!
“…Many people have performance problems running with just up to 8 pup screens with pup-packs. You also have the issue of layering those screens and keeping that all working correctly….” => I have seen the layering issue you describe with other tables, but I have not had the issue on this table so far. Most likely because it a small non overlapping size – ONLY used with images.
“…Using transparent videos would result in huge performance hits…and also VERY large video files…” => Not talking about that at all. Just static images.
“…The biggest limitation with rom based tables in VP with pup-packs is you don’t have control over table events. So that makes it difficult to track correctly what to keep displayed for things like characters…” I was to trigger these via PupCapture. (Additionally, these could be triggered by a Switch – I would think a switch would be most reliable).
“…trying to do too much beyond what VLC can tolerate…’ => Again, the updates I am talking about about are NOT using VLC, but PupOverlay.
“…“Wanting” something for pup is not the same as the practical reality…” => I appreciate the caution, just trying to push the envelope here. I am of the belief to try and experiment with something, push its boundries even. Otherwise nothing new and interesting would be possible – just like PinUP!
Thanks again for everyone’s efforts!
Current WIPs: Mystery??? Pup Pack, X-Files Pup Pack, Shrek Pup Pack, NHL Stanley Cup (FP + Pup Pack)
Pup Completed: D&D Pup Pack. Tables Completed (all in FP): Shrek, Heavy Metal (MTV & Rowamet verson), NHL TableHockey, Nehwon
Some say I have too much time on my hands, I say I don't have enough.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
great to see new ideas around pinup player for sure!
but increasing the pupdisplays i don’t think is the best solution… eventually vlc won’t like that many dll/videos/connections. The reason why pup can’t use hardware/version 3+ is once you get to more than 5 ‘displays’, it goes kaput fast.
remember that labels can also be PNGs (not just text) using the pupoverlay/script. so you could do your characters overlay by having each character being a pupoverlay ‘object’ and setting the image to on/off that way for example.
im sure there are better ways to get the same affect for those type of things…and performance is always important too…
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