Future & Visual Pinball

[Greatflash]

This is not strictly a problem with Hyperspin (though relevent) but I only just discovered the solution to a problem I was having with F & V pinball.
I had a problem with both emu's where the credit and start buttons would not function (even if remapped to joypad). This I had forgotten about months ago, but was spured to re-investigate after a discussion with Brian regarding the new work on the Pinball HS display (wonderful, i must say).
The problem occurs only under Vista and is related to that nasty UAC. Even though Visual and Future do not cause a UAC pop up, they are affected by it. The solution is to right click on both executables and select "run as administrator". This has the knock on effect that UAC will now pop up upon execution (not much fun when run from HS). The simply solution is to download "TweakUAC", run it and set it to silent mode.
After all this faffing about, both emu's will run fine and the keys will now work.

I know this is a bit off topic, but blame Brian for making me have to find out the solution after all this time :)

[BadBoyBill]

Funy, I just discovered this last night after spending like an hour and a half trying to get Visual Pinball working properly. You can run as administrator , I also ran as compadibility for XP service pack2 and unchecked the run as administrator and it worked as well.

[Greatflash]

Funny how these things work out isn't it? :)

My main problem was with Future (not such a fan of Visual), and that did need Admin on. Will have another play with visual at some point. Was having lots of fun doing some nice low angle vidsnaps for future pinball. thought i would have a change from saturn and spectrum vids..

Well, I thought it was worth mentioning and to at least make my first post slightly educational

[The Loafer]

BBB: Let me know if you come across other issues with VP. The Vista issue has been known for a while, anything I can do to help the integration of VP/VPM, I'm there.

[BadBoyBill]

Cool, I thought it was just something I was doing at first. I got the Visual Pinball finally working on my laptop so I do feel better now. It looked great, I havent played it in years, I think the last time I played it Monopoly just came out and I wanted it in VP but it wasnt even started yet. Then I saw last night that it was there :)

Also as for future pinball via HyperSpin I had to turn run as admin off and switch on xp compatibility. The reason for this was when started via HS it would just not work, but when started normally it did. So when I made the switch then it worked.

[Greatflash]

Did you use TWEAKUAC and set it for silent? Future will hand from HS with a UAC request without it.

[BadBoyBill]

No I didnt but Im going to tonight and see how it works. Thanks.

[brian_hoffman]

Thanks GreatFlash for the info.. I run vista but I have UAC disabled... I cant stand it.
Id also like to point out running while FP through HS you need to set the video resolution in FP the same as your desktop... Otherwise it will lose focus during swichres and no inputs will work or other wired things will happen.

Just FYI

[brian_hoffman]

Loafer.. If you want to write wrapper for VP then we can get it going.. VP isnt very commandline friendly with lots of promps and user input needed..

Im aware of working loaders provided with other apps and dont want to use them.

This is the only thing stopping me from adding support to it at this time..
User Frequency told me he wrote a loader for it but he hasnt distributed it..
If you are reading this Frequency Id like to know what you think.

[The Loafer]

Unfortunately, I know nothing about writing wrappers, I haven't touched any scripting programming in 18 years since DbaseIII+ :(. I was hoping because of the .vpt file association, it would not have been necessary? Ie: you can use Windows Explorer as a front end to load tables on a properly installed VP/VPM just by double-clicking on the vpt file.

[brian_hoffman]

No.. It loads the table editor. From there you need to click file/play tabe or something.
When exiting it goes back to the table editor. The program never closes and the FE doesnt comeback into focus..
I wrote a loader for Freedo and I could write one for VP but Im just not feeling it right now.
Maybe after go live and the dust settles Ill get it done along with adding satun and a few other goodies.

[BadBoyBill]

I can add built in support for vp if it works that way

[brian_hoffman]

It does work that way... Or very similar.. I haven run it in a while manually... Ive been using a wrapper that was packaged with Gameex to make it cli friendly.. There is alot of work involved in this one.

[Greatflash]

VP is nice and great on slower machines, but it does not have the glitz of FP. Can you imagine a theme that was totally VP?

Brian - UAC is a worthwhile addition to Vista, but I must admit it is a little over zealous. It is worth turning it back on and using TWEAKUAC to switch it to silent mode. You then get 70% of the benefits of UAC and zero inteference.

[Greatflash]

Just started uploading Fpinball Vids to Emumovies (WIP)

They are 480x360 60 fps and in avi (can easily be flv converted)

Not sure if they are of any use?

[HeadKaze]

Hey Flash, fancy meeting you here? Great to see an av of you you have about as much hair as I do :D

Brian: I thought there were a few VP wrappers I think I have about 5 different ones on my cab all of them with the original AutoIt source (obviously wont be using the ones from you know who). There are scenarios where a popup will appear but you can actually remove some of that using Resource Hacker. Still it would be better to add native support for that of course. Looking at the vpauto source will probably be enough to figure it out.

[Greatflash]

HK - It is a special hairless wig. . . I wear it on days that I don't have time to gel my tremendously kept hair....

[HeadKaze]

HK - It is a special hairless wig. . . I wear it on days that I don't have time to gel my tremendously kept hair....

:D

[The Loafer]

It does work that way... Or very similar.. I haven run it in a while manually... Ive been using a wrapper that was packaged with Gameex to make it cli friendly.. There is alot of work involved in this one.


Hey Brian/BBB,

Some good news, FYI I decided to try this out and I think you might have been using an older version because for me, I can just double click on the VPT file and it goes straight to the table, no prompt unless it's the first time you run the VPM table, then it will ask you the "are you legally entitled to play" yes or no question (only asks once per game/rom). Exiting is the same, goes straight to the OS, bypasses the editor.

The current version is 8.1. If you are have that version and are still having this probleml, it's possible you just need to download the full install, then when you run it, select "remove" to uninstall the older version and then reinstall it.

If that doesn't work, let me know. I seem to recall there was a bug in the file association on one of the versions, it might be version 8.1. If it doesn't work, install the full 6.1, then just copy the new 8.1 exe over the older version (that's all you need to do).

Everything is available via VPForums or yours truly via email if need be.

Let me know,

Rob

[brian_hoffman]

Okay.. Ill look into it this weekend. If that is true i'll write a config up. Does this NEW version EXPIRE like older builds?

[BadBoyBill]

Hey Loafer,
About how many VP tables would you say there are that are really good quality and not just slapped together, these would be the ones we would want to concentrate on first when making videos and wheel images. If theres a list somewhrere of the top rated tables or something like that, then that would help tremendously.

[The Loafer]

expired version: nope, VP hasn't expired in a while. Well, I think it does, but the date was set to the year 32000 or something outrageous like that.

Important note:
Vpinmame: this necessary seperate component to VP (needed to "emulate" the tables's light sequences, sound, etc) used to expire but as of today, version 2.0 is out, it's fully open source and no longer expires! Talk about timing!

BBB: I'm not aware of any lists but I've no problem:
a) searching around if there is one
B) getting a list done manually. I have most/all tables and I don't mind getting that together for you and probably my favorite tables are probably the more popular ones. Maybe we can start with that, make it to start a "top XX" number of tables that we know people would also like. Can you give me some kind of number? IE: it wouldn't be too difficult to get into a top 30-50 tables that people would surely like. I could also setup some kind of poll/thread at VPForums asking them which titles they feel should be done if you think that can help. What do you guys think?

[BadBoyBill]

Well I could bust out 50 wheel images in one day easy, so I'm sure the video gurus here wouldnt mind making the vids. Since thats all we need then we'd be good to go for a nice 50 theme starter set. I'd set a day a side to do this specifically.

[The Loafer]

Ok, one top 50 list coming right up.

[BadBoyBill]

Sweet, thank you. Lemme guess, Superman and Firepower will be on the list?

[paulstevens]

Firepower should be mandatory :top:

[The Loafer]

It wil be there. I'm almost done, gimme another hour tops

[The Loafer]

Well, that took a while...

Ok, here’s the list of top 50 tables that I can come up with on the spot. I’ve included the download location so if you want to download it if you don’t have it to make the vids, you now know where it is.

Disclaimer:
- I don’t doubt many fans of VP/VPM may feel this list leaves some obvious titles out, and you’re probably right. I think even if I’m forgetting a few, I still feel comfortable that these are 50 quality tables, there is no garbage here, guaranteed.
- If you’re a VP table author and are reading this, don’t be upset if your table isn’t here. I'm sure there will be more tables themes/wheel created later on.
- I’ve tried to have a few high quality originals and a few tables from older era’s, to please some of the fans of these type.
- I may have the wrong version number, but that shouldn’t be important for the theme, I gather the user will need to rename the tables to whatever is used as default name. Really sucks that VPForums’ search engine is broken right now, prevents me from verifying.
- In fact, here’s a grand idea! Whoever’s reading this, if you don’t see your favorite table and want to add it, create a wheel/theme for it!
- I included the version number and author name. Reason for this is so when creating the vid, you select the table I saw as perhaps the best graphics. No doubt some may say other versions may have better playability, they may be correct it has been a long time since I played some of these tables.
- Note to skin authors: the screenshot feature at VPForums is broken, some of the screenshots are from older versions (and some aren’t there). AJ (the site owner) is in the process of updating the site to a newer version of VBBulletin, though I’m not certain when he will be done. It’s hopeful when he is completed, this will also fix the screenshot feature. You can get a lot of good pics from www.ipdb.org, THE ressource for anything pinball related.

Top 50 Visual Pinball/Visual Pinmame/Original pinball tables:

VPM tables available at VPFORUMS (31 tables):

Addams Family 7.3 (PD & Boris)
Big Bang Bar 1.3 (PD)
Black Knight (Kristian)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula 1.1 (Lander)
Circus Volitaire 2.1 (Scapino)
Eight Ball 1.0 (Scapino)
Eight Ball Champ 4.1 (Scapino)
Elvira and the Party Monsters (highrise and jpsalas) 1.03
Firepower 1.6 (PD)
Funhouse 1.0 (Lander)
Genie 1.0 (Eala)
Getaway: High Speed II (PD)
High Speed 2.1 (PD)
Indiana Jones Redux 2.60r (Destruk/BlueTex/Jive/PinballKen/PD)
Jurassic Park 1.0 (PD)
Meteor 1.0 (Eala)
Monopoly 1.3 (PD)
No Fear 2.2 (PD)
Paragon 1.0 (PD)
Playboy 3.1 (Scapino)
Roadshow 1.52 (PD)
Simpsons Pinball Party 1.2 (Destruk, UncleReamus, Skalar, Gaston, TAB, Gottlieb, Scapino, Maf)
Sorcerer 1.3 (PD)
Space Shuttle 0.95 (Emkaah)
Star Trek 1.1 (Scapino)
Superman 2.0 (Eala)
Terminator 2 3.1p (PD/Sellenoff/AJ/ColosusMania)
The Shadow 1.2 (Jammin)
Twilight Zone 7.3 (PD & many others)
WhirlWind 1.4 (PD)
Xenon 2.0 (Scapino’s)

VPM Tables Available at http://www.pinballnirvana.com (14 tables)
Attack from Mars (jpsalas)
Eight Ball Deluxe 5.02 (jpsalas)
Indianapolis 500 (jpsalas)
Kiss 5.01 (jpsalas)
Lord of the Rings 1.02 (jpsalas)
Medieval Madness 5.11 (jpsalas)
Ripley’s Believe it or not 5.11 (jpsalas)
Riverboat Gambler 5.0 (jpsalas)
Robocop 5.0 (jpsalas)
Scared Stiff Prototype 1.06 (highrise and jpsalas)
Star Wars Data East (jpsalas)
Tales from the Crypt 1.0 (jpsalas)
Taxi 5.0 (jpsalas)
Tee’d Off 1.01 (jpsalas)

VP Originals (5):
jpsalas original tables found at pinballnirvana.com
Eala original tables found at http://www.dragonmagic.net/~rfom/Tables/

DIsARMageddon_1.32 (jpsalas)
Kingdom Hearts 1.0 (Eala) (don’t forget the music pack pin fans!)
Card Sharks Deluxe Edition 2006-09 (Eala)
Rapid Vienna Kick n Roll (not available anywhere but I could send it if you need it, It’s great!)
Trigon 1.0 (Shiva) (maybe the best VP original - you can find it here: http://pinballnirvana.com/shiva/vp/)


If you're wondering which ones REALLY are special, take a look at:
Scared Stiff
Simpsons Pinball Party
Lord of the Rings
Big Bang Bar
Medieval Madness
Trigon (incredible original)

If you're looking for more, anything by Scapino/JPSalas/Pacdude (PD) looks great, though sometimes looks can come at a cost performance wise (but these usually PLAY great too!). Also, any tables by Lio/Lander/Kristian/TAB and especially Destruk really play just at the top level. My apologies again for any I may have forgotten, it wasn't intentional :) ).


Bonus table: this is a beta of an upcoming table by jpsalas. The guy is a machine. Star Trek the Next Generation (may be released in the next few days, try the incredible beta found in this thread: http://www.vpforums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45158&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 )

[BadBoyBill]

Nice list man this will definitely help, having the name of the most up to date table will be pretty important also so I will try to research the name because the name of the wheel images and the video have to be that name for it to work right, so simply updating the xml wont do all that much good. So I'll try to be careful when naming. If you get bored you can take the names and make a generic xml based on our with these tables while the we take care of the wheel images and videos. That would be a great help. I will have a good time creating the images we need for the wheel. Thanks for the list man. Im also glad to have a recommended list like this for myself also to see some quality tables. Thanks.

Cant believe someones doing star trek, that table is pretty crazy, paulstevens showed it to me at CalExtreme doing its cool stuff.

[BadBoyBill]

By the way, might be a stupid question but if a table has (PD) after that, what does it mean?

PacDude I guess?

[The Loafer]

Yeah, Pacdude.

BBB: I'm going to bed but I'll be happy to setup the xml file tomorrow. Couple of questions:

- no zip correct? You want the name of the .vpt?
- I was thinking because there are many new revisions to these tables, wouldn't it be better to REMOVE any semblance of a version number? ie: Twilight Zone 7.3 should imho be called Twilight Zone OR Twilight Zone PD (to support possible different versions of the table by said author). VP Tables aren't like romsets. Updated roms will typically keep the same zip name and just change the innards. But with a VP table, the entire .vpt file is changed completely and gets a new zip name while they're at it. VP/FP is very different in this way, there is no agreed on standard and because of the regular updates, I can see why.

I'm concerned with guys like Scapino/jpsalas/PD have put forth many new updates, you'll also note the majority of the tables are from these 3. Again, I can see though there are times where it would be cool to identify more than the standard name to support more than one version of the table. For example Twilight Zone: There are two excellent versions, one by PD, one by Scapino, both have their fanbase.

Hmmm, re-reading your message I see what you are saying about "researching the name". Yeah, you know there is one problem with that, the name of the file at VPforums may be different than the name of the file at Pinballnirvana.com for the same table, which is surely different from the torrent downloads, so somehow that will still be an issue in the end. For you to consider, but that may be the best reason to go with the most generic name possible, forces their hand to rename once, and that's it.

At any rate, whatever you want, I'm cool with :)

STTNG: There's already a pretty good version out, give it a try, get it at vpforums.

Time for bed,

[BadBoyBill]

What would you feel the most reliable source for the latest table is the VP site ones or the other site, because the latest version is surely what we need, even if they update it again, the the xml's can be updated by the user. We just need the initial starting point which would be the most recent version.

[The Loafer]

I'm pretty sure the sites I listed have the most recent versions. For example, some of jpsalas' tables are located on VPFORUMS but I know some of them are not up to date on that site, thus why I provided the pinballnirvana location for his tables. I'll look over the list again though to make sure. The problem is: pinballnirvana does not have every table, nor does vpforums. Vpforums typically would, but it has a table size limit issue that although can be bypassed, the site owner needs to do it manually. Unfortunatly, he hasn't been as available as we'd like, thus we have this issue. Hopefully with the new install, this might become an issue of the past. If not, big thanks to Jon Purple Haze at PinballNirvana for providing his site to the community.


Not sure if you missed this question?
- no zip correct? You want the name of the .vpt? VP of course needs the file unzipped, I'm assuming your front end does not handle the unzipping, correct?

[BadBoyBill]

Not yet, but since you said the best way was clicking the vpt file to get it to work clean, then we should probably just do it that way where the table is extracted.

[The Loafer]

Yep, she works fine that way. Ok, since there's a preference to the version number, I'll go that route then. Busy for the next 4-6 hours but will start with the xml right after that. If anyone wants to chime him on the subject of naming convention, now, is the time. Something else to consider is because there is no VP naming convention standard, many table names start with: "PM". Example: "PM Pennant Fever.vpt", PM Hard Body.vpt", etc. (I'm assuming the author wanted to associate his VPM tables from VP tables (PM=Pinmame).

This is the reason why it's important we nail the naming convention in the butt now before we go too far. If not, you're going to here a lot of complaints from those not in the know.

Also, I was considering to help differentiate originals and VPM tables from VP by adding "VPM" for VPM tables and "orig" for originals. The reason for this is that sometimes, there can be a different version of the table both for VP and VPM and sometimes, some prefer one over the other (the VPM version wins out 90% of the time I would think but there's always someone... :)).

[brian_hoffman]

Well when a rom has PD by it, It means public domain

But in the pinball world I could be way off

[The Loafer]

Hey folks, sorry for the delay, wife was away but company arrived that messed yesterday real good. Still busy today but I'm off work the next two days, so if I don't attack this tonight, I will at least get the chance tomorrow at some point. Anyone else here have wife and kids?:)

[brian_hoffman]

I do... I just had twins last year... 1 yr 2months//// AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[The Loafer]

Well, you know what they say, if you're planning on only having 2 kids, yer done! :)

I've got two girls: 1 about to turn 17 this month, the other turns 15 next month, both have boyfriends. It's a wonder I don't have any grey hairs and it's no surprise I'm losing them fast!

[joebells]

practically married(girlfriend was in college so we didn't get married but have been together for 6 years) and a daughter that turned 1 on august 1st :D That was the first thing I thought of was the dating that will be happening at some point.

[The Loafer]

We'll talk in about 13/14 years Joe :). Own any guns? eheh

[Dazz]

What no Cyclone on the top 50 list?

[The Loafer]

It should have been there, but then there are a BUNCH others too. 50 was a tight number, I think you'll agree. I would have liked to also include some of the OLDER tables, like a few of the flipperless, etc. There's some really nice ones of those types, BUT are only played by a select few.

We'll add some right after the first release of HyperSpin that will contain VP integration but the limit of 50 was a good start to also not make however has to do the wheel art, etc, get a coronary. I'll get others ready plus I'll probably start a thread at VPForums accepting requests if it's ok with "the bosses" :)

[The Loafer]

Ok, the xml list is done, will be sending it to BBB in a few minutes, just re-verifying that everything's a-ok.

Worthy of note, a few table versions have changed from the list above, found new versions were uploaded that I wasn't aware.

One table has changed: Lord of the Rings. From what I've read, the community mod version 1.3 of the original released table by Destruk et all may not look quite as good but it plays incredibly well (and one of the toys, the Balrog, is animated in this version too, as opposed to jpsalas's pop up version). Both are fantastic, I highly recommend we add the other version too at some point :).

[BadBoyBill]

Sweet thanks!

[The Loafer]

Everything checks out, the file has been sent to your email account and I believe I am now blind!

What was done:
- Verified as best I could to ensure I had latest version. When I didn't, I downloaded it. There are about 5 tables I'm not sure, and VPF is presently down for maintenance, but I'm pretty comfortable of its accuracy.
- Used ipdb.org (Internet Pinball Database) to ensure I had the proper company name, year and title of the game.
- To eliminate potential human error, both the "Description" and "Game Name" fields were done via "cut & paste". This is actually a bit more work as it involved unzipping from the original archived file, then selecting file name, etc; a necessary step since I had renamed a few in my vp folder. Yes, the filename for "The Shadow" really does finish with an underscore. :confused:

Sorry again if it took longer than expected. Whenever you want the next set, let me know it will be my pleasure to help out. I'll make sure I include all other big "hits" of the VP community.

It's 3:40am, I'm outta here!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[BadBoyBill]

Thanks, I'll check it out first thing in the morning, its pretty late here to.

[The Loafer]

VP related news:
- My bad, I stated earlier I was uing VP 8.1, that should read VP 8.1.1.
- new updates to VPinMame 2.01
- why? It's for support of a new table: Nascar is now available. Current version is 1.1, includes samples for those who don't have the big rig pc to handle the sound emulation.

Check out the release thread at VPForums for the link to the file/roms.

[deadsoulz]

Well, that took a while...

Ok, here’s the list of top 50 tables that I can come up with on the spot. I’ve included the download location so if you want to download it if you don’t have it to make the vids, you now know where it is.

Disclaimer:
- I don’t doubt many fans of VP/VPM may feel this list leaves some obvious titles out, and you’re probably right. I think even if I’m forgetting a few, I still feel comfortable that these are 50 quality tables, there is no garbage here, guaranteed.
- If you’re a VP table author and are reading this, don’t be upset if your table isn’t here. I'm sure there will be more tables themes/wheel created later on.
- I’ve tried to have a few high quality originals and a few tables from older era’s, to please some of the fans of these type.
- I may have the wrong version number, but that shouldn’t be important for the theme, I gather the user will need to rename the tables to whatever is used as default name. Really sucks that VPForums’ search engine is broken right now, prevents me from verifying.
- In fact, here’s a grand idea! Whoever’s reading this, if you don’t see your favorite table and want to add it, create a wheel/theme for it!
- I included the version number and author name. Reason for this is so when creating the vid, you select the table I saw as perhaps the best graphics. No doubt some may say other versions may have better playability, they may be correct it has been a long time since I played some of these tables.
- Note to skin authors: the screenshot feature at VPForums is broken, some of the screenshots are from older versions (and some aren’t there). AJ (the site owner) is in the process of updating the site to a newer version of VBBulletin, though I’m not certain when he will be done. It’s hopeful when he is completed, this will also fix the screenshot feature. You can get a lot of good pics from www.ipdb.org, THE ressource for anything pinball related.

Top 50 Visual Pinball/Visual Pinmame/Original pinball tables:

VPM tables available at VPFORUMS (31 tables):

Addams Family 7.3 (PD & Boris)
Big Bang Bar 1.3 (PD)
Black Knight (Kristian)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula 1.1 (Lander)
Circus Volitaire 2.1 (Scapino)
Eight Ball 1.0 (Scapino)
Eight Ball Champ 4.1 (Scapino)
Elvira and the Party Monsters (highrise and jpsalas) 1.03
Firepower 1.6 (PD)
Funhouse 1.0 (Lander)
Genie 1.0 (Eala)
Getaway: High Speed II (PD)
High Speed 2.1 (PD)
Indiana Jones Redux 2.60r (Destruk/BlueTex/Jive/PinballKen/PD)
Jurassic Park 1.0 (PD)
Meteor 1.0 (Eala)
Monopoly 1.3 (PD)
No Fear 2.2 (PD)
Paragon 1.0 (PD)
Playboy 3.1 (Scapino)
Roadshow 1.52 (PD)
Simpsons Pinball Party 1.2 (Destruk, UncleReamus, Skalar, Gaston, TAB, Gottlieb, Scapino, Maf)
Sorcerer 1.3 (PD)
Space Shuttle 0.95 (Emkaah)
Star Trek 1.1 (Scapino)
Superman 2.0 (Eala)
Terminator 2 3.1p (PD/Sellenoff/AJ/ColosusMania)
The Shadow 1.2 (Jammin)
Twilight Zone 7.3 (PD & many others)
WhirlWind 1.4 (PD)
Xenon 2.0 (Scapino’s)

VPM Tables Available at http://www.pinballnirvana.com (14 tables)
Attack from Mars (jpsalas)
Eight Ball Deluxe 5.02 (jpsalas)
Indianapolis 500 (jpsalas)
Kiss 5.01 (jpsalas)
Lord of the Rings 1.02 (jpsalas)
Medieval Madness 5.11 (jpsalas)
Ripley’s Believe it or not 5.11 (jpsalas)
Riverboat Gambler 5.0 (jpsalas)
Robocop 5.0 (jpsalas)
Scared Stiff Prototype 1.06 (highrise and jpsalas)
Star Wars Data East (jpsalas)
Tales from the Crypt 1.0 (jpsalas)
Taxi 5.0 (jpsalas)
Tee’d Off 1.01 (jpsalas)

VP Originals (5):
jpsalas original tables found at pinballnirvana.com
Eala original tables found at http://www.dragonmagic.net/~rfom/Tables/

DIsARMageddon_1.32 (jpsalas)
Kingdom Hearts 1.0 (Eala) (don’t forget the music pack pin fans!)
Card Sharks Deluxe Edition 2006-09 (Eala)
Rapid Vienna Kick n Roll (not available anywhere but I could send it if you need it, It’s great!)
Trigon 1.0 (Shiva) (maybe the best VP original - you can find it here: http://pinballnirvana.com/shiva/vp/)






Some of your versions are out of date. For instance Cirqus Voltaire is up to 3.0

Don't forget Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Monster Mash two great tables. Also there is a much better newer Addams Family version 1.2 Rework from one of the original authors of the VPT. http://www.pacdude.pinballnirvana.com/

[The Loafer]

I may have caught the PD one, can't check it from here (at work). I'm pretty sure I missed Scap's table though, but no biggy, anyone can change it whenever VP support is added but since I don't think VP support was added yet (I believe the public release is the "tested" release, any VP one will need to be tested privately first - at least that's how I would do it :) ).

I think from the list above, there were 3 or 4 tables I found updates too, just didn't post them all here. Sorry about that, I'll check tonight and post back here and will check with Billy. Sounds ok?

[The Loafer]

Just to confirm, I had indeed caught the Addams Family new version, so that's all good, but I did goof on the Circus Voltaire. Darn him and his naming convention eheh, what's worse is I even had the table on my harddrive.

Billy: I'll send you the updated XML in an email.

[fRequEnCy]

Loafer.. If you want to write wrapper for VP then we can get it going.. VP isnt very commandline friendly with lots of promps and user input needed..

Im aware of working loaders provided with other apps and dont want to use them.

This is the only thing stopping me from adding support to it at this time..
User Frequency told me he wrote a loader for it but he hasnt distributed it..
If you are reading this Frequency Id like to know what you think.

Hey guys! Sorry haven't been in the loop much. My mother has been in the hospital but she just had her operation and all is well now. I now have time to play! LOL. Yes i have working wrappers for many emus that aren't cab-friendly. Now that I downloaded HS I can see how it works so that I can get it run smoothly for you guys if interested. I'm better off being contacted by IM for the moment so you know how to reach me Brian if you want help with some wrappers or some suggestions. If anyone else would like to contact me by the same means then go through Brian for now till I get to know everybody here.

[The Loafer]

Hi fRequEnCy, hope your mom is better very soon. Before attacking the wrapper for Visual Pinball, check with Billy though as it's possible a wrapper is not needed.

[fRequEnCy]

Hi fRequEnCy, hope your mom is better very soon. Before attacking the wrapper for Visual Pinball, check with Billy though as it's possible a wrapper is not needed.

Thanks Loafer! I'll wait till I hear from Brian. The wrapper is already complete but was written for GameEx Frontend. So wouldn't be hard to change the code around to make it more friendly for HyperSpin. So will wait for Billy and what he wants to do.

Just to give a short description about what my wrapper does for the pinball emulators.

1. Has unzip support so that you can leave your tables intact without having to unzip them all to the same directory.
2. Has subfolder support so that it can run the table no matter what directory it's in for those of us who have them in separate categories (i.e. Original, Recreated, Flipperless, etc.).
3. Since some tables have mutiple versions I made it choose the last version which should be the highest one available.
4. Then simply loads the table.

[BadBoyBill]

Is it possible that the zip is different from the vpt name in the zip? It was mentioned that you wouldnt need a wrapper necessarily if you can double click the table. But since it has zip support and if its pretty seamless then we might reconsider the naming convetnion back to the zip name if thats the case.

[The Loafer]

I have to agree, zip support is pretty fantastic!!! yes, in some cases, the zip file does not match the name of the vpt but I think that's the exception, not the norm. I will double check later, on my way out to a Def Leppard concert :)

[Circo]

I have half a mind to gather them up rename in a consistant way that makes sense (ie the videos i just put up) create a dat and be done with it. Run your zips against the dat and whammy named correctly.

What do you think? HyperSpin naming convention?

Anyway, should work right, doing it anyway. All I would have to do is make sure i have original zips and then rename and create new dat. Hell I could even put them in a torrent for ease.

[BadBoyBill]

Cool, maybe frequency will allow us to integrate the pinball launcher into hyperlaunch. Im cool with just zip support and naming em that way. To bad Loafer made that xml, whew...

[Circo]

Can't I just edit the xml?

Can you access the graphics in the.vpt files, seems that many would be a good source for wheel images.

[fRequEnCy]

Cool, maybe frequency will allow us to integrate the pinball launcher into hyperlaunch. Im cool with just zip support and naming em that way. To bad Loafer made that xml, whew...

I would suggest off the zip name instead of the internal. But then again that's the way I have it setup as of the moment. It's just really preference.

[The Loafer]

No big deal on creating the xml, whatever is best is the way to go gents.

[Circo]

Loafer, if you notice that I use a wrong set for a table can you let me know, doing my best but I am not the expert. Uploading everything I do to the test directory.

[The Loafer]

Will check tonight if I can, I have a date with the wife :) :) :)

[Circo]

No pressure or hurry, this is an ongoing process, just let me know if ya ever notice anythig. :)

[Circo]

Ok, I have started putting it all together, figured out how to make an xml file :)

So my question is this, what should I use for genre's?

IE

Recreated - Solid-State
Recreated - Electro-Mechanical
Recreated - Flipperless
Original - Solid-State
Original - Electro-Mechanical
Original - Flipperless

This is what I came up with, Bill, Guys...what do you think?

[The Loafer]

it's good but aside from the genre vis-a-vis "types of real-life tables", there are also genres with "types of Visual Pinball tables", which I think is important to differentiate between Visual Pinball tables, Visual Pinball tables needing Visual Pinmame and of course VP originals. So.... maybe this as an alternative?

Recreated - VPM - Solid State
Recreated - Solid-State
Recreated - Electro-Mechanical
Recreated - Flipperless
Original - Solid-State
Original - Electro-Mechanical
Original - Flipperless

Nah, I don't think we need to start differentiating between DMD and non DMD tables.

Loaf

[deadsoulz]

Cool, glad this is being worked out. Also I think there should be a Dat file created for all Emumovies/Hyperspin sets. Would be great to have dats for the roms/and themes/images if possible.

[Circo]

Basically what I am doing is three things:

#1 Standardizing table names, putting together a CLEAN set, torrent zipping, and creating a .dat for the tables.

#2 Creating the Visual Pinball XML for hyperspin complete with Genre

#3 Creating the videos for each table.

I have done #-A as a final test and now I am going to finish those top 50 before moving on to "B"

I am not so worried about wheel images because while we are waiting on those there is that new theme generator program :)

[Circo]

FYI, I am 168 tables in to the Visual Pinball Project

FTP:
-WIP
-Visual Pinball Project
-AVI
-FLV
-Hyperspin XML
-Tables
-System
-Visual Pinball
-Music

[BadBoyBill]

Man, thats alot of work, thanks alot!

[The Loafer]

:congrats: Awesome work, thanks!

[Circo]

Currently the tables are on the EmuMovies Server, when I get done I will whip up a dat the rebuild your existing tables to the new naming convention :)