Pin2Dmd Editor

[comicalman]

I have updated the editor's issue list on github.

[lucky1]

The editors issue list is here 

https://github.com/sker65/go-dmd-clock/issues

 

You opened an issue for the firmware.

[comicalman]

The editors issue list is here 

https://github.com/sker65/go-dmd-clock/issues

 

You opened an issue for the firmware.

I updated issue #39 of the editor (already created it 8 days prior  Thanks for checking tho!

[lucky1]

New version is up

https://bintray.com/sker65/pin2dmd/Editor/latest/view#files

[wiredworm]

This looks fantastic and i'm finally optimistic about the possibility of getting some colour onto the display of the DMD in my Rocky & Bullwinkle.

 

I've not yet bought a panel but it's certainly high on my wish list, just so long as I can be sure it will do what I need it to.

Right now i'm just toying around with Pin2DMD and i've managed to import some data from the dump generated by the modified version of vPinMame.  I've then managed to slice that up but the concept of keyframes is really hurting my brain.  I've also found that colour modifications I make to a specific frame don't seem to be retained if I toggle to the next frame and back again.

 

I'm sure i'm doing something wrong so could someone on here please give me an idiots guide as to how I should be setting up keyframes, and how I go about recolouring frames using the drawing tools in Pin2DMD? 

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.  If I can get a couple of animations prototyped then i'll probably jump onboard and buy a Pin2DMD.

[comicalman]

Looks like this fixes the 'Hanging' on keyframe issue.  I'm assuming the keyframes were not being exported (the size of .fsq increased greatly with this latest version).

However, I want to test a bit more before closing the isse.

 

New version is up

https://bintray.com/sker65/pin2dmd/Editor/latest/view#files

[wiredworm]

The issue i'm having seems to be caused by the number of planes in my imported animations.  With 2 planes only 4 colours can be used - for 16 colours I have to have 4 planes?

 

Is there any way to change the number of planes in an animation or is it dictated by something else?

[lucky1]

The issue i'm having seems to be caused by the number of planes in my imported animations.  With 2 planes only 4 colours can be used - for 16 colours I have to have 4 planes?

 

Is there any way to change the number of planes in an animation or is it dictated by something else?

 

The number of colors is given by the machine ROM. With machines which have only 4 colors you can either replace the animation or add color to it. First you need to cut the scene by using "mark start - mark end - cut"  When the ColMask checkbox is not checked you can overwrite or replace the given information. If you check the ColMask checkbox you only add color information to the given pixels from the ROM preventing information such as scores. When you are finished you assign a keyframe as a startingpoint for the playback of the scene. In most of the cases it is the same frame as tha starting frame from the cutted scene.

[wiredworm]

I'm really sorry but I can't see any checkbox that says AddCol.  This is what I see right now.

 

 

Now I notice that under details it says 'Planes: 4' which I presume is good news as it means I can add more colours to the animation frame.  I presume the keyframe boxes only has the top two 'enabled' because those are the only ones which currently hold any data.

 

Can anyone point out the elusive 'AddCol' checkbox for me please? :-)

[OzStick]

I'm wanting to have a bit of a play around with this but I can't work out how to get a dump from VPinMAME. I have downloaded this version:

http://vpuniverse.com/forums/files/file/4179-vpinmame-sam-for-pin2dmd-editor/

 

...and then dropped it into my vpinmame folder then run setup.exe and done an Install.

 

I then ran a table (Scared Stiff - a VP favourite of mine) with both Show DMD Window and Use PinDMD checked but it is not creating a dump file in my Tables folder.

 

Do I need to be running the DMD unit on my PC for this to work, because I currently have it disconnected. Am I missing something?

[lucky1]

I'm really sorry but I can't see any checkbox that says AddCol.  This is what I see right now.

 

 

Now I notice that under details it says 'Planes: 4' which I presume is good news as it means I can add more colours to the animation frame.  I presume the keyframe boxes only has the top two 'enabled' because those are the only ones which currently hold any data.

 

Can anyone point out the elusive 'AddCol' checkbox for me please? :-)

 

Sorry ! My fault ! It is called ColMask.

[wiredworm]

...and then dropped it into my vpinmame folder then run setup.exe and done an Install.

 

I then ran a table (Scared Stiff - a VP favourite of mine) with both Show DMD Window and Use PinDMD checked but it is not creating a dump file in my Tables folder.

 

Do I need to be running the DMD unit on my PC for this to work, because I currently have it disconnected. Am I missing something?

 

You might need to manually create the folder Tmp off the root of your C: drive.  Once done the dump file will always be placed under C:\Tmp with the name dump.txt.  It doesn't get created in the tables folder.

[wiredworm]

Sorry ! My fault ! It is called ColMask.

 

Thanks lucky1 :-)

 

The problem I have is that when I add some dots to the current frame and then move to another frame and then back again it doesn't seem to retain the changes.

 

Am I doing something wrong maybe?  Be grateful if someone can give me the 'idiots guide' on this :-)

[lucky1]

You might need to manually create the folder Tmp off the root of your C: drive.  Once done the dump file will always be placed under C:\Tmp with the name dump.txt.  It doesn't get created in the tables folder.

 

This is not true for the version he is referring to.

[lucky1]

Thanks lucky1 :-)

 

The problem I have is that when I add some dots to the current frame and then move to another frame and then back again it doesn't seem to retain the changes.

 

Am I doing something wrong maybe?  Be grateful if someone can give me the 'idiots guide' on this :-)

 

How do you forward to the next frame ? I press the right arrow and it is working as expected. Since I´m too deep into the development it would

be best that an idiots guide is written by an idiot . Maybe you can share your experience (without saying you are an idiot of course )

[wiredworm]

I will happily be 'that idiot' if it helps to get to the bottom of the issue and helps other people in the future. :-)

 

I'll run through the workflow i'm following and hopefully you can point out my mistakes.

 

1. First of all I got the modified vPinMame.dll file and put it in place.  I then actually modified the script behind my Rocky & Bullwinkle virtual table because the ROM file did not support simulation.  I edited the script so I could use keypresses to simulate switches triggering to get specific animations into the Dump.txt file.

 

2. Start up the 32-bit version of Pin2DMD.  It looks like this.

 

 

3. Next I import the animation frames I got from the modified vPinMame DLL by choosing 'Animations' menu and then 'Load Animation'.  The Dump.txt file was gzipped into a file named RockyDump1.txt.gz.  After importing I can click the Animation to select it and use the bar to move forward and back as shown below.

 

 

4. So now we have a long animation but we need to chop it up into parts.  For this demo I will get the 'Hat Trick Lit' animation.  I use the bar below the preview to find the start frame.  Then I click 'Mark Start'.

 

 

5. Then I move the bar below the preview to find the last frame of the animation.  Then i click 'Mark End' and then 'Cut'.  This gives us this.

 

 

6. I can then click on the new 'Scene 1' animation and rename it to something more appropriate.

 

 

7. So now we are ready to actually do some colouring.  First up I click the 'Hat Trick Lit' animation from the list.  As I understand it the first 4 colours in the palette are used by the existing animation so I can change the antlers of the moose yellow by choosing the third colour and CTRL+Click on it to change it to yellow like this.

 

 

8. But maybe I also want to add some dots of a different colour. Just for an example I want to put some red squares into this frame.  I start by CTRL+Clicking to edit one of the colours higher up in the palette and setting it to red.   Here you see the colour is set in the palette.

 

 

9. Now we click on the Pen tool and draw some squares.  Like this.

 

 

10. And here is where I get confused.  I do not know if I need to add a keyframe for every single frame of the animation I am colouring.  And also which button to use to add the keyframe.

 

If I drag the slider below the preview then the squares I just added disappear when I come back to the first frame.

 

A few things I have tried include selecting 'Hat Trick Lit' from the FrameSeq dropdown and then clicking 'Add FrameSeq' button like this.

 

 

11. But if I then drag the bar below the preview and move it back then the squares I had drawn are gone.

 

 

I would be very grateful for any help that can be offered.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Pete

[wiredworm]

I just did some more testing and it seems to retain the colouring if you use the < and > buttons instead of dragging the bar.  And once you've used those buttons just once it seems to remember the changes you make. 

 

I'd be interested if someone can explain about the keyframe types a bit more.  I presume 'Add PalSwitch' adds a special frame which instructs a specific palette to be loaded at that point.  So if you want to use more than 16 colours in a single animation you could do that by splitting the colours between palettes and using a 'PalSwitch' keyframe at the points where you need to change colours?

[wiredworm]

Or, to put it clearly ;-)

 

[lucky1]

Add PalSwitch just changes the palette starting from the chosen keyframe which may be enough if you just want to change the light blue to yellow.

You can also add a duration how long the palette should be active. After hat it switches back to the Palette which is assigned as default.

 

Add FrameSeq starts the playback of the scene starting from the keyframe

 

Add ColorMask starts the playback of the additional data and plays it back together with content which comes from the pinball machine. 

[wiredworm]

So ColorMask is the one to use when you have an animation which also contains variable data.  So for this one we would use ColorMask.

 

 

In this case you can use the ColMask checkbox to have the colours 'added' to what is already there.  So you can still add colour to the variable content this way?

[lucky1]

Right ! And use one of 10 Masks to blank out the dynamic content from the detection.

You can edit the masks using the show mask checkbox and have a preview of the detection

in the little dmd window. Have the mask selected and checked when you add the keyframe

[wiredworm]

Thanks for your help lucky1 :-)

[lucky1]

... a pleasure ! Btw I always use the live preview and play back the original dump to check if it is working the way I want it to

before I try it on a real machine. You need to have the display connected to the pc via usb. 

[OzStick]

I managed to get my VPinMAME dump working. Weirdly, it was in the tables DIR and appeared to work after I created a c:\tmp DIR. Go figure!

 

I'm now at the bottom apex and the steep learning curve that wiredworm seems to be scaling with great aplomb. I just hope he comes good with that dummies guide as this one here could sure use it..........

[wiredworm]

I'm now at the bottom apex and the steep learning curve that wiredworm seems to be scaling with great aplomb. I just hope he comes good with that dummies guide as this one here could sure use it..........

 

Sound like we're both trying to get to grips with this; so if you have any questions then please post them and i'll try to give some feedback, as i'm sure Lucky1 will too.

 

If noone else comes forward first then i'll put a guide together but i've not yet got my Pin2DMD hardware so I need to get that ordered before I can get fully into the process.  Right now i'm modifying the Virtual Pinball file so that I can trigger all of the animations by just using key presses to simulate the trigger hits.  Once i've got all the TXT files generated I plan to pull them into Pin2DMD and slice them up.  Then the process of actually recolouring can start.

Good luck with your project too :-)