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Pin2Dmd Editor


lucky1

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6 hours ago, Rappelbox said:

 


No, the firmware supports it for some time now but the dlls don’t.

The hardware is capable of 15bit color depth but the editor wasn’t, at least not directly.

Sounds like you may be talking about Vpin?  I was talking about the pin2dmd blanking out or acting erratically on a real pin when you get around 500 keyframes.

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4 hours ago, Rockdude233 said:

Sounds like you may be talking about Vpin?  I was talking about the pin2dmd blanking out or acting erratically on a real pin when you get around 500 keyframes.

Most likely caused by a wrong keyframe. WWF RR has around 1200 Keyframes

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10 hours ago, lucky1 said:

Most likely caused by a wrong keyframe. WWF RR has around 1200 Keyframes

I don't understand "wrong keyframe".  A keyframe can be made wrong of course, so it doesn't change the target frames color the way you want it to, but what I'm talking about is the pin2dmd goes blank and then stays blank so that you are playing the rest of the game blind (no dmd at all).  I don't see how a wrong keyframe could cause that to happen, but  if it is possible to do that, it should maybe be called a doomsday keyframe.   Also, this is an XL pin2dmd I am using, so maybe comparing to WWFRR is apples and oranges? 

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2 hours ago, Rockdude233 said:

I don't understand "wrong keyframe".  A keyframe can be made wrong of course, so it doesn't change the target frames color the way you want it to, but what I'm talking about is the pin2dmd goes blank and then stays blank so that you are playing the rest of the game blind (no dmd at all).  I don't see how a wrong keyframe could cause that to happen, but  if it is possible to do that, it should maybe be called a doomsday keyframe.   Also, this is an XL pin2dmd I am using, so maybe comparing to WWFRR is apples and oranges? 

I did not have that information before that it stays blank and is a XL. Maybe you can share your project and I can have a look at it.

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1 hour ago, lucky1 said:

I also need all the recordings. You know that there is already a Baywatch colorization from Malenko ?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pin2dmd-colorization-of-baywatch

Yes, I started with that one as the foundation but recolored just about everything and also added a lot of things that were missing (and there is still a lot to be colored but I can't add any more keyframes because it blanks out now).   So a lot of the recordings are from that project and you have access to those.  I'll get you the rest of the recordings when I get home.   Thanks.

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On 8/31/2018 at 11:50 AM, Rockdude233 said:

I'll get you the rest of the recordings when I get home.

Here are those recordings.  Thanks for looking into it.

Shark_Flip.txt.gz

 

 

TW_Trouble_2.txt.gz

 

 

TW_Trouble.txt.gz

 

Special Thanks.txt.gz

Shark Initials.txt.gz

Tilt.txt.gz

Dangerous.txt.gz

multiball_restart_dump.txt.gz

Advanced_game.txt.gz

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O.K. now I can open the project. First of all your project is not based on the latest version of Malenko which already has most of
the scenes done you also colored (Bonus, Intro etc). 
While the examination of your specific problem may take a while, what I can see is that you uneccesarly wasted resources by making
ColMask keyframes for each frame of the scene although a simple replacement scene would only need one ore two keyframes.
One example for this is the Shark coming out of the water scene. Especially with projects for the XL display which needs a lot more memory for the display
you should always have an eye on the resources.  

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3 hours ago, lucky1 said:

O.K. now I can open the project. First of all your project is not based on the latest version of Malenko which already has most of
the scenes done you also colored (Bonus, Intro etc). 
While the examination of your specific problem may take a while, what I can see is that you uneccesarly wasted resources by making
ColMask keyframes for each frame of the scene although a simple replacement scene would only need one ore two keyframes.
One example for this is the Shark coming out of the water scene. Especially with projects for the XL display which needs a lot more memory for the display
you should always have an eye on the resources.  

I don't have any idea what Malenko version it is based on.  It was just the easiest way to start my project at the time.

I understand what you are saying about making a replacement or colormask scene, using multiple frames and single (or a few) keyframes to kick it off is the best way.  In most cases, I originally tried to do it that way, but I found that it would not consistently work (at least on a real pinball).  It seems like it would somehow lose it's way and not stay locked on to the ColMask in the middle of the scene, so then I split them into single frames with single keyframes to get them to work reliably.  I was hoping that the Color Mask Sequence option that is not yet implemented would solve this problem.  

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43 minutes ago, lucky1 said:

You are right ColMask is a bit difficult to sync but my point was that you used ColMask on typical replacement scenes (with no dynamic content)
Replacement scenes don´t need to be 100% sync.

I'm not totally understanding.  For instance, the shark coming out of the water scene (or what I call "Shark Eat You" in my project), which consists of 11 frames (with no dynamic content) that are played in forward order then reverse order in the game - I made them  individual ColMask animations that each have their own keyframe.   I think you are saying it is OK to have them individually keyframed, but they should have been Replacement type - not ColorMask type becuase that saves resources?  Or are you saying I should have made it a single 21 frame replacement scene with a single keyframe for the opening frame?  Keep in mind, sometimes these scenes don't play from the 1st frame every time (because there might be something else playing that has higher priority), so it might pick up from the 6th frame or something like that in which case just having the first frame keyed won't do the job. 

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4 hours ago, Rockdude233 said:

Or are you saying I should have made it a single 21 frame replacement scene with a single keyframe for the opening frame?  Keep in mind, sometimes these scenes don't play from the 1st frame every time (because there might be something else playing that has higher priority), so it might pick up from the 6th frame or something like that in which case just having the first frame keyed won't do the job. 

Yes, that is what I meant. You should care about the sometimes, might, something cases only when they happen, which is not the case with the "Shark eat you" scene. Just have a look at the latest version of Malenkos project. I think all the scenes done are working well.

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59 minutes ago, lucky1 said:

Yes, that is what I meant.

Which one did you mean though?  If it is the 2nd one below, I'm thinking if I recall correctly I ran into the problem where the scene would sometimes not be colorized because it didn't pick up on the first (keyframed) scene all the time, which is why I split it into individual frames.

6 hours ago, Rockdude233 said:

I think you are saying it is OK to have them individually keyframed, but they should have been Replacement type - not ColorMask type becuase that saves resources?  Or are you saying I should have made it a single 21 frame replacement scene with a single keyframe for the opening frame? 

 

6 hours ago, Rockdude233 said:

Or are you saying I should have made it a single 21 frame replacement scene with a single keyframe for the opening frame? 

 

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I mean the one I was quoting "a single 21 frame replacement scene with a single keyframe for the opening frame". Malenko did it that way and it works. And even if it would miss the first frame of the sequence sometimes it would still need only one additional keyframe to make the scene trigger at the second frame and not 20 more keyframes. Making the keyframes replacement instead of ColMask does not save any resources which is the goal.

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I expected the .fsq file size to shrink when I converted the 11 shark eat you colmask scenes into a single replacement scene (and single keyframe) and deleted all the original the original colmask and keyframes, but it actually increased from 8675 KB to 8783 KB.    Does that seem right to you if the resources have been reduced?

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I don´t think that the problem is caused by a resource problem because from what I can read from your description it seems to blank out in different moments.

If t would blank out always in the same scene would be an indicator for resource problems. Where do you get your 5V for the panel from ?

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No, I did say that it went blank in the same place every time.  I get the 5v from a dedicated power supply that gets it's input directly from 120vac - I'm confident that isn't the problem.  I can take previous versions of my project where the fsq size was 8615 kb  or smaller and it will run perfectly all day long.   Once the fsq file size gets any bigger than that, it will fail (go permanently blank) in the same place every time.   That's why I thought the fsq size might be a good barometer for failure.

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It happens during one of the boot up frames.  Unfortunately, I'm out of town and won't be back until September 17, so I'll have to get you the exact details then.  I can tell you if I add another scene/keyframe to the project, it will then blank out at a different frame, but it will always be the same frame for that version.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’ve got a question about timing: How often does the Pin2dmd look for a keyframe after one has just been triggered?

 

Here’s the reason I ask: I believe an animation is actually being triggered multiple times due to a rather long keyframe time. For example let’s say the scene timings are: 250, 50, 50, 50. This would be a total animation length of 400 which is triggered on a keyframe that is 250ms long. I believe the problem I am seeing is that the 250ms frame is getting triggered over a few times essentially making that first frame even longer than it already is. Then the rest of the animation is playing too late. So if the Pin2dmd first triggers the animation then waits, let’s say 100ms, and looks again it will still see the same frame and re-trigger the animation, and then do it once again at 200ms but then effectively will play the first frame for 450ms until it allows the second frame to play and then third and so on. 

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