Noob question on colorization for Virtual Pinball vs real pinball

[Ashram56]

Good afternoon,

Beside my virtual pinball machine, I now own a few real pinball units, which I'm considering upgrading to PIN2DMD for color support.

Now what I don't understand is why is there a difference between a virtual pinball and a real pinball with regards to colorization support. Specifically technically, is there any reason why a virtual pinball colorization could not be transferred over to a real pinball machine (besides the specific file required) ? Couldn't any of the author of vpin colorization generate the fsq file required for operation on a real pinball ?

Is there a legal reason, a technical reason, or something else ?

I'm specifically looking at Lord of the Ring, which does have a virtual pinball colorization, but no real pinball version.

Creature of the Black Lagoon (and a few others, but not many), does have both.

So just wondering what I'm missing here

Thanks and regards

 

[slippifishi]

You are correct that the same project sources generate the output for both virtual and real pinball.

Most, if not all, of the authors of the projects you describe are willing and able to create the files for real pinball, they just ask for a donation up front - you have to contact them either by posting in the forum thread, or through PM, or using a site like pin-display.ch to reach out to them. These projects do take a significant amount of time, if they are done properly - literally hundreds of hours of sometimes monotonous, occasionally boring, always challenging and often frustrating work. It needs careful organisation and tracking of progress, and it's definitely not just something you can just pick up and do quickly in fits and spurts over a few days. Sometimes you spend many many hours working on something only to find it has to be reworked, involving YET MORE hours of work - see Netzzwerg's latest post in his Roadshow thread. A lot of effort goes into it, and in that respect, I think the authors are well within their rights to ask for a small donation, especially for a quality project.

I personally don't ask for donations up front for my projects - for example, CFTBL - as I would then feel compelled to offer a level of support or service, and I am really just in it for fun and sometimes the prospect of going back to a project that was tough to complete is not something that I would look forward to - see above (I am talking to you, CFTBL double feature ramp animation!). Donations are always welcome, of course, and I can't deny they are a small motivation to continue colouring, but I am honestly humbled that anyone would put my work on a real pinball machine in the first place so am more than happy for and will continue to make my files freely available here.

[Ashram56]

Many thanks for this clarification. I guess the rationale for colorization creators is that real pinball owner will likely pay a premium (and rightly so) for a colorization, whereas virtual pinball owners might not be so inclined.

It's indeed perfectly legitimate to ask for a donation given the amount of work required.

Is there however a "catalog" somewhere with a list of colorization and who to contact to get them ? Or is this a matter of searching the internet ?

 

[slippifishi]

The forum and download sections here are probably your best bet, you can also try @Audiofreaks site http://pin-display.ch which will let you contact some of the artists directly. @dzorbas also maintains a listing of finished projects at https://sites.google.com/view/pin2dmd/colour-files though almost all the links will bring you back here