Pin2Dmd Editor

[kara2010]

Hello Lucky,

 

layered ColorMask should offer the possibility to provide several frames with different D-Masks within a scene, and then to activate this scene with a keyframe, or have I understood that wrongly?

 

Is there maybe the possibility to exchange with you "personally" e.g. Discord or so?

 

Kind regards
Karsten

[lucky1]

The intial usecase of layered colormask was that you can colorize different objects within one frame independently like the different cars of the getaway video mode.

In the meantime it has been extensively used as a replacement for simple colormask scenes because of the ability to have addtional detection masks and to overcome the limit of global masks that way.

You need one or multiple start keyframes to load the lcm scene with its masks.

 

6 hours ago, kara2010 said:

Is there maybe the possibility to exchange with you "personally" e.g. Discord or so?

 

Please understand that I don´t have the time for one on one support and want to use the forum instead as a reference for other users with the same questions.

 

Maybe should describe your problem more specific and other experienced coloring authors like @NetzZwerg or @Terranigma can join the conversation.

[NetzZwerg]

@kara2010 It sounds like you understood it exactly right. As Lucky1 said if you have a specific issue, please describe it in detail.

[kara2010]

On 6/16/2022 at 7:45 PM, lucky1 said:

The intial usecase of layered colormask was that you can colorize different objects within one frame independently like the different cars of the getaway video mode.

In the meantime it has been extensively used as a replacement for simple colormask scenes because of the ability to have addtional detection masks and to overcome the limit of global masks that way.

You need one or multiple start keyframes to load the lcm scene with its masks.

 

 

Please understand that I don´t have the time for one on one support and want to use the forum instead as a reference for other users with the same questions.

 

Maybe should describe your problem more specific and other experienced coloring authors like @NetzZwerg or @Terranigma can join the conversation.

 

Many thanks for your support. In the meantime I have made some progress with the use of the LCM. I had looked at project files from the Dr. Who package as an example, and tried to create an LCM scene with incorrect dumps from that project.

 

 

 

On 6/16/2022 at 9:02 PM, NetzZwerg said:

@kara2010 It sounds like you understood it exactly right. As Lucky1 said if you have a specific issue, please describe it in detail.

 

Thanks for your confirmation again. 
 

 

Kind regards

Karsten

 

[TheFool]

When working with LRM and LCM scenes is there a way to copy a single Layer Mask then paste to the entire sequence?

 I recall being able to do this with an older version of the editor. I would start by making the L- Mask, then Copy with Ctrl-c, then Ctrl-A, then Paste with Ctrl-v. I can't remember how it worked. I currently am forwarding to each frame and using Ctrl-v to Paste the same mask individually on each frame of the sequence. 

Thank you 

TheFool

[lucky1]

54 minutes ago, TheFool said:

When working with LRM and LCM scenes is there a way to copy a single Layer Mask then paste to the entire sequence?

 I recall being able to do this with an older version of the editor. I would start by making the L- Mask, then Copy with Ctrl-c, then Ctrl-A, then Paste with Ctrl-v. I can't remember how it worked. I currently am forwarding to each frame and using Ctrl-v to Paste the same mask individually on each frame of the sequence. 

Thank you 

TheFool

 

Sorry , no !

[TheFool]

Ok, Thank you for quick reply. All the best. Really appreciate it. 

TheFool

[lucky1]

There is a new version of the editor online on google drive with the following features added :

 

- New color mode "Replace no retrigger". This mode has been added for SysXDMD. Since replacement scenes need a start trigger for the playback the problem with the normal replacement mode is that the scene gets restarted every time the trigger it hit again. System11 pinball machines use flickering as a effect very often which almost makes it impossible to playback a replacement scene due to the scene starting from start on every flicker. With "Replace no retrigger" the plays back ignoring the triggers in the background until the scene playback is finished

 

- New color mode "Colormask Loop". This mode allows you to add effects to a single frame Colormask.

Lets say your single frame is displayed for 3 seconds, you can created a sequence of colormasks with different colorizations and a frame delay of 150ms. If your sequence exists of 4 colormask frames with each of them displayed for 150ms, the scene will restart from the first frame after 600ms. PIN2DMD will automatically loop through the sequence of colormasks until the next scene is triggered. 

 

- Shifting and mirroring of frames. I have added 5 buttons to the bottom of the editor. They either shift the current frame left,right,up, down or mirror the complete frame. Together with the raw export (Scene/Recording -> Export as RAW) you can create missing trigger frames for scrolling scenes or moving objects.

 

- The floodfill tool has been modified to take care of colormask color groups.

- You can adjust the number of colorsegments of the rectangle draw tool with toolsize

These 2 features have been described here https://pin2dmd.com/appendix-pro-tips/

[slippifishi]

2 hours ago, lucky1 said:

- New color mode "Replace no retrigger". This mode has been added for SysXDMD. Since replacement scenes need a start trigger for the playback the problem with the normal replacement mode is that the scene gets restarted every time the trigger it hit again. System11 pinball machines use flickering as a effect very often which almost makes it impossible to playback a replacement scene due to the scene starting from start on every flicker. With "Replace no retrigger" the plays back ignoring the triggers in the background until the scene playback is finished

 

That's an interesting and useful sounding feature, but I wonder if I could suggest a tweak of sorts/can you clarify what you mean by "plays back ignoring the triggers in the background" :- absolutely no other triggers would fire, ever, as long as this sequence is running and the final frame delay has run out?

 

If that's the case, I would propose that it just stops _itself_ from retriggering? I can think of examples where I could use this in my own (non SysXDMD) projects and help avoid trigger clashes halfway through a sequence (Flintstones had lots of these), but if there is a chance the replace sequence will get interupted by something else, it would be a shame to miss that initial trigger and might require adding more triggers and so on.

 

I do understand (I think) the initial purpose and maybe a completely separate scene type is required for what I'm suggesting, but if I follow the problem its solving correctly, then I think this suggestion would still be compliant with what it's trying to achieve?

[lucky1]

24 minutes ago, slippifishi said:

That's an interesting and useful sounding feature, but I wonder if I could suggest a tweak of sorts/can you clarify what you mean by "plays back ignoring the triggers in the background" :- absolutely no other triggers would fire, ever, as long as this sequence is running and the final frame delay has run out?

 

No only the start trigger of the scene is ignored, which normally causes a restart of the scene. Other global triggers still stop the scene

[lucky1]

28 minutes ago, slippifishi said:

help avoid trigger clashes halfway through a sequence (Flintstones had lots of these),

You could also use frame synced modes like replace sequence or LRM to avoid this.

[dtatane]

Hi,

 

Does this Pin2DMD Editor update requires also an update on pin2dmd firmware ? 

I generated single UID Realpin files for owners and they get a "UID pallet error". 

 

No errors with Vpin files on virtual DMD and Pin2DMD

[lucky1]

Since new features are introduced with the new version of the editor the version of the firmware is checked to make sure the colorization works as expected.  It is recommended to always update to the latest version.

[dtatane]

Thanks, and after updating the firmware to version 4.46, they confirmed it works correctly !

[lucky1]

Just uploaded a new version of the editor Please update !

- added improvement for fill tool suggested by @Cadrion https://vpuniverse.com/forums/topic/8578-feature-request-for-editor/

- fixed broken upload to device when active reported by @elicend

 

fixing minor issues

[Cadrion]

I have a few questions about the editor.  I have looked through the tutorial material and have a decent grasp on its operation.  Does "set hash" have any function while in layered replacemask with "layered mask" checked?  Is there any drawback using color mask triggered or replace mask triggered vs normal replace/color mask other than having to setup the hashes?  Besides here and pinside is there any other locations that are good resources for finding answers about pin2dmd and its editor? Last question- in there tutorial there is this statement for layered replace mask-  "To define which parts of the display should be replaced you need to enable the L-Mask checkbox and draw the areas which you want to have replaced by your own content. Parts which are not masked can contain dynamic content and be colorized with a ColorMask." How does the colorize with color mask get achieved?  Copy the same scene, color with color mask and use same keyframe?  Thanks for the help.

[lucky1]

3 hours ago, Cadrion said:

How does the colorize with color mask get achieved?  Copy the same scene, color with color mask and use same keyframe?

 

No that is all happening within one frame. In LRM mode.  If you set the L-mask for the complete frame, the whole frame content is replaced with the content you have drawn, like in replace mode. If the L-mask is empty the whole frame uses Colormask like in Colormask mode colorizing the dynamic content sent from the machine. With LRM you can have any mixture of both by defining the L-Mask accordingly.

This makes it possible to make something like this, with the left and right part being replaced and the text in the middle colorized using colormask.

 

 

The l-mask for that test scene looks like this 

 

[lucky1]

3 hours ago, Cadrion said:

Does "set hash" have any function while in layered replacemask with "layered mask" checked? 

 

No, but I just recognized that the hashes are calculated from the displayed picture. I will change that in the next build.

 

3 hours ago, Cadrion said:

Is there any drawback using color mask triggered or replace mask triggered vs normal replace/color mask other than having to setup the hashes?

 

Not really except that you can define how long a frame is displayed in the non sequence modes.

The sequence modes have a technical limitation of 128 frames per scene and the first frame must be the scene trigger keyframe. Additionally sequence modes are applied a little faster compared to the LCM/LRM scenes.

[Cadrion]

Wow, the pin2dmd team has really developed some powerful too and ideas.  When in LCM or LRM and 64 color mode, is the layer priority lowest on the top row of 16 colors and highest on the bottom row of 16 colors?  I understand how it works in 16 color mode, but want to verify for 64.  Thank you.

[dtatane]

Not really. 

 

You'd better consider not making colors from the different rows overlap : 

 

For LCM usage in 16 colors, you can check this video tutorial made by NetzZwerg :

 

[Cadrion]

So I was doing some testing to try and get an understanding of how this works for overlap.  While the link was helpful, I didn't get a whole lot of understanding relative to 64 color mode.  With some initial testing I though that if you overlap two layers with replaced colors in Layered ReplaceMode, you just had to pay attention to  with group of 4 overlapped which group of 4.  As I started to color some frames it seems to shake out that just about ANYTIME any two colors overlap that are colors that have been replaced you have interaction that will likely change your final colors.  It seems to be that within each group of 4 single colors, the truth table holds true in that 1 replaced by 2,3,4.  2 and 3 overlap and 4 is result.  4 overwrites 1,2,3.  Is this accurate?

[lucky1]

So if the color palette groups are:

A1 A2 A3 A4

B1 B2 B3 B4

C1 C2 C3 C4

D1 D2 D3 D4

 

If B2 and C2 overlap the result would be D2

if B2 and C3 overlap the result would be D4

 

The overlap is just a result of the bit combined using binary OR calculation.

Here is an example

                          0101 xx  - color group B2 (5)

OR                    1010 xx - color group C3 (10)

RESULT         1111 xx - color group D4 (15)

 

[Cadrion]

I'm sorry I forgot to mention that I looked at the link dtatane gave and I saw that information and understand it.  Where I'm at- I have a Stern Star Trek Premium that I want to colorize.  I started colorizing it then came to the first more complicated scene- the Pops animation with the guys shooting.  I set it up as a replacement scene after some experimenting and put kirk on top color priority wise.  in the end, when kirk overlaps spock and the gal those overlaps go incorrect.  I came across the info about the color group priority and reworked it, that's when I came here because I got an off result in the overlaps.  I made up a reference sheet and a test pattern that verified the grouping as you mentioned in the previous post, but I still had an issue.  That issue is when another aspect of priority that seems to be there when the groups overlap in that it may be a individual color overlap rather than simply a group priority.  I'm assuming there is an aspect that I don't understand so please don't take it like I think I'm right.  

 

Here is picture of my first test pattern that colored each of the four slots of each group the same color.  This tracked with what I understood your explanation, but I still got off results.  the two pics on the left are of the individual frames- one with horizontal rows of 0-f and the other with vertical rows of 0-f.  There is also the color palette and actual output shown

 

 

This picture shows the same test pattern with A1 colors changed to white, red, green, blue.. all other color groups the same. added palette reference so we are on the same page. This got me understanding more.

 

 

 

 

So, my question that I think will clear it up for me is this- What happens if group A1 is overlay group A1?  Is this the expected behavior?  That's the interaction that I'm confused by- I understand what you said previous post as that it shouldn't be an issue, but what I see is prioritizing similar to what you've described.

 

Thanks for taking the time- I appreciate it and try to make my questions worth while.  

 

 

 

[lucky1]

On 4/25/2023 at 4:27 AM, Cadrion said:

On 4/25/2023 at 4:27 AM, Cadrion said:

the Pops animation with the guys shooting.  I set it up as a replacement scene after some experimenting and put kirk on top color priority wise.

Color priority is only a issue on Colormask scenes.

 

On 4/25/2023 at 4:27 AM, Cadrion said:

What happens if group A1 is overlay group A1?

 

Practically impossible since this data comes from your machine (SAM = 16 shades) and in row A you only map

the shades to a color in colormask mode.

[darden78]

i have a problem with the "no retrigger" function on my sysxdmd system11 pinball.

i think the "no retrigger" function won't restart the scene if it reads the same keyframe, but i have problems for different keyframes which uses the same animation.

In Williams sys11 pinballs there are 2 ways to show the words on display:

the first is directly show the words on it and it's not a problem, because i just have to put my animation on this keyframe.

In the second way there are "special effects" before showing the words...

...for example the word "HELLO" start with ***** then H**** the HE*** then HEL** then HELL* and finally HELLO.

Unfortunately they don't use every time same frames, 

if i dump twice the same scene i will have different frames, for example the first time the frame H**** is missing and in the second dump is missing HE***

So to obtain my result i found the solution to put same animation on all the keyframe which can happen (it doesn't matter which one is missing it will surely find one)

 

The problem is "no retrigger" function just won't retrigger the scene only if it find the same keyframe, but if it finds a different keyframe with same scene assigned, the scene restarts.

That means if it finds 5 keyframes i assigned same animation , you'll see the animation start for a second to restart instantly after and so on untill the 5th keyframe.

 

Is there a way to fix it? Or do i have to use a different mehetod? for example the duration?

 

english is not my language, it's not easy to explain, i hope you understood what i mean...