WIP: Visual Pinball in Unity (2021 Edition)

[hitman12]

With a little research You will find answers for all Your questions. 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by hitman12

[freezy]

@alumriel Yes, ease of use is important. However I'm not sure yet how backglasses will be handled. I originally planned to just point a camera at the modeled backbox, but each camera in HDRP comes with a significant cost, so we might do something else, or make it configurable.

[hitman12]

Tables will be modelled in full 3D like in this Shaderbytes tables?

I was getting about 150 fps in i7 gtx 1660 ti:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/shaderbytes-pinball-megathread.514429/

Edited March 12, 2023 by hitman12

[slydog43]

I haven't tried those tables since they were released.  Forgot how great they looked.   I'm more excited about this project than anything else in the Virtual Pinball world, and hope for more info almost everyday.

[letic]

Hello guys !

 

VP veteran here, I made a build in 2003, trying to catch up with new development I have been following VPE for a year or so. I'm running exclusively on Linux which got me excited in this fantastic project.

 

I followed the tutorial to do a first vpx import (realising that all my tables from back then where vpt...). But even if everything went well the Visual Pinball menu does not appear :

 

After quitting everything and restarting Unity Hub and loading my empty project I get this error :

 

Seems to be the correct version (2021.3.22f1) so I have no clue what's going on. Any help appreciated.

 

Contribution wise I'm rusty (except in Python and bash) but if you need any help on the infrastructure side let me know.

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

LeTic

 

PS: for good measure I just redid the full procedure and get exactly the same issues

Edited April 17, 2023 by letic

[freezy]

Hi @letic!

 

Try Unity 2021.3.0. The problem with 2021.3.1+ is that it introduced a new dependency that is incompatible with the DOTS version we're using. To be honest, it has been a while since I've tested VPE from the repository, but the development setup described here should work.

 

If you still have errors, check the console and paste them here so we can debug.

 

Otherwise, apologies again for the shortage of updates, the dmdext drama took some time, and I'm helping @iaakki build a table (which means bug fixing and quality of life improvements). Otherwise I'm still in the middle of the physics refactoring, which is progressing slowly (first colliders are working again, but still a lot to do).

[letic]

Thanks for the answer @freezy I wrongly assumed that 2021.3.0 mean 2021.3.*

 

I'll test it and let you know.

[letic]

On 4/20/2023 at 1:54 PM, letic said:

Thanks for the answer @freezy I wrongly assumed that 2021.3.0 mean 2021.3.*

 

I'll test it and let you know.

Just to confirm that it works. Thanks a bunch looks great !

[hitman12]

No new posts or info from april, is development of VPE has been paused for now?

[freezy]

Yes, working on the next release of dmdext. Will be back on VPE after that.

[atarihq]

Hello guys,

 

I'm now playing with your great VPE tools. All is running well for me, i doiscover step by step your work.

But i'm locked with PinMame component...

I cant find where to put roms files, or config PinMAme inside Unity Visual Pinball Menu.

I have added a PinMame component to my table (indiana jones), and a strange game list is in the menu, i dont have these roms...

 

Any help will be apreciated

 

Thanks a lot, and very good work.

 

[freezy]

Sorry for the late reply. You'll need to create a new class here and then reference it here. I'd like to move this into easily editable and more dynamic JSON or YAML files, so if you have availability to contribute, let me know

[atarihq]

Thanks for your answer freezy, but i'm not a C# guy to help you in the project... I imported the PinMame unity package but i dont have the \Game and \MPUs folders in my unity project.  I'm a bit lost 🙃

Maybe i have to compile by myself the repository to get it localy? but i dont know how to do...

 

Thanks again for your help. 

 

[atarihq]

By the way, (i know... i'm a fresh beginner...) : it seems VPE cant find Pinmame. Where do i set up PinMame path to make it run?

Thanks a lot for your patience...

 

[Vikingmop]

When things do become ready and tables need to start being imported and converted and worked on where do you see being the biggest bottleneck?  this entire project looks incredible and really does look like the future of vpinball I've been enjoying the fruits of everyone's labor since back when i was running vp on an old arcade machine CRT screen desktop mode only back then,    amazing to see where its come  and would like to start to contribute back as well.  seeing this i'd love to be of some help but not sure how to even jump in.   I have 3D experiance but not a ton of it,  using blender and 3dsmax and cinema 4D, I'm  a motion graphics designer, so i know photoshop and illustrator and Aftereffects,  not really a coder at all but i know enough to pick through scripts and code that has already been authored    and i have a mini vpin cabinet setup here, just a 1080p setup   but i've just purchased a big 4070TI rig to do a 4k full pin    so shortly i'll have that for testing and playing on.   where do you see needing the most help with this going forward?

 

 

[freezy]

@atarihq You're probably on the wrong branch(es). I'll let you know when I have sorted this out, currently there are a few non-merged branches that I need to finish work on.

 

@Vikingmop Sounds like a nice rig! The biggest bottleneck in the beginning will be to provide components for all the special physics that tables need and that are implemented in the table script in VPX. Right now we don't have a big need for assets, and I mostly enjoy modeling as a welcome break, so we should be fine for a while.

[Vikingmop]

@freezy I will sit back and enjoy the ride then,   amazing catching up on all the progress it looks incredible.   

[LynnInDenver]

Dunno if anyone has seen this yet, sounds like a form of the OGL debacle that Wizards of the Coast fell into earlier this year.

 

https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates

 

Key point: "Installs" means all installs, even the multiple installs one person might do over time. Delete and reinstall, the overall counter goes up by one. Granted, from the sound of it VPE should always be exempt, but that relies on them maintaining a "dollars earned" threshold.

[freezy]

Yeah, that's a hard pill to swallow. I need to think about this.

[slippifishi]

1 hour ago, freezy said:

Yeah, that's a hard pill to swallow. I need to think about this.

What is there to think about? Just steal it Freezy, say it aligns with YOUR software development ethics and you are morally obliged to do so and you are home free!

[Sjonnie]

I hope that because of developers will be leaving Unity for alternatives they'll make some changes like, no license fees for free software.

Chances  of this happening are very small but who knows...

[LynnInDenver]

https://www.axios.com/2023/09/13/unity-runtime-fee-policy-marc-whitten

 

Yeah, even with their recent clarifications, it's being made clear that 1) game studios are being expected to pay more money based on sales and 2) game studios are expected to share a LOT more of what's going on to make sure they don't get hit on things like Humble Bundles. I also expect all of us will have to pay for it on game service subscriptions if Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo/Valve are expected to pay for those installer fees when a game is put on their "try it here for a bit" perks, assuming they don't just decide to basically not provide that to games that use Unity as an engine. That it's being expected to apply to EVERYONE who's used Unity, rather than limiting it to NEW games, is extra frustrating, and it feels a LOT like they're attempting to cut off the long tails for themselves.

 

There's already a lot of smaller developers that have already decided to start over and change engines, or are making noise because they're YEARS in on development already and can't just rip out all that work to change engines now, because they'd basically be breaking their company with the resulting delay. At best, we can expect a lot of older games to get pulled from sale once this goes live and those developers lose what profit they might have been getting.

[Sjonnie]

Seems that things aren't going well at Unity which has probably triggered the price increase:

 

But Unity has cut staff in recent years, citing the slowing economy. In May, Unity laid off 600 staff, equating to 8% of its workforce. This followed 300 layoffs in January. At that time, Unity’s CEO, John Riccitiello, stated in a letter to employees, “We reassessed our objectives, strategies, goals and priorities in light of the current economic conditions. While we remain focused on the same vision, we decided that we need to be more selective in our investments to come out stronger as a company.” In August the company reported revenue of $533m for the second quarter of 2023, but net losses of $193m.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Sjonnie

[LynnInDenver]

There's not an issue with the price increase in general, it's the whole "after a certain amount of installs, we want a fee PER INSTALL" that's got people making noise. Margins can be really slim on games, especially in that region between $200,000 in revenue and $1,000,000. And, well, it basically nukes the long tail, and will at least make sub $10 games using Unity unprofitable. I'd not be shocked if it basically makes the minimum price of a profitable game $40-50 easily.

[Loafmeister]

Unity is allowed to manage their business as they see fit (and devs are allowed to act/react as they see fit too), but it def should not be on the back of existing agreements which this does.  Funniest bit is the part where their "update" states that devs with games available on streaming services like Microsoft's GAMEPASS don't need to worry, they will be charging Microsoft, not the devs.   As if Microsoft/Sony/etc will just eat the cost and not modify their own agreements with the devs so that the devs get hit.  Nobody eats costs just to be nice Unity.   Tone deaf response by them shows they are not thinking this through.

 

I've read conflicting commentary on how this affects an app available for free.  Some say you have to have sales AND downloads for you to be impacted, while other say "Sales+downloads" but then there's a different table showing downloads only.  They mention DEMOS won't be hit but VPE is not going to be a demo!

 

good luck VPE team, hope there's enough pushback for them to change their tune. For sure I get they need to do something to become more profitable but holy cow!