Johnny Mnemonic work in progress (ver 1.2 available)

[FishTales10]

Hello everyone.  I have been working on Johnny Mnemonic coloring.  I have quite a bit done and it seems to be running pretty well.   I have a few transitions that are problematic but still working on them.  I have 2 giant scenes, 300 and 150 frames, that are dynamic and I am at a loss as to how to color them effectively.  The option I considered and have started, but it is oh so painful, and I don't even know if it will work, is to click "split scene" and make 300 and 150 individual frames and color each separate and apply a d mask to each frame.  A color mask sequence I don't think will work, the flying scene doesn't seem to repeat the animation that I see, the crowd scene Johnny is at a different position for most of the animation.

 

Williams also has "messy" frames in between proper frames, they are usually at a delay of 25.   I have just been coloring these messy so that they don't pop out during the animation.  Is that the best way to handle these frames?

 

I have included in my zip file, a dump and the 2 cut scenes if anyone wants to have a look and offer some advice.   I have also included my most recent files for real and vpin to be tested and critiqued.   My color skills are not great.

JM.zip

Edited July 1, 2023 by FishTales10

[guppy1976]

Hello Fishtales 10,

 

I like the coloring you made .

great job !!

 

 

grtz Ed

[FishTales10]

Thank you for the compliment.   I am still trying various methods to color the last 2 scenes - Johnny walking through the crowd.   Captain Courageous flying.   
 

They are proving to be most difficult.  

[lucky1]

Although it should work with colormask sequence because a single mask for each scene should be enough to trigger all positions of the moving objects and they seem to always have the same starting frame, I would use colormask layered for both. The only thing you need to have an eye on with lcm is that you make sure that each frame only triggers once.

 

[FishTales10]

Thanks for the response Lucky.  I am not entirely sure how to use Layered Colormask.    I have read the tutorial a bunch of times and it is not sinking in on how to execute it properly.  
 

The scene with Johnny walking through the crowd is never consistent on the sequencing.  Nothing following the same pattern.   Johnny’s Head going the the crowd is one sequence.  The three guys in front follow their own random sequence, sometimes missing single frames or skipping a chunk of frames.   The text also follows its own random pattern.  
 

I tried coloring the scenes with the longest delays (200 and above) with clear images.   I then bumped up the delay to 5000, hoping to bypass many messy frames.  This method did not work well at all.  I think the mask I was trigging on multiple frames.  
 

I think I will try the same method, this time just using Johnny’s Head.  I will color his head only, and just use his head with and color masks and bump the delay upto 5000.  

[lucky1]

 

12 hours ago, FishTales10 said:

The three guys in front follow their own random sequence,

 

You can trigger them individually in LCM

 

Here is a discussion about LCM that might help 

 

[linendor]

Hi FishTales, awesome work on this colorization! I have noticed that when transitioning from frame to frame in attract mode (where the screen splits into quarters) seem to be a bit buggy. They flash red and white while transitioning instead of staying a solid colour. Is that normal?

Edited February 12, 2022 by linendor

[FishTales10]

Hi Linendor.   I had to turn on Johnny to see what you mean.  For the attract mode in Johnny.   I used a red white and blue palette as my default.   I would set the default palette for the first solid frame of each sequence.   So the coloring is done by masking the orange coloring that Williams used.   You wouldn’t really notice the subtle change in orange of the original display, but using the 3 default colors the white is more noticeable.  
 

I did this because Johnny uses a bunch of fades from screen to screen in the attract mode.  Johnny also has 2 main ways to fade scenes, the pixelated method and the triangle turning method.  
 

Once I figure out layer color mask a bit more - which I need to use for the super hero flying through the air mode.  I can go back and investigate eliminating white in the scenes that show it during attract mode. 
 

If any colors look stupid and out of place, don’t match the movie or playfield, let me know that is easily fixed.  
 

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by FishTales10

[joetechbob]

Hey! Just checking to see if this project is still active. Is the zip attached earlier in the thread still the latest version?

[FishTales10]

Yes the project is still active.  I just did the coloring for the Midnight Madness mode the other day.  I am Missing the Moo graphic, so I need to do another dump. 
 

Working on cleaning up some of the transistions. 
 

2 modes are troublesome and I have resorted to 4 color palettes.  Doesn’t look too bad.   Better than what I had before.  
 

I’ll update soon, just need to do some play testing… 

[FishTales10]

Here is an update to Johnny Mnemonic.   

 

Added, Midnight Madness, Touchtone Multiball.   Fixed collecting video frames and dropping color.  Lots of little subtle changes, like mis-colored pixels.   Tried to fix up the 2 modes as best I could.  Still working on the coloring.  Will keep trying to make it better.  

 

If you see any screw ups, or hate any of the color choices, please let me know.  I'll change the colors and try to fix mistakes.   I struggle with picking the correct looking skin tones.....

 

Easier contact at [email protected]    

 

As always, the zip contains both files for real and vpins.  For real pins just rename the files to pin2dmd.pal and pin2dmd.fsq.  For vpin, I don't know anything about the pac file and how it works.  The pac file is generated by the editor and I don't know how to use or name it.  

Johnny ver1.2.zip