scottacus Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 For several years I've been wanting to bring the 1960 Horse Racing wood rail Nags to vpx 10. The thing that was holding me up was how to make a rotating platter with six pop bumpers on it. VPX has some limitations on what you can do with primitives such as you can move the visual of a prim but not its physical location. This project remained a pipe dream until I went and played some pinball with @rothbauerw and he said he knew exactly how to make this work. He's developed this incredible captive ball method that allows him to make pinballs with the diameter of a pop bumper and move those around the table using his crazy good math skills to allow the ball in play to interact with these balls. He then uses the captive ball locations to draw bumpers on the table, hides the captive balls and "presto magic" you have a working Nags pop bumper turntable! I think that this might just be one of the coolest things that I've ever seen in vpx! @rothbauerw also improved on my ball lifter and developed one that uses control of the ball's z to give a nice smooth and controlled lift. This will allow me to not destroy balls for the lifter and could improve game performance by getting rid of a lot of getBOT calls. I've met a Pinsider (Mopar) who owns the game who has been invaluable in helping get artwork and answer questions about game play. For example he was able to pull the glass off of his machine and let me know that it takes 10 full score motor runs for a horse to make it across the track. There's no way I could have found that out from the schematic. The visuals are being done by @bord using the new light mapper system so you know those are going to be exceptional. I have a copy of the schematic and have the code pretty much up to speed. The table should play just like the real deal including features like the flippers and bumpers don't activate until a ball has gone through one of the top in lanes. Also if you lift two balls on ball one the trough switch for ball four will not be activated so the machine will be dead just like on the real deal. The actual game's instruction card warns about this. Yesterday I made the B2S that goes with the table. I think it will win an award for the most snippets in a B2S because I need to animate the motion of six horses along the track which required 6*30 or 180 snippets to do. These snippets need to render in the correct order so that horses in the foreground block those in the background. The horses look awesome in vpx because I can smoothly transX them but the B2S has only 30 images so the motion is less that perfect. I've put in a feature request to GitHub that @jarr3 has already responded to, asking for the ability to translate snippets in B2S. This would make the B2S look as good as vpx and could be used on other tables with spinners on the back glass like Scared Stiff or Jive Time. I've also got the DOF config and a ZeDMD output made so those are done in addition to the B2S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1kpOJIgQts This video might be a little choppy because I did it on my laptop without having it plugged in so it is in a power saving setting and the performance is pretty marginal at those settings... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider CarnyPriest Posted November 20, 2023 Content Provider Share Posted November 20, 2023 Gotta "like" that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 Holy moly Scottacus! Thats some ambition and determination right there. So happy to see you've rounded up the absolute best folks to help. This will be amazing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottacus Posted November 20, 2023 Author Share Posted November 20, 2023 For anyone curious about how the horses move, here's a great pinside post on the subject. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/you-need-a-cow’s-help-to-move-a-horse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bord Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 Slowly working on my end of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 delicious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snort2root Posted November 21, 2023 Share Posted November 21, 2023 Unbelievably cool! What a Herculean effort by an all-star cast. I’m constantly humbled and amazed by this community and its contributions in preserving our treasures! Thank you so much @scottacus @bord @rothbauerw - simply amazed! -Dylan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider xenonph Posted November 21, 2023 Content Provider Share Posted November 21, 2023 Great work guys! Great idea @rothbauerw to get the bumper turn table working! Lighting and graphics look great @bord! Wow @scottacus! Animated backglass will be great!! Thanks to all of you for working on this treasure! Amazing what can be accomplished, and made all for the love of pinball! The quality of these tables far surpasses any commercially made pinball product, where they are made all for the love of money. It is what separates this hobby from any other. What other hobby has free items that are better than the commercial items? And as a bonus, these tables are being preserved for all time!! Keep up the great work! You are doing a great service for this community! It is appreciated kind sirs. Carry on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommkell Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 Christmas really is coming then! I asked Santa for more EMs to put in my cab and this looks unreal! Massive thanks to @scottacus and @bord for your stellar work on these older tables (this could be the best one yet), and to @rothbauerw whos Jive Time is still the go-to table in our house (along with Scuba). Happy to see the we could get an updated backglass with smoother spinner in Jive Time as well!! This has made my weekend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider rothbauerw Posted November 25, 2023 Content Provider Share Posted November 25, 2023 This is a super cool project and I'm really looking forward to see the end product. Thanks to @scottacus and @bord for continuing to bring us these great and unique EMs. @scottacus has a unique skill and passion for figuring out how these old games actually work and building that into these recreations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bord Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 Built out the backbox in Blender today. With the right POV you should be able to play this in desktop mode and see the 3D racetrack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teisen Posted November 29, 2023 Share Posted November 29, 2023 Fantastic!!! Simply another level... no comments Congratulations hugs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottacus Posted November 29, 2023 Author Share Posted November 29, 2023 If you got rid of the white background it would be hard to tell if Bord's image wasn't a photo of an actual Nags pin. Amazing work!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Posted November 29, 2023 Share Posted November 29, 2023 This masterpiece will be a crowning achievement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurman8tr Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Looks absolutely amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAMONRA Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Wow!!!! Just WOW!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider rothbauerw Posted December 11, 2023 Content Provider Share Posted December 11, 2023 That might end up being the best looking backglass in all of VP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Content Provider unclewilly Posted December 12, 2023 Content Provider Share Posted December 12, 2023 This is a great project. Been considering a very similar table with a nearly identical backglass set up but there's no way I could come close to the beauty of the renders shown here. Eagerly awaiting this table. Bravo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
takise Posted December 29, 2023 Share Posted December 29, 2023 I'm fucking waiting with a flush on my face Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bord Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Glorious! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottacus Posted January 3 Author Share Posted January 3 Once again Bord shows why he's the best in the biz! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snort2root Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Holy Toledo! Simply exquisite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
takise Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 The year has only just started and I already have my future contender for the 2024 table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAMONRA Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Amazing stuff! This table just gets better and better!!! Awesome Job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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