Mini-me has still not arrived!
And not much has been done on the machine.
I've gathered soundclips and started to outline where and when the various soundclips are to play - but nothing solid yet.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
A lot of stuff!
Just wanted to say that I'm about to be a father very soon!
It will be awesome and I'm very much looking forward to it!
Expected "delivery" is in one week but in reality could happen anytime now - or 4 weeks from now. Bought the baby bed today! :)
Man, the list of stuff to do on the machine just keeps growing. But I'm optimistic that I'll send the end of it. Some day! But as you can expect, I'll probably have to work in a slower pace than usual on my pinball machine - unless I change gear and push forward a little stronger.
I've kind of reached my goal before the baby arrives - to have an assembled and playable machine.
It is somewhat assembled and could be playable but I've decided to not do any more assembling of the playfield parts until the proper playfield is created, as it will just take a lot more time to disassemble the playfield first.
So here's a quick rundown on what's done and what's left:
Hardware - Cabinet is done, still need proper playfield "hinges".
Electronics - Some wiring is left to be done, but mostly I'm waiting for the playfield to be fixed.
Artwork - Cabinet and playfield art is done, awaits printing.
Playfield - Need to create a proper playfield. Inserts needs to be fixed and sanded.
Playfield parts - Ready for assembly, but there's no proper playfield to place them on yet.
Sound - Need to record/get sound samples to use.
Music - Will use the official soundtrack .
Video - DMD converter is written, so I can export any image file into a custom 16 color DMD format.
Rules - Most of the game rules are figured out, but not necessarily written down.
Programming - Core elements are there, actual gameplay is yet to be written.
I had a major setback in the DMD department where I returned my display because it didn't look quite alright. As you can see in several of the pictures the various modules were very unevenly lit, and the lines of the LED's were not as aligned as they can be. Due to, in my opinion, a highly disrespectful customer service returning the display only gave me half the money refunded and a big fat insult on top of that.
The major component that is left is obviously the actual playfield - where the routing of the wood is my worst enemy right now. I had an offer with CNC routing, but that would cost me almost 700$... Yikes! A little too much on the pricey side, if you ask me.
I'm quite confident I'll be able to pull out or find decent soundclips from the games, so that shouldn't be a problem. Neither will the programming be since I eat code for breakfast. ;)
Video shouldn't be too much of an hassle either since there's a lot of video material that can be used, it's simply a matter of DMD-fying the graphics. The converter already supports animated images for easy animation import/export.
The biggest struggle is trying to plan ahead.
Like Ben Heck said - when building a pinball machine you really must think several steps ahead, and in some cases "where will this part, that I will install in a couple of months, go"... I've done a few of those mistakes, like drilling holes where the flipperbuttons should be only to find out that I forgot to compensate for the side-guards size and position...
But HOPEFULLY I've managed to dodge most bullets - past, present and future such - and will end up with a truly epic game. The whole idea is to have a pinball machine that looks like it could be produced by real pinball makers in a real factory. At least, that's the plan!
It will be awesome and I'm very much looking forward to it!
Expected "delivery" is in one week but in reality could happen anytime now - or 4 weeks from now. Bought the baby bed today! :)
Man, the list of stuff to do on the machine just keeps growing. But I'm optimistic that I'll send the end of it. Some day! But as you can expect, I'll probably have to work in a slower pace than usual on my pinball machine - unless I change gear and push forward a little stronger.
I've kind of reached my goal before the baby arrives - to have an assembled and playable machine.
It is somewhat assembled and could be playable but I've decided to not do any more assembling of the playfield parts until the proper playfield is created, as it will just take a lot more time to disassemble the playfield first.
So here's a quick rundown on what's done and what's left:
Hardware - Cabinet is done, still need proper playfield "hinges".
Electronics - Some wiring is left to be done, but mostly I'm waiting for the playfield to be fixed.
Artwork - Cabinet and playfield art is done, awaits printing.
Playfield - Need to create a proper playfield. Inserts needs to be fixed and sanded.
Playfield parts - Ready for assembly, but there's no proper playfield to place them on yet.
Sound - Need to record/get sound samples to use.
Music - Will use the official soundtrack .
Video - DMD converter is written, so I can export any image file into a custom 16 color DMD format.
Rules - Most of the game rules are figured out, but not necessarily written down.
Programming - Core elements are there, actual gameplay is yet to be written.
I had a major setback in the DMD department where I returned my display because it didn't look quite alright. As you can see in several of the pictures the various modules were very unevenly lit, and the lines of the LED's were not as aligned as they can be. Due to, in my opinion, a highly disrespectful customer service returning the display only gave me half the money refunded and a big fat insult on top of that.
The major component that is left is obviously the actual playfield - where the routing of the wood is my worst enemy right now. I had an offer with CNC routing, but that would cost me almost 700$... Yikes! A little too much on the pricey side, if you ask me.
I'm quite confident I'll be able to pull out or find decent soundclips from the games, so that shouldn't be a problem. Neither will the programming be since I eat code for breakfast. ;)
Video shouldn't be too much of an hassle either since there's a lot of video material that can be used, it's simply a matter of DMD-fying the graphics. The converter already supports animated images for easy animation import/export.
The biggest struggle is trying to plan ahead.
Like Ben Heck said - when building a pinball machine you really must think several steps ahead, and in some cases "where will this part, that I will install in a couple of months, go"... I've done a few of those mistakes, like drilling holes where the flipperbuttons should be only to find out that I forgot to compensate for the side-guards size and position...
But HOPEFULLY I've managed to dodge most bullets - past, present and future such - and will end up with a truly epic game. The whole idea is to have a pinball machine that looks like it could be produced by real pinball makers in a real factory. At least, that's the plan!
Monday, October 31, 2011
New Theme!
The new theme has been decided and the artwork is nearly done. That's right. DONE!
It turned out supergreat and it actually took less than a week to finish the artwork for the entire cabinet and playfield. A lot of high quality material was available so things just kept rolling.
The theme?
It's really the perfect "replacement" for the original theme - the art deco is there, the decadence and all the major game elements could almost directly be translated into a Bioshock feature. I have a little more work to do on the playfield parts before sending it off to printing.
I'm psyched about the current design and can't wait to get the printed decals in my hand!
In case you're wondering -
The old theme was based on the early Fallout games! Also a setting very dear to me, but it was really hard to find high resolution images to use and the color palette was mostly brown-isch. With Bioshock, I'm allowed to use blue, red, green, pink, purple etc without it getting weird. It all fits together really nicely. You'll see for yourselves soon enough!
It turned out supergreat and it actually took less than a week to finish the artwork for the entire cabinet and playfield. A lot of high quality material was available so things just kept rolling.
The theme?
It's really the perfect "replacement" for the original theme - the art deco is there, the decadence and all the major game elements could almost directly be translated into a Bioshock feature. I have a little more work to do on the playfield parts before sending it off to printing.
I'm psyched about the current design and can't wait to get the printed decals in my hand!
In case you're wondering -
The old theme was based on the early Fallout games! Also a setting very dear to me, but it was really hard to find high resolution images to use and the color palette was mostly brown-isch. With Bioshock, I'm allowed to use blue, red, green, pink, purple etc without it getting weird. It all fits together really nicely. You'll see for yourselves soon enough!
(I won't publish any pictures of the playfield yet, but it will come soon! )
Saturday, October 15, 2011
...and re-assembled. Sort of.
Here's a few pictures for reference.
The head is not finished yet and is currently drying, so it's mounted upside down in the pictures...
The head is not finished yet and is currently drying, so it's mounted upside down in the pictures...
Paint It Black
While I'm waiting for the new theme to settle in my mind, I've begun painting the cabinet and head. Does quite a difference on the appearance compared to bare wood.
There's a little retouching needed here and there, but at least the major parts are painted now.
 |
| 1) Bare-wood cabinet |
 |
| 2) Putting the head together. A small door allows for easy access to the display and speakers. A fan is also in place to draw out hot air. |
 |
| 3) The assembled cabinet head. A fluorescent lamp is bolted in place to keep the translite illuminated. |
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| 4) The painted cabinet and head. (Not finished yet) |
There's a little retouching needed here and there, but at least the major parts are painted now.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Change of heart?
Hmm... I'm not so sure about the current theme after all.
I will have to check the pro's and con's of the various themes I've had in mind to see which comes up as winner this time.
I will have to check the pro's and con's of the various themes I've had in mind to see which comes up as winner this time.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Image to DMD conversion
I've been working on converting regular image files to DMD images (well, my interpretation of them anyway) and just tested it out:
Pretty neat, huh?
Basically I wrote a python program that loads images (animated GIF's preferably, but almost any image format works), converts them to monochrome and spits out a converted 16 color image in DMD format. Each frame of the animated image just adds another 4096 Bytes to the DMD file, meaning an animation results in a single DMD file.
I will probably have to do a little fine tuning to get the actual color conversion more precise. Right now it's simply dividing the 255 colors by 16. It could be better represented, I suppose.
In the example above, there's a lot of bleeding going on. That lies in the original file and has nothing to do with the conversion etc. The image was created very sloppily with a anti-aliased scaling of the original images. Nearest-neighbour scaling is preferred when working with so few pixels.
(There can hardly be anyone out there who can't guess the theme now, right?)
 |
| A) Converted RGB GIF to 16 color DMD. |
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| B) The original image for comparison. (the format is RGB despite the black&white appearance) |
Pretty neat, huh?
Basically I wrote a python program that loads images (animated GIF's preferably, but almost any image format works), converts them to monochrome and spits out a converted 16 color image in DMD format. Each frame of the animated image just adds another 4096 Bytes to the DMD file, meaning an animation results in a single DMD file.
I will probably have to do a little fine tuning to get the actual color conversion more precise. Right now it's simply dividing the 255 colors by 16. It could be better represented, I suppose.
In the example above, there's a lot of bleeding going on. That lies in the original file and has nothing to do with the conversion etc. The image was created very sloppily with a anti-aliased scaling of the original images. Nearest-neighbour scaling is preferred when working with so few pixels.
(There can hardly be anyone out there who can't guess the theme now, right?)
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