OASIS (working title)

[Ginge]

What’s going on with them big reels , I won’t need my glasses anymore .

[johnparker007]

2 hours ago, Ginge said:

What’s going on with them big reels , I won’t need my glasses anymore .

Just WIP stuff at the mo  

[johnparker007]

More prettying up of the MFME Import window in the Layout Editor - more correct reel scaling, and reel overlay images:

Technically not necessary to make this stuff look that accurate, as this is just to store imported MFME layout so when a layout artist (or someone working on converting layouts to 3d machines) saves a Layout Editor 'project file', this can be stored along with the actual 3d Oasis views of the full panels and individual panels.

That said, it's bothersome if it looks scruffy, it should kinda resemble the imported MFME layout!   So I'll prob also do reel lamps, and maybe even the odd 'fake perspective' vertical 2d reel scaling effect that MFME does (so symbols at top/bottom be squished vertically to approximate a 3d effect)... just so things look vaguely correct, for this Import preview view  

Edited May 7 by johnparker007

[johnparker007]

I moved to a different layout (MPU4 Nickelodeon) to get some more standard reels to check work so far before thinking about some generic basic reel lamps for the MFME Import Preview window... revealed various other things to do/issues:


Segment displays not working - this is an emulation issue to fix in MAME (just down to config I think)

Reels show too many symbols - this is a problem with the scaling work I did using the Andy Capp reels, so I have more to do there to derive approximately similar scales to the reels shown in MFME

Lamps scrambled - I do have a fix for this, the MFME layout is actually the one that is wrong   So the 8x Chr lamp values are set wrong, and then the lamps were adjusted by trial and error until they worked.  As we are now using the correct MAME lamp values for emulation, the MFME lamps appear scrambled.  Fortunately I already wrote a 'MFME lamp number fixer' function in my earlier work in Arcade Sim, so I'll have to port that across and then the imported MFME layout will get its lamp numbers remapped to the correct ones

No blended lamps - I just haven't done those yet, but I will add to the list of things to make the MFME Import Preview more accurate


So yeah, tried a new machine just to check reels and revealed a pile of issues haha  

 

[spa]

These regular updates are great mate, thanks for keeping us posted

[johnparker007]

Did a little more tonight, now have the vertical reel scaling calculation figured I think (close as it needs to be for this Import Preview anyway):




Also got a new 'MFME' menu in, starting to move MFME stuff to that - so this will be for the MPU4 lamp correcting function (to fix wrong lamp numbers in MFME layouts where they've been mapped to match wrong characteriser lamp column value)... think this will be the next task, so I can get Nickelodeon lamps correct:

[Ze Frog]

8 minutes ago, johnparker007 said:

Did a little more tonight, now have the vertical reel scaling calculation figured I think (close as it needs to be for this Import Preview anyway):




Also got a new 'MFME' menu in, starting to move MFME stuff to that - so this will be for the MPU4 lamp correcting function (to fix wrong lamp numbers in MFME layouts where they've been mapped to match wrong characteriser lamp column value)... think this will be the next task, so I can get Nickelodeon lamps correct:

So much of what you manage to do is really beyond me, but it's incredible to witness, great stuff.

[spa]

I don't recall there being a made cab for the lo tech barcrest? It's been a while mind, but can't remember seeing one made in the other thread. 

[johnparker007]

9 hours ago, spa said:

I don't recall there being a made cab for the lo tech barcrest? It's been a while mind, but can't remember seeing one made in the other thread. 

Not yet, but I'll be able to adapt one from this cabinet, as it has the similar metal trim:


All the cabinet stuff is being redone anyway, so there's a bunch of work there either way.  Since we're going full open source, the leading open source 3d modelling package is Blender (https://www.blender.org/).

So before, I was building cabs from scratch in 3DS Max, or using @Spidy21982's models from Cinema4D, and importing them to 3DS Max for further adjustments, and then from 3DS Max importing to Unity.

So now that 'final' 3d modelling package in the pipeline will be Blender, and the idea is that anyone will able to create the Oasis 3d cabinets, by using most likely .glTF format to export from Blender.

So in the original ArcadeSim workflow for the cabinet above, it was:

Cinema4d -> .obj -> 3DS Max -> .fbx -> Unity Editor import -> Arcade Sim

The new workflow would look something more like:

Cinema4d -> .obj -> Blender -> .glTF -> Oasis MachineEditor -> Oasis LayoutEditor -> Oasis ArcadeSimulator

(though of course others may choose to develop their models direct in Blender skipping the C4d->.obj step, or in some other priliminary package like Maya, 3DS Max etc). 

The new workflow will be able to be fully completed by people other than me   As that is the plan for everything ultimately, so I'm no longer needed to develop new machines/arcades for use.

It will be quite a long time before I'm at that stage though, depending on personal health and also how much time I divert into improving the emulation in MAME...

Edited May 10 by johnparker007

[johnparker007]

Have been chipping away at developing the UI system... this will replace what has been seen in the 'Inspector' window so far, with a new more versatile approach (as I need that now I'm starting to add more menus/windows.

So here is the MPU4 Lamp Remapper, which was needed for layouts such as Nickelodeon, where both the 8x Chr lamp column values plus the lamps are wrong in the MFME layout, but in such away that it still looks correct in MFME:


More info on this above and in another thread, but in MAME we now have the correct 8x lamp column values for most/all of the MPU4 machines that use that type of Chr protection, and so the lamp numbers of the MFME layouts need to be corrected to the real ones in order for MAME to drive the correct lamps, as seen in Nickelodeon.

The Source values are the ones used in the MFME layout, the Target values are the correct ones from the MAME MPU4 driver game values.  Then the code can use those to remap the lamps, and as seen in this new vid below, upon clicking Remap Lamps button, the lamps are remapped, and then are non-scrambled   

Had this lamp scrambling code already from earlier work, but this new UI system stuff has been taking a long time to get to a point where I could build a basic menu panel!

The Populate Values from MFME Layout / MAME Drive don't actually work yet, I had to look up and enter both source/target lamp column values manually for this test... so I guess that's one of the next things on the list... though I'll probably doing some more menus (and cleaning up that rightmost 8 field that is too short).

The new UI system means these menus can be docked/undocked, and will horizontally scale where they are a list of various values/settings, as is often the case in a Layout Editor such as this:

Floating undocked:


Docked on the bottom as the sole tab:


Docked on the side as part of a 2 tab dock:


Horizontally stretched:

Horizontally squashed:

 

Edited Thursday at 20:08 by johnparker007