multi coloured led emulation

[dec1962]

Hi,

I've been having a play with emulation when time allows and I've started to look at artwork lit by multi-coloured leds. This doesn't apply just to fme but any emulation which has lit artwork.

Normal artwork lit by a single lamp obviously has an off and an on image, or just an on image which is overlayed on top of "off artwork". But how would you implement artwork lit by multi coloured leds ?  Looking at MFME and other emulator games there just seems to be three images, ie red, green and blue, but that assumes that only a single led is lit at a time. It also gets more difficult if the leds can have different brightness.

I assume it must be possible to provide a single image and then modify it with the relevant rgb brightness of the leds, but how ?

The logo on Sharks of the Caribbean is what got me thinking about this, it's lit by multi-coloured leds but is reasonably colourful when unlit.

Anyone got any ideas ?

Thanks

 

[MikeyMonster]

This is a really interesting post - but WAY above my technical level - me just bash buttons.  

[dad]

Normal LEDs are programmed into MFME and can be used to control both lamps images and reels.  MUX LEDs unfortunately are not, so a workaround had to be found for those lamps like they were in Sharks of the Caribbean.  I’ve done loads of layouts that use this ‘overlay’ workaround which is the only solution I can come up with.  Plus I’ve still not found any way of using MUX LEDs in reels and I’ve tried EVERYTHING!

Thanks must go to @Pookwho came up with the idea of using transparent overlay’s first in his monopoly layout.

[johnparker007]

18 minutes ago, dad said:

Normal LEDs are programmed into MFME and can be used to control both lamps images and reels.  MUX LEDs unfortunately are not, so a workaround had to be found for those lamps like they were in Sharks of the Caribbean.  I’ve done loads of layouts that use this ‘overlay’ workaround which is the only solution I can come up with.  Plus I’ve still not found any way of using MUX LEDs in reels and I’ve tried EVERYTHING!

Thanks must go to @Pookwho came up with the idea of using transparent overlay’s first in his monopoly layout.

Is this MUX LED workaround in MFME this?



So using Lamp Numbers with an LED number?  or is it something else?  

[johnparker007]

22 minutes ago, dad said:

Normal LEDs are programmed into MFME and can be used to control both lamps images and reels.  MUX LEDs unfortunately are not, so a workaround had to be found for those lamps like they were in Sharks of the Caribbean.  I’ve done loads of layouts that use this ‘overlay’ workaround which is the only solution I can come up with.  Plus I’ve still not found any way of using MUX LEDs in reels and I’ve tried EVERYTHING!

Thanks must go to @Pookwho came up with the idea of using transparent overlay’s first in his monopoly layout.

Ah right, sorry I've just read @vectra666's release notes  

the red reels led doesn't light up but the lamp to the left does when activated so there's the clue

as for the top logo feature this sometimes lights up but won't go red or flash

If anyone Can suss out the Led;s then please do so i can amend the release, apart from gnomes this is the last release using them bleeding led's from me a right pain in the butt they've been.

Will be sure to get these working properly when I end up getting to sc5 emulation, good to know a machine to test  

[dec1962]

Thanks for replies.

If Sc5 Gnomes is anything like the Sc6 version the leds aren't connected direct to ScX but via a driver board which is connected using the I2C bus.

The driver board has a number of commands such as setting a group of leds to a particular colour or fading a group of leds between two colours.

From the comms it looks like the leds are 24 bits for RGB, so I assume they're those single wire chinese devices.

Without being MFME specific, how would you  use the led RGB colour to create the correct illuminated image ? Obviously you can't store 2^24 different pre-processed images. Do you have a single white lit image and then multiply each image pixel RGB by the led RGB ? So, if led is red full on and blue & green off you effectively end up removing blue and green from the image or is it far more complicated than that. Have tried this method and it doesn't look too bad, just not sure it's right. I'll see if I can get an image or video to show it.

As for the top logo on Gnomes, that has multiple separately controllable leds behind which makes things tricker.

 

[dec1962]

Ooops, in my last post that should be Sharks of the Caribbean and not Game of Gnomes

[vectra666]

6 minutes ago, dec1962 said:

Ooops, in my last post that should be Sharks of the Caribbean and not Game of Gnomes

Both the same games 

 

20 hours ago, johnparker007 said:

Is this MUX LED workaround in MFME this?



So using Lamp Numbers with an LED number?  or is it something else?  

That is the disco button leds only two colours can work on it afaik

With wizards help I did get the reflex game “roll with it” working correctly so that must of used a different method to the newer led type games, on that o e I made seven different images for the logo. One for each colour and added the lamp numbers also cash crusaders with its flashy button works.

so some do some dont and with my primitive mfme skills I can’t get to where @dadis with the workaround for these although I have tried.

what about those noteys with the multi coloured leds?

Edited September 22, 2024 by vectra666

[johnparker007]

4 minutes ago, vectra666 said:

what about those noteys with the multi coloured leds?

I did have a vague look into these ages back, I think it was something like an 'NV10' I read a manual on.  The RGB LEDs in those, I think they are not ROM controlled at all in terms of what colors/cycles they do.  The ROM can just request simpler stuff like setting it to ready/not ready (to accept notes) I think, and then however the Note Acceptor is configured, that's the color/pattern it'll light up.

So if you had one in Baking Bad, and you'd set it to a gently pulsing green pattern to match the machine, if you then stuck it in a DOND say, it would still do the pulsing green pattern.  At least that's what I recall from before, if/when I implement them in MAME/Oasis, I'll read up properly to get the bahaviour right  

[johnparker007]

9 hours ago, dec1962 said:

Without being MFME specific, how would you  use the led RGB colour to create the correct illuminated image ? Obviously you can't store 2^24 different pre-processed images. Do you have a single white lit image and then multiply each image pixel RGB by the led RGB ?

In Oasis, I will implement this using additive/multiply/some other option in a custom pixel shader.  I use basic custom shaders in Arcade Sim, but plan to develop what should be better custom lamp/led shaders for Oasis... something like the Sharks logo RGB LED effect would look something like this:

RGB LEDs on behind Logo Mask:


RGB LEDs off behind Logo Mask: