vectra666 Posted October 17, 2020 Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 Just now, vectra666 said: Will the end result look like a virtual arcade with more than one machine running in attract mode, like a few dozen with pinballs and video games like a proper arcade maybe a coin pusher and grabby machines thrown into the mix. Now I’m getting ahead of myself lol. Of course I’m the distant future it could have some online aspect to it where you choose a avatar join the arcade and play with other avatars/people online this looks very VR too excellent news and great to see mfme being added onto and developed further even if it’s not updated internally yet??? If we do get to choose avatars I’d like to be the scruffy chav sharking over Big J waiting anxiously to empty his pockets lol 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zippy Posted October 17, 2020 Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 16 minutes ago, vectra666 said: If we do get to choose avatars I’d like to be the scruffy chav sharking over Big J waiting anxiously to empty his pockets lol Chav, that's about right. You do realise that a clicker gives an electric shock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slasher Posted October 17, 2020 Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 6 minutes ago, Big J said: Chav, that's about right. You do realise that a clicker gives an electric shock Barred already and it's not even open yet lol 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zippy Posted October 17, 2020 Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 But JP is rich, he don't mind giving away a few quid 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 On the virtual arcade situation - without wanting to over-promise anything, as this is just a hobby project I'm working on - that's kind of where I'd like to see this ultimately end up, having seen how well the Cash Nudger worked in the 'holodeck' environment. I think the big part for now is working on this 'semi'-automated layout conversion/upscaling, since an arcade with 50 different fruit machines is more fun than just 50x "2p Cash Nudgers"! Other machine types (as we saw from the Pacman test) are possible... along with physics-based crane games, coin pushers etc (as I just use Unity's PhysX engine). The trick I'm thinking is to have an 'interacting/viewing' mode... so you can only interact/view a single machine (in full 8K with emulation/physics) while you're walking around. That way, it keeps the emulation/simulation overhead down - and having made a prototype coin pusher simulation a few years back, doing all the physics for the coin colliders adds up fast. So the other machines would play attract mode loops rendering with normal (non-8K) textures, but if you have one centred in your view and are close enough to it, then it would switch to showing what the machine is actually doing (if it's being played etc), with the 8K textures. Keeps the network bandwidth down too, otherwise if the arcade is busy everyone is transmitting shit to everyone, even for machines the other person can't actually see. Something like that anyway - but it's all a long way off - just got to keep breaking off bite-sized pieces and solving them one day at a time 5 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zippy Posted October 17, 2020 Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 Good things always take time. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R4D4 Posted October 17, 2020 Report Share Posted October 17, 2020 Looking great so far, very impressed. The endgame could be something similar to 'new retro arcade neon' which uses fake attract screens. And runs in 2d or VR. Take your time.... Like you say, a bit at a time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serene02 Posted October 18, 2020 Report Share Posted October 18, 2020 Wow, JP. We could create Smithy's all over again bud Literally everything will back then in the early 90's would be able to be emulated. Hatfield at the top of the stairs looking down on his domain ;). Getting you to play machines for him, then nipping under the clock for a beer J 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serene02 Posted October 18, 2020 Report Share Posted October 18, 2020 We already might be living in a simulation. In a simulation within a simulation... Ha ha. J 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vectra666 Posted October 18, 2020 Report Share Posted October 18, 2020 39 minutes ago, A:E said: We already might be living in a simulation. In a simulation within a simulation... Ha ha. J You been watching the matrix again living the dream or in today’s society a living nightmare I expect Freddy to come knocking one day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 18, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2020 6 hours ago, A:E said: Wow, JP. We could create Smithy's all over again bud Literally everything will back then in the early 90's would be able to be emulated. Hatfield at the top of the stairs looking down on his domain ;). Getting you to play machines for him, then nipping under the clock for a beer J Would be nice to have a simple editor at some point so people can configure their own arcades - I'd certainly make a couple of the Cleethorpes ones as I (very vaguely) remember them from my youth It's a shame camera phones weren't ubiquitous back then like they are now. I guess there might be the odd photo or two of some UK arcades from the 80s/90s buried on the internet somewhere.... 2 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 18, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2020 No eye candy here, but a tech update I've started working on the 'MFME Automation' stuff, to allow me to extract complete layouts with every image/setting/coordinate etc. The technique is mixing the window capture stuff I'm using anyway to run the machines, plus simulating mouse/keyboard input. This vid shows it performing the steps: - launching the test layout to convert - skipping the initial popups - pausing the machine emulation - enable Design Mode - move mouse to top-left of layout - right click on background and select properties - capture properties window - move mouse to 'next property' button in bottom-right of window - click next property button every quarter of a second Bit of a bonkers approach but it seems to be working well, so I'm gonna go with it Next up will be some cleaning up, then bring in some (more!) AI to interpret text and numbers drawn in the window. Once I've got that working, I can start on extracting the full data (bitmaps, x, y, width, height, config values etc) per component that make up the layout. 3 2 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slasher Posted October 18, 2020 Report Share Posted October 18, 2020 Thats insane. Would've been interested to see the outcome of all of it at the end haha... good game too! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 19, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2020 Great to hear it's considered a good game - I chose it as the new test machine as it's got a pretty complex layout; lots of VFDs, dual red normal/reel lamps and a DMD... oh and 'On' lamps on background. Plenty of stuff to solve 1 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serene02 Posted October 19, 2020 Report Share Posted October 19, 2020 That's is pretty bonks... Love seeing this stuff mate, looking excellent J 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrickl06 Posted October 20, 2020 Report Share Posted October 20, 2020 Wow just read through all this - its insane. Keep up the great work. Maybe we could play one via Oculus at some point? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 20, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2020 2 hours ago, mattrickl06 said: Wow just read through all this - its insane. Keep up the great work. Maybe we could play one via Oculus at some point? That is the hope (along with normal PC monitor play) [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 20, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2020 (edited) Made some progress on 'reading' the drawn text from the MFME window to extract the layout data, though the AI isn't up to the task of interpreting it! It makes mistakes. So backup plan is to roll my own basic screen text scraper for the specific MFME number font, as it looks like the font is hardbaked into MFME, so it shouldn't be too bad and won't break with new versions of Windows etc. Bit of a ballache, but needs doing to get guaranteed 100% accuracy, otherwise there'll be random lamps in the wrong places! Mistakes marked in pink, also it sees "21" as "ral" every time: Edit: ok I've just had another look at this - new plan I can use my automated mouse clicker code to double-click the number fields to select the entire contents, then send Ctrl+C to copy them, then read them from the clipboard - phew, that sounds like less work lol Edited October 20, 2020 by johnparker007 2 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 20, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2020 (edited) Have managed to get success with new approach for extracting numerical data This works by clicking in each number field, then sending Ctrl+A (select all), Ctrl+C (copy), then parsing the clipboard contents. Not a super exciting video, but I thought I'd upload for those interested in the technical side of the 'converter' aspect of the project - here it extracts and prints: z order, component type, x, y, width, height ...for all the components in Millionaires Row, using the new reliable technique Edited October 20, 2020 by johnparker007 2 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serene02 Posted October 20, 2020 Report Share Posted October 20, 2020 Nice work man J 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slasher Posted October 20, 2020 Report Share Posted October 20, 2020 That's cool. Still curious to see where it chucks them all together haha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 21, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2020 7 hours ago, slasher said: That's cool. Still curious to see where it chucks them all together haha lol me too - the first working Monopoly video was a 'cheat' of sorts, by using specifically an 'unpublished' layout and using the MFME lamp export feature available on unpublished layouts. This new approach when complete will be good for all layouts, plus will get much more complete info about the reels, segment displays etc. Maybe have working lamps in their original (2D) configurations for all layouts by next week, if I keep getting time to work on it 1 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnparker007 Posted October 22, 2020 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2020 (edited) A little progress on the new MFME automation converter - extracted the basic On1 lamps from the Millionaires Row layout via the new tool and hooked up to a minimal data layout (I noticed there were no game sounds when recording - nothing to do with the converter, prob just something random on my PC!) Edited October 22, 2020 by johnparker007 1 1 2 [ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net | Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e | Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo [ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665 [ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz [ Fruit Machine ROM Archive ] The archive: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb [ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch [ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serene02 Posted October 22, 2020 Report Share Posted October 22, 2020 Thanks for the update. Great work as usual mate 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Posted October 23, 2020 Report Share Posted October 23, 2020 Just saw this and thought wow! Nothing to add except it looks great and is really innovative S 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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