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johnparker007

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On 16/01/2022 at 21:26, bullionbars2011 said:

hi &johnparker007 just found a little issue when playing andy capp i got 2 nudges for blue 777 and was on number 12 so had jackpot went lower give me a 7 the machine froze for about 2 seconds then suddenly went to the feature board got number 3 and said 'oh no' lol dead wacky woman come from nowere all the way from jackpot and killed me lol

 

thanks

Hi - this may be down to a screw up I did a bit back!  It had to do with another project where I was hacking ROMs, and I was trying to save hard drive space (I've since used some of the donation money to buy a larger drive)...

Anyway - if you navigate to here on your machine:
image.png.3c84c6d1720f8c1505aa94a7c5f174a4.png

where the 'John' part will be your Windows user name... and delete at least the Andy Capp folder, or ideally all of the MPU4 game folders - I believe that should resolve it.  Some of the patches (from the Chr Free project in its current state) cause some odd behaviours... wiping this folder should then mean your Arcade Sim machines will use the official (non-hacked) ROMs as they ought to do (as it'll create fresh saves from the now fixed sources).

Long term I have a bunch of work to do developing more of the ROM management system, and I can detect and fix where this issue is present for existing users automatically.  It's annoying, it was just a silly mistake!
 

On 16/01/2022 at 22:19, pubjoe said:

Aka refill keys.  Check how full a machine is.  Good way to get chucked out of an arcade.

Not sure how useful these were after about year 2000 tbh.

It's a tongue-in-cheek question, but also it might genuinely be quite a fun and appropriate incentive to reward VIP donators / server contributors by unlocking the feature.  If it's even possible. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Ah ok - yes I do already have a task in the backlog so when a user is not in a competitive game mode, they'll be able to operate those (I'll also need to set them up properly in all MFME source layouts that AS uses as often they are not).  It will  then essentially operate these controls (but via AS interface):
image.png.bca478c3731e3d65912628fd260185fe.png

Edited by johnparker007
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[ 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

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Tech update :)  

So currently in the process of upgrading everything to use  a newer version of Unity game engine.  It's introduced some general performance issues for the GPU rendering, and input issues (probably more issues to resolve, but that's what I've spotted so far).

This is all a bit of a can of worms, but necessary to get access to new engine features (mainly upto date versions of new Unity InputSystem and Burst jobs system)... but these are needed for decent quality emulation (wrt performance, latency) through the libRetro cores (MAME etc), as seen in the recent StarForce demo in the test project (the test project is on this newer version of Unity).

Now actually running at least (albeit with various issues), on Unity version 2021.2.7f1 (was 2020.2.7f1).  This is also probably helpful for VR later - hopefully I'll be able to get away with not having to upgrade versions for a couple of years+ now (as it's always a pain!) :) 

Edited by johnparker007
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[ 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

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19 minutes ago, Spidy21982 said:

@johnparker007 had a try on the vogue 🙂 reels are inside already, maybe useful for you.

greetings spidy

vogue jpm.jpg

jpm vogue.zip 29.29 MB · 0 downloads

Oooh very nice!  I see a lot more detailing on yours that I skipped on my placeholder model ;) Mine has really basic sharp edges you could cut your finger on!  :) 

I'll also sort out some form of support textures (bump/normal mapping) for the grey plastic, as I think it has a bit of texture, and it should make the reflected lights look better...

image.thumb.png.d7e5701f7ddad50ceb3eddaba3f73a06.png

Those reels will come in handy later for sure, all I have now are floating reel bands - very cool work as always :D  Thanks very much for this, and I see Vogue buttons too - be handy for the future when I get to the 3d button work, really great stuff man :)  

A quick screengrab of Spidy's new reel models for the thread:
image.png.67eafaad906a9e71370cfe3ff8b63542.png

image.png.5d8560e2fe37b23f01a5818934572a7b.png

Edited by johnparker007
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[ 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

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50 minutes ago, johnparker007 said:

Oooh very nice!  I see a lot more detailing on yours that I skipped on my placeholder model ;) Mine has really basic sharp edges you could cut your finger on!  :) 

I'll also sort out some form of support textures (bump/normal mapping) for the grey plastic, as I think it has a bit of texture, and it should make the reflected lights look better...

image.thumb.png.d7e5701f7ddad50ceb3eddaba3f73a06.png

Those reels will come in handy later for sure, all I have now are floating reel bands - very cool work as always :D  Thanks very much for this, and I see Vogue buttons too - be handy for the future when I get to the 3d button work, really great stuff man :)  

A quick screengrab of Spidy's new reel models for the thread:
image.png.67eafaad906a9e71370cfe3ff8b63542.png

image.png.5d8560e2fe37b23f01a5818934572a7b.png

Yeah for the grey plastic i used this time a standard grey material but its easy changeable to your liking.you could use the same material that i used for the genesis plastics ithink that will fit only change colour...

Buttons are the same i used for the astra one but light rotated 🙃

Greetings spidy

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Tech update :)  

Continuing work is going slowly, some very time-consuming stages - so there's a new patch update, that hopefully will have no issues for end users.  It doesn't do anything visibly new... I think it is around the same performance once loaded, the arcade does seem to load faster once it's re-downloaded the machines.

It's now built with a newer Unity - I've been having a few problems, and tried other versions - going to settle on this one for now - where I've got it down to just fairly stuttery performance in the Unity Editor on my side of things.  It doesn't seem to pass through into the build, it's just a newly introduced bug in Unity's Editor, that I will probably have to try make a workaround for, just so I can test things quickly without the stutter...

Give me a shout if this introduces problems you weren't seeing before, hopefully it's all ok :) 

It's a small step on the progress of getting MAME video games working (which is what I'm doing this particular stuff for).

Edit: this new build improves portrait rendering, for if someone has their desktop set to portrait orientation... there's a minor issue that the top-left HUD game name box is too wide, I've put it on the buglist for later.

Edited by johnparker007
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[ 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

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Tried to record in portrait, but youtube has rotated it back, here's what it looked like anyway (but it was fullscreen portrait when actually running, youtube has butchered it!)


@headcook "Yes if that will let me play in portrait mode so I can rotate the monitor and fill the screen with it."

So that feature is live now, for those users who rotate their monitors to portrait.  You will need to set your desktop resolution to portrait for it to work :) 

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[ 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

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Tech update: I'm having problems! :)  Specifically I am struggling to get UV mapping (that defines how a flat 2d texture is mapped to a 3d mesh) working...

Up to now, I've been totally getting away with it - as it's been more a case that I've split things up into individual meshes for T-Molding, JPM lit logo, wooden sides on MPU4 etc... and then reapplying a usually default UV mapped.  This is the sort of thing I'm currently looking at!
image.thumb.png.11135f8c09aaaf88e28cd8f371007fbc.png

image.png.5ef774c4083c8254070898a33b146949.png

Sooo yeah... I think it may not be possible to export this data from Cinema 4D via FBX / 3DS (I think Cinema 4d may have a buggy exporter, it's not commonly used for games I don't think)... I may have to learn more about 3DS Max so I can retexture and UV map from scratch in there (as then exporting from 3DS Max to Unity will work).

What I might do in the interim, is just shade the cabinet in flat grey or something, so I can use it as placeholder, though that's pretty boring... there's always problems lol :) 

Edited by johnparker007
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[ 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

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5 hours ago, johnparker007 said:

Tech update: I'm having problems! :)  Specifically I am struggling to get UV mapping (that defines how a flat 2d texture is mapped to a 3d mesh) working...

Up to now, I've been totally getting away with it - as it's been more a case that I've split things up into individual meshes for T-Molding, JPM lit logo, wooden sides on MPU4 etc... and then reapplying a usually default UV mapped.  This is the sort of thing I'm currently looking at!
image.thumb.png.11135f8c09aaaf88e28cd8f371007fbc.png

image.png.5ef774c4083c8254070898a33b146949.png

Sooo yeah... I think it may not be possible to export this data from Cinema 4D via FBX / 3DS (I think Cinema 4d may have a buggy exporter, it's not commonly used for games I don't think)... I may have to learn more about 3DS Max so I can retexture and UV map from scratch in there (as then exporting from 3DS Max to Unity will work).

What I might do in the interim, is just shade the cabinet in flat grey or something, so I can use it as placeholder, though that's pretty boring... there's always problems lol :) 

uv mapping is a scince for itself ... i did not get it in my head . i textured sucsessfully a box but with more complex shapes i did not get a useful thing out of it. maybe too much in my head going on i dont know🤪

 

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1 hour ago, Spidy21982 said:

uv mapping is a scince for itself ... i did not get it in my head . i textured sucsessfully a box but with more complex shapes i did not get a useful thing out of it. maybe too much in my head going on i dont know🤪

 

lol yeah - with the fruit machine models, we are fine, as there is no texture, it's all black, silver, colored - so all your fruit machine models that are for after the video game stuff will be great (just like the ones so far, no UV mapping probs). 

I kinda understand what's going on - I have a hangover planned tomorrow ;)  So I'll perhaps have another go... I think if I take your video game model, then re-texture/re-UV map it from scratch in 3DS Max, that would then work... I don't know 3DS Max too well though!

If I get really stuck, I may just do it in plain colors for now, and figure out texturing it later, so I can carry on getting the video games working (still lots of coding/refactoring to do for that yet).

Have a good weekend! :) 

[ 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

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@johnparker007 tried to overwork the arcade cabinet.have split the decal parts and the tmold and uv mapped it. Maybe you could try if it works. Dont know how it works with transparent surfaces with decals...

I textured one by one means you have one uv map per piece but i think they could be mapped in one texture together in some way..... i think in this way the model gets too big for unity

Greetings spidy

arcade test.zip

Edited by Spidy21982
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3 hours ago, Spidy21982 said:

@johnparker007 tried to overwork the arcade cabinet.have split the decal parts and the tmold and uv mapped it. Maybe you could try if it works. Dont know how it works with transparent surfaces with decals...

I textured one by one means you have one uv map per piece but i think they could be mapped in one texture together in some way..... i think in this way the model gets too big for unity

Greetings spidy

arcade test.zip 39.15 MB · 0 downloads

Thanks man :)  I will check this out tomorrow and see if it helps, fingers crossed :) 

[ 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

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13 hours ago, Spidy21982 said:

@johnparker007 tried to overwork the arcade cabinet.have split the decal parts and the tmold and uv mapped it. Maybe you could try if it works. Dont know how it works with transparent surfaces with decals...

I textured one by one means you have one uv map per piece but i think they could be mapped in one texture together in some way..... i think in this way the model gets too big for unity

Greetings spidy

arcade test.zip 39.15 MB · 1 download

Thanks @Spidy21982 :)  I've done some tests, and I can see some of the mapping just about working now - with a bit more fiddling I should be able to fix the rest of the issues in Max... thanks for updating it! 

Looking better in Max:

image.thumb.png.e9ad3867e94c9d55134934394f1815bb.png

Starting to come together in Unity:
image.thumb.png.4a8a67c533856da68152469032ab2460.png

Awesome, hope to get this model properly done and tweaked today - thanks again buddy for the UV adjustments, they've really helped make it more usable :) 

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[ 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

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I've been away from the scene for quite some time but I started getting (must have been a junk filter) the digest emails again. I fired up the arcade simulator today and it continues to be amazing. I got a 38" wide screen monitor recently and can confirm that the arcade is looking amazing on it. Performance is great. As I've not used it for a while I had a few updates, but the 1.07 GB download was very fast and the multiple updates applied seamlessly, thanks to the Desert Island fruits hosting team!

I'm really excited that you are working on adding mame video games as well, as that will make the arcade simulator really come to life for me. But as it stands it is still brilliant.

Keep up the great work. This will be legendary.

 

 

 

 

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A little more progress on the model-wrangling, still needs more work, but starting to look more like the original cab from Spidy now... :) 
image.thumb.png.a1f9f135cbc92fecdffb846cac117dbf.png

This isn't in any way working at all yet (a lot more work to go), just loaded up the Arcade, and dragged the latest Unity version of the model into the running scene...

 

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[ 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

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More early test action :) ...looping vid stream in Spidy cab as real arcade object.  The stutter is a new Unity bug, only happens in Editor since updating to v2021, doesn't affect build (it's whenever I press a key). 

 

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[ 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

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FYI bug list; lucky strike when pressed enter the game froze display wise but it would react to input commands but with no visual events shown, then it was not allowing me to esc the game for a short while, it did after several attempts and the following games worked that I tried. May of been a one off I’m not sure? Also did you release a patch recently as the downloading of game’s at initial start up to significantly longer than usual? Thanks bud and love the work

living the dream

 

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9 minutes ago, woodsy said:

FYI bug list; lucky strike when pressed enter the game froze display wise but it would react to input commands but with no visual events shown, then it was not allowing me to esc the game for a short while, it did after several attempts and the following games worked that I tried. May of been a one off I’m not sure? Also did you release a patch recently as the downloading of game’s at initial start up to significantly longer than usual? Thanks bud and love the work

It sounds like a one off where it had failed to scrape properly.  The MFME scraper stuff is inherently flakey, so I think best is to just ignore for now!  I may one day in the future rewrite scraping from a low level to maybe attain more stability, but it's a big job and may not help, so don't hold your breath :) 

There was a patch recently, and due to me updating to a new Unity version, it did mean everyone had to download all the machines again - should be fine next time you run arcade sim.

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[ 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

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Tech update: A follow on from video above, dumped a load of these cabs for a quick stress test - looks like it's going to need significant work to reduce CPU/GPU load on simply playing video streams (this is without my planned arcade audio system on top!).


First thought is to have variable frame and/or resolution video set of the same attract.  So a machine far off in the distance could be playing it's attract at 30 or even 15 FPS (perhaps with some shader magic to blur between the frames to hide stutter). 

And also to have low resolution videos, so if a game is at 320x240, there could be attracts at say 320x240, 240x180, 160x120, 80x60, to be shown based on how far away from machine you are.  Though the challenge would then be to not get stung by overhead trying to resync videos on playback as a machine becomes closer and needs to switch res/framerate (as you walk towards it).

Complete unknown if this stuff is actually possible!  But I did really want it to be able to have lots of video games on screen at once without such heavy CPU/GPU usage...

Edited by johnparker007
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[ 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

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