195 replies to this topic

[fuzion]

Maybe a possible addition to the mfme tools to have a built in decal change depending on the price of play settings etc, so you switch to 10p £5 and the emulator automatically looks to see if the decals are there and replaces them.  All from within the same layout.

 

J

Edited by fuzion, 20 December 2017 - 02:10 PM.

[Benjamoose]

Maybe a possible addition to the mfme tools to have a built in decal change depending on the price of play settings etc, so you switch to 10p £5 and the emulator automatically looks to see if the decals are there and replaces them.  All from within the same layout.

 

J

That'd be great!

I think it'd also cut down on overall layout variations if it could also be somehow incorporated into the actual lamps too (i.e. Homer's trail).

That gets a support from me.

Speaking of MFME features, do you guys know if there are any plans of custom sounds?

Something where the emulator would look in a folder for that particular layout for a corresponding sound before playing the original from the rom.

Not only would this allow people to make uncompressed high quality sound packs (Homer's Meltdown is largely made from clips of 90s Simpson's episodes), but it'd also allow people to use roms to make COMPLETELY new games.

You could in theory take the Homer's Meltdown rom, and say make a completely different themed layout for Austin Powers or something, then add a bunch of Austin Powers sounds, and boom! Fan made fruit machines.

Edited by Benjamoose, 20 December 2017 - 02:05 PM.

[fuzion]

I don't think that will be a feature that Wizard would have any interest.  This is true emulation after all.   I've done it way back in early 2000's.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on a little soundtool by an old emulator coder.  It basically let you unpack sound roms from MPU4 based machines and let you change them.  You had to match the sample length exactly as the machine programme stored these in memory so any mismatch would cause a problem a potentially crash the fruit machine.

 

The machine I created from scratch was 'Fruit Vortex' it's not especially great artwork, but I enjoyed creating it, especially the sound package I created was pretty awesome.  I took various samples from places, none that I had composed myself, though I do dabble in that creative process.

 

Also I can't see a massive call for this, it's basically a fruit machine construction kit.   

 

J

[Benjamoose]

I don't think that will be a feature that Wizard would have any interest.  This is true emulation after all.   I've done it way back in early 2000's.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on a little soundtool by an old emulator coder.  It basically let you unpack sound roms from MPU4 based machines and let you change them.  You had to match the sample length exactly as the machine programme stored these in memory so any mismatch would cause a problem a potentially crash the fruit machine.

 

The machine I created from scratch was 'Fruit Vortex' it's not especially great artwork, but I enjoyed creating it, especially the sound package I created was pretty awesome.  I took various samples from places, none that I had composed myself, though I do dabble in that creative process.

 

Also I can't see a massive call for this, it's basically a fruit machine construction kit.   

 

J

True, though I feel it has it's use in longevity for emulation alone too seeing as the samples used in many machines are heavily compressed and it would allow the use of uncompressed copies of the samples.

Many game emulators allow custom texture loading for this reason too (to increase texture resolutions).

Plus anything that encourages creativity and activity in an already relatively niche community is always a plus in my book.

I'd be interested in seeing "Fruit Vortex" !

[nails]

True, though I feel it has it's use in longevity for emulation alone too seeing as the samples used in many machines are heavily compressed and it would allow the use of uncompressed copies of the samples.

Many game emulators allow custom texture loading for this reason too (to increase texture resolutions).

Plus anything that encourages creativity and activity in an already relatively niche community is always a plus in my book.

I'd be interested in seeing "Fruit Vortex" !

 

Do you mean like a .mod extension like we see in say half life 2, where creators make alterations to the existing core game ?

[Benjamoose]

 

Do you mean like a .mod extension like we see in say half life 2, where creators make alterations to the existing core game ?

 

In principle, sort of. In execution though I mean more like something like say Project64k (an emulator for playing Nintendo 64 ROMs from the 90s).

Many old console emulators like that one come with a feature that allows the game to load custom textures in the following fashion:

1). Turn on texture dumping in options.
When the game is running it dumps literally any texture it encounters on-screen to a folder into a practical format like .png or .jpg.

2). Edit said textures however you like, including increasing it's resolution.

3). Enable loading custom textures.
When custom textures are switched on, when the ROM tells the emulator to load a specific texture, it checks the custom folder first and if a texture file exists in there with the same name as the dumped filename, it loads that one into memory before the game has a chance to throw in it's own.

So in MFME you'd do something similar in execution:

1). Click a button in the sound previewer to dump all sounds into a practical format (.mp3, .ogg, .wav, etc) in that particular ROM's folder (perhaps into a sub-folder called "sound").

2). Edit the sounds.

3). Turn on custom sounds with a checkbox for that particular copy of the ROM (perhaps in edit mode, then save).
When the fruit machine calls for a specific sound to be played, MFME would look in the ROM's folder. If it sees a corresponding sound with the same name, it plays that one instead via the emulator and doesn't execute playing the native sound.

 

In a way Source mods are somewhat similar (Half-Life 2) in that they check a mod folder that has the same structure as the main folder first and uses whatever it finds in there over the main thing.

I imagine given the way MFME works compared to emulating a full video game and console it'd be somewhat easier to implement, but of course I'm just speculating and might be completely wrong;

 

The benefit of the way MFME could do it, is if done right it wouldn't necessarily have to mimic the exact file-type, file-size or sound length as MFME could just play the sounds itself when the ROM asks for it vs. having to emulate a console playing the sound in a 3D environment.

Edited by Benjamoose, 21 December 2017 - 09:51 AM.

[fuzion]

I'd be interested in seeing "Fruit Vortex" !

It's not too pretty looking back but I just wanted to create my own sound and graphics that would play on an existing game rom.

 

I replaced most of the sounds, it was a pain to get all the sounds perfectly looped but I was pretty happy with it back then.  I didn't change the fruit voice samples on the feature board as they fitted well obviously, I also don't think I changed the reel spin sound but can't really remember now.   My favourite sample is the loop when you can collect a bank.  Again, I sampled from various tracks, none of my own music.

 

Think this must of been around 2004.

 

Here is a little vid if you wanted to see rather than load the game.

 

 

J

Attached Files

•  vortexdx.zip   2.68MB   8 downloads

[Benjamoose]

It's not too pretty looking back but I just wanted to create my own sound and graphics that would play on an existing game rom.

 

Hey man, that's neat!

I wouldn't know it wasn't an official thing if you hadn't told me.

[Benjamoose]

Howdy folks!

Sorry for the lack of updates, but naturally I've been enjoying the holidays.
I hope you've all had a great Christmas!

Good news though, today I pulled up the project file and blasted through the final things that I had to do!
So without further ado, here's a nice big update for you all.

First up; as I've been saying for weeks, I finally remade the Duff Beer cans:



Previously both the bottom feature area and the top feature area were using the same cans, but now that I have access to a higher resolution reference for the cans, I noticed that the colors of the logo itself in the center are actually different on the top compared to the bottom. (The bottom have reddish logos whereas the top has yellow for some reason).

This is the reason for the two sets shown above.

The single purple can at the very top is an example of the "before" cans, to show you how much they've improved.

 

The second set are the new cans for the bottom feature area (there should also be a red one there but I forgot to make it when I took the picture) and the third set are the new cans for the top feature area.

 

Next up; The embossed "MAYGAY" logo and weird greeblie thing on the left (the one inside the bar with the curved end):

 

The new cans now in-place:

 

And the final file:

 

I'm 99% sure I'm completely done with the base layout now, but I'll be giving it the once over to make sure of course.

The next update should hopefully be me making it look lit up!

I'm hoping to do it manually so that I can define exactly where it looks like the lamps are based on my lamp map from a while back (old screenshot):



Though I need to go over this again and tweak their positions a bit now that all the graphics are there.

Edited by Benjamoose, 28 December 2017 - 07:51 AM.

[vectra666]

Looks very neat. Don't forget the red lamps in the homers logo?
Will the bottom half of the machine been angled outwards?

Edited by vectra666, 28 December 2017 - 08:56 AM.

[Benjamoose]

Looks very neat.
Will the bottom half of the machine been angled outwards?

 

I think I mentioned it somewhere at the beginning of the thread, but to quickly answer your question; unfortunately not.

I really love the layout format used in my other favorite machine (Crazy Fruits Green) and enjoy having all the graphics nice and clear on-screen:

 

I also feel like if you're going to play a layout in full-screen on a physical cabinet build for MFME (like uptown47's great example), that something like this is more intuitive.

I know some have a greater preference towards making it look like an interactive high quality photo of the machine right in front of you, but I find that the skewing of the bottom half kinda spoils the art for me personally.

I did however try to take cues from the physical cabinet and reproduce them on my custom frame. So that machine housing for my layout is easily recognizable as the physical machine, but also designed more for a screen.

You can sort of see this in the shapes of the curved bottom section where the primary game buttons are, the top of the machine and the thin bezel-like edges.

If I was going to skew the bottom I'd have done it that way to begin with. Skewing it now would cause resampling artifacts.

I hope this doesn't disappoint anyone.

Edited by Benjamoose, 28 December 2017 - 09:08 AM.

[Benjamoose]

I'm sure some of you long-timers will get a laugh out of this one.

I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to change the language:



It wasn't until I saw:



That I realized the feckin' thing was just backwards.

[vectra666]

Looks Welsh to me lol, maybe an idea but couldn't a mfme update be made where the alpha's always the correct way around, as always seems reversed first time unless you manually correct it?

[TommyC]

Why would that require an update,it ain't hard to tick reversed in the properties.

[fuzion]

I know what you mean though Vecs, like the emulator detects the type of alpha and selects reversed if required.   Not a major issue though as Tommy points out, it's good to have to actual do some configuring as it's how we learn more about the software we are using.  Mfmev6 seems to be a major update with lots of little things you might not notice at first.

 

I was playing S5 machine and the lamps looked like they were fading once they'd been lit.  Not sure if it is just my eyes.  But it looks amazing.

 

J

[niallquinn]

Before all the arty people pull themselves unconcious - am I missing the point?  I thought the whole point of a DX was to use the machine artwork.  "Brand new shiny colours" will make it look like a simulation.

 

Won't it?

 

That said, you know me, I'll still download it, and play it to death.

 

 

NQ.

 

[altharic]

Its worse than that NQ do you not think side art is so 2003?

[barcrest junky]

Before all the arty people pull themselves unconcious - am I missing the point?  I thought the whole point of a DX was to use the machine artwork.  "Brand new shiny colours" will make it look like a simulation.

Maybe it'll be released as a new type of emulation with some snazzy name?

[altharic]

Like Reflect tech?

[vectra666]

PDX??