Zaccaria Pinball launcher and media generator

[Carny_Priest]

Based on their reputation, I was an early supporter of A.S.K. Homework in their Indiegogo campaign to add PC/cab support for their Zaccaria Pinball simulator. They launched on Steam last June and supporters got access to the gold pack of 38 tables. Cab support (portrait mode and support for gamepad controllers) arrived in Sept. Growing up in the states, I do not have a strong attachment to Zaccaria. I was hoping that someone else would do the work of getting together a solution for PinballX support, but... whatever. 

The launcher is based heavily on gigalula's work:

I just put it all into a working script. Add "Zaccaria Pinball" as a system in the Other Systems screen in the Settings app. Assign System Type as Custom. Point the executable path to the launcher. Use "Zaccaria Pinball.xml" as your database file as-is. At least, don't change the game name tags as these are what the Zaccaria Pinball program calls the different tables.

The launcher is specific to my particular configuration. I use the command line driven app Display Changer II to rotate my playfield monitor to portrait and antimicro to map my buttons to keys. The source code is included so it can be adjusted to fit users' needs.

 

Now, the hard part is media. The Zaccaria Pinball app currently only supports the playfield so there is no backglass support. PinballX can display static images while in-game. Nudnick, a contributor for TPAFreeCamMod, put together a collection he made for all 38 backglasses:

http://pinballarcadefans.com/showthread.php/11793-Static-Back-Glass-while-wait-for-Mod-Update?p=245857&viewfull=1#post245857

The link still works last time I checked. 

 

A lot of wheel images already exist under Media/Visual Pinball on the FTP or at VPForums. For the remaining, I did them myself. Media/Zaccaria Pinball/Wheel Images on the FTP. Quality varies. Cine Star and Red Show, I pulled from backglass images and the remaining from flyers. 

Look for flyers on the FTP - Flyer Images\300dpi - flyers.cdyn.com

I redrew most of the instruction cards I could find when Zaccaria Pinball launched on Steam. These are on the FTP - Other Uploads/Carny/Z20160604

This leaves Table Videos. There is a lot of customizations available for lighting and camera views. It makes sense to have a way to generate our own table videos. I ported gtxjoe's PBXRecorder v1.5 for Zaccaria Pinball using Open Broadcaster Software as the capture engine. This was tested with v17.0:

https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/releases/download/17.0.0/OBS-Studio-17.0-Small.zip

The same install instructions apply as described here:

Note - Zaccaria Pinball must be setup with Full Screen disabled to capture screens. I could not overcome focus issues while exclusive Full Screen is enabled. You can always enable again after you are through capturing.

It seemed to work well enough for me. The source code is available if you need to tweak timing or key delays. The process of launching tables and capturing screens requires the scripts to modify the Zaccaria Pinball's user settings xml file. Steam has a habit of reconciling what is on the local drive with what it has in its cloud backup. It may ask you to sync. The capture program will pause if this happens and all you need to do is sync/upload local file up to the cloud, and the program will proceed. If all else fails, reboot.

Launcher and 64-bit executables included.

Have fun!

All sources are trademarks/copyrights of their respective owners. My work is free to use by the community without attribution and is to be privately used in PinballX or for other non-commercial (or at least non-profit) pinball-related applications. I hold no responsibility for their misuse.  

 

PBXrecorder_1.5Zaccaria.zip

[Jodannar]

Will need to find time this week to try this out. Great work

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[bduncan]

Interesting, checked Zaccaria Pinball simulator out earlier today after seeing this thread.    Not bad from the demo I have seen. 

Great contribution/work!

 

[odie]

Noob Warning: IS there a way to have a DMD on a real DMD or even on the backglass?

[Jodannar]

Not currently odie. Multi screen support is in their to do list

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[dboyrecords]

Looking forward to trying this, thanks! The links to your modified pbx recorder and the one to the backglasses aren't working for me. Any help welcome...

 

[Carny_Priest]

8 hours ago, dboyrecords said:

Looking forward to trying this, thanks! The links to your modified pbx recorder and the one to the backglasses aren't working for me. Any help welcome...

 

I've reattached the zip file with the launcher and modified PBXRecorder in the first post.

 

Sorry about the backglasses, but none of that is my work. Please ask Nudnick to repost. Let me know if he does, and I will post an updated link. Thanks.

[Carny_Priest]

A.S.K. added preliminary multi-screen support for cabinets/backglasses. I have not tried it out yet.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/444930/announcements/detail/2316393822050704561

[hlr53]

I think I will purchase some of the new tables and try it out. I have all the old school tables. Unfortunately, my TV is out of my cab because I am building a new mount.

[hlr53]

The backglass is a nice edition. Still old school 4:3 aspect ratio though.

It seems like the flippers physics have improved. I can do some pretty easy ball catching now. All in all, a very solid program. Just keeps getting better. 

Don't have time this weekend but hope to get Z into PBX soon. Thank you (and others) for all the work! 

 

[slydog43]

Is there any easier way to launch a specific zaccaria table from pinballx?   I see the AHK script, but was hoping for something a little easier like the other systems.

[jferio]

To my knowledge, they haven't yet added a "direct launch" command line option that would allow for that. It still requires the AHK script to select and launch the desired table.

[hawkeyez88]

Has there been any new movement on this? I was hoping to get this flowing out of pinballx as well. Maybe I'm just not seeing how to launch the tables through pinballx - the back glass images are nice, but the zaccaria app has this support now. I'm not seeing the pinballx settings in the links posted on this page or the subsequent pages listed either.

[GAH1068]

I haven't had any luck launching from PinballX or directly to a table for cabinet mode.     The app is launching fine and I can see the AHK scripts are setting the xml file as the guide shows.    The app always just launches to main logo screen.

[Carny_Priest]

Honestly, I don’t know if the script works with the latest version of the game. My cab has been down for a while. I have not run it since before backglass support has been added. Otherwise, I would have coded a script to capture backglasses long ago. If I get my cab back up and running, I’ll check this out.

 

By the way, if it isn’t currently working for you then the first thing to try is setting the compiled script to run as administrator.

 

 

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[hawkeyez88]

Hey Carny_Priest - can you post the link for the script to run? I haven't been able to find that. I don't mind doing the testing. My Cab is currently running Pinball fx3, and Virtual Pinball our of pinballx without issues. Zaccaria is working fine for me just not through pinballx. So I'd be more than happy to test this. Thanks.

[Carny_Priest]

Launcher source code and executable is in the zip file attached in the first post, PBXrecorder_1.5Zaccaria.zip.

[hawkeyez88]

Wow - how did I miss that?! Thanks! Going to run it and check it out soon!

[hawkeyez88]

I'm looking at the ahk file currently - my settings in pinballx are attached here - am I missing anything there?

[Carny_Priest]

Yeah, that's not right.

PinballX launches the launcher. The launcher launches the app. The launcher itself monitors the process. The launcher closes automatically when you exit the app bringing focus back to PinballX.

The working path would be to whatever folder you have the launcher. The executable would be the compiled version of the launcher. You would need to pass in the table name in the Parameters field. Run EVERYTHING as administrator.

This is from my config.ini.

[System_13]
Name=Zaccaria Pinball
Enabled=True
SystemType=0
WorkingPath=C:\PinballX\Scripts
Executable=LaunchZaccaria.exe
Parameters=[TABLEFILE]
LaunchBeforeWorkingPath=

That's about it. Granted, I have not run anything in well over a year, so I don't know if there have been changes to PinballX or the Zaccaria app that would require the script to be changed. 

[hawkeyez88]

Thanks Carny - changing that around now.

[hawkeyez88]

Can't seem to find the line of code that's erroring out - when I go into the ahk file I don't see any references to this.

 

 

[Carny_Priest]

Install AutoHotkey:

https://autohotkey.com/

 

Open launcher.ahk in Notepad.

Ctrl+F and type in antimicro -> Enter

Comment out the line by typing ; as the first character in the line

Repeat until all lines containing antimicro have been commented.

You will need to do the same thing with dc2 or replace dc2.exe with whatever you use to rotate your playfield to portrait mode, if needed

Save the document

Compile by right clicking the file in Explorer, and selecting Compile Script

[hawkeyez88]

I have autohotkey - I'm not finding the launcher.ahk file you're mentioning. I have the files from the zip posted above that you mentioned earlier, but don't see the other file. Thanks again for the guidance. 

[Carny_Priest]

The file name is LaunchZaccaria.ahk.