[APP] Creating (Real) DMD /Topper Videos from Wheel image

[Mike_da_Spike]

Hi All !

I created a small script (I'm not a programmer !) , that will create videos for DMD and Toppers
I was inspired from@Thalamus videos posted on Vpinball forum.
Thalamus created videos for real DMD color that first shows the wheel image for some seconds, than the year published and finally the company logo.
This all makes a video of around 7 seconds. If you enable high score showing in PinballX, it is a nice show when scrolling through your front end.

I wanted a program that could create this automatically and only created the missing ones
And this is the result !
Based on your PinballX installation , the program will find your database/and media directory.

Based on the tablename\Displayname in Gamemanager/Database manager it will check all your tables for a system. It will searches your wheel images, search for Company name and added the year with it.

The logo is just the file it finds in the "Wheel images" directory

The Company is the name that is found under "Media\Company Logos"

You can use the same naming convention that PinballX is using (so also between, before and after year)

The year is made by me. It is a directory that is in the ZIP file.
Just place it somewhere and point in the CreateVideos_settings.exe to it.

You can off course create your own year files with the font and color you like . Make sure the files are in PNG format and has a 228x142 resolution and name them like <year>.png

if you got the Wheels and company and year setup, run the CreateVideos_settings.exe that is attached

• Image path:
    This is the path where you have your year images located
• PinballX systems
    All the Systems that are found in PinballX excluding the systems that needs to be created for videos
• Systems to create video
    In this section, put the systems that you need to create your video's . Add them with the > button or remove them with <
• DMD Videos Creation
    Enable/Disable DMD video creations. This will be save in the correct DMD folder ('DMD Videos', 'Real DMD Videos' or 'Real DMD Color Videos')
• Topper Videos Creation
    Enable/Disable Topper video creations. This will be save in the 'Topper videos' folder
• Overlay Used:
  • None : No overlay is used. 
  • Small : Overlay with 320x80 pixels
  • Medium : Overlay with 256x64 pixels pixels
  • Large :  Overlay with 128x32 pixels pixel

NOTE : Real DMD video's are always 128x32 without overlay ! (system will detect if real DMD is used)

EXTRA note : 
Starting from Version 3.3.2 I have added animated images as well that can be used as source file.
A good animated source pack is @scuttersCompany Logo pack.  Unfortunately, this pack shows pretty awesome in the PinballX front end, but the animations are adjusted for the frontend. If you use this pack directly to create your DMD or Topper videos, the  videos do not show correct.
To avoid this problem, I introduced a 'non documented' feature.
You are now able to select a different path for company tables, or for your wheel images.
Doing this, the wheels/company logo's do still shows fine in your frontend, but you can use a different set to create your DMD/Topper videos.
In the download file, I have added a folder called AlternateCompanysLogos. This folder contains the awesome Scutters animated logo's, but I modified them to be used for this tool.
To use another folder for company logo's, you must edit the CreateVideos.ini file with (for example) notepad.exe 
under the [images] section add the following line AlternateCompanyPath=  followed by the complete path where you have logo's 
The same can be done for wheels as well. 
In the [System] section, you must add a line AlternateWheelPath followed by the system number and with the path behind it
This will ignore the default path that PinballX is using and uses your other path for creating your video's

Here's an example of mine INI file
I used an alternative company path and only for visual pinball a different set of wheels to create my videos
 

[Images]
PathtoImages=C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateDMDToppervideos\YearImages
AlternateCompanyPath=C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateDMDToppervideos\AlternateCompanys
[Global]
LogSize=0
LogPath=C:\Pinball\PinballX\LOG
LogFileName=CreateVideos.log
LogLevel=LOGLVL_INFO
[System]
1=Visual Pinball 9
4=Visual Pinball (P-ROC)
2=Visual Pinball
3=Zaccaria Pinball
AlternateWheelPath2=C:\Pinball\Tools\CreateDMDToppervideos\AlternateVisualPinballWheels
[Videos]
DMDOverlay=None
CreateDMD=True
CreateTopper=False

Example Videos :

RealDMD :

None:

Small:

Medium:

Large :

I hope all makes sense

Here is the program,  including the Year folder (put that somewhere on your drive and make sure the CreateVideos_settings.exe is pointing to that folder)
Just  run the CreateVideos_settings.exe and setup your configuration
Launch CreateVideos.exe to create your missing videos.
By default the logfile is set to the same directory as where you run the program from. 
missing wheel/company and other errors will be displayed in here.

 

As I said : I'm not a programmer, so please be kind if you have some feedback. 
Special thanks to @Thalamus who inspired me to create this script. 
Also special thanks to @scutters who gave the template of the large 128x32 overlay (based on that I create the other overlays)
And thanks to @joyrider3774 for the extra feature request and testing of all this

 

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Mike_da_Spike
Updated code to V3.3.2 Added animated media support

[scutters]

For people like me with a virtual DMD and find topper style videos playing on it a little off putting (and not really keeping the 'feel' of a pinball table) the 128*32 real DMD videos can be converted and DMD'ified with a script like the below;

1/ Resize video to 1280*320;

ffmpeg -i "C:\Path and File name to process.mp4" -vf scale=1280:320 "C:\path\Resized.mp4" -y

2/ Pixelate the resized video;

ffmpeg -i "C:\path\Resized.mp4" -vf scale=iw/10:ih/10,scale=10*iw:10*ih:flags=neighbor "C:\path\Pixelated.mp4" -y 

3/ Overlay a dot matrix type image (attached);

ffmpeg -i "C:\path\Pixelated.mp4" -i "C:\path\dmdoverlay.png" -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] overlay=0:0" -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy "C:\Path and File name to output.mp4" -y

This should convert the 128*32 video from something like;

 

To something like;

 

@Mike_da_Spike thanks for the exe, if you want to add an optional config flag for vitual dmd users to output 1320*1280 mp4s feel free to incorporate the above.

Originally i intended to just use these for non DMD EM type tables instead of a static company logo, but my OCD side now wants to use them in place of DMD recordings as well. One thing always leads to another in this hobby... 

EDIT: Updated gif of the mp4 videos using Mike_da_Spikes latest version from FTP

For info on FTP

128*32 versions are in  /-PinballX-/Other Uploads/MikeDaSpike/VIsuall Pinball X/Real DMD Color Videos

1280*320 converted versions are in /-PinballX-/Other Uploads/scutters/Visual Pinball X/DMD Colour Videos

 

dmdoverlay.zip

Edited July 18, 2019 by scutters
gif update

[Mike_da_Spike]

7 minutes ago, scutters said:

 

 

@Mike_da_Spike thanks for the exe, if you want to add an optional config flag for vitual dmd users to output 1320*1280 mp4s feel free to incorporate the above.

 

Sure ! Any suggesting is welcome (must wait till the weekend to change the code).

Do you use the latest version of my exe ? I see in your example that the Williams logo misses a piece on the right. 
Thats a piece of code I fixed last weekend and changed the way of complete the MP4's . 

[scutters]

5 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Do you use the latest version of my exe ? I see in your example that the Williams logo misses a piece on the right. 
Thats a piece of code I fixed last weekend and changed the way of complete the MP4's . 

Good spot - actually i realised you had already uploaded a load of videos to the FTP, so i just grabbed them in the end! Thanks for doing the leg work for me 

[Mike_da_Spike]

Ha ! Good thing. I need to update ftp

 Next on the list!

[Mike_da_Spike]

3 hours ago, scutters said:

@Mike_da_Spike thanks for the exe, if you want to add an optional config flag for vitual dmd users to output 1320*1280 mp4s feel free to incorporate the above.

Btw... you sure you want 1320×1280 ??

You don't want 1280x320 ????

[scutters]

8 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Btw... you sure you want 1320×1280 ??

You don't want 1280x320 ????

Err... yeah,  exactly. Darn typo's.. as least i got it right in the script where it matters! "-vf scale=1280:320" 

[Mike_da_Spike]

Drugs and alcohol not a good combination 

[Mike_da_Spike]

Updated to V2.4
Speed up code.
instead of 7 sec per video it is now below 1 sec per video.
Creating 3 video's (including checks etc) takes 3 seconds !

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

Updated code to VB.net, included a settings program to setup all easier
Program is in download section :

 

 

 

[joyrider3774]

Thanks, i think i can use this to create topper videos for visual pinball tables if switch my docklet style images with normal logo ones and with scutters extra ffmpeg commands. I'll give it a go already downloaded it

edit: it seems the setup program does not list systems from the other systems section so i just deleted my visual pinball and renamed visual pinball x to visual pinball did not like the physics on vp9 anyway  also seems the scripts from scutters are already incorporated but had to temporary rename my recorded dmd videos folder as the script was not doing anything because i had already dmd videos. so temporary renamed so i can let them generate and use as topper videos

@Mike_da_Spike is it possible to add an option to the script to save / use the "topper videos" directory instead of "dmd videos" ? For dmd video's i already have recorded dmd videos but i want to use the ones generated by your script for topper video's 

edit2: adding system_3 (other system) for my bingo game room manually does not work either says it can't find it in the ini file while it does exist in pinballx.ini not sure what the problem is and not sure if it should work for "other systems"

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

5 hours ago, joyrider3774 said:

 is it possible to add an option to the script to save / use the "topper videos" directory instead of "dmd videos" ? For dmd video's i already have recorded dmd videos but i want to use the ones generated by your script for topper video's 

Sure. Should it use the @scuttersoverlay ?

5 hours ago, joyrider3774 said:

edit2: adding system_3 (other system) for my bingo game room manually does not work either says it can't find it in the ini file while it does exist in pinballx.ini not sure what the problem is and not sure if it should work for "other systems"

In the ini file, just name it to the system file. It should popup in settings with system name (like bingo game room)

 

 

 

[joyrider3774]

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Sure. Should it use the @scuttersoverlay ?

yes if possible, basically the same as what it does now when it uses the dmd videos folder, it already used the overlay and resized the video's with me but i had to rename "dmd videos" to some other folder and rename "topper videos" to "dmd videos" now as a workaround to make it work and afterwards had to rename folders back to original ones. Having more systems can make this  tedious. Basically it's a foldername swap if the setting is active ("dmd videos" swapped with "topper videos") so you could use a variabele for that folder name part and switch depending on a flag (usetopper or something) in the ini file

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

In the ini file, just name it to the system file. It should popup in settings with system name (like bingo game room)

ah sorry did not notice that i had to use system name, was using the section name. Now it works thanks

[Mike_da_Spike]

@joyrider3774 if I have some time this weekend, I will add some extra parameters for saving to dmd and/or topper folder.

But ... also working together with @scutters on a new release for pinballx database manager with GameEx and Mega download. And guess who will be a tester for this ? 

[joyrider3774]

i just spend the whole evening editing and searching for pinball fx3 text logo's so i could use the tool to generate pinball fx3 toppers, It's not easy to find them for pfx3 and a lot of the easy to find ones did not display well (cropped view) but i'm happy with the result now.  I also created a small video showcasing what this tool from mike can accomplish. If anyone wants the topper video's themselve i can upload them or if you want the logo's used but i don't don't think the logo's are any good for displaying inside pinballx, i relied sometimes on knowing that the background would be black and used a lot of transparancy inside the logo itselve
 

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

Looks very nice ! I don't have a topper (i have a led matrix as topper), but maybe I can build a small display above it. 

Very cool @joyrider3774. i hope to make you happy this weekend with an update

Btw. Are those the DMD videos I created for FX3 ?

EDIT : Updated code to v3.1
Some bug fixses 
and topper videos added

Don't tell @scutters that I prioritize this instead of PinballX database manager  
Sneak preview on database manager new feature :

 

[scutters]

3 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Don't tell @scutters that I prioritize this instead of PinballX database manager  

A side project? focus Mike, focus! 

3 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

and topper videos added

I haven't checked, but is there an option in Topper creation to create a 1280*320 video without the dot overlay and that hasn't been downscaled to 128*32 before (so not pixelated)?. Might be kind of neat for topper users!

[Mike_da_Spike]

35 minutes ago, scutters said:

I haven't checked, but is there an option in Topper creation to create a 1280*320 video without the dot overlay and that hasn't been downscaled to 128*32 before (so not pixelated)?. Might be kind of neat for topper users!

Not yet, but can be added if needed. 

[joyrider3774]

4 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Looks very nice ! I don't have a topper (i have a led matrix as topper), but maybe I can build a small display above it. 

Very cool @joyrider3774. i hope to make you happy this weekend with an update

You did thanks, i will test it out soon. I'm very happy with the 3rd screen i bought and having dmd and topper on seperate display. way better than havinfg the dmd on backglass and no need anymore to postion dmd correctly inside backglass or problems with dmd getting hidden. Just using freezy now with fixed width and position.

 

4 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Btw. Are those the DMD videos I created for FX3 ?

Thats very well possible, i downloaded some using game manager and some from ftp. the bally and williams ones i had recorded myselve and missing ones i recorded myselve as well.
 

4 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Don't tell @scutters that I prioritize this instead of PinballX database manager  
Sneak preview on database manager new feature :

 

looking nice already, guess i'll need to reserve some time already for testing

 

1 hour ago, scutters said:

I haven't checked, but is there an option in Topper creation to create a 1280*320 video without the dot overlay and that hasn't been downscaled to 128*32 before (so not pixelated)?. Might be kind of neat for topper users!

Thats a very good idea as now it's very hard to find good logo's / wheels that display well although if you do implement this i would still keep the option for using the dmdoverlay as optional as i kinda like the effect but not sure what the effect would be of video's that are not downscaled first with the overlay

[joyrider3774]

btw @Mike_da_Spike not sure if it's normal but convert.exe is missing from the new download version
 

[Mike_da_Spike]

3 minutes ago, joyrider3774 said:

btw @Mike_da_Spike not sure if it's normal but convert.exe is missing from the new download version

@joyrider3774 You sure ?
It is embedded in the exe file. When launching it will extract the exe to the current workig directory. Thats why the exe is a bit big

[joyrider3774]

Just now, Mike_da_Spike said:

sure ?
It is embedded in the exe file. When launching it will extract the exe to the launching dir. Thats why the exe is a bit big

ah than all is normal i thought it was included in the zip file. But the zip file is definatly missing the year images

[joyrider3774]

also just an idea when launching CreateVideos_settings.exe make it read the settings from current ini file and apply in the program. This way we don't have to reconfigure everything if we just want to add a new system. Although currently i'm just doing it using the ini file

[Mike_da_Spike]

1 minute ago, joyrider3774 said:

ah than all is normal i thought it was included in the zip file. But the zip file is definatly missing the year images

damned ! Forgot that ! (oeps sorry for my language).
Will upload soon

[Mike_da_Spike]

1 minute ago, joyrider3774 said:

also just an idea when launching CreateVideos_settings.exe make it read the settings from current ini file and apply in the program. This way we don't have to reconfigure everything if we just want to add a new system. Although currently i'm just doing it using the ini file

Well.. that won't happen again.
The name of the ini file and exe file are changed, because it had DMD in it. 
I removed both. Sorry. need to set it up once again