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

[joyrider3774]

2 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

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

ah yes i see now i started it a second time and now it remembered it. Will test now

[joyrider3774]

i do get these errors / warnings now

 

7/03/2020 10:35:51	WARNING	Cound not find [BingoGameRoom] in INI file. Skipping
7/03/2020 10:35:51	WARNING	Cound not find [Malzbies Pinball Collection] in INI file. Skipping

 

not sure as to why i just selected the systems using the settings program and they do exist in my pinballx.ini and i'm not using system identifier but system name. It worked in the previous version. Am trying to figure out what the diffrence is as it does detect pinball fx3. The only thing i see again is that it are systems defined in other systems

 

CreateVideos.ini CreateDMDVideos.log PinballX.ini

[Mike_da_Spike]

8 minutes ago, joyrider3774 said:

i do get these errors / warnings now

 

7/03/2020 10:35:51	WARNING	Cound not find [BingoGameRoom] in INI file. Skipping
7/03/2020 10:35:51	WARNING	Cound not find [Malzbies Pinball Collection] in INI file. Skipping

 

not sure as to why i just selected the systems using the settings program and they do exist in my pinballx.ini and i'm not using system identifier but system name. It worked in the previous version. Am trying to figure out what the diffrence is as it does detect pinball fx3. The only thing i see again is that it are systems defined in other systems

 

Can you post your complete log (please use verbose mode for logging) and your INI file ?

And also your pinballx.ini

[joyrider3774]

Just now, Mike_da_Spike said:

Can you post your complete log (please use verbose mode for logging) and your INI file ?

check previous message i just edited and attached them

[Mike_da_Spike]

Just now, joyrider3774 said:

check previous message i just edited and attached them

You used Nightmare loggin ! OMG ....

[joyrider3774]

6 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

You used Nightmare loggin ! OMG ....

sorry but i find nightmore logging still ok  i can recreate if needed. From what i see RefreshDataSetIniFile  does not mention the databases found while they do exist

[Mike_da_Spike]

According to the logfile (the PPBI INI file check) I don't see BingoGameRoom and Malzbies Pinball Collection found in your pbx INI, but it is there. I dind't touched that piece of code, but looks like it only takes the standard tables now. Need to check it for you

7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Visual Pinball] file [Visual Pinball Orbital.xml] With CustomType : [True]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Visual Pinball] file [Visual Pinball.xml] With CustomType : [False]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Pinball FX2] file [Pinball FX2.xml] With CustomType : [False]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Pinball FX3] file [Pinball FX3.xml] With CustomType : [False]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Pinball Arcade] file [Pinball Arcade.xml] With CustomType : [False]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Future Pinball] file [Future Pinbal BAMl.xml] With CustomType : [True]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [Future Pinball] file [Future Pinball.xml] With CustomType : [False]
7/03/2020 10:38:37	INFO	RefreshDataSetIniFile                   	Found : in [MAME] file [MAME.xml] With CustomType : [False]

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

56 minutes ago, joyrider3774 said:

sorry but i find nightmore logging still ok  i can recreate if needed. From what i see RefreshDataSetIniFile  does not mention the databases found while they do exist

No problem mate.
I made it myself  Moved over an old clsLog function I created early 2000 and converted last month to vb.net
 

edit : All working again 

[joyrider3774]

one more video. I have created these toppers now for every system on my cabinet. and for some games like bigscore, pinball arcade, demon's tilt, malzbies pinball collection i use ffplay.exe to (re)display the toppers while playing as it does not work otherwise (letting pinballx not hide them) because of irotate / playfield screen rotation.
 

I have uploaded everything i use from zaccaria, demon's tilt, pinball wicked, bigscore pinball, pro pinball, malzbies to the ftp (not only the toppers but also system images / topper images and company logos i had created for some of these systems) to /-PinballX-/Other Uploads/Joyrider3774

 

 

[joyrider3774]

@Mike_da_Spike not sure how busy you are in these corona times, but will you still add the option to not downscale the images to real dmd size first but immediatly scale to the final dimensions so that everything is more clearly visible ? i would still add it as an option though and also keep the current way. I'm wondering how it all would look like when using that option

[Mike_da_Spike]

I'm pretty busy with work. But will check if I have some time.

So dmd will be 128x32 resolution. And if selected topper, it would have the option for downscaled pixellated, or just the original (not scaled) images ? That will be non pixelated. 

Is that what you want ?

[joyrider3774]

4 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

I'm pretty busy with work. But will check if I have some time.

So dmd will be 128x32 resolution. And if selected topper, it would have the option for downscaled pixellated, or just the original (not scaled) images ? That will be non pixelated. 

Is that what you want ?

Yes or upscaled images if they have lower dimensions than the final dimensions used in the final video instead of non scaled or even dowscaled to final video dimensions if images are bigger but basicalky no downscale to realdmd 128x32 first before upscaling (or dowscaling) to final video size. Still with option to use the overlay dotted image or not, always keeping aspect ratio and centering the image. I think this can be easily done by somehow specifing only height of image and let width scale accordingly to final video dimensions with ffmpeg and afterwards centering the images horizontally

[Mike_da_Spike]

5 hours ago, joyrider3774 said:

Yes or upscaled images if they have lower dimensions than the final dimensions used in the final video instead of non scaled or even dowscaled to final video dimensions if images are bigger but basicalky no downscale to realdmd 128x32 first before upscaling (or dowscaling) to final video size. Still with option to use the overlay dotted image or not, always keeping aspect ratio and centering the image. I think this can be easily done by somehow specifing only height of image and let width scale accordingly to final video dimensions with ffmpeg and afterwards centering the images horizontally

I should prefer not use the overlay when not downscaling the images. If you have a video of (for example) 1280x320 and do the overlay on top, thats really ugly, because there are more colours per dot. Or you need an extra overlay that has more dots, and I can adjust that one (with down and upscaling). 

With the overlay, the goal is that there is 1 colour in 1 dot

[joyrider3774]

7 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

I should prefer not use the overlay when not downscaling the images. If you have a video of (for example) 1280x320 and do the overlay on top, thats really ugly, because there are more colours per dot. Or you need an extra overlay that has more dots, and I can adjust that one (with down and upscaling). 

With the overlay, the goal is that there is 1 colour in 1 dot

Well i was thinking on replacing the overlay image in that case with an image with smaller dots but have not attempted to create such image yet not sure how the initial image was created. But i indeed don't know how it would look eventually i would need to be able to try it out but it's also possible i would not use an overlay image at all. But if the option is still there to use an overlay it's possible to expiriment with different kind of overlays with smaller dots or even completely new style. I did understand already the current one would not look good in this case

[Mike_da_Spike]

13 minutes ago, joyrider3774 said:

Well i was thinking on replacing the overlay image in that case with an image with smaller dots but have not attempted to create such image yet not sure how the initial image was created. But i indeed don't know how it would look eventually i would need to be able to try it out but it's also possible i would not use an overlay image at all. But if the option is still there to use an overlay it's possible to expiriment with different kind of overlays with smaller dots or even completely new style. I did understand already the current one would not look good in this case

@scutters made the previous overlay. If you want to use a overlay, the images need to be adjusted to match that (pixel wise etc). If you have a overlay with more dots, I can build it in. otherise it would be just a resize to the correct format of the images.
Just let me know what you want

[scutters]

Maybe this will help (but maybe not )..

I did the original image in gimp... i created a simple 10*10 transparent dot with black border image and then repeated that as tiles in gimp to fill a 1280*320 canvas (can't remember the exact process but from memory it was pretty simple).

The pixelation and resizing Mike does in the script is to ensure that there is only one colour showing for each dot after the dot overlay is added on top of the pixelated source image,  to create a real DMD effect on a virtual DMD screen.

If using smaller dots it might be difficult to keep a round effect for the dot after adding a border (but maybe you could use partial transparency for some of the border pixels to compensate) - and obviously you'd then end up with more dots than a real dmd.  And for each variation in dot size  @Mike_da_Spike would  need to change the pixelation sizing to match the dot size (unless you're not too bothered about keeping the single colour per dot).

[Mike_da_Spike]

Thanks @scutters
That's exactly what I mean, but didn't get it correctly on paper

[joyrider3774]

hmm but there would not be any pixelasation anymore if you took original images from wheels / company / year and just scale those to fit the 1280x320 canvas (can be still that size) and just at the end add the overlay image of 1280x320 dimensions at the end. If that's not whats happening now it's fine to not use an overlay but just use original images up or downscale to 1280x320 size while maintaining aspect ratio and centering the images (the centering is already done now i think). My aim is not to get a real dmd effect i just want to have the original images without them first being crunched to 128x32 size and then upscaled to 1280x320 video size.  pixel size should be 1 pixel per pixel so basically original image.  i can get my hands on the overlay that zaccaria used (i had extracted it once) if thought if i created similar style image in 1280x320 and overlay that at the end i would get a similar effect, but if i did not like that i would just use original image. Now it's hard to get good image quality because images are first downscaled to 128x32 i think. If not possible to add an overlay just use original images then i think i can probably whip up an ffmpeg script to add the overlay myselve for experimenting.

Just found picture from zacarria again this is what they did for dmd overlay. I can easily recreate such effect in an 1280x320 png to overlay on the videos (do note picture very zoomed in one block = 1 pixel)

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

1 hour ago, joyrider3774 said:

 

 

The picture looks inverted than what we need to accomplish.  The pixel in the middle should be transparant and the transparent part should be black. This overlay give you black dotted images....

Let me check modify the program and settings file to add a non pixelated version (no down scale) and see what you think about it.

If you got a 512x128 overlay, we (you) can experiment with it too

[joyrider3774]

I played a bit with ffmpeg but will need to check with your version when its finished as it seems you use imagemagick also. Had some problems with my png images in ffmpeg not sure whats going on so created a test example where the blackness behind the images was already included in the png

Resizing the videos gives a different effect but they do look better resized / condensed compared to original size and vlc also has a weird effect on window size normally the videos should be 1280x320 but somehow vlc opens it way bigger

tried a few overylays (pause video's on same logo to compare): to me it looks better than original video and with bally logo for example it takes away some jagged edges (from not having used some anti alliasing) so i think if the same can be done with your program i will definatly use an overlay of some sort and i like my customn style 1 the most atm but will need to verify with other videos

original video:

zaccaria style:

customn style 1:

customn style 2

[Mike_da_Spike]

Updated to version 3.2
Extra overlays added.
Also changed the manual as described in post 1 of this thread 
Download can be found in the download section :

 

[burritodamus]

Much appreciated for the program.

 

I was able to create the videos without incident, and can view them in VLC just fine.   I am also able to import an play in "PinballX_Database_Manager_V1_4_3".  

My issue is that PinballX doesn't want to play them:

17:57:43.5  5/2/2020:  Failed opening: p:\pinball\pinballx\media\visual pinball x\real dmd color videos\8 ball (williams 1966).mp4
17:57:52.2  5/2/2020:  Failed opening: p:\pinball\pinballx\media\visual pinball x\real dmd color videos\8 ball (williams 1966).mp4
 

Others (made by "Thalimus" play just fine even when these don't.   The only difference I can see in properties is that these videos are recorded at 25fps adn the others are at 10.  I don't think thats the problem though because it says that they fail to load.

 

Any ideas are welcome....  I am eager to get this working.

 

Thanks,

burritodamus

log.txt XDMDlog.txt

[joyrider3774]

43 minutes ago, burritodamus said:

Much appreciated for the program.

 

I was able to create the videos without incident, and can view them in VLC just fine.   I am also able to import an play in "PinballX_Database_Manager_V1_4_3".  

My issue is that PinballX doesn't want to play them:

17:57:43.5  5/2/2020:  Failed opening: p:\pinball\pinballx\media\visual pinball x\real dmd color videos\8 ball (williams 1966).mp4
17:57:52.2  5/2/2020:  Failed opening: p:\pinball\pinballx\media\visual pinball x\real dmd color videos\8 ball (williams 1966).mp4
 

Others (made by "Thalimus" play just fine even when these don't.   The only difference I can see in properties is that these videos are recorded at 25fps adn the others are at 10.  I don't think thats the problem though because it says that they fail to load.

 

Any ideas are welcome....  I am eager to get this working.

 

Thanks,

burritodamus

log.txt 2.25 kB · 0 downloads XDMDlog.txt 479 B · 0 downloads

do you have the LAV codes installed 

[burritodamus]

37 minutes ago, joyrider3774 said:

do you have the LAV codes installed 

You know.... Sometime IT IS the simplest things.

I normally don't even ask for help in the forums, but this one had me stumped because everything else was working, just the new ones generated by this piece of software didn't work.  I could have dismissed the simple advice I see every time there is a video problem here and given by joyrider3774 to me.

But  I didn't.... and you know what? I re-installed them...

It worked!

Saved me countless hours of tinkering.

Many thousand thank-you's

-Burritodamus

[flstclasic]

Wanted to say thank you for this tool! I absolutely love it.