Have been watching the series for a while and it’s awesome to see the progress and how far you’ve come with the project. I guess patience is key. Worth it, the game looks absolutely gorgeus in every way!
Steve, I just want to say that your videos have been an excellent source of motivation for my homebrew. Days when I just don't feel like doing anything, I pop up one of your videos and it motivates be to go get some work done on Harry Potter. Thank you for always providing a boost when I need it most!
It was very exciting to see the gameplay, its so close now. I wish i could meet you in person and battle you out over who can get the best score but being in the UK its a bit difficult ha ha. So i will have to settle with watching you play it. I would love to see you have a competition with your family. Keep up the good work, i cant wait to it fully finnished. I hope the artwork is better than your playing 😂
It looks so fun to play! :) Thank you especially for the "Lessons Learned" section (this is helping me a lot!) and congrats on finding solutions to all of the problems. Being confronted with a lot of stuff going wrong all at the same time and even after double and triple checking everything can be pretty overwhelming... Oof, just typing it out gives me anxiety :D
I’m really happy for you and it’s great to see this all working and coming together! We have group doing a re-theme and have been learning so much from watching your progress. Thanks for all of your work and videos. Can’t wait to play this at one of the shows.
Zep Lives!!! Looking great!!! I was pumped to see that left pop bumper take away any hope of an outlane save, lucky there's plenty of room for a post if you ever get tired of it. Really cool how the upper right flipper guards a shot, really innovative (has that been done before?). Not surprised to see the plastic ramp taking a beating, I expect the far wall will break too if you don't add a 2nd post there. Hearing about your challenges with LED voltages and wire mapping makes me oh so glad I don't have to deal with those hurdles. My LED controller provides shared power to each bank of 8 LEDs, and I never have to think about voltage sag or current limits. And I created virtual I/O mapping in my software, so basically any wire goes to any LED/Switch/Solenoid, and I map it later, interactively in software. I was wondering if the alternative diffuser idea was going to be a bulb cap - that was the only thing I could think of doing. I agree, it doesn't work as well, the gap between the LED and the diffuser is key. I've got 3 rollovers on my next build, and I created a diffuser with a hole in the center for the star post to pass through and activate the switch. I'm hoping I can illuminate them with just 1 LED, but I might need 2 if a shadow is cast by the center post. I don't want to diminish your ambitions, but with the show being just a few weeks away, I think you should reconsider the artwork. You've got a fresh machine up and running, that's a huge accomplishment, and honestly your whitewood is beautiful. What's really missing are sound effects, mechanics (stairway and maybe left kicker) and game polish. I fear the artwork is going to take longer than you're planning, and will crash your timeline and it could be very stressful to get the machine even playing again. On the other hand, you have an opportunity to refine the game as-is, take the whitewood to the show and get valuable feedback. You may come back with layout changes planned, and you may be very happy you didn't spend the time on the artwork. Obviously its your decision, though I've been in your shoes a few times now, and it's heartbreaking to leave your new creation at home because you just ran out of time. These next few weeks will fly by.
Hey Steve, how are you coding your GI? I can’t seem to find updated documentation for that on the MPF site. Is there a specific light tag, or GI config, or something?
Great question! So each LED can have tags, so each of my GI LEDs are tagged as 'GI' and that way I can use a 'show' to control all of them together. So when a game is started I have a show that turns on my GI - and then when a mode is picked I have another show that sets the GI to the color that corresponds to that mode (I'm having my GI change per mode, this is all subjective of course, you might just want yours to always be white etc) But in the end, I'm using tags to control different groups of lights
For playtesting, I don't think you should be afraid to hold the ball on the flipper and just test targets with your fingers - if anything, you are testing the response of the code, not necessarily the ability to shoot the shot. That said, I'm wondering what happened with the main game of climbing the staircase? Should there be less 'songs' to choose from at first to then open up avenues of other bonuses that lead to multiball? Something to think about while on vacation. *(or maybe you've already gone on vacation... either way) But overall, no shame man - I feel like only a 2 in 10 of your watchers are likely to go this far in building their own machine, so kudos and no shame at all - you've come a VERY long way and there's no shortage of wows on this end. So want to play it!
Yeah but right now I’m mostly concerned without making sure the shots get dialed in- the code I can continue to work on and bug fix etc- I really want to feel confident that the mechanics are solid so I can get my final playfield ready- next step is to get the staircase working- I’m working on that rn
Yes sir, that's what I meant - the code is looking for those targets or whatever shots to be made, so that's why you'd just hold the ball and 'test' the shots by flicking the target or whatever. That is exactly what I meant. You'll get it. @@thepinballroom
Kid you not, I had my side decals the other day: they were both rectangle and identical, so no left/right side cutlines. I ended up cutting 2 right side cabinet decals. F......
Yup it's an old Williams cabinet - I used a Stern spike speaker panel and added in two small strips of wood inside on each side to close up the gap so it fit correctly - grabbed a 15" LCD off Amazon, should be linked in my BOM Google sheet in the description 👍
@thepinballroom thank you so much for the reply! I purchased my cabinet from virtuapin and it's the dimensions of a Williams cab but I wanted to use the Stern speaker panel on my game. You've done the hard work for all of us in paving the way. Thank you so much for all of the great videos and the quick answers here on TH-cam. Is the area above the speaker panel the size of a standard Stern translite now then?
@@SG25 np! Happy to help! Re: the translite, A spike 2 translite is about 26x16.5" and mine is the same, tho on my backbox, the top has a thicker piece of wood across the top, so the top half inch is hidden behind the wood piece
Still trying to decide what to do for final ramps 🤔 paint will wear off, so I'm going to try to see if I can learn how to make the using fusion 360's sheet metal tools and get them made out of metal by sendcutsend, but not in time for Expo definitely
Hard work paying off here, man. This is huge. Been a blast to follow this series!
I hope you continue to make this series. I have enjoyed it and plan on making my own Pinball machine soon.
I am! I've been fighting a neck injury the past few weeks, but should have my next video up by end of next week
Ah it's so nice to see this coming to fruition!
Have been watching the series for a while and it’s awesome to see the progress and how far you’ve come with the project. I guess patience is key. Worth it, the game looks absolutely gorgeus in every way!
Steve, I just want to say that your videos have been an excellent source of motivation for my homebrew. Days when I just don't feel like doing anything, I pop up one of your videos and it motivates be to go get some work done on Harry Potter. Thank you for always providing a boost when I need it most!
woohoo! this is a major milestone!
It was very exciting to see the gameplay, its so close now. I wish i could meet you in person and battle you out over who can get the best score but being in the UK its a bit difficult ha ha.
So i will have to settle with watching you play it. I would love to see you have a competition with your family. Keep up the good work, i cant wait to it fully finnished. I hope the artwork is better than your playing 😂
It looks so fun to play! :)
Thank you especially for the "Lessons Learned" section (this is helping me a lot!) and congrats on finding solutions to all of the problems. Being confronted with a lot of stuff going wrong all at the same time and even after double and triple checking everything can be pretty overwhelming... Oof, just typing it out gives me anxiety :D
I’m really happy for you and it’s great to see this all working and coming together! We have group doing a re-theme and have been learning so much from watching your progress. Thanks for all of your work and videos. Can’t wait to play this at one of the shows.
The music's never too loud, Steve! Truth!
Great video! Thank you Steve!
Enjoy your trip! Hope it goes well for you.
Great to see the lights working. When the artwork is done, it should really pop! Starting to look like a real game now, Steve.
It looks awesome! It also looks like a really difficult table 😂
Good work.
Yeah hopefully not too brutal 😅😬😂
Legendary!!
Zep Lives!!! Looking great!!! I was pumped to see that left pop bumper take away any hope of an outlane save, lucky there's plenty of room for a post if you ever get tired of it. Really cool how the upper right flipper guards a shot, really innovative (has that been done before?). Not surprised to see the plastic ramp taking a beating, I expect the far wall will break too if you don't add a 2nd post there.
Hearing about your challenges with LED voltages and wire mapping makes me oh so glad I don't have to deal with those hurdles. My LED controller provides shared power to each bank of 8 LEDs, and I never have to think about voltage sag or current limits. And I created virtual I/O mapping in my software, so basically any wire goes to any LED/Switch/Solenoid, and I map it later, interactively in software.
I was wondering if the alternative diffuser idea was going to be a bulb cap - that was the only thing I could think of doing. I agree, it doesn't work as well, the gap between the LED and the diffuser is key. I've got 3 rollovers on my next build, and I created a diffuser with a hole in the center for the star post to pass through and activate the switch. I'm hoping I can illuminate them with just 1 LED, but I might need 2 if a shadow is cast by the center post.
I don't want to diminish your ambitions, but with the show being just a few weeks away, I think you should reconsider the artwork. You've got a fresh machine up and running, that's a huge accomplishment, and honestly your whitewood is beautiful. What's really missing are sound effects, mechanics (stairway and maybe left kicker) and game polish. I fear the artwork is going to take longer than you're planning, and will crash your timeline and it could be very stressful to get the machine even playing again. On the other hand, you have an opportunity to refine the game as-is, take the whitewood to the show and get valuable feedback. You may come back with layout changes planned, and you may be very happy you didn't spend the time on the artwork. Obviously its your decision, though I've been in your shoes a few times now, and it's heartbreaking to leave your new creation at home because you just ran out of time. These next few weeks will fly by.
Yay! Another episode!!!! I hope i can play your table some day!
Thank you sooo much for this series! Its been really helpful with starting to design my machine
Looks great. Must be exciting to have years of work come to fruition.
I have a fantastic idea for a pinball machine. We should team up and see what we can do.
Hey Steve, how are you coding your GI? I can’t seem to find updated documentation for that on the MPF site. Is there a specific light tag, or GI config, or something?
Great question! So each LED can have tags, so each of my GI LEDs are tagged as 'GI' and that way I can use a 'show' to control all of them together. So when a game is started I have a show that turns on my GI - and then when a mode is picked I have another show that sets the GI to the color that corresponds to that mode (I'm having my GI change per mode, this is all subjective of course, you might just want yours to always be white etc)
But in the end, I'm using tags to control different groups of lights
@@thepinballroom Awesome! Thanks for the quick reply
For playtesting, I don't think you should be afraid to hold the ball on the flipper and just test targets with your fingers - if anything, you are testing the response of the code, not necessarily the ability to shoot the shot. That said, I'm wondering what happened with the main game of climbing the staircase? Should there be less 'songs' to choose from at first to then open up avenues of other bonuses that lead to multiball? Something to think about while on vacation.
*(or maybe you've already gone on vacation... either way)
But overall, no shame man - I feel like only a 2 in 10 of your watchers are likely to go this far in building their own machine, so kudos and no shame at all - you've come a VERY long way and there's no shortage of wows on this end. So want to play it!
Yeah but right now I’m mostly concerned without making sure the shots get dialed in- the code I can continue to work on and bug fix etc- I really want to feel confident that the mechanics are solid so I can get my final playfield ready- next step is to get the staircase working- I’m working on that rn
Yes sir, that's what I meant - the code is looking for those targets or whatever shots to be made, so that's why you'd just hold the ball and 'test' the shots by flicking the target or whatever. That is exactly what I meant. You'll get it.
@@thepinballroom
Hi Steve! Do you have your insert diffusers setup on your game in this video?
Yes, I do!
I can envision a future version of FAST boards that have built in diagnostics that tell you what you've done wrong!
Kid you not, I had my side decals the other day: they were both rectangle and identical, so no left/right side cutlines. I ended up cutting 2 right side cabinet decals. F......
Oh no!! 🤣😭 I'm hoping I don't mess mine up
Let us know if you are sick of Zep by the time it's finished. lol. The downside of being so close to something.
😅 well I did get sick one of the songs I had picked and just replaced it with another
Hey! What screen and speaker panel did you use for your game? This is a Williams cabinet right?
Yup it's an old Williams cabinet - I used a Stern spike speaker panel and added in two small strips of wood inside on each side to close up the gap so it fit correctly - grabbed a 15" LCD off Amazon, should be linked in my BOM Google sheet in the description 👍
@thepinballroom thank you so much for the reply! I purchased my cabinet from virtuapin and it's the dimensions of a Williams cab but I wanted to use the Stern speaker panel on my game. You've done the hard work for all of us in paving the way. Thank you so much for all of the great videos and the quick answers here on TH-cam. Is the area above the speaker panel the size of a standard Stern translite now then?
Also I just signed up to support you on Patron. It's the least I can do. You've provided us with such an amazing amount of information. Thanks again.
@@SG25 np! Happy to help! Re: the translite, A spike 2 translite is about 26x16.5" and mine is the same, tho on my backbox, the top has a thicker piece of wood across the top, so the top half inch is hidden behind the wood piece
@@SG25 thank you so much!!
Are you going to paint your ramps?
Still trying to decide what to do for final ramps 🤔 paint will wear off, so I'm going to try to see if I can learn how to make the using fusion 360's sheet metal tools and get them made out of metal by sendcutsend, but not in time for Expo definitely
I would love to see blue anodized metal ramps on your table
Hi!
Why you dont speack french 😢
Haha! Je suis désolé I wish I could speak French! You should check out @tiboflip channel he speaks French and is also building a pinball machine