Cool work.

...but crashes on Spider-Man 2.6 rom. "Unknown Firmware!"

oga83, any thoughts on export functions?

So instead of having to do a "Print Screen" capture you could just pick a frame and copy or export it? Another nice and similar feature would be if you could select X frame through x frame to export as a .gif file or some other type of animation.

Just something to think about. I'm really enjoying the program. I did play around with some patching (with mixed results) some images looked skewed when I reopened a patched ROM, but I haven't tried flashing any of them on my game yet.

Thanks for the innovative work you have done so far.

UPDATE: I was also just thinking if you could export the screen you are looking to replace, you would have a better idea of the size and ratio of the picture you should be choosing to patch in there. You wouldn't have to worry about the program "injecting" it and changing the aspect ratio or stretching it out. You would know what would work best in that location and get your picture ready before the program had to reshape / stretch / re-size it.

Here is the description of the issue I have. Keep in mind that in all examples I have used the same picture (a 100 x 100 pixel 96 dpi 24 bit .jpeg).

test 1 is of the pic just as I loaded it in the ROM and patched it.
test 2 is what the pic looks like when I reload that patched ROM with the browser.
test 3 is the same pic loaded to a different location on the ROM but when I just loaded it.
test 4 is that same pic after I reloaded that patched ROM.

I have a few questions. since the first smaller picture is skewed after being patched in on the browser...will it also be skewed (and looks as it does in the browser) if flashed to the game?

What is making the small pic replacement skewed and the bigger one is fine? Is it the size? Is it because the small original pic was "Raster-0" and the bigger one was "Compressed-7"?

test_1.jpg test_2.jpg test_3.jpg test_4.jpg

Wondering what specific games this means.

oga83, any idea as to why luvthatapex2 can open Spider-Man 2.6 (see a few posts before this) with your browser and I continue to get an error when attempting to open it?

The Spider-Man firmware is named the same and I'm using 1.46 of your browser.

Strange stuff.

The 2.6 software I was trying is one I had on my hard drive. It had a different modification date as the one on Sterns site. They are both showing as 2.6 and both have the same CRC, but the one I have saved won't load in the browser. It first showed a "could not open" error and then a "unknown firmware" error.

The 2.6 that is on Stern's site now will load in the browser.

Seems strange that 2 files having the same version, size and CRC would behave differently.

It makes me wonder why Stern needs months between software updates. They have the actual development tools and a team of programers.

Oh, a bug that is spotted 2 minutes after your first game? Oh...well get used to that...it will be months before it gets fixed!

Probably not since it isn't possible....yet.

I agree with all of this. Sound is still a bit off, but much improved and the export feature on the sound is great.

Thanks again oga83, for the great program and incredibly fast growth that is has made in such a short time.

You are right on there. 1.51 is much closer to the mark than 1.50 was, but as you said, a little too quick now.

All and all, 1.51 still sounds much closer to the real thing than 1.50 did.

Thanks again.

Oga83, I have a couple of questions.

I was toying around and exported a DMD frame (png). Then I touched the frame up (with smiles) and saved it as a png. Then when I went to import it back into the program I only had an option to import a jpg. So I went back and saved the touched up image as a jpg. Then the image imported fine...the issue is the image quality. See example below:

If I were to flash this patched firmware on the game would the image quality be that bad on the game?

Why only allow the import of jpg when png is the export format?

My next question involves patching a firmware. I noticed in an earlier version it would rename and save the patched firmware in a different folder. Why did you decide to change that. It seems over writing an original firmware by mistake could happen much easier now.

BeforePNG.jpg AfterJPG.jpg

Thanks for the tips. I'm sure typing in the *.png extension was just a general windows tip I should have known already but I didn't. It allowed me to import the touched up png image and it looks great.

I must have been mistaken about your older versions moving patched roms to a different location. I thought it created a "patched" folder in the original rom folder and also put "patched" at the end of the file name. Your explanation on why you took out the renaming makes sense and a user will still get the "file overwrite" warning to prevent them from overwriting a file by mistake.

Thanks again.

I was also wondering about the white bar that is on a lot of the DMD frames. Is this caused by your program or is this the way the info in the firmware is? I was thinking maybe this bottom line of each image is not displayed by the DMD at all?

white_bar.jpg

No Deadpool stuff. Which is a bit scary since the Dark Phoenix animations have been in the code since 1.1 and still haven't been used.

Content wise it looks like very little stuff has been added to the X-Men code from 1.1 to 1.24. A cool Dazzler extra ball animation and a Kitty Pryde Super Skill shot animation...neither of which has been used yet.

I love that sound effect.

That's the one. It always stood out as a sound effect that I really liked.

If I were an AC/DC owner the first thing I would try would be to replace the live tracks on the attract mode jukebox to studio tracks that aren't used in the game. It would be a cool thing and unintuitive to the gameplay. FM = songs used in the game AM = other AC/DC hits that aren't in the game.

So did you just pick another sound to use from the rom or something of your own?

0x15 on AC/DC and X-Men. I believe all of the universal system sound are at the beginning of each file.

I just quoted back to the wrong guy. I meant to reply to:

with:

0x15 on AC/DC and X-Men. I believe all of the universal system sound are at the beginning of each file.

I'm with you there.

I exported a sound clip from X-Men and didn't alter it. It sounds fine in windows media player, but when I Import it into the program and save then reload it, it's staticy with a small pop at the end.

oga83 (or anyone else for that matter) I was wondering if you knew what is the best way to describe these DMD image requirements to make them look as good as standard?

What I mean is this: If I were to ask my friend that is a graphic designer that I would want him to make me a custom logo to replace the Stern logo. I'm guessing I would say it was best if made as a 128 x 73 png file, but how would I describe the color limitations? How many colors do these DMD images have? Is there a particular name that describes this color scale that they use for DMD images?

If I were just touching up an image I would user other colors from the same image using a color picker in the art program, but if someone were making an image from scratch...it would be nice to be able to better describe the color limitations to them.

Any help on this question is appreciated.

As for program suggestions...it looks like you have some good things coming. Understanding what sound clips are used in the same situation should really be helpful in customizing firmwares.

I really hope you can get the sound re-importing cleaned up. I don't notice any loss in quality when exporting them (but the loss in quality may be there), but it is very noticeable when putting an exported sound clip back in a firmware. I am guessing that if I did do any customization...most of it would probably be pulling sounds from one place in the firmware and putting it in another or possibly exporting it from one game to put in another.

Thanks again! I can't say I've ever seen a program grow and evolve as quickly as your project has.

I think this is mainly what I was looking for.

I think later tonight I may flash my first custom firmware. I changed a couple of sound effects in the settings menu and I also have a pic made up to replace the scrolling Stern screen. I'm anxious to see how it looks on the DMD. Here is the pix in the browser:

Female_X-Men.jpg

I did my first custom firmware flash and ended up with about what I expected.

The picture I imported over the Stern logo just wasn't designed for a DMD. I had it pre-sized to the correct size, in a png image format and already in grayscale. The picture itself just has way too many colors to be effective...and though it looks OK in the browser program (not great...see above 2 post) it doesn't look good on the games DMD. Phoenix shows up best because she has more of a light / dark contrast than the other 3.

The menu icon I changed come out rather well and you can't tell it isn't factory.

I also replaced a sound effect in the setting menu. In the browser it was of noticeably lower audio quality after the re-import into the firmware. In the game it sounded fine, but I really should have tried a custom sound somewhere else in the game. X-Men has always had an issue with the settings menu sounds being very quiet compared to the rest of the game (just let those bugs ride Stern...it's only been almost a year). So I really don't know if my re-imported custom sound really sounds OK...or it just sounds OK because it is so quiet.

I did get the update error after the update (as expected) but the game kept all of my settings and scores and did not overwrite them. That leads me to a question...

oga83, if you were to make the program so the game update did not get the error at the end, would the game go completely through the post flash reboot and possibly then it would reset all of the scores and settings? If that would be the case....I would rather have the error and save my scores and setting. Or at least have an option in your program if you wanted to deal with the error and save setting or have a complete error free update and reset all of the settings and scores.

I know I updated X-Men 1.24 over X-Men 1.24 before because it had some strange game behavior...and that reset everything (scores, settings, strange behavior).

// Error: Image 105060 not found // // Error: Image 105061 not found //

I have tried all of the current SAM game codes with the program. If a Pro and LE / Premium was available I just tried the LE / Premium code. I found a few that I couldn't get to load:

Family Guy
Pirates of the Caribbean
Wheel of Fortune
World Poker Tour
Kooky Carnival Redemption (not a pin but I thought it would be fun to poke around in it)

Shrek I could get to load, but it didn't have any game specific DMD images showing, just general menu icons and fonts.

Family_Guy_Error.jpg

I tried this and ran into a small problem that I thought I would share. I used Audacity to conver a MP3 I had. After I chose to export it (as a WAV) a box popped up that had tag information about the song (track name, artist name, ripped with itunes, ect). So I just clicked OK and let it ride.

Then when I went to import the WAV the Pinball Browser gave me a "this wav file is empty" "Can not use" error or something like that. So I checked the file and it played fine with Windoes Media Player. The I opened it again with Audacity and it showed as a 24000 hz WAV and played fine. I went to export again and this time when I got the the popup window with the tag information I cleared everything from the tag (there was a clear button) then saved it.

After removing the tag info from the wav it imported fine in Pinball Browser.

So just a little tip to pass on to anyone if they have this problem when importing.

TSPP was Whitestar (Pre SAM System) so this program won't work for it.

I was hoping you could help me out with this image editing. I have used nothing but MS Paint. Is there a way in Paint to convert an image to the suggested color pallet? If not...what is a good program to use? Preferably free.

Keep in mind I am not interested in drawing anything myself....just converting color images to the correct 16 color pallet that was suggested.

Thanks

oga83, much improvement with the sound quality as far as exporting a sound from one place and importing it to another.

I did a pretty heavy job on my X-Men adding sounds from other games and also music from my MP3s. It all came out pretty well. I did see after my first attempt that I needed to take better care with balancing the volumes on each sound and song.

I was also wondering...I notice that the WAV files that are exported are stereo. This seems strange since SAM games are only mono. Are the sounds in the firmwares true stereo, just 2 mono tracks (fake stereo) or are the wavs that are output just stereo because of the way your program exports them.

I was wondering if converting a stereo mp3 to a mono wav would be beneficial over converting it to a stereo wav to import?...or would that be a bad thing?

oga83, I have another suggestion.

I see in version 1.65 that you have the the window that shows the lumped together sound requests. When you select the sound request from that window by highlighting it....it automatically moves the slider above it to the correct position for that sound.

I was wondering if you could have the same thing, but in reverse. What I mean is...if you are using the slider and find a sound effect....can you make that auto highlight in the lower window so you can see all of it's related request sounds?

As it is now, as you scroll down the list in the window (on the X-Men LE firmware anyway) the slider jumps all over the place. So without the feature I suggested...it can make it tricky finding all of the same request sounds if you run into the sound by using the slider.

It's a bit tricky to describe, but it basically boils down to tying the window to a slider selection, just as the slider is already tied to a window selection.

I think this would make it a bit easier to find sounds and their related sound request group.

Thanks again for your work. I am thinking of starting a thread with some simple tutorials on getting sound clips prepared to import using Audacity. I am still experimenting with getting sound level set and things like that, but I figured some simple tips on how to convert mp3s may be helpful.

Bug Report?

I have been playing with X-Men LE 1.24 and noticed some music was missing. I had searched the entire slider of sound and didn't find them.

Then I started going through the request lists and found them.

It looks like the slider doesn't go far enough to the right or something. The farthest the sound slider will go to the right is position 0x3E3. If you look at request 28 it shows a file at 0x3EB (which is beyond the sliders range).

It will play the files that are beyond the sliders range, but only if select them from the request list.

Others requests I found beyond the slider range were:

33 0x3E4
34 0x3E5
46 0x3E6
47 0x3E7
48 0x3E9
51 0x3E4
64 0x3E5

There may be more, but that is all I ran into.

After looking some more I see that there is a file at 0x3EA and 0x3E8 that neither have a request (that I could see) nor could be reached with the slider. The only way I found them was to first select request 28 and then click the left button on the slider. This got to them even though they are normally out of the sliders range.

Good luck. I'm surprised you got so deep into getting things ready before giving it a small test flash. Let us know how it goes.

On a related note...no need to worry about looping "Ride the Lightning" if you want it to play instead of "Creeping Death" during Electric Chair multiball on Metallica....they are the same length. I like Creeping Death better as a song, but I have to say Ride the Lightning is a much more fitting song in that scenario. I just wish I had a Met to see how well it works or doesn't work with the song breaks.

PS: "Blackened" fits nicely in "The Unforgiven" time slot if you trim the intro a bit.

I have flashed 2 or 3 times and all of my scores and settings stayed. I figured this was because the error after the update. I figured as long as the update wasn't finalized it keeps all settings, scores and audits (that's just a guess though).

The music that is imported does seem to vary a lot. I have maxed the volume out on all of the music I have imported with Audacity (max volume without red lining). Some sound like they are mixed well with the original music and others (most) are way to quiet.

Right.
You want to compress your audio. It makes the "average" louder.

Thanks for that tip. I think I see how to do that in Audacity and just with some quick toying around I understand how this would help with the low volume issue.

I took some screen shots to compare:

The top track is exported directly from the game software.

The second one down is an MP3 that has been converted to the proper format for importing into Pinball Browser. The volume has been adjusted to the max that it can before red lining and causing distortion in the peaks. No compression has been applied.

The third track is the same as the one above it except compression has been applied.

You can see that after the compression it look much more like the one that is taken from the software. I didn't tweak the compression and it does to have a bit more compression than what the software version has. It looks like it would be about the same volume overall, but not as dynamic as the original.

Audacity did have quite a bit of adjustments in the compression settings. I will probably play around with them a bit and add this info to my audio conversion tutorial thread. Aurich and vid1900...thanks for the info.

Compression_demo.jpg

I wish I had an AC/DC to toy with. The first thing I would do is replace all of the A.M. Stations (live songs) on the attract jukebox to AC/DC greatest hits that aren't included on the game....and yes, Dirty Deeds would defiantly be one of them.

This isn't the case.

Ex: I replaced Blackened for The Unforgiven. The only track I replaced is REQUEST 1019 (aka 0x300 on the slide bar). This automatically replaced all of the The Unforgiven snippets.

It seems that MOST of the songs have 2 FULL LENGTH sound locations on the software (ex: The Unforgiven has REQUEST 1019 & REQUEST 1040). I don't know why they have 2 requests and 2 locations, but it seems if you replace 1 it over writes the second and all of the snippets.

Here is a list of the request locations (and lengths) I have found for each full song:

Battery: 308 & 330 5m09s956ms
Creeping Death: 394 & 427 6m34s629ms
Enter Sandman: 465 & 485 5m30s489ms
Fade to Black: 537 6m56s721ms
For Whom the Bell Tolls: 590 & 604 5m09s297ms
Fuel: 628, 639, & 642 4m29s131ms
Master of Puppets: 688 & 712 8m32s911ms
One: 756 7m24s715ms
Sad But True: 807 & 79 5m23s807ms
Seek and Destroy: 877 & 906 6m50s180ms
End of the Line: 954 & 979 7m51s403ms
The Unforgiven: 1019 & 1040 6m26s335ms

Also keep in mind that when I replaced Creeping Death (394) and The Unforgiven (1019) I replaced their first request / location. I don't know if it would make a difference if you replaced the first or one of the later requests, but I do know that replacing the first "complete" song automatically replaced all of the song parts that that I was replacing.

You will also notice when you look at the entire songs info under the scroll bar...it has more fragments than any of it's song snippets. I'm guessing all of the snippets get thir info from these complete song locations.

I don't even have a Metallica. I've just been playing with the program. I do have friends that are supposed to be getting a Premium and they were asking about "Ride the Lightning" instead of "Creeping Death" because it seems better suited for the eclectic chair multiball. It just so happens they are almost exactly the same length.

I got it imported fine, but I will probably go back and re-adjust the compression and volume on the WAV as described a few posts back.

I am interested to hear how a swapped song works myself (with the song snippets and everything).

I am hoping a Met owner can help me with something. What songs are there to choose from when you start a game?

I was also wondering....oga83? Do you think Pinball Browser game specific discussion is good on this thread or would you rather this thread stay Pinball Browser "general discussion" and other threads be started with specifics?

The imported song should behave just as the original song does as long as you get it the same length. All of the songs I have toyed with have been the same length as the song that was getting replaced...so I haven't really messed with any song looping or anything.

As for the sound quality...I imported several songs in my X-Men. The sound quality was good, but the volume was a bit low. The volume being low varied a bit from song to song. I'm sure that can be improved by using dynamic range compression as was suggested earlier. I would guess if you took some time with the replacement songs they would sound as good as original.

That's kinda good and kinda bad I guess. I was hoping the songs I was replacing were ones that just played at certain times.

I don't know anything, but I'm guessing changing the coding to actually display the name of the replaced song isn't going to be happening anytime soon. That seems like it would be in a whole different area of modifying the software...but who knows. This program come out of nowhere and has grown / evolved / got polished so much in a 2 or 3 week period. Maybe a program to "change everything" is right around the corner.

I have flashed with 2 or 3 versions of Pinball Browser that I know of. After everyone it says there was an error and asks if I want to try again. I turn off the game, unplug the USB and then flip dipswitch 8 back to it's normal position. Then I turn the game on and it boots as normal (with the modified code).

I know oga83 mentioned working on getting rid of the post flash error, but I never saw it mentioned again or showing as being added in any of the versions.

If the post flash error is what keeps the game from overwriting the scores / settings / audits I would rather keep the error or at least have an option to have the error and keep your info or do an error free flash and overwrite everything.

I don't mean to pick on you....but what are you watching for? DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

I have already modified a Metallica firmware and I don't even have a Metallica. I have flashed my X-Men LE 2 or 3 times with modified firmware, but don't have a camera to upload vids.

I'm actually surprised to only see the AC/DC owner above that has uploaded videos of cool modified software. The time is now, seize the day, make it so, do what you want, DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

It sounds like it must vary from game to game. I have flashed my X-Men LE 3 times and I still have all of my settings and scores.

I do believe though, if I decided to go back to the stock software I would loose everything then.

That would be my first task if I had and AC/DC...which I don't. That being said, I was hoping an AC/DC owner could help me out with some attract mode jukebox questions.

So if you select a song on the attract mode jukebox...what does it do after it plays that song? Does it move on to another song or just stop after it is done? Can you interrupt a song part way through....or is it like a true jukebox (you select it and it played all the way through...any other selections play afterwards)?

I have seen the jukebox feature, but only toyed with it a brief bit. Just a general description of how it works and behaves would be appreciated.

That sounds like it would be good for folks wanting to add different songs to the jukebox. As long as you add a song that is shorter than the live original you should be good to go. Having a bunch of silence at the end to fill the time wouldn't be an issue since it doesn't go to another song anyway.

I think I would keep FM as original studio songs that are used in the game and AM as other studio greatest hits that aren't originally used in the game.

Hmmm. Just tried my update and my machine said update failed. One of the songs I used to replace a studio track was a bit shorter then the original. Not sure if that did it. I also didn't reformat my thumb drive. I last used my thumb drive to update to 1.65. I deleted the official release from the drive and copied over my patched 1.65 and then attempted the update.

When using Pinball Browser it always says the update failed after a flash. I just press the back button one time in the coin door so you are again on the original boot rom screen. Then turn the game off, remove the USB stick and move dip switch 8 back to it's normal position. Then turn your game back on.

I have been adding a modified icon in the setting screens so I can easily go in and see that the modified update is in place (SEE BELOW).

Image-69.jpg

I finally found a good Wolverine image to replace the 128 x 73 Stern logo on my Wolverine LE. I'm not sure if pinside will convert the PNG or resize it or anything, but if it doesn't it should be good to go to import. Pinball Browser will auto size and grayscale it when importing. It's already the correct aspect ration so it won't stretch or distort.

Classic_Wolverine_sized.png Wolvie.jpg

It seems that if you replace the longest version of a song...it will automatically replace all of the smaller song pieces. I believe all of the smaller sound clips are actually getting their info from the complete song location.

ex: replace the song in AC/DC location 0x192 (originally the entire length Thunderstruck) and it will automatically change the clips at location 0x190 & 0x191 with clips from the new song.

So the key is to make sure you find the longest and most complete version of the original song to replace.

PS: Don't worry about replacing the requests (in the window) as mush as you do tracking down the longest song location on the slide bar and replacing it.

Another PS: This also seems to be true for Metallica.

Great job, once again. I do have a quick suggestion for an added feature after flipping through the messages feature a bit.

Could you add a "find" feature for the messages tab? A window to type in what you are looking for and also a "next" and "previous" button to cycle through found results?

Not if someone redid the dots (which is possible with Pinball Browser) and re-did the playfield, translite, and cabinet art.

I expect to see big things from this small (only 56KB) program, but a complete re-theme will take time.

I think there needs to be a "Re-Theme by Expo 2013" competition.

Limiting is one term...challenging is another.

I found replacing Creeping Death with Ride the Lightning on Metallica was a no brainier. They were the same length. Oddly enough Creeping Death is what plays during Electric Chair Multiball. So what is more fitting during Electric Chair Multiball... a song about a plague in Egypt or a song about an getting killed in an electric chair?

Replacing the live tracks during the attract juke box in AC/DC seem to be very simple as long as you put in a shorter song.

The biggest drawback in my mind was the DMD had the title of one some when you selected the added other song...that is no longer an issue. The DMD can be matched with the song selected.

I would agree that a complete re-theme would be a challenge as of now, but I think with work it would be possible. I also think AC/DC and Metallica for another band would be the easiest route to do this.

Rock! Rock On!

oga83, I have run into an issue when I was trying to modify a message on my X-Men software.

Looking through the texts that are in the game I can see that they are sectioned up by modes on X-Men. My goal was to replace a picture of Wolverine in the Xavier mode with a picture of Shadowcat. That part went fine.

The next step was to replace the text "WOLVERINE" in the Xavier mode section to "SHADOWCAT". That changed fine...but what I noticed is it also changed the text "WOLVERINE" that was any place in the software with "SHADOWCAT" instead of just replacing the one location I needed changed.

In this case...that would pretty much wreck the software...as "WOLVERINE" is used a lot and it should only be changed to "SHADOWCAT" in the one specific place.

So is there anyway to make it so the changed text is only changed in the specified location that a user manually changes it?

On the pictures below I have the text I mean to change highlighted. The red circled areas are other places where "WOLVERINE" is used and the green circled area is the Xavier mode section of the software. You can see in the second pic that the other "WOLVERINE" locations that I didn't want to change were automatically changed to "SHADOWCAT".

NameExampleBEFORE.jpg NameExampleAFTER.jpg

That's a bit over my head.

I figured the info at the right of the window (0x5DF) meant that message was it's own and that was it's location and I was surprised to see it have any connection to any of the other messages with a different number / location.

I know in Metallica and AC/DC if the longest song file is replaced, it also replaces the smaller sound clips of that song. That makes sense to me...as it shows right in the browser that the long song clips are made up of many segments. I assume that these smaller clips get their info from different segments of those large clips.

I can understand that if a game uses "WOLVERINE" many times...that there may just be one "WOLVERINE" message in the software and all uses of it are just taken from the same location. It just seems odd that if a message is in one location and changed...it automatically changes others.

As I said...over my head. I hope you can find a way around this. I have really only looked around the message section of X-Men, but it seems pretty well organized as far as knowing what messages are for what modes. I am sure the one I changed in the picture above is the one that does need changed for Xavier mode...I just wasn't expecting the other changes to come with it.

Thanks for listening and thanks again for the program.

oga83, I have another round of questions for you.

I am still tinkering with the Xavier mode in X-Men. The way the mode works is 1 of 23 characters are selected at random and the DMD displays an outline of this characters picture. When you hit the shot that is associated with this character...it reveals the characters picture and displays their name.

When these character pictures are exported with Pinball Browser they are in a square shape with white surrounding them. I tried to replace a file just like that, but when the mode started...instead of showing the outline of the new character it was just a square. When the character was revealed....it displayed correctly, but only after I had changed the white area surrounding her to a black one. Otherwise she was being displayed in a box.

I'm guessing this has something to do with the game using transparencies on the original character images in the game. I'm also guessing since all imported images are Raster-12 maybe they can not have these transparencies???

What is your theory on why it behaves this way or anyway to get around it?

After I did get the added character to come up in the game and did reveal her...I snapped a picture. It looks like it was meant to be there, but the fact that it displays the box instead of the outline before and also that Wolverine is now called Shadowcat in the entire game makes this little mod a no go. I'm still having fun tinkering.

Original_Wolverine.jpg Replacment_Kitty.jpg 0615132059.jpg

Could you please export your 0xD0C image and import it again without any other modification ? this way, it is simply converted from Compressed-1 to Raster-12.
If it does not work, we'll know it's because of compression.
Otherwise, it could be the color of the surrounding pixels that have changed (it could be your image modification, but also the way I convert them in case you don't use a 4-bit palette).
Thanks in advance.
I'm sure we'll find a solution

So I went ahead and exported all of the images from this mode and re-imported them without changing anything. That was easier than just doing 1 and hoping it would finally be selected as the picture in the mode.

So the image looks the same in Pinball Browser before anything is done and after it is re-imported, but you can see they have all changed from Compression-1 or Compression-7 to Raster-12.

Then I updated my game with the code. When any of the pictures come up in Xavier mode...they all now display a square box instead of the pictures outline as it should. After you do hit their required target and their picture is revealed....their picture is displayed in a square box. In the regular code they are displayed as just floating there.

I'm guessing the game is using a transparency around these heads. When they are exported the transparency is lost (or just not exported). As I said before, I did try to import a "head" image into Pinball Browser that did have a transparency around it, but as soon as it was imported into Pinball Browser it displayed the transparency as black around it. The plus side of that was, even though it displayed as a box before she was discovered....when the picture was revealed...it was at least floating instead of still being in a box. EDIT: In hindsight I realize this head is also in a box...you just can see it in game because the box is black along with the other surrounding area on the DMD at that time.

ORIGINAL.jpg Replacment.jpg Transparency.jpg Transparency_after_importing.jpg

I know there are other times that transparencies are used in the X-Men code (and I'm guessing others). For example....during Beast mode I have found 3 DMD image types that are layered one on top of the other when being displayed in the game.

It seems that a lot of instances of WHITE being displayed on the images in Pinball Browser is actually a transparency in the game and not white at all.

Below I have posted examples of the 3 images that would be stacked on top of each other during the game.

BACKGROUND.jpg MIDGROUND.jpg FOREGROUND.jpg

Can you not just remove the entire background of the image (hence creating an image with a transparent background) before re-importing?
I noticed when i re-did the gem finger animation that the entire sequence was actually a transparency and when displayed on my machine, there was some 'Follow Gem' text in the transparent part. The gem animation i did also had a cloudy background which i thought could be made better by removing the black backround entirely. I then had this thought:
If i remove the background of an image that is supposed to have a transparency, will the game display unwanted items in the background of my imported images?
Still yet to find this out, but thought i would chime in on this transparency thing.

On one of my above images (the one titled transparency) I did remove all of the background and made it a transparency all around her head. When I imported it into Pinball Browser it changed the floating head to having black around her head instead of the transparency. So I'm guessing the imported image losses the transparency when importing it.

I will try to post the original PNG that I imported, but I'm not sure if pinside will reformat it. It's also going to be really small.

UPDATE: It posted fine. If you open this image with a viewing / art program that supports transparencies you will see it is just a floating head with no borders.
Kitty.png

Thanks!

That update worked wonders for what I was looking to modify. I went back in and changed one occurrence of WOLVERINE to SHADOWCAT and all of the other Wolverines remained Wolverine. I loaded the code and noticed that Wolverine was back to being called Wolverine in the regular game. Then I finally got Shadowcat to come up in Xavier mode and she was listed as Shadowcat.

Thanks again.

oga83, it looks like the cannon firing images would be a good place on AC/DC to check out the things I am experiencing. Not too many frames to swap and an easy animation to see in the game.

If you were to export and re-import 0x1229 - 0x1239 images. I believe the cannon animation on the game would just appear all white on the left side of the DMD....when normally it would show the background images of 0x123A - 0x1268. I think what is seen as white on these frames in Pinball Browser are actually transparencies (or where they should be).

It seems the transparency info is getting lost in the export and also lost when an image is imported (and converted to black during import).

I will do a little tinkering with the Beast image I posted above to see if it is really losing the transparency when importing (in which case I should NOT be able to see the background behind him) or Pinball Browser is just displaying transparencies that are imported as black.

So I had 2 Beast images that cycle back and forth. In the game it has a background wall (which I posted above) and a foreground set of beakers (which is posted above).

I exported both of the Beast frames that cycle. One of them I just re-imported and the other I made a transparency around him. The one I just re-imported displayed the same as it always did in Pinball Browser (with white around it), but it was, of course, converted to a Raster-12 image. The image with the transparency around it showed black in all of the transparency areas when viewed in Pinball Browser.

I flashed these to the game and tested it out. They both displayed just as I thought they would...the first image (that was just re-imported) showed as white all around him and you could not see through the white to see the wall image that should be showing behind him. The second image that had the transparency drawn around him, displayed black all around him...and again you couldn't see through the black to see the background wall.

I think I've done all I am smart enough to do as far as this is concerned. I think this is tied to the images having transparencies, but I'm not good with art programs or understanding their options. I did have an option box pop up when I went to save my image after I made the transparity around it, but I didn't understand them so I just left them default.

Image-7BE.png Transparency_before_import.jpg Transparency_after_re-import.jpg TransSave.jpg

I think I have another bug to report. I was just getting around to toying with the Macros feature a bit.

I got a stock X-Men LE 2.4 update and imported a picture, imported a different sound clip and changed a Message. Everything played and displayed fine in Pinball Browser. I saved the Marco.

I close down the program and restart it. I load X-Men LE 2.4. Load the Macro and run it. It seems that the message was changed fine and the sound was imported into the right location and plays fine, but there is a problem with the picture that was changed.

I tried it with 2 different pictures. 1 time it displayed nothing, but showed a blank Raster-12 where it should have been. The next picture I tried was simply exported and re-imported. When that was done, it displayed fine as a Raster-12 image, but when being auto imported with a Macro is is garbled looking.

I haven't tried browsing to any of the needed macro items. This test was done with everything named and placed in the same position as it was originally in.

PS: This image was the same as the Wolverine head that I posted on the last post of page 8 of this thread.

UPDATE: I tried this with a few bigger DMD images and they import fine using Macros, but I tried on a smaller AC/DC image and it also imported with the Macro feature as being garbled (it's originally a lightning bolt).

Garbled_Macro_Import.jpg ACDC_Lightning_Bolt.jpg

I think it's because there is a message definition after the image definition in the macro.
The bug is that the message is stored at the same location than the image
I'll fix it in next release; in the meantime, moving all the message definitions at the begining of the macro will solve this issue (it would be great if you can confirm this !).
[EDIT]v1.83 is available and should fix it

I still have the bug (even when exporting and re-importing with the latest version).

I first tried your suggestion with version 1.81 (message change at top). That didn't work. Then I tried it with 1.83 and it still ended up being a garbled image. Here's a pic of my Macro and the garbled pic.

Macro.jpg Macro_Garble.jpg

oga83, the macro feature bug doesn't seem to have anything to do with a message or sound file also being imported by the macro file.

I have attempted to do a very simple macro file on AC/DC. All I did was went to image 0x695 and exported the image. Then I re-imported the image. It displayed fine.

Then I go into the Macros tab and save the macro. Then I close the program. I start Pinball Browser back up and open the AC/DC software and then click the macros tab. I load the macro I saved and click run. It seems to apply fine.

But then when I go to the display system and browse to location 0x695...the image is skewed.

Strangely...if you do the exact same steps....except you first browse to location 0x695 on the display system and THEN you run the macro....it will re-import and display fine.

Here is the macro and I will post the image:

-- Pinball-Browser Macro File for AC/DC v1.65
Image,0x695,"C:\Users\DugFreez\Desktop\NEW ACDC\Image-695.png"

Image-695.png

I figured I would post my first real macro post for X-Men:

So it seems all of the technical hurdles are out of the way to replace "lost" mutants in Xavier mode. Here is a run down of how to replace Wolverine with Shadowcat. This should work on a Pro (1.05) or LE (1.24) as both the Wolverine image and his name for Xavier mode are in the same location on both.

Download the latest version of Pinball Browser (currently 1.85) on the top post of this thread

Download the X-Men software here if you don't already have it:

http://www.sternpinball.com/GAME-code.shtml#

Download the Kitty.png image on this post.

Then start Pinball Browser and click "Open" and browse to the X-Men software.

Then click the "Macros" button then copy and paste this in the window:

Message,0,0x5DF,R"SHADOWCAT"
Image,0xD0C,"C:\Kitty.png"

Then click the "Run" button. You will get a Confirm box...click "Yes". Then a window will open that is wanting you to browse to the kitty.png file you downloaded. Browse to it and double click.

Then click the "Save as" button and it will ask where you want to save your newly modded software. I would give it a name different than stock so you can easily see it is a modded software.

The software is ready to flash. Happy hunting.

Kitty.png

Here's a small suggestion for future versions.

Anyway to get in the code info screen? I mean when you power the game up is says the game name and code revision...anyway to change that so you can modify it? Either to personalize it or just add something to show it's a modified code.

Tranparency on animations has been hard to figure out.
But I think this has been solved in v1.87 !
Many thanks to Dug for all the tests he did.

Great job on 1.87. Not only does it look to be the best image quality since you added the transparencies, but it also seems to refresh the images much better, if you are holding the left scroll button and browsing them in reverse, than any previous version.

In 1.87 it doesn't seem to matter if you are scrolling or sliding forward or backward....when you stop on an image it is rock solid. In the earlier versions it could get pretty messy looking if you were just randomly sliding. Of course you could usually correct this by clicking back a few frames and than click forward to the frame you wanted, but as I said, the images on 1.87 look rock solid.

I put a picture together to show the progress in 24 hours. Have you approached Stern for a job? I think they could really use your help.

Great job and thanks again.

// Error: Image 110297 not found //

I just thought of another suggestion (or 2).

If you hold the right scroll button it scrolls through the images and that does a pretty good job of simulating the animations from the game playing. It seems most do scroll a bit faster than they play in the game I have noticed. This is great just to get a look at them, but would it be possible to add an option to throttle the speed of the scroll button to match the games animation speeds more closely?

The thing is, I don't know if this varies much from game to game, one version of Pinball Browser to another or even image type or not.

After looking through X-Men, Spider-Man and AC/DC it does appear that the custom drawn dot images "play" a bit faster than the live action clips (like the AC/DC concert sequence), but that may just be my imagination.

Also....how about a "play" button to auto scroll through the images...and even the sounds for that matter. As a matter of fact, there is a lot more clicking needed to listen through the sounds than it is to just click and hold to get through the images.

Just some thoughts...

I'm not really understanding the adjustments. We have DEFAULT, MINIMUM, MAXIMUM and INCREMENTS?

I was initially thinking Inc was INCLUDE and 1 = On / 0 = Off to turn the actual setting to appear or not appear in the games setting menu, but the 1,000,000s and 100 threw off that idea.

It also appears that the Inc column needs moved over a bit. It seems that column Max gets a little too big halfway down and bumps Inc's numbers over too far right.

I like the improvement to the search in the Messages window.

I swapped in the Tron scoop eject sound on my X-Men and added some CSI sounds for the X-Men standup targets.

I need to find another Stern game that has a nice female "Shoot Again" callout. They just added a shoot again animation on X-Men. It shows Dazzler skating behind a rolling ball. The it shows a close up of her with a microphone in her hand.....and then you hear a gruff Wolverine voice say "Shoot again". I don't think it would seem nearly as out of place if she didn't actually have a microphone in her hand.

So if anyone has any suggestions of a Stern SAM game that has a female "shoot again" callout I would appreciate it.

Dazzler.jpg Shoot_Again.jpg

I thought about that, as I do have a couple of friends with nice home studios, but if I get that deep into it I will probably go ahead and re-record a lot of different callouts to toy around with replacing.

That's normal. Your game should be flashed fine with the modified code.

I know this thread is getting a bit large, but I would suggest going back and reading it. It has a lot of interesting and helpful information.

I was just about to ask the same thing.

I had to go with "RIDE/LIGHTNING" in the firmware messages since I couldn't expand the number of characters used. On the regular messages I used the option to add the needed characters. I considered "RIDEDALIGHTNING" or "RideDaLightning", but decided against it.

That being said...I don't know where the game uses one type of message and where it uses the other. I will be trying it out at my friends tomorrow.

?What? What is the same size about them? The fragments are just snippets of the full length song and not as long (time wise).

Most songs on Metallica have 2 locations that have full length versions of the song.

Ex: Sad But True has 2 full length locations (0x22D and 0x23B). The 0x22D location has 1 sound request pointing to it (Request 839) and the 0x23B location has 3 requests pointing to it (95, 853 and 854).

I think I understand how the sound locations work with sound requests. I also understand that replacing a full length song that has many fragments is used to make up the smaller sound fragments. What I don't understand is why there are 2 or 3 full length versions of the same song in the software...when replacing 1 seems to take the place of all of the full length locations as well as the smaller sound "fragments" that are in the software.

It seems that this is using up a lot of room that it doesn't need to.....unless these repeat full length song locations are just placeholders......maybe for live versions to be added later?

Another guess would be that the 2 complete, full length song locations may be "fragmented" differently. Meaning that even though they are both showing as having 12 fragments....maybe their fragment breaks are in different locations on each of the full length songs.

I believe...LOCATIONS and REQUESTS are 2 different things.

A LOCATION is listed as ex: 0x42 for Battery. Sound REQUEST 340 points to this location. LOCATION 0x58 is also a full length version of Battery. Sound REQUESTS 362 and 363 both point to that sound LOCATION.

So a full length Battery (5min09s956ms with 20 fragments) is ONLY found in 2 LOCATIONS. It has 3 separate REQUESTS pointing to these 2 LOCATIONS, but it is only in 2 locations.

That being said...the programming is somehow tied together so if you replace one of these full length locations...it will also change the other and also all associated sound fragments that come from that song. I'm just not sure why they would have included 2 locations of the same full length song and also linked them together so if one change, they all changed.

For a friends MET I did:

Ride the Lightning for Creeping Death (Electric Chair Multiball)
Blackened for The Unforgiven
Slither for Sad But True (Snake Multiball)
Am I Evil for The End Of The Line

Glad to see you are back.

I still vote for an auto play button on the audio and display tabs.

For the display, just holding down on the right arrow to let it scroll is fine (but I still think an auto play would be nice).

As far as the sounds go.....an auto play would be really nice. As it is now....it's click, enter, click, enter, click, enter,...........

It would be nice to just click a button and have Pinball Browser automatically start playing the display animations or sounds effects from where it is.

I messed around with replacing a lot of the music in X-Men at one time. Most of the song loops were pretty short (< 1 min.) I basically went through the X-Men software and saw how long the loops were and then just stuck in whatever I had in my itunes library that fit.

I wasn't really looking for an real replacements....just toying around with the software. Ex: This fit (time wise as the main gamplay theme)

The best and probably the only one I would think about putting in again was this for the villian select theme:

As far as hard rock....I did find an SOD clip that fit in nicely as the Juggernaut theme.

I have only messed with a MET Premium...all went as expected.

If the sound clips you add are longer they will be cut short. You should be able to add shorter clips without any negative issues.

Thanks for the update oga83. I appreciate the auto play functions.

Yeah oga83, It looks like:

Pirates of the Caribbean
Family Guy
Shrek
The Simpsons Kooky Carnival
World Poker Tour

all pooped out somewhere between v 2.04 (they worked) and 2.10 and later (they haven't worked).

I don't know how many noticed the Metallica Premium with the altered soundtrack at the Chicago Pinball Expo. The free play area was pretty noisy so hearing it was a bit of an issue. I also doubt if it would be noticed by someone that wasn't familiar with the game.

The only report I heard was Lyman noticing it. He went to start a game and was looking for "Sad But True" and noticed it was no where to be found...replaced by "Slither". "Slither" just seems like a much more fitting choice to Snake Multiball than "Sad But True". The same can be said for "Ride The Lightning" playing during Electric Chair Multiball instead of "Creeping Death". Add in the fact that they call out "Ride the lightning" a lot of the time at the beginning of it...and it's really a no brainer.

The other replacements were "Blackened" for "The Unforgiven" and "Am I Evil" for "The End of the Line".

I have heard conflicting reports, but every time I have updated my X-Men LE or my friends Metallica Premium the settings, scores and audits have remained intact.

After updating to a modified firmware the system gives an error that it didn't update properly. This is normal and the modified software is in place. It seems that this error prevents some type of finalization that would take place on a normal code update and prevents settings, scores and audits from getting reset as they normally would.

I thought at one time oga83 was looking into why some people didn't get the error (and lost their settings and scores) and others did get the error (and got to keep their setting and scores). I can't remember hearing if he figured out what the difference was or if it was game, pinball browser version or update specific.

That is why I said there were conflicting reports on scores getting wiped out. The way I look at is, you are going to lose the scores with an official update anyway (if your game is still getting updates). So you might as well risk them to add some different software features.

oga83....I have another question related to what is being discussed. I know if you change the location that has the entire song in it.....it also changes all of the smaller song fragment locations automatically. I guess these smaller sound clips are grabbed from the longer clip automatically.

Say you have done that (replaced the long, entire song clip)...could you then go back and find which fragment is the looped "shooter groove" location and replace it separately? Basically making is so that one fragment that the game is using while the ball is in the shooter lane to loop more smoothly? So it wouldn't be changing the length of the fragment that loops, but you would be overriding it to play a different section of the song instead of what it grabs from the complete song by default.

I know there was an issue with the early version of Pinball Browser where the program wasn't showing all of the animations or sounds for a few early games. I believe POTC and FG were a couple of the ones with this issue. It seemed like the program wasn't spanning the entire ROM or something. oga83 fixed it before...maybe that issue has crept back in with all of the different releases and changes.

The Stern games are made with a harness on the left side of the cabinet that can send a knocker signal. There is a setting in the regular game settings to pulse the coil that is connected to that harness (if a kit is added). It always struck me as strange that the official software supports a physical knocker in the settings...yet there is no official knocker kits sold for the games.

That might be interesting...I'm not sure what coil you would select or how universal the coil labeling is from game to game. I would think the auto shooter would be a good one to use, but I'm guessing it would still come off more as a game malfunction than a knocker hit.

That is normal and really a good thing. It prevents the update from resetting all of your high scores and game settings. If you added a song it should be there.

There is nothing to fiddle with....the error always pops up. It is expected. If you changed a song with pinball browser and uploaded that modified software to your game all the way until it gave the error...you are done. The new song you added is there.

Don't do the test or it wont go through to the update...just update it, you will get the error, but the modified code is on there.

I don't see a link for 3.01. It still looks like 3.00 is the current linked version.

I am using Windows 7 also and trying the same version of Pinball Browser, the same ROM and the same request...I have no problems (T.N.T. plays fine).

What you suggested about the program extracting the song...that wouldn't be happening as you need to press the Export button to do that.

Whatever song you put in with pinball browser will act exactly like the song did that was originally in that spot. If the original song starts 5.23 seconds into the original song clip....the replacement song will start 5.23 seconds into the replacement song clip. Without knowing what game you are talking about, what song you are talking about, where the song was replaced in the ROM and under what circumstance it is playing in the game......it's pretty much impossible to tell.

I see you mention MET LE above. I have added songs to Metallica without issue. The game behaves just as it did with the original songs...except they are different songs. Ex: When you are selecting a song before you plunge the ball. The original songs when selecting do not start from the beginning....so if you replace a song, it will also not start at the beginning. It will start at the exact same time into the song that the original song did. I hope this helps explain.

3.02 is the first version I have had that Avast has flagged...very aggressively I might add. It throws it to the virus chest automatically.

I was also meaning to ask a couple of releases ago...what's the facebook.dll and where is it supposed to go? Is it needed?

virus warning.jpg