oga83:
I would start a new thread and reference this thread in the 1st post of the new thread

oga83:
your download link isn't working (at least for me)

way to make yourself look like quite the ass. if you don't like the software that's one thing, but given the changelog (and the number of pages that this thread has generated), it's not like he's not going to fix any issues. in fact, oga83 has been pretty damn pro-active with enhancements, feature requests and fixes to his software. I'm guessing that you've never written anything (let alone something this complex). shit happens when you attempt to fix things sometimes.

get a grip buddy (or have a beer and relax a bit). it's only pinball

btw, I'm quite sure that given the fact that you own 14 machines, that a donation of $5 or so to get a license and access the other features of the software isn't going to put you in the poor house

that's because stern uses the electronic arts program 'Deluxe Paint Animation' to create the DMD animations (I posted this information about a year ago).

deluxe paint animation has not been commerically available for over 10 years (and may possibly be "freeware" now, but I'm not sure)

here's some information about the program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluxe_Paint_Animation

unfortunately, TSPP is not a SAM title. it's a whitestar game
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=4674

no, you can replace the song, but not have it rotate the song. what you are suggesting would require you to have knowledge of how the game code works (like rotating between the 2 songs for sparky multiball), access to the source, the ability to change, recompile and then re-flash your rom.

I spoke with lyman about this @ expo a week ago. he was aware and mentioned that a patch was coming to correct this (I think that 1.71 [not available yet] will be the version to correct this)

probably wouldn't help even if you bribed. the short answer is that there is a reason that they offer a pro model and a premium model.

if you were a company offering two models that were priced differently and offered different features, would you want your customers to buy the cheaper model and then upgrade it themselves to the level of your more expensively priced item without seeing any of the money that it took them to get to the higher priced option?

I'm going to sound like a jerk but plain and simple, if you wanted the spinners and the other options afforded by the premium and limited models [and integrated into the code], then you should buy the premium or limited model

TimeBandit:
which version of the pinball browser and the comm.dll are you running? for v5.80, you should be using comm120.hex

I would shoot olivier an email with the exact error message

how about 'I disappear'?

unfortunately, no

unfortunately, other than a handful of titles (ac/dc, metallica, mustang) there simply isn't enough available memory to do a title justice

trust me, a bunch of us were all "gung ho!" when this software was initially launched (go back and read the thread from the start). heck, echovictor even purchased a TF to specifically colorize that title

I created a detailed guide on how to use the software, but the truth of the matter is that even with all of the wonderful changes that olivier made to the software from the beginning, it is just not possible to fully colorize the titles due to the way that the roms are modified and use up the extra, un-used memory (that memory goes quickly)

ps
hey damone, if you wouldn't have been so busy scalping concert tickets and trying to bang stacy, you'd know this!

check to see that the G-E-A-R-S animations are not in the .bin file more than once. with metallica, there were some unused animations as well as stuff that was only triggered based on the region of the game

edit:
that's odd. I'm only seeing those letters in the .bin file once (memory locations 0x85A-0x85E (unfilled) and 0x85F-0x863 (filled)

they may have used a single frame from the flaming eye animation and then flipped the animation and used a 2nd frame (like a camera double exposure)

MET - flaming eye.gif

I thought that flipping dip switch no. 8 was to let the system know that you wanted to update it and to look at the serial port and/or usb port for a file with the proper name. if found, it's boot strap code starts the update process

waldo34
I had a file from mike for it but it was all messed up. it made me think that it needs to be re-colored from scratch

mightygrave
so, in your .pbm file, you have this?

-- Pinball-Browser Macro for METALLICA v1.70
CheckVersion,"METALLICA",0x170
LoadHex,"comm120.hex"

-- the following 2 lines are for Side-Channel
PaletteMode,1
PaletteComm,2

and you simply need the comm120.hex file? if so, just pm me your email address and I can send it to you

if you are using the latest version of pinball browser, change the line of code in the macro from:
LoadHex,"comm119.hex"
to:
LoadHex,"comm132.hex"

silly question:
if you're attempted to change the graphics using the default stern [grayscale] palette, do you need any of the following at the top of the macro file (or is this explicitly for use with the smartdmd product)?

LoadHex,"comm132.hex"

-- the following 2 lines are for Side-Channel
--PaletteMode,1
--PaletteComm,2

-- the following line is for In-Frame
--PaletteMode,0

has anyone had any issues with using the 'expand memory' command in their macro, making changes, writing out the new game rom .bin file and then having the update fail?

I'm attempting to swap out all of the band member specific stuff on the rolling stones rom for acaciolo, but we're running into update failures the patched rom with even the simplest of changes

thanks lucky1
maybe this is something that oga83 can correct in the next release

oga83
do you have any plans to correct this?

you may want to try the following:
instead of hand drawing the new graphics pixel by pixel and saving those frames in a pinball browser macro, do the following:
1. make your changes in pinball browser as you would, by drawing your new image pixel by pixel but using a screen capture program, capture the resulting image (you make a copy of the resulting .pbm [pinball browser macro] changes, but I would not save them as your "final" macro
or if you're using a pre-rendered/created image, skip to step 2

2. take the resulting image screen grab and save it to the proper size (pixel height and width) and change the image type to grayscale

3. save the resulting changes as a 16-color image (in photoshop, I use the 'save for web & devices...' dialog as a .gif, .jpg or .bmp but making sure to set the number of colors in the palette to '16'

4. re-import the image saved in step 3 and separate the image into layers (each layer containing all of the pixels for a given color). in photoshop, I do this using the 'select -> color range' option with the following settings (select: 'sampled colors', fuzziness set to '0', 'image' radio button selected)

5. once I've broken the image down into 16 layers, I order them from darkest to lightest and reassign the rgb values of the color for each layer to the following:
000, 017, 034, 051, 068, 085, 102, 119, 136, 153, 170, 187, 204, 221, 238, 255

6. save the new layered image as a .bmp, .jpg, or .gif

7. in pinball browser, navigate to the frame in question and use the 'import...' option to select the image created in step 6

original frame in pinball browser (notice the initial 'total free memory' value. no 'extend memory' has been run)
pbrowser - original image (resized).jpg

frame after hand re-drawing the image, pixel by pixel (again, notice 'total free memory' value 79,492 bytes used) * this was the only change made to a "clean" rom
pbrowser - pixel by pixel memory consumption (resized).jpg

frame after importing an image created using the process above (slight loss of quality compared to drawing it pixel-by-pixel, but acceptable considering the free memory consumption savings. only 6,148 bytes used
pbrowser - image import (resized).jpg

yes, it's a time consuming process, however the memory savings are quite significant

your mileage may vary (ymmv) depending on how substantial your change is frame by frame. in some cases, it doesn't make sense to use my process (especially if the frame's image is small. however, in cases like the one above where you have 7,225 pixels and are pretty much replacing most (if not all), it's definitely cost effective (memory-wise) to just replace the entire frame with an externally composed image

oga83
is this any chance that in an upcoming version of the software that you can provide a checkbox toggle and provide both a light and a dark color for transparency when you are editing image?

it's sometimes very hard to see which pixels that you're laying down when they are a lighter color against that yellow that you are currently using

of course. with each iteration of code, you're starting with a fresh slate

there are a few things to look for before applying patches including checking to see if any of the memory locations for graphics and/or sound have moved between revisions and adjust your changes in your script accordingly before applying them

do you mean, something like this? (I originally did this to replace the 2 frames of 'BLACKENED' text graphics
MET - four horsemen (resized).jpg

I've done this as well for my metallica (this is a change to the stern logo that scrolls upward during the attract mode
MET - splash (resized).png

I may go back and do a splash screen with sparky too. just to see how it looks

personally, I think that this is a feature that stern hasn't capitalized on (much like how many of the smaller film houses mess around with warner bros. or columbia pictures logos at the start of movies. the matrix and constantine come to mind

to be honest, the part to import it into pinball browser is actually pretty easy. if you're a stickler, getting the songs to fit perfectly and with the right levels can be a bit of work using something like audicity

attempting to run the macro on the v1.80 firmware causes the following error in pinball browser (v6.50)

Warning: Cannot remap vector 0x28 !

I've already sent an email to olivier

additionally, I've already started looking into the changes for the image positions (stern added the following 5 new images at following memory locations:
0x6E - BRT menu option
0x6F - BRT (selected) menu option
0xC1 - a 7x7 dark gray hollow circle
0xC2 - a 9x32 dark gray triangle
and 0xC3 - 55x11 dark gray triangle (sloping downwards to the right)

these additional images will require the following command to be added to the 1.70 MET smart dmd macro:
ShiftId,0,0x57B,0x580

I would suggest adding this this command right after the ExtendMemory command in the macro

I'm still receiving error messages but they are mostly due to the fact that the macro lines are being parsed incorrectly (some have multiple commands on a single line). since the smart dmd macro is nearly 500,000 lines long, it will probably take me a few days to go through it all to get it back running without any errors

good new, bad news time

first the good news
I've been able to correct my macro and it now successfully compiles without any errors on my end

now, the bad news
due to the changes (additions) to the v1.80 code, there is not enough free memory to run my entire macro

1.70
free memory -> free memory after extending it
1304198 -> 3,282,352

6987 images
5053 sounds
1874 messages
203 adjustments
16 high scores

1.80
free memory -> free memory after extending it
1289030 -> 3,143,456

6992 images
5076 sounds
2104 messages
208 adjustments
16 high scores

my thought is that you could probably eliminate either all of the cross shaped tombstone animations or the rounded tombstone ones and that should be enough to allow it to successfully compile

with the rounded tombstones, the macro completes successfully with just over 30,000 bytes of free memory

I may have to eliminate the custom splash logo, because I'm seeing a value of 4,294,961,311 bytes of free memory available after the macro completes. I had to strip out all of colour for the hammer and the puking snake (match sequence) to get it to complete with a valid free memory value ( [] free bytes

edit:
still receiving a really large "free memory" value after running the macro even after stripping the custom splash logo

yes, you have the ability to import an image over a specific frame. your results may vary based on the original image that you're using with the best results coming from an image that has been resized to the same number of pixels (height and width) as the frame with a gray-scale of 16 colors (including black and white)

alternatively, you could just modify the existing images for that range to "censor" them and save that as a macro (if you can't get it all done in one sitting)
and then load the macro, run it, and re-save your .bin file to a usb flash drive and reflash your machine with the new .bin file

looking at frame 0x6A7 thru 0x6BE, what exactly are you attempting to censor?
ac-dc 0x6A7.jpg

just repeat it in the macro with the frame number and the image that you are replacing it with

ps
yeah, TWD is probably not a good choice of pins with a 4-year-old in the house. you're going to be editing just about everything out of the game animation-wise