Creature from the Black Lagoon
Bally, 1992Quoted from pinballsp:
If someone has or can make a quality recording of the original hologram in operation, I can create the video for the kit. I have this video, but it doesn't have much quality.
Oh yea, now you are talking. I have the new holo and would love to send a video but I have nothing to take a quality video on. If someone wants to send me a camera I could get a video.
Quoted from thewool:Mmmm.... one way would be to install it in a game, remove the small plastic window and rig a camera up from the player's angle. Then put it in test and record. It would be a lot of prep. but mean it's captured forever.
I have the new hologram and while it's very cool, the model used isn't the same quality as the original.
Wasn't the original holo animation included with MikeD's mod?
The Mike D mod does have the original animation. I never use it because the new program is so great!
Quoted from thewool:Is it of a good quality? Maybe Mike would be kind and willing to share the source of this video??
maybe @pinballsp could reach out to @pinballmiked and offer to purchase the video from him
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:WHERE. Did you take that photo!
My son took it on a trip. Maybe SF
Quoted from thewool:Is it of a good quality? Maybe Mike would be kind and willing to share the source of this video??
I have not seen it yet. Maybe have to take a look someday.
Quoted from guss:My son took it on a trip. Maybe SF
He said it was in Seattle. Museum of Pop Art
This is the current status of video graphic design and 3D modeling.
*******************************************************
1.- Kit Start Videos
• 1.1- Company logo and name of the game. -----> OK
• 1.2.- System check (11 steps). -----> OK
2.- Video animations of the Game.
• 2.1.- Three background videos.
2.1.1 Stone/cube rotating in the Cave ------> DESIGNING
2.1.2 Bubbles -----> OK
2.1.3 RITA boat -----> OK
• 2.2 - Left Ramp Shot and Right Ramp Shot
• 2.3 - Video animations, one video per word/letter.
KISS -----> OK
Paid
Creature
FILM
• 2.4 - Video Mode, boxing video game animation
• 2.5 - Animations by word with characters from the playfield.
Snackbar
Cola
Hot dog
PopCorn
Ice cream
Jackpot ------> DESIGNING
Super Jackpot ------> DESIGNING
Extra Ball ------> DESIGNING
Move your car.
• 2.6 - Auto cinema. Scenes from the movie are shown in the Auto cinema.
• 2.7 - Lagoon Monster, "Creature found". -----> OK
• 2.8 - 3D Modeling of the Creature. -----> OK
As for the hardware.
*****************
1.- Test of the 10.1 and 11.6 inch screens in the real pinball. Hoping to have the results, photos and videos, next week.
2.- Request for quotation, to the supplier, for custom cables (screen power, main board power) and connectors.
3.- I am waiting to receive the prototype of the bracket for the 11.6-inch screen for next week.
4.- Choose the final design of the main board (I have two designs) and the final tests of the full kit.
Quoted from guss:He said it was in Seattle. Museum of Pop Art
Yep, it's here in Seattle, along with tons of other original classic horror costumes, masks and props. It's a great exhibit.
Some tests with the video of the RITA boat, some changes have yet to be made, it is not the final version.
In this video we are testing three types of animated water (AGUA1, AGUA2, AGUA3), they are waters extracted from other videos, not created by computer. I think we will leave it with water number 1 (AGUA 1), although the contrast should be increased so that the clear areas stand out more.
The text "There he is", we will replace it with "There its", although the girl in the movie says "there he is", and even in the subtitles it also says "There he is". This text will remain fixed in the video, and from time to time it will blink, or some effect will be applied, now it is the opposite, it occasionally appears blinking, I think it will be better on the contrary.
In this video the light bulb of the boat is animated, the clouds, the moon, the trees also have some movement, the ship moves and the lights of the mast flash from time to time.
The graphic designer is already working with the video of the COLA, based on the character of the game board, extracted and vectorized.
vlcsnap-2019-09-07-00h27m05s481.png
Sin título-1.jpgQuoted from nwpinball:Yep, it's here in Seattle, along with tons of other original classic horror costumes, masks and props. It's a great exhibit.
Awesome... CFTBL is my favorite monster so I’m always surprised to see new photos..
Tomorrow I will receive the acrylic bracket for the 11.6-inch screen, much earlier than I thought, I will also receive the parts to mount the Video Bumper. I am going to prepare the second 11.6-inch screen that I have, mounted on the new bracket and I will send it to my friend Orlando so that he can install it on the real machine (now it only has the 10.1 with bracket, and the 11.6 without bracket).
Today I finished the second hardware design of the main board, with a totally different electronics, I still don't know which one I will use, each one has its advantages. This design leaves all the signal processing work to an external microcontroller, leaving the Raspberry only to play the videos. The advantage of this design is that all programming is done and tested, because it is the same as I did for the Test Board with LEDS.
I have changed the power connectors, now a round jack type connector is used to power the board from a voltage of 12V. And a 2-pin connector step 3.96mm is used to power the screen with a cable from the main board. In this way, whoever wants to, can easily use an external power supply, connecting to the round jack of the main board.
I will test the two designs and decide which one to use, to send to manufacture in quantity the final boards of the Kit.
As for the videos, the RITA boat video is already completely finished, the water was changed to a real one of a video, and some effects were added to the text "There it is". I have already told the designer, do not waste more time with this video, that it is fine and we can continue with the next one on the list.
I was also testing the sound. I can use a standard Raspberry video/audio player, such as omxplayer, but as I said, there is a certain delay in the beginning of video playback, tested even with a Rasbperry pi 4 the delay is the same. This delay is probably due to the demultiplexing that the program must do to obtain Video for the GPU and audio separately. One solution would be to have the video and audio in two files separately, play the video with my current program and leave the audio (already demultiplexed) for a standard player like omxplayer or others, I have to try it. Separate video and audio, it is very easy using ffmpeg, so we would have a directory for videos and another for audios.
ScreenHunter_001.jpgScreenHunter_003.jpgScreenHunter_004.jpgScreenHunter_005.jpgQuestion, I recently purchased Pinsound+ board from Pinsound. This board enables you to have the old sounds from CFTBL inner mixed with real songs from the 50's (or songs of your choice). Since you did state this mod was not going to have any sounds or am I mistaken you will have some? I guess have you heard of this sound board and what affects will be to have your mod in conjunction with it? I don't know how many PinSiders have Pinsound's board installed in their Creature, but it does give the machine the sounds/music I would think the original programs would have wanted.
Really weird why you are designing all this hardware for something the raspberry pi will do for you FOR FREE? Id personally just figure out the software issue with the raspberry pi then add all this crazy hardware, seems like a really really weird design choice and really inefficient one! The raspberry pi can more then easily do everything you need if configured correctly / with correctly written software. Looks to me your just throwing money and hardware at a issue that you you can fix in software (with the right knowledge) which is pretty bad way of working as it will just drive the price of the final product up and make it really clunky.
Quoted from Mikespinball:Question, I recently purchased Pinsound+ board from Pinsound. This board enables you to have the old sounds from CFTBL inner mixed with real songs from the 50's (or songs of your choice). Since you did state this mod was not going to have any sounds or am I mistaken you will have some? I guess have you heard of this sound board and what affects will be to have your mod in conjunction with it? I don't know how many PinSiders have Pinsound's board installed in their Creature, but it does give the machine the sounds/music I would think the original programs would have wanted.
HolomodSP has no sound in the first firmware version, I will probably add it in a future version, as I said. The videos of the animations are all being made with sound, precisely to be able to use them in the future.
I don't know how Pinsound works, I can only say that HolomodSP in a future firmware version will allow the videos to have sound through the Raspberry's audio output. To use these sounds, I may design additional hardware, since the sounds of the machine would have to be mixed with the sounds of the videos, using a mixer system and a shared amplification system, with the speakers of the machine.
As I said, the tests I did with one of the Raspberry video/audio players, the omxplayer program to play mp4 videos with sound, I don't like very much, because this software always adds a delay to the start of the video. That delay may be acceptable to make a home movie player, but not for an interactive system like this, which needs to react almost instantly to the playback of a video due to a game event. I have other solutions to try, such as having videos and audios separately, in that case it is likely to work much better, because in real time the program does not have to demultiplex the file to obtain video and audio.
What I can guarantee, from the tests I have done, is that my current program system plays the videos instantly, as soon as an event occurs that should trigger a video.
Quoted from pinballsp:
HolomodSP has no sound in the first firmware version, I will probably add it in a future version, as I said. The videos of the animations are all being made with sound, precisely to be able to use them in the future.
I don't know how Pinsound works, I can only say that HolomodSP in a future firmware version will allow the videos to have sound through the Raspberry's audio output. To use these sounds, I may design additional hardware, since the sounds of the machine would have to be mixed with the sounds of the videos, using a mixer system and a shared amplification system, with the speakers of the machine.
As I said, the tests I did with one of the Raspberry video/audio players, the omxplayer program to play mp4 videos with sound, I don't like very much, because this software always adds a delay to the start of the video. That delay may be acceptable to make a home movie player, but not for an interactive system like this, which needs to react almost instantly to the playback of a video due to a game event. I have other solutions to try, such as having videos and audios separately, in that case it is likely to work much better, because in real time the program does not have to demultiplex the file to obtain video and audio.
What I can guarantee, from the tests I have done, is that my current program system plays the videos instantly, as soon as an event occurs that should trigger a video.
Thank you so much for your follow up. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to its release.
Today I received the new bracket, in black acrylic, for the 11.6-inch screen. I only need to test the two screens, both with their bracket, on the real machine, to decide which screen to use in the kit, the 10.1 or 11.6-inch one.
I will prepare this bracket with the display and the HDMI video controller, for testing. I hope everything is tested this week. The bracket is black, although in these images still has the protective film with a blue-gray tone.
soporte_001.jpgsoporte_002.jpgsoporte_003.jpgsoporte_004.jpgsoporte_005.jpg
Assembled the bracket with the 11.6 inch screen. I will send this to another friend who also has a Creature, so I can have opinions from several people as they try it.
In all these TFT panels, a small board with a few buttons is included to access the screen configuration menu, to make various adjustments, such as brightness, contrast, saturation, etc ... At first I thought about adjusting the screen and not give this board, but finally I will also include it in the kit, so that each one can adjust the screen according to their preferences, although I do not recommend increasing the brightness or the backlight begins to become visible and black depth and contrast are lost. Once the adjustments have been made, the small board with buttons can be disconnected.
pantalla116_001.jpgpantalla116_002.jpgpantalla116_003.jpgpantalla116_004.jpgpantalla116_005.jpg
We have already tested the two 10.1 and 11.6 inch screens on the real machine. Both can be installed without problems, and the best is 11.6 inches, which will finally be the one that will install the kit.
I have some photos and a couple of videos, although they don't have very good resolution, especially the videos. I have contacted another friend who also has a Creature, I will send him the 11.6 screen with the bracket to see if he can make me photos and videos with better quality.
PS: click on the images to see them with better quality.
test_holomod_116_009.jpgtest_holomod_116_010.jpgtest_holomod_116_001.jpgtest_holomod_116_002.jpgtest_holomod_116_003.jpgtest_holomod_116_004.jpgtest_holomod_116_005.jpgtest_holomod_116_008.jpg
Pretty damn cool!!!
How much gap is there between the screen/mount and the coil? Would just want to make sure there is enough clearance as you wouldn't want the extra heat and vibration direct from the coil. Also need to ensure there is enough room for servicing the machine (eg removing the coil or any nearby parts).
Getting close now ... maybe need to start dropping some hints on what I want for Christmas 
Quoted from pinballsp:
We have already tested the two 10.1 and 11.6 inch screens on the real machine. Both can be installed without problems, and the best is 11.6 inches, which will finally be the one that will install the kit.
I have some photos and a couple of videos, although they don't have very good resolution, especially the videos. I have contacted another friend who also has a Creature, I will send him the 11.6 screen with the bracket to see if he can make me photos and videos with better quality.
PS: click on the images to see them with better quality.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
Dave at Kaua’i Island Brewery has this same mod on his CFTBL. Pretty sweet!
Love to get my hands on a CFTBL for my collection
Quoted from Manny65:Pretty damn cool!!!
How much gap is there between the screen/mount and the coil? Would just want to make sure there is enough clearance as you wouldn't want the extra heat and vibration direct from the coil. Also need to ensure there is enough room for servicing the machine (eg removing the coil or any nearby parts).
Getting close now ... maybe need to start dropping some hints on what I want for Christmas
Everything is being tested and does not give problems, the TFT screen is fixed with velcro to the bracket, this acts as a shock absorber for possible vibrations. The slingshot coils are activated a few moments each time it hits the ball, nor can they affect the screen.
As for accessibility, I think it's better than with the original hologram. The original hologram bracket and the visor that surrounds the hole are removed. Finally, as seen in the photos, the area is much more accessible to any mechanism.
Quoted from Sugito:Hello,
This really looks fantastic. Great work, thank you for working on that topic and doing such a good job. Will it be easy to Install? I only own a cftbl as pinball and i am not an expert in screwing inside pinballs
Thank you
Do not worry, the installation is very easy, in any case I will make a User Manual with step by step images, and probably a video.
Quoted from Cody_R:You could always do a video of installation and put it on YouTube and share the link on here so people can pause and replay as much as they want and work installing it alongside the video.
I will make a good user manual with detailed images of the installation, and if possible also a video.
Hi, i really like this project, but have a concern. The original hologram is placed in an angle so it creates and effect that you look into the deep of the black lagoon. The pictures above show the screen is directly under the window and flat. Will the effect of depth will be present? Are the video's slightly tilted so it looks like the screen is in an angle? Or is there an option to get the screen in an angle?
Quoted from pinballsp:Thank you
Do not worry, the installation is very easy, in any case I will make a User Manual with step by step images, and probably a video.
Perfect, I am very interested in this Mod. it will make the Pin much more fun playing i bet. Thank you for the fast answer.
Quoted from PeterG:Hi, i really like this project, but have a concern. The original hologram is placed in an angle so it creates and effect that you look into the deep of the black lagoon. The pictures above show the screen is directly under the window and flat. Will the effect of depth will be present? Are the video's slightly tilted so it looks like the screen is in an angle? Or is there an option to get the screen in an angle?
If you look at the bracket the screen will be parallel to the playfield window, so not angled away. This is a trade off in my eyes, but don't forget the hologram was 3D so benefited from this angled effect and it also needed to be lit (the whole thing was/is really effective). I'm not sure it would make any difference to have a 2D screen tilted down. Also you can capture some depth effects in the videos to give the illusion of 3D.
In my opinion a good quality hologram (original or repro) is still the best vanilla option. But the way this is shaping up it looks very cool indeed and gives owners a choice... For those with a black hologram, this is a game-changer.
Quoted from zr11990:This is going to cause CFTBL to go up in value
vs. a CftBL with a non-working hologram? yes. vs. a CftBL with a perfect working hologram? I'm not so sure
remember that pinballmiked did this very same mod almost 5 years ago, and that didn't cause a spike in the price for the game
Quoted from j_m_:vs. a CftBL with a non-working hologram? yes. vs. a CftBL with a perfect working hologram? I'm not so sure
remember that pinballmiked did this very same mod almost 5 years ago, and that didn't cause a spike in the price for the game
I think he's right - but CFTBL is already on the way up anyway. I'm so confused about prices lately - desirable B/W games have continued trending way up, and (some, I guess) brand new games (e.g. Munsters) appear to be dropping quite a bit.
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:I think he's right - but CFTBL is already on the way up anyway. I'm so confused about prices lately - desirable B/W games have continued trending way up, and (some, I guess) brand new games (e.g. Munsters) appear to be dropping quite a bit.
Seems a lot of people in middle to late 40 years of age that played pinball as teenagers, when it was hot, are now settled and financial better than ever before, are now buying these pins from the 80s and 90s (the good ol’ days) bringing a higher demand
Quoted from Green-Machine:Seems a lot of people in middle to late 40 years of age that played pinball as teenagers, when it was hot are now settled and financial better than ever before are buying these pins from the 80s and 90s bringing a higher demand
I'm sure you're right - makes total sense. That pretty much describes me. But it doesn't explain as much why new games aren't holding their value
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:I'm sure you're right - makes total sense. That pretty much describes me. But it doesn't explain as much why new games aren't holding their value
Describes me as well I think some of the new games have just turned out badly. I feel that some new games were rushed leaving the gameplay feeling a little flat.
I liked Munsters at first but I got really bored with it fast.
Just like an good looking car that will get you from point A to point B as well as an undesirable styled car of same showroom price but has a lower resale because it’s ugly.
Maybe 
Most of the games today don't hold a candle to the great gsmes of the 90s. Couple that with the 90s games have a finite and dwindling supply. The newer games non-le, for the most part, have an unlimited supply...just call up your distributor and order one.
Quoted from Green-Machine:Just like an good looking car that will get you from point A to point B as well as an undesirable styled car of same showroom price but has a lower resale because it’s ugly.
Maybe
LOL I first read that as “fugly” which I have not seen in quite a while. And still haven’t, as it were
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:LOL I first read that as “fugly” which I have not seen in quite a while. And still haven’t, as it were
Ha!!Ha!!
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