Thanks thewool.
The video does not have much quality, it also seems to me that the body of the creature is trimmed by low, and on the sides the claws are also trimmed when the creature rotates.

I have mounted the video in Premiere, slowing down and creating a loop to last longer. Maybe I can improve a bit by modifying the contrast to hide the greenish background of the image, but I don't think I can get much better.

 
In this test, I have improved brightness and contrast, but it is not possible to do much more. I need an original video of better quality, and do not cut the image from the sides and the bottom.

I can mount this video for the kit, as an alternative, and if someone wants to use it, they will only have to change one parameter of the configuration to enable it and disable the other.

Now that I see it better, it is not so bad, once adjusted brightness and contrast. With some additional adjustment, it may improve a bit.

 
I already have all the videos for the first version of the kit, the graphic designer sent them to me today.

We've only had to deal with some modifications in the bubble video, to add several scenes from the movie. In the version he sent to me, only fixed color images of characters from the board and some frame of the film were coming out, but there were no moving scenes, we added 4 scenes with close-ups of the girl and one of the Creature.

I am assembling the kit boards to try everything.

The videos of the Creature and the Bubbles will be the only ones configurable by the user. In the video of the Creature the user can enable or disable the UFO and the text "Creature Found", and in the video of the Bubbles the characters and scenes of the bubbles can be enabled or disabled.

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Final version of the bubbles video. It will be available with bubbles that show characters and movie scenes and without those bubbles. The user can choose with a parameter available in the product configuration file.

The graphic designer is already working on new videos for the hologram kit. The first phase of design has been the most complicated because the illustrations have had to be created and vectorized, from now on it will be faster. My idea is to continue with the videos for the Jackpot, Super Jackpot and Extra Ball, as well as some animation of the SnackBar food.

I have been thinking about the matter of sound, for a future update, and I will offer as an optional extra a cable (attached image), which connects the audio output of the Raspberry to the line input of the pinball sound board (the original sound board).

On the other hand, once the controller board that captures all the pinball signals for the Creature kit is finished, I am also thinking of making the mod for the AC/DC. With minor modifications to the design of my controller board, I can connect to the Stern SAM CPU so that I can also make an interactive kit that shows videos according to the status of those signals, such as showing videos of the concerts based on the song that is playing on the game (I have counted 12 songs in the lamp matrix) and other videos according to other signals. I have asked a friend who has the AC/DC to take measures of the "ROCKING BAND ASSEMBLY" to be able to design the support and choose the type and size of the screen. My design does not need to patch the pinball ROM.

But for now, let's definitely finish the Hologram kit before starting another design. The idea will be to offer a universal interactive system that triggers videos, so that it can be used on any Bally/Williams, Stern SAM and Stern WhiteStar, with several sizes of screens and acrylic supports for the game board and even for interactive toppers.
 
 

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Preparing new videos, today I have been meeting with the graphic designer dealing with the video of the Auto cinema and that of the Boxing Video Mode. We have also solved some details about the right and left ramp shooting video, and the SnackBar food animations video.

The design order of the new videos is that of Cola animation, followed by that of the Extra Ball and the Jackpot.

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I was also preparing the assembly of the Kit boards on my Pick and Place machine. These boards are manufactured in panels of 4 units for faster assembly. This paneling requires special preparation, however after a few tests everything is ready to mount them in quantity, quickly and with the highest quality.

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The time it may take depends on whether the components I am going to use are already installed on the machine, and if they are already configured.

Normally, the designs I make share many components between them that I already have configured and installed, so I copy a project that I already had designed and with a few changes I have the new one.

In these boards for the hologram kit, I have also used the panel for the first time, which is to have several boards in one panel, so it is assembled faster, in this case they are panels that have 4 boards each. It may have taken about 20 minutes to configure the machine for this new board, this only has to be done once, because that configuration is saved and I can use it again every time I will assemble the board again.

 
The assembly time depends on the quantity of components to be placed, also on the type of component because that determines the speed at which each one is placed. The machine is quite fast, but more important than speed, it is comfort. I started assembling all my boards by hand, and it was very uncomfortable to place all the components one by one by hand.

Here you can see in this video, the assembly of one of my multicolored DMDs, a DMDMK66 of 192x64. Some components such as the SD card holder (just the first component to place) and the LQFP144 microcontroller, I have programmed to put them slowly, the rest of components, capacitors, resistors and SOIC chips, places them very fast.
 

To solder THT components I use a soldering pot

  
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Video mode, hit the Peeping Tom.

 
 
Preparing the video of the animation of the Cola. It is only a first version, I have already told the graphic designer, that the background seems too simple to me, although it is necessary to see it all animated, the Cola dancing, the background with turns and the letters with several special effects.

All illustrations are vectorized for maximum quality. There is a lot of animation work, so that the Cola dance, in addition the glass liquid is also animated to give it more realism, I am waiting for a preliminary video and I publish it so that it looks like it is going.

 
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First test animating the COLA, there is still much to add to this video, animated background with special effects, animated COLA text, sound ...

We have new ideas to try, until we reach the final version. However, the animation of the COLA dancing is very good for me, especially the effect of the liquid and the straw moving in the glass is very successful.

The four SnackBar food characters will be animated in a similar way, but with different special effects and animated backgrounds, this is Cola, Ice Cream, Hotdog and Popcorn.

I am studying it with the graphic designer, to see what we do. Maybe recreate the DMD scene, but in color and high resolution. Also adding the texts "VIDEO MODE" and "PUNCH PEEPING TOM", with some special flickering effects and others.

 
I also thought about changing the white color of the soda, to the brown color of the cola. In addition, the designer has come up with new ideas, adding in the background the bubbles of the soda gas (with the corresponding sound), in addition to the animation of the background that we had already designed.

It is the video he is working on now, then he will animate the rest of the SnackBar's food and he starts working with the Jackpot, Superjackpot and the Extra Ball.

I am now finishing assembling all the boards of the latest designs that I made, and I want to try it all this weekend. In addition to the main board of the Kit, I have to assemble the new TEST board, the LED board to check all the signals of the Creature and two boards for the Video Bumper. I have enough work to be entertained for a while.

 
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This is the final and full list of videos that the Kit will include (a total of 24 videos), I will update it as the videos become available. The first version of the kit will only include the videos available at this time, the rest will be added and can be downloaded together with the firmware update.

All updates will be in the Github and Gitlab of the project.
https://github.com/pinballsp/Creature-HOLO-ModSP
https://gitlab.com/pinballsp/Creature-HOLO-ModSP

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Can you make a video of what the DMD shows when Multiball Restart is enabled?
I don't know what kind of video we could create for that animation, I would need to see what is displayed on the DMD, to have ideas to start from.

 
Thanks, I will deal with the graphic designer to see what we can do.

 
I have never tried Mike's kit and I don't know how much delay you mean, but the used video player, which should probably be the omxplayer in Mike's kit, is only about 1 second late in triggering the videos. A longer delay is no longer related to the video player.

Given that Mike's kit is based solely on the state of the game board lamps, that could explain greater delays. It is not a good tactic to use only the status of the lamps, because many of them flash, and there are even events that produce a sequential turn on of all or almost all the lamps on the game board, without having any relation to game events . Discriminating all that is complicated if we don't also read the state of the game board switches, as my kit does, that could explain greater delays in triggering the videos.

Another simple way to discriminate the confusing signals of the lamps, is to do it by the sounds, but in that case it is much more limited to be able to trigger events, although it is easier to program.

How much delay have you noticed in Mike's kit, for the triggering of the videos?

 
Thanks for the info.
Yes, it could happen that the triggering of some videos comes into conflict because signals are given at the same time to trigger several of them, and the program must have a priority programmed to work correctly.

Although doing so only with the state of the lamps further complicates matters, the state of the switches can help a lot to really determine which video should be triggered when the lamps come into conflict by triggering several videos at the same time according to their status.

 
I can't give you a precise date, if there are no unforeseen events I can open the order list in a couple of weeks. I have not calculated the price yet, but I plan to offer two packages with different prices, one basic with the videos marked in the graphic that I put (basic package), and another with the 24 videos (Full package). I will also offer as optional extras, the SD card configured with default values, USB memory and audio cable.

I can also offer the product without some of its components, such as the Raspberry and/or the HDMI cable, so if someone already has them, can save the cost of those components.

Thanks for the information Mike.

In my Kit, I don't use the Raspberry to read the pinball signals, I made a first version that did work that way, but I decided to change it. My final design uses a microcontroller to read and capture all the signals, the Raspberry is only used to play videos, both communicate by serial port so that the microcontroller sent a command to the Raspberry with the number of video to play.

I understand the priorities, and the conflicts between the triggering of videos that may occur at the same time. It is something that I will be programming as I release new videos. With the current videos the triggering is simple to program and does not generate conflicts, as I add videos the situation will be complicated, and I will decide with each new video.

 
I have been dealing with the designer about the scene for Video Mode. We are going to rethink it, we leave the boxing scene, and we will do it by recreating the initial DMD scene, with the car, the boy, the girl and the peeping tom, in addition to large texts with several effects, which indicate VIDEO MODE and PUNCH THE PEEPING TOM.

After looking for images of cars from the 40s and 50s, we will do it with a Chevrolet Master Deluxe. However, we have to vectorize the car, because it would not be good to mix real photos with drawings.

I have a few ideas, which almost give to create an animated movie, to see if we can also put the luminous poster of the Auto cinema, there will be a work of art. Although the graphic designer is quite busy with my new ideas that involves creating illustrations, vectorizing and assembling a story board before reaching the final video.

As some videos are complex and the cost is increased by the work of the graphic designer, I have decided to create two or maybe three packages when offering the product. Thus there will be a basic package with the essential videos (as I indicated in the table of videos that I posted previously), and one or two more packages with the rest of the videos. Each package with a different price, BASIC, MEDIUM and ADVANCED. The hardware will always be the same, only the amount of videos included will vary.

As for the COLA video, it is almost finished, I will show it shortly.

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A new proposal for the video of the Cola. The red and white bands of the backgound move vertically and horizontally, bubbles that simulate the Cola gas are added.

However, I have already told the graphic designer, to try to use the same colors that are seen on the game board, in this case, light blue, pink and violet, so that the animation is better related to the game.

It is still a test, it is not the final version of this video, we are testing ideas.
 

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And this will probably be the final version, some bubbles of the drink gas are added, the rays of the background will be animated and also the letters of the COLA text. The designer tells me that he is going to make an animation so that the letter O of the word COLA, pretends to be one of the gas bubbles that goes up and joins the rest of the bubbles, although until I see the video I don't know exactly what is going to do.

In any case, visually it will look like the attached photos. In one, bubbles come out all over the background, in the other only over the glass of cola.

We are going to finish this video, because as I told the graphic designer, it is not convenient to get so stuck with a video, we must continue with the rest of the videos to finish the 24 videos of the full package as soon as possible. Both the designer and I have many ideas during the development of the videos, many things are tested but finally discarded, until reaching the final result.
 
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