Would only suggest a possible vote type pole. Love your honest business sense and commitment but seeing that Other mod (concept) continue to develop for three years I personally would Much prefer a variation of the MikeD. That direction was an added value for missing (broken) Creech features the In Process design is a long drawn out video which completed overpowers the game and theme. Really hope you consider making your (MikeD) version personally.

This is what you can do with TILT!Audio board for quite some time. It reads the audio commands from the bus for obvious reasons. And - as a side effect - you can control video playback (or shakers, LEDs etc). I published this in another thread some time ago ...
My latest development uses the same PI on the board also for video playback, so all you need to do is connecting your lcd panel and put some trigger commands and videos onto your sd card.

CPU Rom Version 5.0

https://mattsbasementarcade.com/product/creature-from-the-black-lagoon-pinball-cpu-rom-l-4-u6-bally-williams/

Agree. This is the version I prefer as well. Lots of nice animations from SP, but for me less is more on this mod..

I have made an analysis of the WPC lamp matrix operation. Which also serves as documentation for how the older games run after they are updated to Procedure 2. And that they run identically to the later Williams WPC games.

https://dotsandloopspinball.com/lampmatrix/

I hope this will aid and inspire to update this mod to run stable on all revisions of CFTBL.

Hi,
I have been following this since the start and it is one of my favorite threads. With regard to the latest technical discussions I have come to believe that the firmware implementation is going to be a nightmare (I am a software and firmware engineer for realtime systems); why?

1. By using an interpretation from the lamp matrix you will have to perfectly recreate the game logic. This is no small task, and any error will send the interpretation down the wrong path so that the incorrect videos will be played, or not played.

2. Any missed lamp signal will send the interpretation down the wrong path so that the incorrect videos will be played, or not played. Looking at https://dotsandloopspinball.com/lampmatrix/ it would seem that accurately using the lamps signals can be problematic.

3. How does this solution deal with how the Creature has been configurated? For example, level of difficultly, award configuration, number of balls, etc. Would this solution not need to know how the game has been configured to accurately recreate the game logic? For example when do you award an extra ball or a game credit.

I would love to see this work and will continue following.

If you have the chance to look at the mikeD mod you’ll see how this mod will eventually work, or not. The OP is mediocre at Hardware design but a complete mess when it comes to coding so I assume he will use parts or the complete code of mikes mod, unfortunately.

Compy’s approach of reading the sound commands is a much more precise method of playing the correct video as the machine literally “tells” you what’s going on

I suggest anyone with a sense of business should release his/her own creech mod as this one will probably never reach a reliably working state. Compy *hinthint*

Patience...

Ok almost 3 hours have passed since your post...... and now????

Always great to check in on the progress of my favorite, non-existent mod. And I mean that sincerely, hopeful that it will happen someday!

LOL!

I’ve noticed the same... he’s a rare bird for sure. The community needs more folks like him.

It was a patience joke at Rdoyle!

mister humorless

WOW! Thanks for chiming in! That makes total sense!

Depends what approach you choose and how sophisticated the video playback must be. Listening to sound commands is "easy" if you hook the wpc bus with something fast enough, grabbing the switch matrix also works reliable on WPC. I did that with an arduino already here https://pinball-mods.de/2015/08/27/general-illumination-durch-rgb-leds-ersetzen/ and it was even improved here: https://www.flippermarkt.de/community/forum/threads/general-illumination-auf-rgb-umgebaut.160407/page-3#post-1796260

Grabbing the controlled lamps could be a challenge from what I read, but I never did it on a real machine.

But combining sound and a few switches should be enough to do a nice video playback.

And the hits from 2020 just keep on coming....

"PinballSP is so close to launching" I still giggle every time i read this

Compy pinballSP would shit on you in a second if given the chance! Don't let him waste your development costs/time. Release your mod let your buyers decide if they want to wait years for the dodgy pinballSP mod or buy what is probably a much better engineered version.

Agreed. You could buy his vids and put this mod out next month and have a ton of buyers. This guy is busy whaking his pee pee or whatever and will never get it done. If he hasnt produced it in 3 years he aint gonna produce it.

I wish you guys that keep crapping on this mod would just walk away and let it go. If it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. The constant complaining is repetitive and a real drag. Pinball is supposed to be fun!

Won't be fun when you buy a substandard product that does not work correctly and has little to no support and half of its features are missing and are promised to come soon (and never will) History has a funny thing of repeating it self (like we do )

I love pinball and hate seeing pinball people taken advantage of by (some)greedy mod makers selling expensive junk.

I think this point is well made Russ over the past weeks/months. If this mod is released, people are well warned about what they are getting into. It just gets tired reading it over and over.

For example, I commented that the mod looked cool, and had a random bloke messaging me bitching about why i should not buy it. Maybe he just cared but he came off as a tad obsessive.

Bah i'm draining this shit show, some one PM me if it ever ships!

Yes but now he is causing someone else to NOT make one that will work.

Yes, but how many times do you need to say this? 20? 50? I actually appreciated the history and warnings at first, it was good info, we get it, we've all been warned. There is no point in repeating the exact same point again and again, as if it will change the outcome. Let's see if the mod actually gets completed, then have a discussion about it's merits and downsides.

Because people keep popping into this thread and posting “WOW, I can’t wait for this! Sign me up!” who haven’t read any of the stuff in the middle. It’s not all about *you*.

—Donnie

A quick search, the last person saying "sign me up" was me 11 months ago ... and yes I've got the point you and others have been stating.

Fine. Doesn't mean someone might not come along tomorrow and it doesn't mean everyone interested is going to post, either. People come and go from the hobby...not everyone who owns a Creature has seen this thread, but that doesn't mean they won't. You can police the police all you want, but the police ain't going away.

--Donnie

Sign me up!

Wow what a cool mod. Can’t wait to buy it. Sure hope there aren’t some unforeseen problems that someone could have warned me about if I only knew how to read. Oh well. Glad no one is getting all worked up about things that haven’t even happened yet.

WTF?!? You get moderated to say you're ignoring a thread or poster. I fail to understand how that is an issue.

I had this happen to me in the rainbow puke thread. I guess you’re not allowed to say such things....not sure why....

It's the "Quietly ride off into the sunset rule". I don't know what the harm is either, but when we ignore/drain a thread or a poster we are supposed to quietly ride off into the sunset with no announcement, fanfare, or drama. I'm sure there's probably a decent reason, like Robin and the mods don't want a bunch of threads clogged with multiple "I'm angry and taking my toys and going home" posts. At least that's my guess.

I had it happen in another thread too. Kinda pissed me off. I don’t see how it hurts anyone (especially on Pinside).

Do you really think Robin sees these?

I have no idea, but someone who cares must.

Bull. Pinside doesn't allow "broken records". Why are you worried about someone that can't be bothered to look back and read the same thing on every page?

=I think its all what the mods think is ok or not

Come on guys admit it, this thread was more fun with me in it

This time waster is keeping Compy from making his version. This is what has been bothering me all along, people generally don't want to interfere and step on others toes so they don't make their version. More than 3 years wasted.

I say lets all just table this for now and check back in three more years. See you guys in December 2023.

a week ago from his fb page...

The final changes to the final product that was final some final time ago.

Oh and needing parts... because you know... why not again...

But he spent time fixing for sorens rom... instead of working on shipping things

—-
HolomodSP, Hologram kit for Creature.

Since the previous video I've been working to make the product compatible with Soren's new ROM Rev 5.

When I posted the last video the product was already fully finished, tested and working on Rom L-4, the last one Bally / Williams made in the 90. s. Unfortunately a new official Rom has been presented, and I had to work about the firwmare to make it work.

This new Rom, modifies the management of the lamp matrix, among other things, and it didn't work well with my firmware, for handling quite different signals from Rom L-4.

As of today the modified firmware is already and supports both Roms, L-4 and Rev 5. I have also been playing on the machine to prepare several videos where you can see the product at stake, I will not find it easy to trigger all the videos because I'm not an experienced player, in the tests I've been doing I managed to download the videos of Cola, Hotdog, IceCream, PopCorn, SnakBar, Kiss, Paid and sometimes the Move Your Car. I think it will serve to see how the videos interact, the times between them, although this could be user configurable.

Last week I received the final plates, yes, I had yet to make some changes to electronics, I think it's the third or fourth version I do, but this is already the final one, it's tested and works well, so the ordered in quantity and panelized.

They are 30 panels, each with 4 plates, to be able to manufacture 120 kits. First batch will be 20 units which are the screens I have here. Delivery time for first batch, 1 to 2 weeks, and for second batch 2 to 4 weeks (to be confirmed with screens supplier).

Final prices will be posted next week, will be a little more expensive because some components have grown up. For example, screens are now between 50 % and 100 % more expensive, it's been the most expensive thing due to the pandemic.

What's left of the week I'm too busy putting plates together for a customer and I don't think I can spend more time on the product.

Next week apart from announcing the ultimate prices, I think I might already start accepting orders, I have all the materials to assemble the plates for the first 20 kits.

Leaving some images of the tests on the machine with the latest video from the Cave, and the panelized plates to mount the kit.
—-

I believe its ready when I see gameplay videos from a real pin.

My take on the FB post was hardware is complete? but prices have gone up (shipping is quite expensive from china now so i can sort of believe this) But I really don't think the software side is complete or no where near as polished as people would like or expect, i'm guessing it detects a trigger via the lamps then plays a video. I don't think much thought has been put into the queuing logic / system which is really important in this game. More so it sounds like most of it might be in some sort of config so all you users can spend hours setting that up

I still stand by my original thoughts and comments I don't think this will ship any time soon and when it does its not going to play right at all. But as we all know this is pinball and people have more money then sense and will just blindly throw money at it so he wont have no problem selling out. It is a shame Compy is holding back on his version though as that sounds like it is actually well made and would function correctly from what we have seen from his previous products and the customer support is fantastic! where with pinballSP you usually get lucky1 answering his support issues on here LOL (which is really weird haha)

We shall see though.

And for the 3d time? in this thread
MERRY CHRISTMAS

Think there was some mention (some time ago) of having a priority system as to which clips would be played based on what switches were hit and a timer meant that the current clip would play for a minimum length of time before being replaced ... although I'm not aware that this has ever been shown working.

I thinking about it Compy mod approach is to read the audio requests being sent from the CPU board, so WMS have already prioritised what sound clips should be played when multiple events are triggered and for how long it can play before being replaced by another sound clip - the decision making is already done and this way any mod video content is in sync with the audio clips (and potentially the DMD animations as well) and makes for a far simpler mod.

The only advantage I see of reading lamps and switches compared to the audio requests, is where the same sound clip is played for say all 4 of the snackbar standup targets so you wouldn't be able to differentiate which target was hit to show different animations for the different targets. So guess it depends upon what the mod creators are wanting to animate.

As much as I want this I don’t think I will buy from him. I do reserve the right to change my mind however. Of it breaks or just doesn’t work you will never get this squirrel to make good. I wish the other guy would just make one. He could have it out in a few months

I'm glad it's going to work with Soren's updated ROM, that was something I and others specifically asked for.

I have a feeling there will be other options available shortly.