Haha thanks! It has a few details to be added and will be painted of course, with clear prints behind the windows .. hoping to get a candle effect with lighting, super excited to see it lit up and some effects when the ball comes thru. Pleased with how it turned out though.. huge improvement over the cardboard one I was using before

When I was looking for pictures of it to model off of, I came across a site where they talked about how they built this house for the movie ground up- in new condition. Then they aged it. Pretty crazy, I always thought it was just some shithole they found when site scoping for scenes.

thanks, yep! I recently picked some up for TWD. The nice thing about the FAST LED's (or any RGB style) is that I can make a light show for the flickering effect, and then still be able to play other colored shows on the same bulb - which is the plan here. Flickering normally, and then flash a cool show on them when the ball is traveling thru the house, or when the house scoop shot is open.

Long time since I have posted. Not a loss of time though.. I have been working thru a lot of audio files. I pulled everything I could use from the soundtrack, which meant using Audacity to record sections and chop up stuff.. get it so each music track can loop correctly on beat. I think I have about 25-30 audio Music tracks now. The 3 balls are split into random pools of 5 "songs" for each ball -- so you never get the same song for a ball or for a complete game. How many combinations does that make? Been a while since I've done that math lol.. I think if you multiply 1/5 * 1/5 * 1/5 you get the chances of having the same single combination.. which is less than 1%. Is there 125 combinations? I also have "intro" music for every track, for when the ball hits the shooter lane. It loops while the ball sits there, and the main music kicks in when you shoot the ball.

Got a lot of sound effects starting to be implemented, and some quotes. I have most of the movie to still go thru minute by minute to pull quotes. It's tedious, I'll be honest. But it's really cool to hear them played back while in a game.

Implemented attract flipper press quotes.
Implemented a sound/light show for when you start a game (canceled by pressing both flippers)
1 mode is partially done.. I am having some mechanical difficulties.
Added lane change for the soap lanes (by pop bumpers) and awards for completion.
Other random code stuff..

Also had some fun - I had an idea for the shadow diverter. This diverts to the group lock. The idea is that you collect 4 groups (ramp shots), and it diverts for a lock. then 4 more groups and it diverts for the 2nd lock. Plan is to model a church that will sit over the locks (like the church that the narrator goes to for meditation).. this starts meditation multiball.

For now, here's a shot of this clipboard I made that screws into the diverter.
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thanks toyotaboy -- appreciate that!

Wish I had more to share.. once I get all the music loaded in and a few more things done I will try and do a video with a mic on the speakers and put it together and post to show some progress. Code progress is kind of boring otherwise, just to talk about. I guess it's nice to be at a point of showing progress video though.

Thanks ChipScott !!

I got a couple more switches connected today, and troubleshot some lighting issues. I’ve spent too much time on this clipboard now though, lol — it was supposed to be simple but I’ve got some crazy lighting ideas. Each shot on the left loop lights a group room#. 4 shots and it diverts right to lock a ball. 4 more shots to left (it will release each locked ball when another comes thru) and then you lock the 2nd ball for multiball. Gotta update the 3D model to accommodate the lighting

‘ groups’ is lit as well, but I need to print the clear lettering to diffuse the light

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Clipboard is working. Working on an attract show for it. Filming led lights is tough though, but the concept is there.

Just read back thru this entire blog, what a trip down memory lane! I had completely forgotten about some things I tried that I removed or didn't work, my initial concept when I was deciding on a layout, and I was reminded of some great suggestions along the way that I STILL need to implement! My biggest take away from re-reading, was how many times I stated something to the effect of "not as much progress as I wanted to make today" or "xxx is realllly slow-going". Hahaha I had no idea that I had stated that so many times. But truly, it gets to the core of this whole project. And it should be obvious by now, given how long this has taken (even subtracting an 8 month hiatus), so I will try to remember to stop stating the obvious.

Friday I should time to get the orbit gates working correctly for franchise cities, and if that goes OK I may revamp the music sound pools to get the rest of the tracks in for the 3 balls so the ones I have in don't get too old. OR something else completely may happen.. never know. I have a "primary action items" list that I keep checking stuff off, but things keep getting added faster lol

Also, I wanted to relink to this, which I stumbled upon mid thread and had also forgotten about. This is fight club GOLD:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a88tvv4b2p8ybz0/pinball_popcorn_pinball_fight_club_final_6.28.17.mp3

Widened the left orbit shot last night, and today worked on getting these controlled gates working correctly.

Did a progress update, realized I left a few things out after I did it... cover them next time. A few sounds and shows are placeholders. If you just want to see a little gameplay skip to 3:30.

Lol- thanks! Ironically that video, I only hit 1 main ramp I think but managed to loop the side ikea ramp which has always been a concern. Producing this would unfortunately not make sense though, at least as-is if I finish it with full lower playfield. I’ll just be happy to one day maybe finish this one-off

Yep, definitely been discussed. My thought was to include it on the ‘adult’ settings

This time I added and nothing broke.. yet.

IKEA building. Collect ikea letters (each letter lights on a loop) for ikea frenzy. The 4 lights to the right are for tracking scenes. I will print something to go here on final version, naming scenes.

Ramp lighting and skyscraper lighting added. I had to map out what’s left cause I’m cutting it super close on the 256 lights- 42 or so are getting sent to lower playfield.

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Wrapping up some work on the house today. I was going to hand paint the final version with a brush to age it, but I'm starting to wonder if it would be better to find someone to airbrush it.. I may see what I can do vs. price to have that done. I've got 5 lights in the house, with a 6th that shines down over the "porch" scoop. Lights are wired now, so I'm just waiting to get the windows designed and printed. Getting excited to see it lit up.

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time to print some windows

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I may still reach out then, that sounds encouraging. I was thinking about using Fiver or something but local could be better. What I really want to do is send it to Bas from the Pinball Amigos, he is amazing at airbrushing

thanks -- I appreciate that! That shot is for sure one of my favorites. Probably satisfying partially because it's so hard to dial in and hit.. but a double loop is a lot of fun.

It was at the northwest show before Covid. My plan is to bring it next year again — Requirement (self set) being that it’s in a cab. That means a lot of work in the next 14 months. We’ll see. As far as other shows, probably nothing farther than California if it does travel. First things first though, gotta finish it in that regard—

House lighting works pretty good.

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Just have to not think about it until that time comes lol. I think art will go faster than coding, and all the physical tweaks. If you’ve got an accurate 2d cad model image, Inkscape should suffice I think for art and it’s not too bad to use.

Fun idea— I’d tear down the top side, take a bunch of measurements and throw those into fusion. 3D modeling and fusion were a Hangup for me but I got a big nudge in that direction and am so glad.. it’s made so much more possible and wasn’t that bad to learn in the end.

you need to export it out, probably as a dxf or image. Then import into something like inkscape, or another graphics program to do the art portion after ensuring it imported correctly dimension-wise. The print won't be from an .STL. You'd have to check with whatever printshop you use, but I am guessing there's several formats they'd accept that would be possible to save in from any graphics program.

Today just a tip for anyone working on a homebrew or thinking about it —

I moved 5 lights on a string to a different place, and subsequently renamed them because old names in the new location just made no sense and would cause me headaches down the road. However, like with any code if you do this you’re risking ‘bugs’ if those old names are referenced anywhere else. In this case a bug means mpf won’t load. I knew this would happen.. but renaming trumped the pain of going thru code removing all old references.

And so the tip here — don’t make a bunch of light shows until you’re 95% sure you’ve got the light positions and names worked out. 100% is better. Learning as I go though.