Quoted from Wolfmarsh:that some badass software can at least make a significant dent in that gap.
Certainly true
(Topic ID: 135580)
Linked Games
Despicable Me Pinball Madness
Pinball Amigos, 2017
Topic Gallery
Gig Harbor, WA
More people getting into pinball development is good for us all. For newbies, you don't know what you don't know until you find you need know how to do something and you don't. Most are not drawn to pinball dev for the programming, but I agree, you need to step it up yourself or team up with a programmer if you want your game to be awesome!
If you can design and build a fun playfield, get a starter game going and the depth of the game is held back by your poor programming skills, well thats incentive! New people with diverse skills coming into pinball is awesome. Shoot, there are TONS of programmers out there. Metal workers... 3D modeler/designers... CAD gurus... Electrical engineers... Artists... Musicians... Workworkers... Game rule wizards... We don't want programming to be what keeps anyone away from enriching pinball.
But writing your own rad code or having a kick ass programmer on your team is critical for the long haul.
Aaron
FAST Pinball
Rotterdam
My experience is that without a clue of what python was, i could start building our minion game with fast.
They put it together from really a noob point of view, especially the part 6 that says:" adding the dmd used to be further on in the tutorial but moved it earlier in the process".
And i was thinking yes! When i read that...it is sooo motivating to see the " client connected" in your dmd.
Youfeel like a superhero at that point?!
If you learn coding playwise, you also get a good understanding of how coding works and for the future you have growing skills and a better understanding of what pyprocgameHD is and you can use that too.
I just felt so stupid and frustrated all the time starting out with pyprocgame,at one point,i literally spent an entire day with no result to show for.
Just an entire day feeling dumb.
Pyprocgame needs a tutorial,period.
Do you know anybody that wants to build a pinball that is by coincedence also a super awesome computer expert?
I know nobody with that set of skills.
Pinball builders have mech,soldering skills and basic understanding of how a pinball works...
And with mpf tutorial you learn as you go along building and that is the exact environment a lot of boutique builders want to be in.
Feel happy with your progress on your quest for awesomeness!.
All you have to do is make a request for a programmer and I can be sure you will find one. Use pinside or the P-ROC support forum. You have a great project that any programmer with a love for pinball will be happy to be apart of.
Love this thread. Not even a real fan of the movies (I do find the minions hilarious though), but I really love your spirit and what you guys are doing. Amazed at the speed you're getting this done as well! Thanks for the updates, and wanted to point these out, did you know Kinder Eggs have the minions as the theme toy these days (at least here in Switzerland)?
http://www.kinderueberraschung.de/sonderserie/die-minions
These can make nice (fairly cheap) playfield accessories (or planted all through your backbox house), while making your kids (or you) happy at the same time with all the (overly-sweet) chocolate!! Maybe you can ask all your friends to buy boxes of eggs too, and to save the minions for you... 
Quoted from pinballrockstar:...i literally spent an entire day with no result to show for. ...
Just an entire day feeling dumb.
Maybe I can chime in here with a little encouragement.
You're describing what it's like to be a professional software engineer. Sure, you might not have a lot of domain knowledge or experience that 20 years has given me, but all these years later, the difference between feeling like a rockstar and feeling like a moron is finding that one stupid problem in my code. I still have days where I literally write nothing. The key is realizing that those days aren't wasted as long as you learned something about the problem. I write a few dozen lines of working code most days in my day-job. On a good day, I might write a hundred. On a great day, I might even write a thousand. On the best days, I delete two-thousand.
Some general programming tips for people who are starting out.
+ Computers are complex, not magical. Keeping a clean mental model of how your code is supposed to work is key to knowing what might be going wrong.
+ When something goes wrong, try to scope the problem down so you can iterate quickly. If you can run your code away from your pinball hardware, even better. Control the environment as much as you can. Remove randomness.
+ Use source control - even if it's just you on the project. Git, Perforce, SVN, Bazaar, Mercurial, and many others are all free or at least free for small numbers of hobbyists. It'll help you organize and it'll save your bacon. Code history is very powerful.
+ Never skimp on your debugging facilities. Even if you can only collect console output to an SD card and review it later, make sure it's easy to record it and interpret it. It should be trivial to add a liberal amounts of output to your code with minimal typing or else you won't do it.
+ Embrace libraries and ready-made stuff - A big part of programming is just knowing what's already available.
+ Be careful of libraries and ready-made stuff - Code likes to fight with other code. Even if this shiny new thing promises to solve all your problems, you're really trading your problems for someone else's. Make sure you know it's a good trade.
+ If you find yourself contemplating using two languages in tandem, the answer is almost always "don't". 
Quoted from pinballrockstar:Feel happy with your progress on your quest for awesomeness!.
Indeed!
Quoted from pinballrockstar:Do you know anybody that wants to build a pinball that is by coincedence also a super awesome computer expert?
BTW, I have a fair amount of experience programming and would be willing to help a bit if I could. Great tips from Jweiler. Most important though is to not get discouraged. I too have lost time debugging, however, I learn something each time and it gets easier with experience.
The community is here to help! And of course once this thing is built and fully functional, we can all stop by to play a few games!
So we have the dmd attract mode working,a great step forward.
We have trouble getting the goalie motor going,how do you configure this? as a coil?
Because it ain't a coil and it ain't a flasher?
To go short,we are confused about it! anybody?
Also we decided the shooting gallery needed to be moved to an upper playfield,we had layout troubles,it will be a one flipper upper playfield like our WOZECLE.
We really like shooting the woz castle and decided to sort of copy that set up and implement our "space killers" shooting gallery.
Leicester
Quoted from pinballrockstar:We have trouble getting the goalie motor going,how do you configure this? as a coil?
configure it as a coil. you'll need to create a scriptlet to run it. basically self.machine.coil.coilname.enable to turn it on and self.machine.coil.coilname.disable to turn it off.
i can let you have my ramp lifter code which uses a motor and up and down switch to sense position if it helps.
Quoted from epotech:i can let you have my ramp lifter code which uses a motor and up and down switch to sense position if it helps.
That would be great!
We received some cool parts today, main colors will be blue and yellow on the playfield.
We decided to give the machine a somewhat dark vibe as we use gru's house as a backbox and the playfield will be a bright explosion of color and lights
Quoted from pinballrockstar:We have trouble getting the goalie motor going,how do you configure this? as a coil?
Because it ain't a coil and it ain't a flasher?
Hmm, yeah, we probably should have used a more generic name like 'driver' instead of 'coil', but yes, 'coil', is how you want to define it. 'coil' is just describing a type of feature for which you can use standard functions like (enable, pulse, disable, pwm, etc). The actual feature on the machine could be a magnet, flasher, motor, coil, etc... really anything you want to programmatically turn on/off.
BTW - I'm loving the updates. This is a really cool project!
Quote: Had my first listen today. Got thru the latest episode on my drive to and from work. Really enjoyed the show and will catch up and keep listening.
There is a show? A podcast?
Quoted from sed6:Had my first listen today. Got thru the latest episode on my drive to and from work. Really enjoyed the show and will catch up and keep listening.
I want what he's on.
We ordered real pretty inserts this week in the usa,on what planet are inches handy?
It was brutal to figure out?
30 millimeter is a lot more logic to us than 1 3/16 inch?
We ordered a lot of clear and starburst blue and yellow inserts.
Also ordered an autoplunger assembly (like cirqus voltaire),4 blue targets with corresponding blue inserts and a 1 drop target at pinball life.
We replaced the playfield board as we made a giant hole in the playfield for the old setup for the space mission ufo target building.
We figured it would be nice to mount some of our new stuff on the playfield.
It was a shock to see what we already mounted to the old prototype playfield and it took us roughly 7 hours straight.
The result is amazing though, we also made a new plywood backboard on the playfield.
Also drilled the hole for the targets on the upper playfield.
You can use the old ones if you like.
Sanding the playfield first than hammer them out.
I didn't have red ones for my project so i recycled them.
Make shure you have something just as big as the insert and hammer them out.
I didn't warm them up, just a strong 1 blow.
For the new ones sand them down first because the inserts are harder than the playfield wood so you get trouble sanding them down
Make shure the inserts don't fit exactly, you need hamer force to put them on place.
Or the get loose.
I used wood glue water proof.
There will be a time that there is not must to see, but still a lot of work.
So don't give up......... take your time.
Maybe next year together side by side on the dpo 2016. 
Great job guy's keep the update's going.
Quoted from pinballrockstar:This thing has been bugging us for a while, the machine sometimes denies to pop up a ball.
It says after the through 5 receives the ball, the playfield balls went to -1.
Anybody?
It also often registers a duplicate switch state during the game.image.jpg
You would be better off posting this in the Mission Pinball forums. Brian and Gabe, as well as the other MPF users, are less likely to see a post like this here than they would on the MPF forum.
Aaron
FAST Pinball
So that is working! Real powerful flipper on the upper playfield,working switches,and we bought a nice big toy for the playfield...MINION BOB!
We will fit a scoop assembly in his belly and we will put general illumination in his body,he lights up beautiful,we checked!
Bob is actually a nightlamp,so it will fit our machine perfectly!
The size is also perfect, we are real happy with bob.
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