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It's 2010, the decade of pinball! Okay, nobody has actually designated it as such, but I have to have some reason for working on maybe my favorite part of the arcade - PINBALL! This is Bobby Tribble, and I'm adding a bunch of pinball models to 3D Arcade to reflect the wide variety of pinball games out there!
How do add a pinball model to 3D Arcade?
3D Arcade handles pinball entries much like the other arcade game entries - you place a model in the arcade, and a screen and marquee is pasted into it. The only difference is that the marquee is the pinball backglass and the screen is the playfield. There is also a third "skin" graphic you'll need for the generic models. The two/three graphic files need to have the same filename, and saved to the following folders. The folders can be anywhere you like on your computer, but they do need to be set in 3D Arcade's configuration file: cfgemulatorsfepinball.cfgPLAYFIELDS (corresponds to SSHOT)
BACKGLASSES (corresponds to MARQUEES)
SKINS (corresponds to GENERICMODELSART)
Standalone pinball models
Some pinball models are unique "one-off" standalone models. These games are not handled like the generic cabinets. In other words, they don't use a skin. They are one-of-a-kind usually because of a special topper or plunger. They only require the backglass and playfield graphics. The download will include the W3D model (512x512), along with the playfield and backglass graphics, and a "readme" text file. Treat them just like the usual arcade model, but put the backglass and playfield graphics in the folders you set above.
Generic pinball models
Groups of pinball games often have the same cabinet, with the only difference being different cabinet artwork. In 3D Arcade, these games can share the same "generic" W3D model. You need to download this generic model, and then the game graphics to apply onto it. These "skin" downloads include the playfield, backglass, and skin (512x512). I've named the graphics so that they will be easy to match with the corresponding W3D model. For example, the "pinball_williams_80s_b_cyclone.png" graphics correspond to the "pinball_williams_80s_b_cyclone.w3d" model. So that you can copy & paste into your "cfg/lists/*.ATF" gamelist, an example gamelist entry will be included in the "readme" text for these downloads. This is the usual layout for the gamelist entry:|GAMENAME|VPTFILENAME|YEAR|COMPANY|SKINNAME||VPinMame||Yes|pinball|pinball|W3DMODELNAME||y|||||||||||||||||||||||
or for an actual example:
|Cyclone|Cyclone (Williams 1981) 0.94bx.vpt|1981|Williams Electronics Inc.|pinball_williams_80s_b_cyclone||VPinMame|Sweetser, AJ, Destruk, Cat-Mando, MacGoo2|Yes|pinball|pinball|pinball_williams_80s_b||y|||||||||||||||||||||||The important things to note in the above example are the VPTFILENAME - this is the Visual Pinball file you're launching! You will likely need to rename it to match filename you have. It should be fine to include the ".vpt" extension, as in the above example. The next important field is SKINNAME - this is the name of the .png graphics. Finally, W3DMODELNAME is the name of the "generic" W3D model that the graphics will be applied to.
pinball_bally_90s
SKINS:
Creature From the Black Lagoon (Dec 25 2009) by btribble
pinball_bally_90s_wide
SKINS:
Twilight Zone (Dec 25 2009) by btribble
pinball_gottlieb_80s_wide_sty2
SKINS:
Amazing Spider-Man (Dec 25 2009) by btribble
MORE INFO ON TABLES:
Bally 90s (pinball_bally_90s)
Download source
Bally 90s widebody (pinball_bally_90s_wide)
Download source
Gottlieb 80s widebody style 2 (pinball_gottlieb_80s_wide_sty2)
Download source
Please feel free to send me a message (btribble at the 3D Arcade forum) if you have any questions - I've tried to make this as straightforward as possible, but just because it makes sense to me doesn't guarantee that anyone else will understand what I'm talking about here!Also let me know if you make your own skins! I'll keep them at this page, and if there are too many I'll figure out a better way to organize them. Anyhow, keep in mind that each generic W3D model has its own unique skin layout, which is different from the generic pinball layout. There is a new magicpixel layout, which is similar to the "old" magicpixel layout, but with a few additions. I also tried to make the W3D model naming scheme straightforward and consistent. I've laid out the details at the text file below:
3DARCADEPINBALL2010.TXTHave fun!
BobbyFrom 3D Arcade. Post here.
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