Visual pinball

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Visual pinball

Vpinball cover.png
Basic data

developer First Randy Davis, then various open source developers
Current  version 10.6
(October 6, 2019)
operating system Microsoft Windows
programming language C ++
category Video game engine
License Freeware for non-commercial use with source code
https://sourceforge.net/projects/vpinball/ https://vpforums.org

Visual Pinball is a video game engine for pinball tables and similar games such as: B. Pachinko machines. The software was published as freeware and consists of an editor and the simulation part . The program runs under Microsoft Windows and is also able to run together with Visual PinMAME , an emulator for ROM images from real pinball machines.

There is a great variety of user-created visual pinball games on the Internet, ranging from true-to-life replicas of existing pinball machines that mostly require their ROM images to completely custom pinball games that work without ROM images.

In February 2010 the source code of Visual Pinball was published under a license that allows free use for non-commercial purposes.

construction

Every Visual Pinball table consists of two main parts: the field design and a script that controls the gameplay. The editor uses Microsoft VBScript for programming. The game itself is programmed in C ++ with the Active Template Library for ActiveX control. Visual Pinball runs on Microsoft Windows .

history

Visual Pinball was first published on December 19, 2000 by programmer Randy Davis.

In 2005, David R. Foley bought Davis' rights to create a visual pinball machine . Chicago Gaming bought the rights to licensed Williams Electronics pinball machines. With UltraPin, the developers supported another project after it was taken over by Global VR from the previous UltraCade project, in which a video slot machine was developed, which was discontinued in 2008.

In 2008, NanoTech Entertainment acquired the rights from Davis to use and distribute Pinball Wizard, a specialty pinball video game controller. NanoTech initially also released version 9 with many improvements that had been developed between 2005 and 2008. Version 9 of Visual Pinball contains some important improvements, but not full backwards compatibility. As a result, some older games still require version 8 to run properly.

The source code of Visual Pinball was published in 2010 and has since been developed further by open source developers (starting with version 9.0.8). The latest version 10, comparable to version 9, no longer supports old games. However, these can still be loaded in order to adapt them to the new version.

Visual PinMAME

Visual PinMAME

Vpinball cover.png
Basic data

developer Steve Ellenoff, Tom Haukap, Martin Adrian, Gerrit Volkenborn and various open source developers
Current  version 3.2
(October 6, 2019)
operating system Microsoft Windows
programming language C ++ and C
category emulator
License Freeware for non-commercial use with source code
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pinmame https://www.vpforums.org/

The complete simulations of modern pinball machines (especially those made after 1992 with DMD animations) usually require the program Visual PinMAME (sometimes also called VPinMAME or VPM). As with MAME , ROM images are used to simulate the CPUs, sound chips and displays from real machines.

Visual PinMAME shows the LEDs and / or the DMD of the machines in a separate window and also provides the emulation of the integrated sound chips.

Visual PinMAME was started on March 30, 2001 by the programming team Steve Ellenoff, Tom Haukap, Martin Adrian, and Gerrit Volkenborn. The program is named after MAME , a program for emulating arcade games. Visual PinMAME runs on the basis of PinMAME, which in turn uses some parts of the MAME core. Visual PinMAME is written in C ++ .

Additional software

UltraVP (UVP) and Animated EM Backglass Solution (B2S) enable the emulation of a pinball machine back glass; from point rolls to lighting sequences.

HyperPin , PinballX , VPLauncher , VP-Man , VPFace are different front-ends for Visual Pinball that allow you to visually manage, start and switch games.

VPDisco is a DMD program for newly created tables without ROM images.

VpPlus is a set of extensions for Visual Pinball. The software includes the ability to play Visual Pinball over a network and also includes a chat function.

swell

  1. ↑ Visual Pinball at Sourceforge
  2. ↑ Visual Pinball: Build Your Own Pinball Machine from DigitalPostProduction.com
  3. ↑ UltraCade licenses Visual Pinball ( Memento June 25, 2007 on the Internet Archive ) from RetroBlast.com
  4. ↑ Global VR to Purchase UltraCade Technologies ( Memento from April 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Web links