Future Pinball Screenshot

[Gingerdilligaf]

Just wondered if anyone else has a problem taking in game screenshots of future pinball tables?It seems to work with other platforms but just not this one. Any answers would be appreciated.

[sundogak]

FP tends to take exclusive control of the screen which can create some issues with other programs. If you use BAM there is an embedded screen capture tool that will screen snap each active screen (i.e., desktop and backglass). The Nvidia GeForce Experience (video and images) screen cap option also worked when I didn't have BAM installed.  

Edited March 3, 2022 by sundogak
added link

[Gingerdilligaf]

I've found that if I hit the windows key & print screen the screenshot saves to the BAM folder. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[Gingerdilligaf]

On another note...Is there an easy way to record video snaps?

[JoeViking245]

28 minutes ago, Gingerdilligaf said:

On another note...Is there an easy way to record video snaps?

[sundogak]

11 hours ago, Gingerdilligaf said:

On another note...Is there an easy way to record video snaps?

Beyond OBS, if you have Nvidia card can use GeForce Experience screen recorder. That is what I used for Future Pinball some time back before OBS integration in LB.  But won't have any edit ability with GeForce. 

If using Visual Pinball, then JoeViking245 made a cool plugin that takes most of the work out of process and prefer it over the OBS way of things.  

 

[Gingerdilligaf]

OK

Thanks for all the help. I've set up  obs & will Test it over the weekend. I have an nvidia card aswell so I can Test that & see which I prefer. I've got the screenshot working so that's a start 👍

[Gingerdilligaf]

37 minutes ago, sundogak said:

Beyond OBS, if you have Nvidia card can use GeForce Experience screen recorder. That is what I used for Future Pinball some time back before OBS integration in LB.  But won't have any edit ability with GeForce. 

If using Visual Pinball, then JoeViking245 made a cool plugin that takes most of the work out of process and prefer it over the OBS way of things.  

 

Once I have future pinball setup neat & tidy I'm going to make a start on visual pinball. At the moment I have a few vp9 tables in a folder & vpx tables in another folder. Is it worth setting up a vp9 platform separate to a vpx platform or just stick with vpx & forget about the other? I've read that you can't run vpx tables through vp9 & vice versa?

[sundogak]

I stuck with VPX initially simply to keep the time suck (somewhat) under control. There were a few tables I had installed later on that were VP9 (Apollo 13) but those were eventually ported over to VPX and at moment I have no VP9 tables. You cannot run VPX tables in VP9 but thought someone mentioned you could run some VP9 directly in VPX, but I never bothered to try.  If you use the "all in one installers" (highly recommend if starting out) for VPX they come with the VP9 executables.  I just set up VP9 and VPX in LB as separate emulators.

Pinball setups (particularly when get to media) are not quick and dirty like many of the other platforms. I initially started with Future Pinball and added VPX later when got a handle on all the pieces and parts (B2s backglass, PinMAME DMD, etc).  There are a couple threads here on how to setup things for those two platforms.  The main thing that got me rolling was when (contrary to FP and VPX setup guides which say things will melt if you do it) I found you can put tables in their own folders for both VPX and Future Pinball (including their main parts) as shown below for FP table. This keeps the file management under control, particularly when upgrading a table with a new version. Both VPX and FP look inside the folder where the table is located first for needed files, then to the central folders. One big exception is VPX you have to place music files in the central folder "Music", because the path is hard coded in the tables unless want to mod it.  Also, FP BAM cfg files must stay in central folder for BAM (it will autogenerate anyway).  Out of the +700 FP and +1000 VPX tables I have never had an issue of them running properly in folders.

Also stick with consistent naming convention to make media a bit easier.  Most "media packs" will have the format of "Attack from Mars (Bally 1995) or Attack from Mars (Bally)(1995)".   LB ignores things in parenthesis so if your table is named "Attack from Mars" then it will auto pickup that media. The other is deciding how many versions of tables do you want to deal with.  I typically try to keep one version of table and for a few keep a couple mods if they look good/different than the main.  Otherwise, you go crazy with all the different versions.  

 

Edited March 4, 2022 by sundogak

[Johnny T]

5 hours ago, Gingerdilligaf said:

Once I have future pinball setup neat & tidy I'm going to make a start on visual pinball. At the moment I have a few vp9 tables in a folder & vpx tables in another folder. Is it worth setting up a vp9 platform separate to a vpx platform or just stick with vpx & forget about the other? I've read that you can't run vpx tables through vp9 & vice versa?

 

I'm looking at starting to set up FP next week. If you have anything that you could share that would help (media-wise) then it would be most welcome. I'm just working on Singe/Daphne at the moment and have nearly got it all sorted (created 3D boxes / marquees etc and shared these in the Downloads section last night).

For the screenshot issue - I had a problem with some of the 'classic' Daphne games that the screenshots taken through LB were coming back as just black screens. I used the option in OBS Studio under Settings -> Hotkeys -> Screenshot Output. I set this to be "F9" key. Then ran the game, pressed F9, quit the game and LB asks if I want to store my video. I say "yes" and the screenshot appears where the videos normally do (Launchbox/Videos/...) I then just dragged them into Photoshop to crop them etc.

 

4 hours ago, sundogak said:

I stuck with VPX initially simply to keep the time suck (somewhat) under control. There were a few tables I had installed later on that were VP9 (Apollo 13) but those were eventually ported over to VPX and at moment I have no VP9 tables. You cannot run VPX tables in VP9 but thought someone mentioned you could run some VP9 directly in VPX, but I never bothered to try.  If you use the "all in one installers" (highly recommend if starting out) for VPX they come with the VP9 executables.  I just set up VP9 and VPX in LB as separate emulators.

Pinball setups (particularly when get to media) are not quick and dirty like many of the other platforms. I initially started with Future Pinball and added VPX later when got a handle on all the pieces and parts (B2s backglass, PinMAME DMD, etc).  There are a couple threads here on how to setup things for those two platforms.  The main thing that got me rolling was when (contrary to FP and VPX setup guides which say things will melt if you do it) I found you can put tables in their own folders for both VPX and Future Pinball (including their main parts) as shown below for FP table. This keeps the file management under control, particularly when upgrading a table with a new version. Both VPX and FP look inside the folder where the table is located first for needed files, then to the central folders. One big exception is VPX you have to place music files in the central folder "Music", because the path is hard coded in the tables unless want to mod it.  Also, FP BAM cfg files must stay in central folder for BAM (it will autogenerate anyway).  Out of the +700 FP and +1000 VPX tables I have never had an issue of them running properly in folders.

Also stick with consistent naming convention to make media a bit easier.  Most "media packs" will have the format of "Attack from Mars (Bally 1995) or Attack from Mars (Bally)(1995)".   LB ignores things in parenthesis so if your table is named "Attack from Mars" then it will auto pickup that media. The other is deciding how many versions of tables do you want to deal with.  I typically try to keep one version of table and for a few keep a couple mods if they look good/different than the main.  Otherwise, you go crazy with all the different versions.  

 

 

That's great information!! I thought all the tables had to be in the /Tables folder loose and all the scripts in the /Scripts folder etc.... your system is LOADS better!!

Between various sources I've managed to glean lots of tables and pup packs etc but now need to go through and pick which ones I want to add and configure them. I know from past experience that VPX and FP aren't just a "import all" type of system. Each table needs setting up individually.

I didn't realise that LB/BB ignores parenthesis - that's great information. In the past I've written software to strip out the parenthesis from names but obviously didn't need to!!

 

 

Edited March 4, 2022 by Johnny T

[sundogak]

@Johnny TThe download section here has some media packs. 

The PinballX, VPForum, Hyperspin, and VPUniverse sites have various media as well.  PinballX has FTP for packs but only have access if subscribe (somewhat like EmuMovies).  With no consistent naming convention and the various subversions of tables the media side of things is hunt and peck.  However, clear logos, videos (esp for FP) and Tarcisco Style logos (silver round ring) can be typically found in packs. For screen snaps, I found just as easy to use snap tools when importing versus hunting around and name matching them.  

On the parenthesis (or brackets) aspect for LB (also talked about in this thread), one thing to watch with pinball is that you can get tables that have the same name but are different companies and/or years so the media import can get confused in LB:  

• Circus (Zaccaria 1977)
• Circus (Bally 1973)
• Circus (Brunswick 1980) 

LB will match any media such with "Circus" even if completely different logo.   You have to kludge it with the other two and name slightly differently in LB and manually import/adjust for those.  But there are not that many situations where pops up.  LB will also merrily rename media to LB way of things if the game edit pane is opened and modified. Highly annoying with pinball stuff.  Circus (Zaccaria 1977) media will get renamed to Circus-01 or some sequence number.  Just something to be aware particularly if using other front ends like PinballX.

Edited March 4, 2022 by sundogak

[Johnny T]

Thank you @sundogak I appreciate the info and advice. I can see I've got a bit of work in front of me!

Cheers 🙂