Visual Pinball
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Visual Pinball | |
|---|---|
 Visual Pinball rendition of Bally's Fireball (1972) |
|
| Developed by | Randy Davis |
| Latest release | 8.1 / November 7, 2007 |
| OS | Windows |
| Genre | Pinball |
| License | Freeware |
| Website | http://www.vpforums.com/ |
Visual Pinball is a complete editor program and game engine that allows users to create and play 3D renditions of pinball machines on a home computer. Its ability to import external sounds and images allows pinball players to play renditions of real pinball machines.
Contents |
[edit] Design
Every Visual Pinball table comprises two main parts: the "physical" playfield design (displayed in the editor) and the script which controls the table gameplay. The editor uses the Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting (VBScript) language for user programming, but the Visual Pinball program itself is written in C++ with ATL (which helps in making ActiveX controls). [1] This allows Visual Pinball to run on Windows operating systems Windows 98 or newer (subject to possible clashes with graphics drivers)
[edit] Visual PinMAME
Modern pinball machines (especially those made after 1992 and using DMD animations) usually require the Visual PinMAME (VPinMAME) program in order to work. VPinMAME adds to Visual Pinball's system requirements and, like other MAMEs, uses image files of the actual ROMs from the physical pinball machines, executing them as simulations of the embedded CPUs, sound chips, and displays from the physical machines.
Visual PinMAME is a program (a COM class) that works in combination with Visual Pinball (or in theory any other program that can make use of the COM class) that allows for 3-D renderings of actual pinball table designs. Specifically, Visual PinMAME is for emulating CPUs and the connected ROMs used in modern pinball tables, as opposed to tables with solid-state electronics/electro mechanical machines that contain no ROMs or advanced ICs in their hardware design. Visual PinMAME displays the LEDs and/or DMD of the machines in a separate window and also delivers emulation of the integrated sound chips. In order for Visual PinMAME to work properly with a rendered pinball table, it requires that table's ROM images. Without VPinMAME, Visual Pinball can be used to make original pinball and pinball-like games (such as pitch-and-bat baseball, pinball bingo, and pachinko).
Visual PinMAME was written by the team of programmers including Steve Ellenoff, Tom Haukap, Martin Adrian, and Gerrit Volkenborn and was started January 4, 2001. The program is named after the original MAME program for emulating arcade games. Visual PinMAME runs on top of the PinMAME software engine which again uses some parts of the MAME core. Visual PinMAME is written in C++ programming language.
[edit] History
The Visual Pinball program was first released to the public on December 19, 2000 by programmer Randy Davis.
In 2005, David Foley purchased rights from Randy Davis for modification of Visual Pinball for a full-sized pinball cabinet based on Visual Pinball software. [2] Chicago Gaming purchased rights for licensed tables from Williams Electronics. The Visual PinMAME team and Visual Pinball development community also joined in the effort to produce improvements to the Visual Pinball product and a few tables. This project, known as UltraPin, was taken over by Global VR following the collapse of Ultracade [3], and is currently in location test.
