Visual Pinball

infobox software
name = Visual Pinball


caption = Visual Pinball rendition of Bally's "Fireball" (1972)
developer = Randy Davis
latest_release_version = 8.1
latest_release_date = November 7 2007
operating_system = Microsoft Windows
genre = Pinball
license = Freeware
website = http://www.vpforums.com/

Visual Pinball is an editor program and game engine recreation program that allows users to create and play 3D computer simulations of pinball machines on a personal computer. Its ability to import external sounds and images allows pinball players to play renditions of real pinball machines.

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). " [http://www.digitalpostproduction.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=15842 Visual Pinball: Build Your Own Pinball Machine] "] This allows Visual Pinball to run on Windows operating systems Windows 98 or newer.

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. " [http://www.retroblast.com/misc/vp_ultracade.html Ultracade Licenses Visual Pinball] "] 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 " [http://web.archive.org/web/20060427091026/www.ultracade.com/press/145/global-vr-to-purchase-ultracade-technologies Global VR to Purchase UltraCade Technologies] "] , and is currently in location test.

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.

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. " [http://www.retroblast.com/misc/vp_ultracade.html Ultracade Licenses Visual Pinball] "] 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 " [http://web.archive.org/web/20060427091026/www.ultracade.com/press/145/global-vr-to-purchase-ultracade-technologies Global VR to Purchase UltraCade Technologies] "] , and is currently in location test.

References

External links

* [http://pinmame.retrogames.com pinmame.retrogames.com - Official Visual PinMAME website]
* [http://irpinball.ztnet.com/ irpinball.ztnet.com - Collection of free downloads for Visual Pinball]
* [http://www.vpforums.com/ Visual Pinball Forums - Complete Pinball Discussion]