This project has been moved into https://github.com/syd711/vpin-studio
VPin Extensions provides an easy generation of highscore cards for Visual Pinball tables running with VPX and PinUP Popper. The user interface allows customize the size, color, fonts and design of highscore cards, which are generated everytime a table highscore changes.
- Overview
- Installation
- Configure Highscore Overlay
- Configure Highscore Cards
- Table Overview
- Service Status
- Trouble Shooting / FAQ
This section gives a brief overview about the functionality provided by this project.
Configuration screen for highscore card generation.
Samples generated with the highscore card generator.
Additionally, the service instance provides the generation of a global highscore card which includes multiple tables. This overlay can be opend with a configurable shortcut while playing.
Configuration screen for overlay screen generation.
The Table Overview gives an overview about all tables installed in PinUP Popper and their VPin Extensions support status.
Check https://github.com/syd711/vpin-extensions/releases for latest releases
and download the VPinExtensions.zip file there.
Copy the file next to your PinUP Popper (Baller) installation like shown below and extract the zip file there.
In the extracted VPinExtensions folder, execute the install.bat file via double-click.
Once the installation is completed (including a JDK download), the folder should look like this:
That was the hard part. Now you can execute the VPinExtensions-Config.bat file. You will be greeted with the following dialog:
You should execute the table scan. The scan determines the ROM name for every table available so that the highscore file can be derived from it.
The Highscore Overlay tab allows to configure a shortcut and generation of a full screen highscore overview which shows the recently played tables and an optional special table (e.g. for a monthly challange). The user interface provides different configuration options for the overlay generation. The overlay is generated after every table exit, so that the recently played table list is always up-to-date.
When you want to customize the overlay, ensure that the background image dimensions match the resolution of the playfield screen. The highscore information are generated on this image - no additional scaling or cropping is done.
Overlay Shotcut Configuration
Once the VPin-Extension service is running, the configured key binding is valid until the service is restarted. Be aware that once the service is running the key binding is active, no matter if PinUP Popper is running or not!
The highscore card generation is enabled once a PinUP Popper screen has been selected. Currently, the screens Other2, GameInfo and GameHelp are supported. Be aware that if the VPin Extensions Service is started, existing media in the corresponding PinUP Popper folder will be overwritten. An additional warning is also shown by the UI for this:
You may get the additional warning that the screen is not bound to any key. Check the controller settings in PinUP Popper for this screen so that you can hide it if you want.
If no screen is selected, the highscore card is generation is disabled.
For testing the generator output, a sample table can be selected and clicking the Generate Sample Card button will generate a sample highscore image and preview it in the right panel next to the editor.
Be careful when selecting another background image. The selected image is not scaled or cropped in any form. It's recommend to select a matching size with a fix ratio of 16:9 or 4:1, because these are the ratios supported by the PinUP popper screen configuration.
(TODO - maybe errorneous)
There is already a good documentation for this available at https://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php. The basic steps to show the generated highscore cards are explained here again nonetheless. The given screenshots are showing the setup where highscore cards are shown on the Other 2 screen and the screen is shown when the configured controller key is pressed.
Make sure that the screen is active in the pub pack:
Also check that the screen is visible in the screen settings...
...and that the screen ratio matches the one selected for the card background image.
In the controller section, make sure that you have a shortcut defined for showing the highscore card.
If everything is configured properly, you can press the configured control for the Other 2 screen and the generated highscore card should pop up (if already been generated!).
Note that all tables will have a highscore card. So you may want to delete the default media stored for the screen you selected. The emulator defaults are stored in pinupsystem\POPMEDIA<EACH EMULTAOR>\SYTEM. You can change or remove the screen's default media there (remember you need to do this for each emulator in system).
See also https://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=faq
When highscore cards are generated, it is possible to use the background image from the directb2s file, if the file is available for the given table. These images can vary in size and dimension. Therefore the output ratio must be configure so that all cards will have the same dimensions and ratios too.
Once set, the ratio will also be applied for cards that are generated from the selected background image.
The Table Overview gives you an overview of the tables configured for PinUP popper. It also shows the current state for the highscore resolving.
E.g. if a ROM name was not found, an error indicator is shown with a corresponding message. The name if the table's ROM is required to resolve the highscore file of the table and must be present.
It is also possible that no highscore file was found for a table. This isn't necessarily a problem when a table has not been played yet.
If a table shows no configuration errors, a click on the Show Highscore button shows the current highscores of the selected table.
The service status tab gives an overview about the the installation status of the VPin Extensions service. You can (and should) press the Install Service button there to ensure that the service is running everytime your VPin is booted.
Additionally, a Test Service can be started. This service is alive as long as the configuration window stays open. Once started, you can use test the shortcut defined for the overlay or your DOF rules.
As an alternative, the startService.bat script can be executed to start a temporary service instance.
Make sure that the service is installed (Service Tab in the UI). Once installed, the service will start after your VPin has been booted. If the shortcut is still not working, check if the file given file exists:
C:/Users//AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/Programs/Startup/vpin-service.bat
A double click on it starts the service.
The paths for PinUPPopper and the VisualPinball are tried to re resolved automatically. However, older PinUP System installations may be located on a different device. To fix this problem, ensure that the path information written into the file ./resources/env.properties are correct.
(Do not mind the escaped ':' character, the will work no matter if the ':' is escaped or not. Also use '/' instead of '\'.)
Users have reported whitespace problems for their generated highscore cards. You can fix this by settings a comma as number separator in your windows settings. See also: https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/26335-scores-files-text-from-pinemhi-contains-strange-characters-as-thousands-separator/
By default, the service assumes that these files are located in the Tables folder of Visual Pinball. If you only want to use the files for the background of your highscore cards, check the resources/env.properties file and change the path there. Note that you have to restart the service/UI to apply the change.
The card background is not cropped or scaled (only if you enable the directb2s backgrounds). So if you use a 4k background here, the cards have a 4k size. But the actual size is defined by popper, so you have to increase the screen you are using for the card there too.
For license texts have a look at Third-Party Libraries