IR Leds Diamond arrangement

[gustavoalara]

Is possible to use the ir leds diamond arrangement like GUN4IR does? I think is more precise than the up-down arrangement

[lemmingDev]

Planning to set up a TV for this lightgun firmware soon. @SeongGino Is the diamond arrangement a consideration? Thanks

[SeongGino]

Camera heuristics and tracking aren't my field of expertise (especially as I'm getting new builds done so I can chip away at the remainder of the TODO over the next couple of weeks), so if anyone wants to take a crack at it I accept pull requests.

Forgot where exactly tracking and the arrangement is handled but I think it only needs to be done in the main sketch? Otherwise one could check the DFRobotIRPositionEx library as a second culprit. All the things related to camera is still mostly Prow's original fork verbatim.

[cmjdbb]

I have compared, the LED arrangement of Samco is more accurate than GUNIR.

[lemmingDev]

Wow - So the best, and also feature rich lightgun solution is yours! Open source FTW I saw a few videos about openfire. Have you guys been in contact?

[lemmingDev]

I wonder if diamond has any benefit in edge cases like player moving during game play, or faster re-aquisition after reentering screen

[SeongGino]

I saw a few videos about openfire. Have you guys been in contact?

We've been a bit in touch, yes--but just know that GUN4ALL and OpenFIRE are (at least for the moment) wholly separate projects and I wasn't made aware of the latter until I was just about done with Mamehook implems here. Wasn't aware they even had videos up tbh

And about being "the best", well--you can thank Prow7 for making very solid tracking code! Everything related to positioning, camera and IR points is 100% still his. Most I did there was attach off-screen detection to the final coordinates output. I've done a lot of testing myself to confirm, and at least on my 50" display I find I can stand in a range within about three meters playing about six-ish feet back and still maintain just-about-line-of-sight accuracy. The only/main caveat is standing at one edge of the screen and aiming at the bottom-opposite corner where I've found there's some understeer. But for the vast majority of normaly 1P/2P play (and assuming no light bounce), you can stand just about anywhere in front of the screen and still maintain line-of-sight with the same calibration profile.

That said, I've still been hoping that the diamond arrangement could be an option at the very least - my biggest issue right now with most lightgun systems is how incompatible many of them are with one-another. Aside from Sindens (where everyone just has to deal with the physical white border), GUN4IR is incompatible with GUN4ALL which is incompatible with Aimtrak which is incompatible with Retro Shooters; leading people to have to pick-and-choose their whole lightgun stack, should they want multiplayer, which I want this system to be stellar at! So ideally, if GUN4IR is the defacto that people view as the standard, then I'd at least want us to be able to coexist with them.

There is at least a silver-lining: if anyone's heard of Props3D's Blamcon! system, that one seems to use a directly compatible IR arrangement of double lightbars. So at the very least, we'll be implicitly compatible with one system. But I've heard some mumblings about them wanting to support the diamond arrangement too.

EDIT: Clarified that the Props3D guys are NOT stealing Samco code, they just happen to use a compatible arrangement that we can take advantage of too.

[lemmingDev]

WOW - had not heard of them. Thanks for the tip! Their 1.0 manual refers to switching between the 2

2024 will be the year of the lightgun!

[SeongGino]

Then all the more motivation to have this implemented as a feature! I'd love nothing more than to be able to coexist with other gun systems - and if that means being alongside both Blamcon and GUN4IR, all the better.

[SeongGino]

Hi everyone! Currently busy atm with other life ordeals, but since it all started from this thread, I really should clear some things up.

I've got a tip from Props3D, the developers of the Blamcon system I mentioned earlier, saying they're catching flak of "copying" my system because of me highlighting them in reference to using a "suspiciously similar" format to Samco - which I now realize was extremely bad choice of words and I can only apologize. The mistake has been rectified in the offending earlier comment to clear this up.

That said...

Guys, gals, & non-binary friends, I'm NOT SAYING Blamcon stole my or Samco code or even copied it. If anything, it should be made clear that I'm the one that copied Samco in the first place, given the nature of being an open-source fork.

The Props3D guys are doing great work on their own, much like how me/Prow did our own things for our own work. I only brought up Blamcon to reference systems and LED arrangements that ours would be compatible with because I wanted to be able to coexist with other existing lightgun systems. That's where my conversation started and, realistically, where it should've ended.

I just want us to be happy that we have compatible LED arrangements because that can only be good for the lightgun market--which is what this thread about a diamond arrangement was supposed to be about in the first place! Frankly, I'm disappointed that anyone would've taken this in the wrong direction--but because this is a GitHub issues thread and not a public forum post, that's where I'm going to leave it for now.

...so uh, still seeking PRs for this issue btw. :)

[lemmingDev]

You and Props3D guys all seem like top blokes Interesting that some people took your comments that way, or there was any drama, though glad it's sorted

It would be so cool if, like other tech companies do (eg, with USB), all parties got together and set some standards between all guns moving forward

Eg, if everyone could agree to use GX16 connectors with the same pinout and solenoid voltage so that they were ubiquitous, and agreed on a minumum base set of features, that could then be added to to differentiate

Would make it way easier for cab builders, gun makers, firmware writers etc and users in general

[SeongGino]

if everyone could agree to use GX16 connectors with the same pinout and solenoid voltage so that they were ubiquitous, and agreed on a minumum base set of features, that could then be added to to differentiate

Would make it way easier for cab builders, gun makers, firmware writers etc and users in general

To be fair you're also making the assumption that everyone uses GX16 connectors with this example--I don't use any with all three (now soon to be four) of my builds, just a separate USB cable out and a DC pigtail for hotpluggable recoil power input. As far as I'm aware, it all plugs into the same slot/pins on the board anyways. :P

Things like solenoid voltages also depends on the unit - your Named/Namco arcade gun might take 24V, but the smaller 12V units in most of my builds would overheat much quicker. But that's why arcade builders are there--to work it out amongst themselves.

Still, I suppose the sentiment remains valid. IR LED arrangement is really the biggest pain point I have, since that's going to be the real showstopper preventing guns from physically working alongside one-another on a single machine. I know this project otherwise supports most of the extended features of GUN4IR, and Blamcon I imagine will try to do the same on their end if they haven't already, so that's not necessarily a problem.

But as for the other proprietary systems - specifically Aimtrak & Retro Shooter, they'll just exist in their own universes. And then there's Sinden, who just kinda sorta exists but brings its own software and border requirements which drags down the experience for everyone else involved that doesn't need them.

[lemmingDev]

Regarding the GX16, I didn't mean to imply that all guns should have them, jut that if they did use them, then a standard pinout should be agreed upon.

I can see someone upgrading from one lightgun system to another, seeing the connector was the same, plugging it in, and 24v being sent to the USB controller instead of 5v

Hopefully a kind soul will submit a pull request to add in diamond arrangement for you one day.

[SeongGino]

Just cleaning things up here: as most might be able to tell, this project has since moved under the OpenFIRE banner, and there won't be any more updates on the old GUN4ALL repos.

Appropriately, one of the many updates that project offers over this, is Diamond layout support.

Again, I appreciate everyone's understanding and support.