Changelog.txt

VP 10.8.0 Changelog
------------------------

FEATURES:

- VPX and VPVR are finally reunited!
  So, similar to the VP9.9 release, this pretty much rearchitects VPs whole rendering pipeline, but still allows to play all tables with (hopefully) pretty much the same look and feel.
  Some of the changes that came in via VPVR:

  - added SDL2 / OpenGL / OpenGLES as an additional render pipeline.
    switching between DirectX 9 and OpenGL is (for now) only possible at compile time, thus two executables are shipped.

  - the new OpenGL pipeline is also capable to render to VR devices (support for SteamVR):
    To use VR you need a SteamVR compatible HMD, a Steam account, and the Steam client/app
    with SteamVR client installed. More information on OpenVR + SteamVR can be found on http://steamvr.com
    You may also want to check out OpenComposite, as it seems to provide a performance boost for some users.

  - autodetection of SteamVR driver installation. If its not installed, the standard 2D mode is started up instead.
    If VR drivers are installed, and the HMD is turned on, VPX starts in VR mode. Otherwise a prompt shows up to choose between VR mode and 2D mode (can be disabled).

  - the new OpenGL pipeline also is no longer computing/approximating Stereo3D only from depth buffer information.
    If any stereo mode is enabled, the table is then always rendered to two independent eye buffers instead.
    This increases CPU and GPU load for all stereo modes, but increases the image quality.
    Also anti-aliasing can be enabled for all stereo modes.

  - super-sampling based anti-aliasing can now be adjusted with a slider from 0.5 (downsampling) up to 2.
    The factor describes the scaling in X and Y direction, so 2 increases the overall pixel-count by a factor of 4.

  - the new OpenGL pipeline in addition has full support for GPU multisample antialiasing (MSAA) which offers very good results for a fairly low performance overhead compared to super-sampling

  - splitted the video settings into the 'old' 2D based video settings menu and a new VR settings menu.
    Also different registry entries are used to store the various settings like stereo mode, display, resolution, postprocessing etc. separately.
    Things like Ball rendering and Day/Night cycle are used for both.
    To configure VR, go to the new Preferences->VR Settings menu and (de-)select it in the upper left drop down menu.
    If you have performance issues, try disabling things like Ambient Occlusion, Supersampling (=1), Postprocess AA & Sharpen, Reflections, and Bloom.
    One can also select an additional VR Preview window that shows the VR rendering on the screen as Side-By-Side.

  - when using VR, the near plane can be adjusted (in centimeters). It is like a wall in front of the player. Everything between the player and the near-
    plane is invisible. It might be helpful if one wants to adjust visibility when moving or if one has changed the scaling too much. Having too small values for the near-plane will cause Z/depth-fighting rendering artifacts.

  - scaling of the table is now possible within the VR settings. One can either set a factor (e.g. 1.1 increases the table size by 10%) or one can
    scale all tables to a fixed width (in centimeters) to match a PinSim Controller. The scaling factor has no lower/upper limit (so yes,
    one can scale up the table to play soccer ;)  Or be attacked by a giant rolling Indy-Trap  Or scale it down to matchbox car size  If it gets
    weird we warned you). If you have issues locating the table or getting nightmares, it is NOT our fault.
    Default values are: box unchecked and 1.

  - note that the VPVR fork did not support the roughness property of metallic parts (=always mirror like metal instead). Some VR-only tables thus feature wrong material shininess that will lead to
    incorrect rendering of metal parts. These table's materials need to be updated to re-adjust the shininess of metal materials.

  - note that adaptive vsync (=mode value 2) is recommended (at least) on macOS/iOS and Android

  - added rudimentary support for BAM Headtracking (thanks to Rafal from ravarcade.pl). Usage:
    It works almost the same way as with Arcade Pinball, but one doesn't have control over the table location.
     1. The User needs a working Future Pinball installation with head tracking enabled (FP is just used to setup the head tracking, FP can then be closed).
     2. Start BAM-Tracker.exe, select head tracking method, leave it running.
     3. Run VPinballX (the OpenGL version)
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-EpTp_3wKo

- completely revamped F11 (note that on macOS its F1)/ESC menu, including much more detailed live editing options of table elements

- the playfield is now processed like all the other parts, i.e. its not forced as static/preprocessed anymore, and thus underlying table elements will work as expected now (so no more under playfield clipping, and alpha blending is not limited to simple alpha clipping/cutouts anymore):
  - if the 'playfield_mesh' primitive has 'Static rendering' disabled, it will be rendered with transparent parts (this results in the 'playfield_mesh' to be blended like plain primitives, so no more need for alpha test or insert overlays)
  - parts under the playfield (like a lower playfield or 3D inserts) can have 'Static rendering' checked and can feature materials without the 'Active' checkbox (previously, under-playfield parts without these flags were clipped)
  - the playfield texture can now be changed at runtime through the script (see CommandReference.txt)

- playfield reflections are now rendered using a 'reflection probe' instead of a 'fullscreen mirror overlay':
  - performance may change a bit (better or worse) depending on the table and display configuration
  - reflection settings are now unified between balls/playfield and the interactive camera/light editing mode (F6),
    and were extended with new rendering modes:
    - Disabled: *NEW* remove all reflections
    - Balls Only: dynamic balls only
    - Static Only: reflection of static parts only (no change)
    - Static & Balls: reflection of static parts and dynamic balls (no change)
    - Static & Unsynced Dynamic: *NEW* reflection of static parts and dynamic parts without depth buffer synchronisation. Overlapping of dynamic-over-static and of static-over-dynamic reflections is thus incorrect (features just a limited performance cost, added for lower end systems)
    - Dynamic: *NEW* dynamic reflection of all parts. It provides the best results without any overlapping artefact at the cost of a little bit more performance (recommended)
  - additional roughness parameter

- add support for preliminary refraction to primitives (using 'refraction probe's). This feature is still preliminary and will evolve in the coming updates.

- add refraction tint to the material parameters

- add native ball shadows for bulb lights, as well as to flashers & primitives that are used as lightmaps (using additive blending)

- reworked lights:
  - now lights have a z coordinate (relative to the surface they are on) that is used for shadows and bulb rendering
  - allow to hide light rendering (still allowing for ball reflections or shadows through primitives or flashers). This was only possible through scripting before
  - allow the bulb mesh to work for both classic lights as well as bulb lights
  - allow the reflection on ball to work for both classic lights as well as bulb lights
  - add support for 'modulated' lights (through script only, corresponding to PWModulated outputs of most 1990+ pinballs)
  - allow to select a fading behavior between linear (backwards compatible) / LED (no fading) / Incandescent (physical model of an incandescent bulb, including tinting when filament cool down)
  - try to make the user interface more intuitive

- add support for more than one DMD (for original tables, in-game DMD menu,...)

- add new log file functionality (vpinball.log), with script and error information. It can be en/disabled in the UI/Editor preferences.
  The ability to do a rough performance profiling of the table loading phase by using the 'Profile.txt' has thus been removed in favor of the new logging
  (all the profile events will be in the log file with timestamps)

- the settings are now stored in a file named 'VPinballX.ini' located in the standard Windows location for application data: %AppData%/VPinballX/
  (optionally this can be changed in the INI/Editor/UI preferences to be located in the same folder as the executable)
  This file will be automatically created and initialized from existing settings if found in Windows registry. This change was made to:
  - allow per table settings,
  - allow easier edition (manually or by a third party application),
  - allow to use different settings by specifying a custom ini file on the command line for the app or table settings (see CommandLineParameters.txt),
  - settings are the same and can be shared between Windows version of VPX and the standalone version (Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, Raspberry,...),
  - allow to see all the available settings at once (not so easy before, since there are a few hundreds of them),
  - allow easier collaboration by being able to share the setting file with bug reports.
  If a file with the exact same name as the one of the table file but with '.ini' extension is found along the table file, it will be used as a settings override for that table.

- settings were also extended to support overriding some table properties, like camera properties or other things that used to be adjusted in the 'User' property pane. This change allows to
  adjust a table to user preferences without modifying the table. Only the table settings (the ini file along the table) will be adjusted. This way:
  - updating a table to a new version can be done more easily, by simply renaming the ini file to the new table name, keeping all adjusted settings,
  - all properties and settings use the same approach: load data from the table, optionally overriden in the app ini settings, optionally overriden in the table ini settings,
  - POV files are not needed anymore and therefore deprecated (these are still read and used, unless an ini file has been created, for backwards compatibility).

- some settings were moved/changed to benefit from the new settings system:
  - Player/GlobalDifficulty is now TableOverride/Difficulty, expressed as a decimal value
  - Playfield & Ball reflection on/off were removed from the table settings, since this was redundant and conflicting with overall application and reflection probes settings. We now directly
    define reflections in the render probe. Table authors can disable the default playfield reflection by setting PF reflection strength to 0. Players use the app/table settings to tweak in addition.

- the camera mode was replaced by a user setting 'tweak' mode which allows to edit the point of view like before, but also adjust table settings.
  This mode will not modify the table like it used to do, but only adjust the settings (in table's ini file). The settings are only saved when the credit key is pressed.
  This mode can be started from the ui, from the commandline, or entered while playing using the (new) dedicated key shortcut. 
  Tables can declare custom options from the script that will be presented to the player in this mode (see script reference). For example:
  Sub Table1_OptionEvent(ByVal eventId)
    Dim mod1: mod1 = Table1.Option("Option", 1, 4, 1, 1, 0, Array("Option 1", "Option 2", "Option 3", "Option 4"))
    Dim mod2: mod2 = Table1.Option("Percent", 0, 1, 0.01, 0.5, 1)
    ' Adjust table according to the value of 'mod1' and 'mod2'. Note that mod1 is a value between 1 and 4. mod2 is a value between 0 and 1 (displayed as a percent in the UI).
  End Sub
  Tweak mode also allows to view information and rules from the table. 'Rules' supports a limited markdown syntax allowing for headers, horizontal rule, lists and images (for example rule card).

- remove Anti-Aliasing and Postprocessed Anti-Aliasing options from the table properties (and use an .ini based override instead)

- the application is now fully 'DPI aware'. This means that one can use multiple monitors at different DPI settings.
  This may require to adjust the position of windows on existing installs.

- add 2 new camera layout modes which work better for cabinets, and for anaglyph stereo (as well as other use cases) and allows:
  - to setup the player position in real word units, measuring from the bottom center of the playfield in centimeters. This should allow to have a single position corresponding to your size and play position for all your tables.
  - to setup the camera like a 'real' camera: there is no more layback but a view offset, the other properties being simply the inclination and the field of view.
  - for camera mode, adjust the user interface to show this information and allow to easily reset to a default position by pressing the plunger key.
  - support a new 'window' mode, designed for pincab users, where the screen is not orthogonal to the viewer, requiring an adjusted projection.
- change camera mode buttons to match the ones when starting VPX with -povedit (Start = Export POV, Credit = Reset/Quit, Plunger = Defaults)

- change view mode selection settings, you can choose between:
  - Desktop & FSS: automatically selects one of the 2 depending if the table has enabled FSS (because it includes a backglass)
  - Cabinet: use the cabinet view setup (also named 'Fullscreen')
  - Desktop: use the desktop view setup (never use the FSS settings, even for tables including a backglass)
  The UI also allows table authors to quickly switch between these mode from the camera property pane.

- stereo rendering has been rewritten:
  - use new projections which are well-designed for stereo rendering (same as for VR, no more parallel or toe-in with artefacts)
  - compute exact depth information when using the new 'window' POV mode (note that you should have the same X/Y/Z scene scale to get good results)
  - add support for fake stereo to OpenGL (like DirectX): real stereo is way better but needs a more powerful setup
  - add 'Luminance' filter mode which creates anaglyph based on real display/glasses/viewer calibration. The calibration is only possible from the new Live Editor.
    This new mode adapts to any glasses based on user calibration. It is especially useful when glasses are not conforming standard filter colors, on HDR display or 
    for (partially) color blinded people. The calibration is performed from the new 'Live Editor' in the Live Editor > Preferences > Video Settings dialog. It consists
    of measuring the perceived luminance of your display through your glasses and eyes. To do so, the viewer adjusts the luminance of a reference image showing 2 faces
    until it finds the point where the most prominent faces change sides.
  - Additionally to toggling stereo on/off, F10 shortcut also circles through the anaglyph glasses settings, Flipper Key + F10 circles backward
  - add complete support for anaglyph amber/blue & blue/amber glasses
  - allow to adjust image brightness and per eye contrast
  - add all stereo settings to the Live Editor to get live feedback (in the Live Editor > Preferences > Video Settings dialog)
  Note that the DirectX flavor of VPX does not support real stereo rendering. The OpenGL flavor should be preferred when using stereo (at the cost of some performance requirements)

- the ball texture can now be set as either a spherical map (the default, like it used to be before 10.8), or as an equirectangular map. Equirectangular maps
  are also used already for the environment lighting. The benefit of using them is that the reflections are view dependent and that they can match
  the table environment lighting image for full consistency between the lighting and reflections.
- the ball is now shaded using the previous frame for computing the reflections of the playfield on the ball. This allows to have correct reflections of the playfield on balls
  when using a playfield_mesh, to reflect the inserts and all the full shading/lighting applied (so no more need to enable ball reflections for insert lights unless you want some extra reflected light).
- new 'Force round ball' option in the video preferences to replace the old, manual anti-stretch parameters

- timers with a -1 interval used to be ran 1 or 2 times per frame (depending on user latency reduction setting). They now are always ran once per frame only.
  timers with a -2 interval are now considered as controller sync timers and will be ran as many time per frame as needed, depending on user settings.

- a new folder named 'Cache' was added to VPX's main directory for caching data to improve performance. For the time being, it is used to store the list of textures which are used 
  by each table during play. This allows for preloading of the needed textures when a table is started, limiting stutters during play.

- add an option to primitives to toggle 'depth masking', which is otherwise used during rendering to hide all parts behind the primitive. If unchecked, the primitive will not hide parts behind it and it will also not be visible to ambient occlusion.
  For example, this is needed to employ primitives to render user/fake shadows without breaking ambient occlusion, or for transparents part with self overlapping parts like plastic ramps.

- as the script is initially started, the Init events are now called *before* the static parts are prerendered.
  This allows a table script to adjust the properties of static parts during startup.

- video synchronization and target frame rate are now 2 separate settings and a new video synchronization mode for low latency input/physics/rendering has been added. The choices are:
  - None: no synchronization, VPX just runs as fast as possible. Unless when playing on a very powerful system, this should lead to some input latency (due to lack of input syncing) and render latency 
          (due to flooding the GPU frame queue). This setting used to be 'Adaptive Sync: 0'
  - VSync: synchronize on the display vertical blank signal. This can limit stutters and avoids tearing, but will lead to high input latency. This used to be mode 'Adaptive Sync: 1'
  - Adaptive VSync: same as 'VSync', but when a frame is late (=missing the refresh rate), it is displayed immediately. This should reduce stutters but features the same input latency.
                    The DirectX 9 version uses software synchronization, while OpenGL uses hardware (driver) synchronization which should give slightly better results. This used to be mode 'Adaptive Sync: 2'
  - Frame Pacing: *NEW* VPX will try to run the input & physics simulation continuously in real time instead of only once per frame. This lowers the input latency, especially if the
                  computer is powerful enough to run at the monitor refresh rate. This also allows to have the input synchronized to PinMAME when enabling it, fixing some synchronization bugs like in 
                  seen in video modes with fast button presses (Lethal Weapon, Black Rose,...).
  Due to these changes, the target frame rate is now a separate setting. If defined, it will lead VPX to perform its own synchronization, trying to achieve the requested frame rate.
  The synchronization settings still apply. Therefore, selecting a frame rate that is higher than the monitor refresh rate requires the use of the 'None' synchronization mode!

- additive blended primitives are now rendered 'unshaded', so without any material/lighting applied (same as flashers), this is more natural and allows for some performance optimizations

- add staged left/right flipper key configuration to the preferences

- when renaming a surface/wall, ask if all elements (lights, etc) that reference the surface name should also use this new name

- it is now possible to choose between 3 tonemappers (the part of the rendering which handles the way overbright parts are displayed on non-HDR displays):
  - Reinhard, which is the one used by VPX until the 10.8 release,
  - Tony McMapFace, which is an improved tonemapper especially regarding handling very bright saturated colors (like a very bright red, which in turns would be perceived as yellow or even white. See https://github.com/h3r2tic/tony-mc-mapface)
  - Filmic curve, which is common e.g. in modern games

- the full table can now be locked to prevent unintended user changes (can be changed anytime)

- one can now export a 'tournament score' file via the pause menu (or when keeping the Lockbar-key pressed and then pressing the Start-key, too)
  if playing in the new 'locked' mode, and also not having any unsaved table changes.
  This is currently limited to PinMAME-emulated machines, and the script HAS to enforce a connection to the DMD or alpha-segments display via 'UseVPMDMD = True'
  (if its an emulated DMD machine, 'UseVPMColoredDMD = True' will also work), thus the file contains the encoded content of the display at that point in time.
  The content of this text file can then be posted to the tournament administrators and converted by them via the '-TournamentFile tablename textfilename' command line option to a .png again.
  Note that the VPX version used to play AND to convert must exactly match (incl. same revision/build, same OS, DXvsGL, 32vs64bit)

- add/correct more data to the dimensions database

Additional docs explaining all these new features with images are provided in the docs folder of the project: https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball/tree/master/docs

FIXES:

- timers with a -1 interval are always fired after physics and animation, but before rendering, allowing the script to update visual parts accordingly without any visual lag.
  This also applies to the new 'Animate' event which is designed for this purpose.

- fix visible depth range evaluation, allowing to simplify VR settings and to edit large VR rooms within the LiveUI.
  Note that loading pre-10.8 tables will take a bit longer (until they are saved again with 10.8) due to this, as these need to compute 3D-bounds for each part.

- fix analogue nudge not working for joysticks/gamepads in XInput mode

- implement support for mouse based left/center/right nudge
  and cleaned up issue where flippers only worked with a respective fixed mouse button

- fix wrong keyboard characters in dialogs for non QWERTY keyboards

- fix saving of custom keys for joypad input

- fix some problems with playing sounds via BASS: pitch/frequency change and loop/restart should now be matching the 'old' player

- fix longstanding textbox font size bug

- reflections now work in the interactive camera/light editing mode (F6) as well

- fix overbrightness in F6 (interactive camera/light editing) mode

- fix noise on small-scaled DMDs (e.g. on FSS setups)

- fix longstanding bug in the bilateral CAS filter

- fix swapped red & blue channels when exporting from BMPs

- handle broken tables better and try to load as much as possible

- static element preprocessing is now done on the GPU (which leads to a faster VPX-player start)
- increase preprocessing sample rate for the static parts of the table

- cleanup Light Debugger dialog and fix 2nd color button

- improve script editing performance again

- improve mouse cursor hide/unhide in (windowed) fullscreen

- fix 'O'-key ball debugging

- fix crash if sound card(s) hardware/driver setup changed

- fix crash on tables with weird table info

- fix out of memory crashes (Video capture and Image Manager)

- fix wrong detection of alpha when loading BMPs stored in .vpx

- fix potential multi-threading screw-up when loading textures

- fix changing the timer settings not marking the table as dirty

- fix 'paste at' (and others) coordinates

- fix deleting of sub part included in a collection warning

- fix keyboard navigation in Material dialogue

- fix .bmp export in the Image Manager

- fix gate two-way flag import from VP9/8 .vpts

- improve UI scaling on high resolutions (e.g. 4K)

- update example tables with new raytraced ball shadows enabled and other new features
- add better wood texture

- update FreeImage library to latest 3.18.0 (custom build) (currently disabled)
- DirectX 8 port for input handling (currently disabled)

- see Changelog_Scripts.txt for the respective core script changes (version 3.60, 3.61)
- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes
- see Scripts.txt for the actual usage and "documentation" of the scripts that come with VPX

VP 10.7.4 Changelog
------------------------

FEATURES:

- add native ball shadows for bulb lights

FIXES:

- fix analogue nudge not working for joysticks/gamepads in XInput mode

- fix wrong keyboard characters in dialogs for non QWERTY keyboards

- fix some problems with playing sounds via BASS: pitch/frequency change and loop/restart should now be matching the 'old' player

- fix longstanding textbox font size bug

- fix noise on small-scaled DMDs (e.g. on FSS setups)

- fix longstanding bug in the bilateral CAS filter

- fix swapped red & blue channels when exporting from BMPs

- fix Light Debugger dialog 2nd color button

- improve script editing performance again

- fix crash if sound card(s) hardware/driver setup changed

- fix crash on tables with weird table info

- fix out of memory crashes (Video capture and Image Manager)

- fix wrong detection of alpha when loading BMPs stored in .vpx

- fix potential multi-threading screw-up when loading textures

- fix saving of custom keys for joypad input

- fix changing the timer settings not marking the table as dirty

- fix 'paste at' (and others) coordinates

- fix deleting of sub part included in a collection warning

- fix .bmp export in the Image Manager

- fix gate two-way flag import from VP9/8 .vpts

- see Scripts.txt for the actual usage and "documentation" of the scripts that come with VPX

VP 10.7.3 Changelog
------------------------

FIXES:

- fix missing render updates when debugging/changing parameters in pause mode (10.7.0 regression)

- show bulb in UI/viewport

- fix potentially wrong primitive animation interpolation
- fix primitive animations getting stuck
- fix primitive animation speed being dependent on the framerate

- fix material list combobox not updating

- fix missing decal UI updates (e.g. width,height)

- fix loading of greyscale/8bit JPEGs (10.7.2 regression)

- fix crash when bumper skirt is not visible

- do not fail to load a table if only the hash/checksum fails, but instead just output a warning

- do not attempt to play "<None>" reel sound (which otherwise polluted the debug outputs)

- update BASS library to 2.4.17

- see Scripts.txt for the actual usage and "documentation" of the scripts that come with VPX

VP 10.7.2 Changelog
------------------------

FEATURES:

- add "Assign to Layer" context menu again by showing the first 20 layers.

- expose background and selection color in the script editor preferences

- add disable lighting option for balls (and their trails) to the video preferences (e.g. to help the visually handicapped)

- add 'Go To Definition' to the script editor (via F12 key), which allows to jump to the function/sub/variable definition from the current cursor pos/selection

- add more columns to the search/select dialog (Physics Material, Collection, Collidable, Visible, Timer enabled, Depth Bias, Static Rendering, Reflections enabled)
- fix mem size ordering (culture neutral) and add image format column to the image dialog

- add additive blending to primitives (same as flashers)
- support HDR textures on primitives (same as flashers), full high dynamic range is only available if lighting disabled though (otherwise clamped to 0..1)
- allow playfield mesh to optionally be not collidable (or a toy). In that case another collidable object must be added as the playfield. This allows to use different meshes for the physics and the visuals.

- add new command line parameter "-GLES [value]" which overrides the global emission scale (day/night setting, value range: 0.115..0.925)

- add new JP Physics recommendations (table, pdf, materials, script)

FIXES:

- improve very slow layer operations (open/close table, filter/unfilter)
- fix an issue when hiding all layers
- assigning an element to a hidden layer, the element will also be set to hidden.

- update line number for script subs/functions when updating the function list
  (i.e. so that jumping to these works properly again after changing other script code)
- remove subs/functions from the function list when these are deleted during editing
- fix old VPX regression leading to wrong parent links for some of the script data (leading to all kinds of other side effects when parsing the script code)
- update internal script representation continuously while typing (please notify us if this makes working in the script editor too slow for a specific table!)
- implement simple duplicate test for subs/functions, and output these when script is brought into focus as a tooltip

- update image/texture drop down list after importing/deleting images

- fix (ignored) font size handling

- fix animation/fading of lights when not visible/when only visible through reflections 

- fix crashes in Direct Sound when using certain WAVE_FORMAT_IEEE_FLOAT .wav samples

- fix missing image(s) due to main memory limit when using multithreaded loading

- fix bumper texture memory leak

- fix showing property dialog if multiple elements were selected

- fix tabbing with multiple selected drag points

- fix registry defaults load/save for EM-Reels

- fix extremely old problem with put_TimerEnabled (would only work 'most of the time')

- fix "Reflection Enabled" not saving/loading for Spinners

- avoid thrashing of the saved dock/window settings when running in minimized mode

- fix extremely old wire ramp issue (too many triangles created)

- fix Z/depth rendering artefacts in interactive camera/light editing mode (e.g. when launching the table with F6 or the respective menu entry)

- remove 32 entry limitation for collections in context menu

- on import/rename an image in the image manager also update the comboboxes to select the new image for selected elements

- do not poll XInput gamedevice/joypad/stick if its disconnected, otherwise there was a noticable overhead/slowdown

- decrease main memory usage for textures by using smaller texture formats where possible
- optimize floating point texture video memory usage/bandwidth (e.g. flasher/primitive and environment textures)

- improved full example table (thanks kiwi!)

- see Changelog_Scripts.txt for the respective core script changes (version 3.59)
- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes
- see Scripts.txt for the actual usage and "documentation" of the scripts that come with VPX

- add Visual Studio 2022 support

VP 10.7.1 Changelog
------------------------

- internal release only

VP 10.7.0 Changelog
------------------------

FEATURES:

- reworked UI
   o layer handling is now in a seperate window. Uncheck the checkbox to hide a complete layer or single elements
   o support added to add unlimit amount of layers
   o layers with no elements will be automaticaly deleted
   o fast double-click a layer will select all elements of this layer and double-click one element will select it
   o with a slow double-click on a layer or element let you rename it
   o toolbar, properties and layers are now dockable windows without the need to restart VP
   o add context menu item to assign selected elements to the current selected layer.
- to reset the position of the dockable windows in the editor, open Preference -> "Editor/UI Options..." and click on "Reset Window Possitons"

- when exporting/importing a POV file, the custom user settings per table are now also exported/imported
- when importing a primitive mesh, there is now a new option that prevents internal reordering/optimization of the data

- add support for loading VPP/physics settings automatically: One can define an extra VPP(.vpp) file for each table, named like the VPX file
  Example: you have some custom VPP settings for the table "QBerts Quest (Gottlieb 1983).vpx". Save the VPP settings into the file
           "QBerts Quest (Gottlieb 1983).vpp" and place it in the same directory as the VPX file. VPX will then also load the VPP settings
           automatically when loading the "QBerts Quest (Gottlieb 1983).vpx" (in the editor/player).
  Or if you like to have default VPP settings that are used for any other tables, save it as "autovpp.vpp"

- add MP3 and OGG support (via the BASS library) to the sound manager and the 'standard' sound commands
  these new file types are now also saved directly into the VPX file, unlike the music commands (which still use the 'music' folder for legacy reasons)
  Going forward, tables should only use the sound commands and not the music commands anymore (unless one needs to ship a music pack separately)

- add XInput (and for now disabled SDL) input APIs, selectable in the 'Keys, Nudge and DOF' preferences dialog
  -> this means for example better support for XBOX controllers and (via additional driver software) PS controllers
- added (optional) Rumble effects when XInput or SDL input APIs are selected, can be disabled in the 'Keys, Nudge and DOF' preferences dialog

- add another 7.1 SurroundSound mode tuned for SSF cabinet configurations (7.1 Surround Sound Feedback (enhanced))
  this exaggerates the positional feel of the playfield sound effects when
  played in a cabinet with exciter pairs positioned at each end of the cabinet

- add WEBP to list of supported image formats

- add various anaglyph (e.g. red/cyan) 3D stereo glasses modes to the video preferences, also an additional left<->right flipped interlaced mode
  - as with all 3D stereo modes, please note that turning off "Reflect Elements on Playfield", Ball motion trails and Ball shadows (if the table implements these) can help the perceived image quality
  - also the same/known 'F10' key to turn on/off the 3D stereo rendering during gameplay works

- optimize table loading/pre-processing time
  to reduce the amount of parallel CPU threads running, use the new command line parameter "-LessCPUthreads"
- optimize loading of JPG images in the table
- reduce temporary memory needed for images and automatically downscale textures if CPU memory is running out

- add table save date and revision to table info and also show this in the pause info/menu

- add new plunger option: Enable 1s retract
  The plunger will move forth and back between the maximum and minimum position, allowing for a retry, if the desired firing position has been missed.
  Useful for button/key plunging and should become your new default.
  Note that some few tables may (ab)use a manual plunger for e.g. kickbacks and these can then be fixed by enabling the autoplunger checkbox for that element.

- add Inder/Playmatic trigger mesh

- make debug text/FPS output adapt to resolution and rotation
- first press of 'F11' will now show a minimalistic FPS-only text, then pressing it the next time will continue with the already known detailed statistics/profiling displays (as the latter had too much impact on the FPS itself)

- the script editor now works in UTF-8 mode and also saves it like that (note though that VBS itself may not digest all of UTF-8!)

- add post-processed sharpening filters to the video preferences: CAS (less aggressive, rather subtle) and Bilateral CAS (can effectively counter the general blur coming in from FXAA or SMAA, etc, while keeping the AA alone)
- improve quality and performance of internal DMD shader (especially visible on FSS tables)

- support to add custom notes to a table. To open a dockable notes dialog use the menu View -> Notes. Any text that was entered there is saved with the current active table.

- add ElasticityFalloff to the wall physics properties

- add Flashers and Primitives to Light sequencer collections

- ability to do a rough profiling of the table loading
  if a file 'Profile.txt' exists in the same directory as VPX, then statistics for the loaded tables will be appended

- add a button to the video preferences that resets the (windowed mode) player window position

- add new command line parameter "-PovEdit [filename]" which loads and runs a table in camera mode, then exports a new pov on exit
- add new command line parameter "-ExtMinimized" to start VP in the 'invisible' minimized window mode, but with enabled Pause Menu
- add new command line parameter "-Primary" to force VP to render on the Primary/Pixel(0,0) Monitor

- add support for capturing any window content into a flasher texture (intended to be used with PUP content)

- be able to 'loop' the automatic loading/select-file dialog if this new setting is enabled in the editor preferences
  (i.e. after having played a table and one exits, the table is unloaded and one can directly select the next one to play)

- retweak default saving filenames for Blueprint-images, .obj, .pov and .vpp: It's now copied from the table filename

- add 2 new tables to the 'File->New' menu: A completely empty table and a light sequencer demo table

FIXES:

- fix issues with 3D Audio setups and backglass sounds (like music)
- the Play Button in the Sound dialog now respects the volume/pan/fade values

- deleting an image will not copy the old alpha value over to the next image in the list anymore

- fix problems when exporting multiple sounds or images

- fix wrong bounceback direction of gate
- fix problem with gate animations introduced in 10.1 when the open/close script functions were used before

- fix issue where saving a table can cost up to 4x (8x on 64bit) the temporary memory

- fix issues when fallback search of core.vbs is triggered

- properly save recently opened directory for all kinds of dialogs

- fix crashes and not being able to select files with very long file names (e.g. images)

- fix hang on player exit on some setups

- do not mark table as dirty if just starting to play it (i.e. due to backup phase)

- replace dithering code with blue noise, fixes flickering patterns (especially in darker table areas)
- disable dithering code when running in 10bit output mode
- tweak AO (Ambient Occlusion) and SSR (Screen Space Reflections) to be a bit less noisy
- slightly tweak light transmission filter to capture a larger radius (for very bright lights)
- revamp bloom filter to capture a larger radius and to be more robust in general, incl. fixing slightly wrong offsets when downsampling
- fix a small error in the original SMAA filter code, and also increase quality parameters slightly (to match reshade)
- retweak Standard FXAA and Quality FXAA filters to be a bit sharper

- tweak minimum physics cycle time, which mainly influences kickers
  also update default kicker physics (Hit height 0.35 and Hit accuracy 0.5)
- slightly optimize collision code, especially for dropped targets

- fix slightly wrong flipper mesh (visible for very short flippers)

- extend light blinking patterns from size 32 to 'unlimited'

- fix some broken insert lights if playfield reflections are disabled

- fix OBJ-exported names for all ramp types
- fix missing wire thickness for triggers on OBJ export

- fix crash on (at least) one pre-forsyth-mesh-reorder table

- fix crash on loading older tables with too long collection names
- fix crash on loading older tables with too long item names (now its also prevented to create these)

- fix hangs on loading/playing older tables due to invalid shapes

- in general be more robust against invalid/'too long' names

- add many more different windowed mode resolutions
- more robustly handle display resolutions that are greater FullHD(1920x1080)
- fix various issues (wrong resolution selected, etc) in the resolution selection list

- also search for table-script replacements (i.e. external .vbs with the same/table name) in the "Scripts" folder to match the core script behavior
- when modifying the table-script, check if it was loaded from an external .vbs, and if yes, then save the modifications to that file (and only optionally to the .vpx table itself)

- delete duplicate images and sounds (same filename/path in the Sound/Image Manager) and remove dead image/material/surface links from items (i.e. if that thingie's name does not exist anymore)

- when using save-as for table saving, go to the same folder and prefill dialog using the same name as the current table

- fix crash when importing older .vpp files in the physics import
- import min & max slope, too, when importing a .vpp file directly in a table

- when setting up the defaults for low- or high-end PCs in the video preferences via the respective buttons, ignore settings that do not influence performance like display, FS mode, etc

- make debug dialog (and its text edit) resizable

- improved script error messages and handling
   o there is a new dialog when you get a script error, showing a stack trace of where the error came from, as well as local variables and function arguments at each point in the stack
   o a script debugger needs to be installed to get this more detailed error information
   o installing Visual Studio 2010 Isolated Shell seems to work
   o this information is saved when you quit gameplay, and can be shown from "Script > Toggle error log" in the script editor
   o compile errors are now also shown in this log, instead of popping up a dialog box
   o further, runtime errors can be suppressed from showing a dialog box for the current play session, which can be useful if you keep getting errors on a timer

- fix an issue where the light sequencer could become stuck
- any light sequencer TailLength value higher than 0 will now 'Reverse', i.e. the lights will turn 'off/on' instead of default 'on/off'

- tweak flipper shadows (via script) implementation in the example/blank table

- update BASS library to 2.4.16
- script editor updated to use scintilla library 4.4.4 (custom build)

- see Changelog_Scripts.txt for the respective core script changes (version 3.58)
- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes
- see Scripts.txt for the actual usage and "documentation" of the scripts that come with VPX

- add Clang (via Visual Studio 2019) support, still has a linking prob with 32bit though

VP 10.6.2 Changelog
------------------------

- add another 7.1 SurroundSound mode tuned for SSF cabinet configurations (7.1 Surround Sound Feedback (enhanced))
  this exaggerates the positional feel of the playfield sound effects when
  played in a cabinet with exciter pairs positioned at each end of the cabinet

- improve quality and performance of internal DMD shader (especially visible on FSS tables)

- replace dithering code with blue noise, fixes flickering patterns (especially in darker table areas)
- disable dithering code when running in 10bit output mode
- tweak AO (Ambient Occlusion) and SSR (Screen Space Reflections) to be a bit less noisy
- fix a small error in the original SMAA filter code, and also increase quality parameters slightly (to match reshade)
- retweak Standard FXAA and Quality FXAA filters to be a bit sharper

VP 10.6.1 Changelog
------------------------

- fix hang on player exit on some setups

VP 10.6.0 Changelog
------------------------

FEATURES:

- add support for using a primitive as playfield instead of the build-in one:
    o to create a mesh playfield create a new blank table and export it as obj file
    o open the obj file in Blender and edit the playfield mesh (mesh name is "Table1")
    o cut holes into the playfield where you want to place kickers, VUKs and so on
    o export the modified playfield mesh as a separate obj file and import it to VPX
    o in VPX rename the playfield primitive to "playfield_mesh"
    o the playfield primitive doesn't need an image and a material assigned
      VPX will use the texture and material from the playfield properties, but will respect the 'disable lighting' parameter from the primitive

    Note: VP can only handle a simple mesh plate (with optional holes) as a playfield. Adding other complicated meshes to the playfield (e.g. merge kicker meshes with the playfield) is not supported.
          The "playfield_mesh" is also handled as a special primitive type: its physics settings are copied from the table physics properties, but in addition you can also set "Has Hit Event" and set a "Hit Threshold"
          if you want to be informed that the ball has hit the playfield. Settings like "Toy", "Collidable" or "Overwrite Material Settings" won't work for the "playfield_mesh".
    See example table (File -> New -> Example Table) how to use it.

- add object space-normal mapping support to primitive (our implementation matches the object space, +X +Y +Z, export/baking settings in Blender)
  Object space-normal maps are commonly used if one reduces polygon counts of a complex model. The lost geometric details are then added back via a normal map

- add proper dithering to final output buffer (most noticable on gradients and/or low-quality/cheaper output monitors)

- implement proper sRGB pipeline for runtime filtering (only for images/textures that are used in the 'standard' material)
- increase static table elements precomputation samples from 32 to 64 and in addition do not do aniso/trilinear filtering there, but rely on the oversampling and bilerp instead, leading to much crisper textures

- add display selection in the video preferences
- add buttons to video preferences to easily setup defaults for low- or high-end PCs
- add 'Force Bloom Filter off' to video preferences to increase performance on extremely low-end graphics cards (like on tablets)
- add checkbox to 'user customizations'->'overwrite physics by global set' to optionally change all flipper settings, too
- add strength parameter for the (optional) legacy/VP9-like keyboard nudging code, can be set in the 'Keys, Nudge and DOF' preferences dialog

- add a circle outline to the gate element to help in selecting a gate in the editor and fix selection view, too
- add a rectangle outline to the spinner element to help in selecting it in the editor and fix selection view, too
- show kicker (default) orientation in the editor
- add support for showing the image of a primitive mesh in the editor. However this feature is far from perfect because Windows GDI (which draws the elements in the editor) can't handle meshes well

- show amount of vertices/polygons for a mesh primitive in the status bar

- add x/y scale support to the camera mode to scale x/y axis at the same time

- support 'Add Point' hotkey (F10 normal and F11 for smooth point) for rubbers

- add apply button to the dimensions manager to apply the selected dimension to the active table

- add support for up to 9 custom start parameters (range 1-9). Usage: "VPinballX.exe -c1 param1 -c2 param2" sets two custom parameters "param1" and "param2".
  To access these in the script use: GetCustomParam(1) to get "param1" and GetCustomParam(2) to get "param2"
- new table-script manipulation features:
  '-extractvbs' parameter: "VPinballX.exe -extractvbs tablename.vpx" extracts the script and exits
  VPX will automatically replace the table-script with a vbs file named the same as the table file (similar to the existing pov file functionality)

- add checkbox to sound- and image-manager to use internal name as filename for exporting
- re-use existing sound settings if re-importing a sound file

- allow to export blueprints in different image formats

- add current active ball velocity/angular velocity, and the number of physics iterations per frame to the F11 debug output/stats

- add rothbauerw's and cyberpez' ball dropping sound code to builtin example tables

FIXES:

- fix lighting of the reflection of the playfield on the ball (before it was more or less ignoring the real lightsources and using a wrong lookup from the environment)
- fix some issues with the physically based lighting calculations, this can change the brightness (most noticably on the playfield) for some tables (more so if the (HDR) environment map is very high contrast, especially on the poles)
- fix normal computations of the old legacy primitive (i.e. that triangulated tube)
- fix ball decal splotches if only a global ball image was set in the video preferences

- fix some regressions (introduced with 10.5) with backdrop lights (most prominent: bulb lights had wrong falloff, the 'classic' lights wrong image mapping)
  as a bonus, this should also finally fix all issues seen with backdrop lights on intel/builtin graphics in the past
- disable transmit for backdrop bulb lights

- fix ball through bumper issue

- fix rather old bug in physics-settings-per-material for the collidable setting of walls (introduced with 10.2)

- fix "all sounds to rear channels" bug

- fix FPS-dependent animation speed if update interval of EM Reels and Light Sequence is chosen low (i.e. quick changes) and animate at the actual speed

- do not ignore primitive setting 'Has Hit Event' anymore (before it was always implicitly on)

- fix some regressions from 10.3+ within the physics options dialog, especially with some of its flipper settings and when importing settings

- fix some potential crashes and quirks in the manager dialogs (most notably the alpha test value in the image manager being copied to other elements when deleting an image)
- fix crash in collection manager if a collection is moved up/down

- fix crashes if a POV file is broken/invalid
- add missing implementation for -pov command line option

- support both winding orders for lights, which fixes the invalid shape error message for (some) lights

- fix some potential problems with balls and rubbers outside of the playfield range, and when importing certain primitive meshes via .obj

ELSE:

- optimize .obj importer

- increase robustness (and reduce temporary memory used) when handling very large images/textures

- remove caption and window borders in windowed mode (only re-enable/toggle that caption if the 'ESC'/Pause-menu is brought up so that one can move the window around after unpausing again)
- save position of the windowed mode player window

- remove all table encryption, old locked tables automatically unlock now

- update BASS library to 2.4.14

- see core scripts (header of core.vbs) for the respective changelog (version 3.57)
- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes

- remove Visual Studio 2010 & 2012 & 2013 support, add Visual Studio 2019 support

VP 10.5.0 Changelog
------------------------

- add ScreenSpace Reflections to the global video and table user properties, strength can be changed in the table lighting panel
   This adds very fake, but also very fast local reflection effects to all table elements
- make exclusive fullscreen the new default when using Windows 10 build 1803 and above
- add option to the global video preferences to disable reflections of dynamic elements on the playfield (to help lower end PC systems)

- static table elements are now over-sampled/better anti-aliased and always rendered at highest detail level (latter only applicable for rubbers and ramps)

- improve quality of internal DMD shader, now it's almost resolution independent, especially when using it via flashers (e.g. FSS tables and the like)

- fix issue with optimized dynamic group rendering of primitives, in general note that
   1. if all elements in a group are dynamic primitives/meshes and all these use the same texture and same material, they will be grouped into
      one big render buffer/single render call to speed up the rendering of transparent meshes on the table (like the plastics for example)
   2. if elements are grouped together they will be treated as a group in the editor. Click on it and all elements in that group are selected at once
   3. if you group primitives you can't animate or move/rotate them dynamically via script!

- throw balls in player: add support to change the default ball mass when throwing a ball. The user can also set the default ball mass in the editor options (menu: preferences)
- built-in ball control: Enable in debug window (or via "ball control always on" in the global options)
   - left mouse click directs the ball towards the mouse cursor, left flipper key releases control
   - can also double click to make the active ball jump to the cursor
   - can hold left mouse button down to guide the ball
   - if "throw" and "ball control" are both checked, one can use the throwing action on the ball control instead of making a new ball

- increase usable UI layers from 8 to 11

- script button can now both open and close the script editor
- optionally make View->Script always show the script (see new option in Preferences->Editor Options)

- add copy/paste feature for control points. Select a control point, press the "Copy" button or CTRL+C to copy the coordinates.
   Then select another control point of another element and press the "Paste" button or leave the mouse cursor over the control point and press CTRL+V.
   ATTENTION: you can also copy/paste control points of the same element but this can lead to bad shapes of the selected element
- add units conversion feature from VPUnits -> inches/millimeters in the status bar for control points.
   If you select two control points of a wall/ramp the status bar shows the distance of X/Y in the selected unit.
   The unit used for the conversion can be set in the editor options dialog.

- make the Edit->Search/Select Element un-minimize if minimized when selected

- fix detection of used materials (bumpers, triggers & kickers were missing) and used images (color grading LUT was missing)
- fix sound device selection/mapping for music (i.e. usually the backglass device)
- add 'Set Defaults' button to the editor properties to reset editor changes and position/size of the script window

- configurable global flipper physics sets: setting a negative value for a flipper physics setting in there will ignore that value and use the respective table flipper value instead
- fix immediate player shutdown if global physics sets not setup/initialized by the user in the global options
- fix wrong initialization order for global physics sets, leading to uninitialized physics parameters on the first run of a table (including potential crashes due to strange values)
- fix EOS Torque and EOS Torque Angle not overriding the table flipper settings when used via the global (flipper) physics sets

- rubbers now fully respect the element detail level slider, plus their hit shapes feature less triangles (=faster physics/collisions)
- fix rubber triangulation issue leading to visual artifacts (especially in the editor) and rarely also weird physics behavior

- fix ramp collision/internal walls reaching below and above the actual visible walls or wires, which was mainly an issue for rather straight and/or very steep ramps

- improve gate swing physics, correct backwards initial swing, and expose new gravity factor parameter.
  Also add some "bounce back" for 1-way gates. Currently set up to use as-is defaults, but Wrd1972 recommends the following settings:
   Ideal setting for GATE motion:
    Elasticity = .4 (default)
    Friction = .02 (default)
    Dampening = .85
    Gravity = 3
   Ideal for SWITCH ACTUATOR motion:
    Elasticity = .4 (default)
    Friction = .02 (default)
    Dampening = .9
    Gravity = 1

- animate bumper skirts depending on ball impact
- add RingDropOffset to the bumper element
- fix rendering of bumper base/skirt if ring is disabled
- update bumper base, ring and skirt with better meshes provided by flupper1

- allow reels and textboxes to be moved via the script (and textboxes can also be placed at floating point precision level)

- add 'Disable Lighting from below' functionality for Targets and Walls (0..1) to optionally disable light coming from below (e.g. from light elements)

- handle corner case if a timer is disabled and then re-enabled within its own handler to prevent falsifying the timer interval

- fix flipper element's EOS Torque and EOS Torque Angle and Elasticity and ElasticityFalloff and RampUp to be able to be changed by the script
- draw also flipper thickness in the editor

- fix triggers getting "stuck" when the ball is moving fast

- fix kicker export bug

- update builtin tables with 3 different sling arms (thanks bord and BorgDog)
- fix obscure bug where starting the blank/built-in tables with the options pane closed causes the ball to levitate off the table

- allow ESC-key to resume table if pause dialog is up

- add -EnableTrueFullscreen (force enables/overrides the true fullscreen video preference) to command line

- improve table exit performance (particularly when using Windows 10 build 1803)

- log message in debug window when PlaySound is called for a sound that's missing in the sound manager

- add VPTableStart broadcast message for frontends as notification that playfield should be shown

- update BASS library to 2.4.13.8

- see core scripts (header of core.vbs) for the respective changelog (version 3.56)
- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes

VP 10.4.0 Changelog
------------------------

- add support for loading POV/backdrop settings automatically: One can define an extra POV(.pov) file for each table, named like the VPX file.
  Example: you have some custom POV settings for the table "QBerts Quest (Gottlieb 1983).vpx". Save the POV settings into the file
           "QBerts Quest (Gottlieb 1983).pov" and place it in the same directory as the VPX file. VPX will then also load the POV settings
           automatically when loading the "QBerts Quest (Gottlieb 1983).vpx" (in the editor/player).
  Or if you like to have default POV settings that are used for any other tables, save it as "autopov.pov".
- in addition, there is also -Pov [filename] to load, export POV settings and then close VPX (via the command line)

- change context menu behavior of add/remove to collection: it's now possible to add/remove one or multiple elements to other collections. 
  If you selected multiple elements but they are not part of the same collection/or are not part of any collection
  the context menu is greyed out and the check marks tell you which collections were found for these selected elements.
  
- add Rotate/Scale around origin option to the rotate/scale dialog.
  Simply uncheck "Rotate around origin" or "Scale around origin" to rotate/scale around the mouse position.
  To use the current mouse position as rotate/scale reference use the following workflow:
  1) select the element you want to rotate/scale
  2) place the mouse cursor where the origin should be
  3) press the context menu key on your keyboard (the one between "Alt Gr" and right "Ctrl") and select "Rotate" or "Scale"
  4) uncheck the "Rotate/Scale around origin" and start the operation

- a selected element can be added/removed to/from a collection via the context menu

- add a new "In Use" column to the material manager dialog
- add a new column for the image manager to show the raw size in bytes for each image

- let user change the scatter angle for bumpers in the editor UI

- add additional thickness parameter to (transparent) materials,
  which interacts with the standard amount (and/or alpha channel of the image) and edge opacity to provide a more natural look

- add (optional) legacy/VP9-like keyboard nudging code, can be enabled in the 'Keys, Nudge and DOF' preferences dialog

- add internal/rudimentary GPU & table element profiling functionality (accessed as usual via the F11 statistics/debug info display variants)
  the normal statistics/debug info display now features multiple modes, the first mode works as before,
  the second features additional timings for each main rendering block (like timings for Ambient Occlusion, pure rendering of the table elements, playfield reflection, etc),
  the third one shows separate timings for each table element type(s), which is only approximate though, as it can not render the table in exactly the same way

- extend 'Disable Lighting' functionality for HitTarget, Primitive and Wall from simple dis/enable to a blend value 0..1
- add 'Disable Lighting from below' functionality for Primitives (0..1) to optionally disable light coming from below (e.g. from light elements)

- add new kicker meshes (KickerCup2, KickerWilliams, KickerGottlieb)

- add surround sound options/configurations:
  1) Basic 2CH audio - this should operate exactly as it did before. Forward/rear panning is ignored.
  2) All effects to rear - Moves the table sounds to the back audio channels. This allows one to move the sounds into the cab like one was able before, but without needing a second sound card.
  3) Surround, front is front - This is the best setting when using a dedicated card for the surround sound table sounds. It makes the front channels the front of the cab (closest to the player). This way if one uses older versions of VP, the old legacy output still works well.
  4) Surround, front is rear - This is a pretty "vanilla" surround setup.  If you were to play on a home theater or with virtual 3D headphones, it's the most appropriate. The "front" speakers are in the rear of the cab (furthest from you). If VPinmame also uses the same soundcard, it will share the audio with these front channels. 
  5) 7.1 surround (aka 6ch audio) - If one wants to drive the backglass, and 4 channel table sounds all off of one card, this is the setting to use. It shifts all of the table audio to the side and rear channels, leaving the fronts available for VPM and backglass sounds. This might also be a good setting to try if you are using just 2 speakers in the cab and 2 in the backbox, the table sounds will pan partially towards the front in 4 speaker mode, letting the backbox provide some of the surround effect.

  Please note that these modes are used in conjunction with the Windows speaker configurations. You can use any mode on any speaker system.
  Some sound cards even have virtual surround options that would work with this setup. You could set up a full 7.1 setup and dedicate it to just the playfield if you wanted with option #3 or #4, and use a separate card for VPM.
  The 7.1 mode was tested and it works great, but we recommend using the #3 option for now(!) as it is the most backwards compatible when also using VP9.X and VP9.X/PhysMod5.

  There's also a much revamped sound manager that lets you tweak the positions without touching the table script.

- add tweaked ball rolling/collision PlaySound calls to the default table, to use the new surround/front_rear_fade parameter
- extend all other PlaySound calls of the default table to use the respective elements X and Y position (on the table) for panning and front/rear fading
- extend some PlaySound calls with DOF/Controller.vbs commands

- new table extended by an additional stripped down version of the default table and an updated example table (Thanks to BorgDog and Hauntfreaks)
- add nudge test and calibration table (by DJRobX, modded by Sir Cheddar) to tables directory

- stop playing sounds when exiting the sound dialog, or exiting position dialog, or when you pick a different sound

- remove rendering of lower playfield border/quad

- fix missing kicker holes at inclination values close around 0
- drop target hit event problems fixed

- fix duplicated functions in the script editor dropdown box (which also resulted in a lot of slowdown over time)
- fix some uninitialized dialog state
- fix some more editor crashes

- see core scripts (header of core.vbs) for the respective changelog (versions 3.54 and 3.55)
- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes

VP 10.3.1 Changelog
------------------------

- fix some editor crashes
- fix UI rendering of alpha images on Windows XP

- in interactive camera/light editing mode (e.g. launch table with F6 or the respective menu entry) navigating around the table with the arrow keys (and left alt key)
  must now be explicitly enabled in the key preferences dialog

- add Randr's rulers, plus a simple protractor and Rothbauerw's manual ball control script (slightly tweaked) to the default table

VP 10.3.0 Changelog
------------------------

- add new material option for the glossy color: 'Use Image', which allows to configure how much the (optional) image that is attached
  to a scene element is allowed to influence the glossy part of the material (0=no tinting at all from the image, up to 1=same behavior as before/older VPX versions)
- fix 'edge shadowing' issue if a normal map image is used for a scene element

- add new configurable in-game key for a lockbar/fire button (accessible via "LockbarKey" in the script)

- in interactive camera/light editing mode (e.g. launch table with F6 or the respective menu entry):
  - press the start game key (default is 1) to reset the camera and all backdrop settings (inclination, layback...)
  - add camera rotation around Y axis
  - navigating around the table with the arrow keys (and left alt key) is now possible
  - show camera position

- add additional parameter to primitives to allow for rendering backface triangles (if the used material features transparency)

- add simple kicker hole mesh

- change "AntiFriction" parameter to "Damping" for the gate and spinner elements (which also changes the input range from 0..100 to 0..1, and is inverse to before, e.g. Damping="1-AntiFriction/100")
  (old tables will still load/save exactly the same though, as it was always used like this internally anyway)

- add (optional) missing hit event to ramps
- add missing Timer properties for ramps

- VP now supports three different view modes (DESKTOP, FULLSCREEN and FULL_SINGLE_SCREEN (to be able to easily add an additional backglass to the table)). The UI was changed to select, view and change these properties via a drop down list
- add more window resolutions to the video preferences (for new FSS/portrait setups)

- using the built-in DMD (via the flasher element) now in addition will respect the 'Additive Blend' and 'Modulate' parameters to steer the blending with the table
  (this can for example be used to simulate a reflection on the playfield glass: set 'Modulate' to 0.9 and check 'Additive Blend' as an example)
  (note that this unfortunately can break old tables as this setting was still ignored in 10.2.X, so all tables that use a built-in DMD via the flasher element should please be re-released with these two parameters set up correctly)

- slightly tweak bloom filter and light transmission filter to capture a larger radius (for very bright lights)

- add NFAA post processing filter to the post-processing AA dropdown menus (sometimes more blurry, but also keeps more dynamic range of the highlights compared to FXAA, and is pretty fast)
- add DLAA post processing filter to the post-processing AA dropdown menus (somewhere inbetween FXAA and NFAA, depending on the aliasing-pattern that is smoothed, and more costly than NFAA)
- add SMAA post processing filter to the post-processing AA dropdown menus (comparable to Quality FXAA, depending on the aliasing-pattern that is smoothed, and more costly, but usually also a bit better)

- own colors can now be defined for locked/unlocked selected elements, element fill color and editor table background, in the editor preferences

- sound manager, image manager and script editor save and restore window position and size
- image Manager: new column added to show if an image is in use
- material/image manager dialog is resizeable

- improve display of images with alpha channel in the editor (no more checkerboards)

- add hotkey for toggling between table and backdrop view in the editor (ctrl+space)

- fix autosave option if entering/OKing the editor options dialog

- fix UI issue with the layer buttons for high desktop resolutions

- add Win32++ framework to simplify UI handling (more infos under https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32-framework )

- remove Visual Studio 2008 support
- add Visual Studio 2017 support

VP 10.2.1 Changelog
------------------------

- fix for camera/light tweaking mode not updating lighting parameters

VP 10.2.0 Changelog
------------------------

- add -Help (displays all command line parameters) and -DisableTrueFullscreen (force disables/overrides the true fullscreen video preference) to command line

- by default open file dialog to directly select and play a table (can be changed in preferences->editor options)

- timers now feature a special mode (setting the interval to -1) that triggers a timer exactly once per frame (e.g. dependent on the FPS that a user gets for a table).
  this can also be interpreted as being a callback done once per frame to update everything that is only rendering-related (e.g. to reduce overhead caused by things that will never be seen by the player in the end).
  note that all purely script-driven animations that use a timer with its interval set to -1 should use the new script function GameTime to calculate the time passed between the previous and current frame to make animations time dependent again.
- fix timers that dis/enable themselves in the script

- disable visual touch/pen feedback to save one frame of input latency/lag (on tablets/phones)

- replace old 'Maximum pre-rendered frames' video preference implementation with the official DirectX mechanism on non-XP systems,
  so it could be worth to experiment again with this setting by using 1 or 2 to reduce lag at the price of a bit of performance

- add aspect ratio to dimension manager

- add show debugger hot key option to the keys preferences. If hot key is pressed it opens the debugger window without showing the pause menu.

- Lights can be debugged (and also live tweaked) in the debugger. Open the debugger, click on the "Lights" button and a new dialog will appear where all dynamic values are editable. Properties like blinking/on/off are
  based on the timing of the player but the timing is stopped while debugging. You have to click in the player window to see the changes. And beware that all light properties can be changed by 
  the script, so these might be overwritten by the script even if you try to set them in the debugger. The changes will also affect the lights in the editor once you quit the player.

- Materials can also be debugged (and also live tweaked) in the debugger. Open the debugger, click on the "Materials" button and a new dialog will appear where all properties are editable except for the physics values. 
  By hitting enter or the "Apply" button the changes are updated. Every dynamic element on the table will show the changes immediately. The opacity active flag is an exception: This flag
  also defines if an element is rendered dynamically or not (e.g. for walls or ramps). So if the opacity isn't already active when starting the player you won't see changes on these static elements.
  The changes will also affect the materials in the editor once you quit the player.

- hotkey for adding normal and smooth control points for walls, ramps and lights. Select a wall, ramp or light and press F10 for a normal unsmoothed control point and F11 for a smoothed one.

- animation support for mesh primitives added: The animation sequence is based on multiple .obj files for each frame. Let's say we have an animation of 100 single frames, then you have to export
  each frame into a separate .obj file with the nameing format <meshname>_x.obj where x is the frame number. When importing a mesh, check the "Import Animation sequence" in the import dialog and
  select the .obj file of the first frame. VP will then load all other frames and, when done, will show you a short message box how many frames were imported.
  Check the CommandReference.txt for the new primitive animation script functions.

- bumper cap, base, ring, skirt can be set to invisible separately

- add one-way trigger mesh (TriggerWireC type)

- changes to bumper material: add separate bumper ring material and don't use a built-in texture for the bumper base and skirt anymore

- add a physics setting per material to the material manager.
  Settings are: Friction, elasticity, elasticity falloff and scatter angle.
  This allows for tweaking all physics settings in the material manager for all 'similar' table elements (with the same material) at once.
  (If you like you can still overwrite the settings for each element separatly though)

- extend the EOSTorque effect to both entering and leaving the EOS zone and add additional EOS Torque Angle to make this range configurable
  This allows for more flipper tricks without having to dial in unrealistic flipper settings

- output table information if paused

- start camera/light tweaking mode with 'F6'
- for a quick Desktop(DT) vs Cabinet(FS) camera view testing: hold 'shift' or left flipper button during the table start to choose between the default DT or FS camera

- texture size limit/downscale now respects aspect ratio.
  Also delete outdated 512 max limit and introduce a new 3072 max limit.

- enable park position also for non-mech (digital) plunger

- fix dynamic bulb mesh light not rendering issue

- remove some debugging script editor output messages

- fixed that the ball size was not updated in the pause debugging menu

- see CommandReference.txt for the changelog of all the scripting properties/interface changes

- add DOF controller configuration also to the VP keys dialog
- new core scripts by mfuegemann and controller modifications by arngrim, plus solenoid modulation by DJRobX (see core.vbs for changelog (3.51 and 3.52))

VP 10.1.0 Changelog
------------------------

- add (tangent space-)normal mapping support to primitive

- add EOSTorque to the flipper physics settings. This value/factor effects the way how long a flipper arm stays in the up/raised position even when you released the flipper button.
  On real pinballs it will take some time until the flipper solenoid loses it's power until the flipper drops down or is forced to move by a hitting ball.

- add DefaultBulbIntensityScale also to the table ball property to scale/dampen the intensity of the bulb lights on the ball

- add abilty to show the image size in the image manager for each texture
- add an "Update All" button to the image manager for updating all images without any further inquiry.
  Only an error message is shown after updating, if some images can't be updated (e.g. files not found).

- add support to import/export backdrop POV(Point Of View) settings to a XML file. It's under File->Import->Backdrop POV or File->Export->Backdrop POV
- fix/extend support for different user-selectable physics presets and also save as XML file

- hit shape of the rubber object refined
- rubbers also now have an extra HitHeight property to further decouple the collision detection from the actual visible rubber height. Also the HitHeight isn't affected by the z-scaling.

- spinner and gate animation reworked

- add a "Raise Delay" setting to drop targets
- drop targets (not hit targets) have an additional dropped and raised event that is fired if a drop target is really dropped or raised (after animation of the mesh). 
  The normal hit event is also supported but decoupled from the animation, so if a hit event is fired the isdropped flag can still be false because it is set after the animation.

- add DMD image connection (if enabled in script) for flashers (and also as checkbox for textboxes)

- add support to assign left/right flipper button to left/right mouse buttons and middle mouse button to plunger key (this can introduce less lag for the flipper buttons, compared to using a keyboard remapper)

- "Throw Balls In Player" mode can now be activated permanently in the Preferences->Editor menu, also you can define the default ball size for this mode. 
  The ball size for this mode can also be defined in the debugger menu.

- new video preferences
  - add support to overwrite the ball image/decal texture globally
  - optional post-processing of the internal DMD (via scaleFX algorithm, smoothes the output similar to FXAA)
  - add SBS (Side by Side) and Interlaced 3D Stereo mode outputs
  - resurrect exclusive fullscreen mode (note that this will not allow to let other windows show up, like VPinMAME)
  - add 10bit output for all compatible graphics cards and monitors (non-HDR/Rec2020 for now, just plain sRGB), needs exclusive fullscreen mode for now
  - possibility to disable desktop composition (only works on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems, can reduce lag and/or increase performance)

- combine all common user-tweakable table settings in one simple UI panel in the table options

- new core scripts by mfuegemann and PROC controller modifications by arngrim

- hotkeys.txt added, containing all editor shortcuts

VP 10.0.0 Changelog
------------------------

- the next generation of Visual Pinball finally arrives!
  due to this, VP10 breaks a lot of backwards compatibility for ramps, lights, physics, colors/images/materials, and more, so
  most existing VP9 and VP8 tables will not work correctly or will even output script errors when run, -but they will load-, so you can reuse all existing work!

  -> TL.DR up-front conversion hints:
     - pull lightsource->ambient down to 0,0,0 (or at least a small value to avoid loss in fidelity of the colors)
     - crank up lightsource->emission to 255,255,255 and tweak the color from there (to get a good contrast on the shading)
     - tweak the lightsource->height and the two emission-scales (and try to keep the light range really really really large before tweaking the rest of the light parameters!)
     - if doing nightmods, try to avoid manually toning down all images and materials, but rather just use the light emission settings
       including the new night->day slider (this will allow the user to tweak the brightness of the table on his/her own afterwards)
     - revisit all physics settings, even if you used VP9Physmod(5) before (only the re-enabled friction and scatter in the physmod5 case though)
     - take a look into the new material editor and assign a material to each object on the table
     - use flashers when doing special lighting effects/gi-changes/night mods (and tweak existing ones by playing with the opacity (can be >100%) and modulate options),
       otherwise try to stick with the newly redone (bulb-)light elements (flashers and bulblights are cheaper to render than other elements)
     - revisit CommandReference.txt for all commands that have changed names/behavior, were replaced or deleted


- a special thanks has to go out to our awesome alpha testers/improvers: Unclewilly, JPSalas and JimmyFingers!

- for all the changes regarding the core vbs script file package (like cvpmTrough,cvpmSaucer,BallMass,UseVPMDMD,UseVPMColoredDMD, the Controller abstraction (DOF,B2S,VPM,EM) and the new Coindoor key functionality)
  look into core.vbs for the full changelog


- physics mostly redone (also previously known as 'physmod(5)')
  due to this it is now also possible to enable vsync without physics sideeffects like stutter or bad aiming (set FPS limiter to 1)

  -> additional changes since physmod5, note that these will also -force- you to revisit existing physmod5 physics table settings:
     - friction is no longer ignored (e.g. it was always constant at 0.3 before) on the playfield, walls, slingshots, primitives, ramps, gates (and more?!)
     - scatter is no longer ignored for kickers and all kinds of collisions. also the global fallback behavior was changed: only if scatter < 0 then the global scatter value (=0.5) is used (before it was also used if scatter=0)
     - elasticity, elasticity falloff and scatter are now exposed as new playfield properties (before these were fixed at elasticity=0.2 and the other two at 0)
     - import/export of the physics options sets is fixed and can be used again
     - flipper properties strength,mass,return are wired up correctly and can be used from the script again
     - collision heuristics are adapted for all ball sizes (e.g. different from the default radius of 25), so it should be safer to use strange ball sizes now
       (note: remember to always also tweak the ball mass if changing the ball radius (the kicker now supports CreateSizedBallWithMass),
       as otherwise you will get a "floaty" ball (mass = k*radius^3)), thus (hopefully) no more ball-falling-through-playfield problem
     - add IsBottomSolid to Walls to have Walls optionally completely closed (bottom was always open)

  -> the data-format of the physics sets (*.vpp files) is basically the same, although the parameters inside are different, so unfortunately you need to set them up from scratch again
  
  -> kicker physics changed: The kicker bevel will influence the ball's motion and won't grab the ball like a magnet anymore.
     The old behaviour can be set via the 'Legacy' checkbox and is recommended for 'invisible' kickers like the trough as it can be much faster.
     Also use 'Legacy' on kickers that are (ab)used as triggers (e.g. to create balls once or 'warp' balls).

- changed the plunger physics to make the launch behavior more linear and controllable, for both keyboard and mechanical 
  plunger interfaces

- added new plunger visual styles, Flat and Custom, along with new properties for more control over the appearance; it 
  should now be possible to create a photo-realistic plunger with the precise appearance desired using the built-in
  plunger object

- Select Elements dialog improved. It shows the type of the element and if supported the used images. 
  
- new Camera & Light Mode added to the Table menu. This mode starts the player in a special mode where you can change backdrop & lighting settings with the following keys:
     left flipper key = decrease value
     right flipper key = increase value
     left magna save key = previous backdrop/light option
     right magna save key = next backdrop/light option

- new setting in the video preferences to setup rotation for cabinet mode (or otherwise standard desktop)
  this allows a table to be used in/setup for both DT and FS by setting the backglass options correctly for both modes

- adjust cabinets: in the video options select "Cabinet anti-stretch the ball" and depending on your screen you can enter a correction offset for the
                   aspect ratio. If you use a 16:9 screen use a correction offset of X=0.0 and Y=1.5. For a 16:10 screen use X=0.0 and Y=0.0 for best results.
                   This option only applies to rotated and fullscreen rendered tables (cabinet mode)!
                   Even with this option you might need to adjust the backdrop settings. The biggest problem for an egg-shaped ball is the Layback value.
                   Values over 70-80 are way too high and should be lowered. The scaling can become a problem too.
                   To find a better POV with a round ball over the playfield do the following:
                   - set the min/max slope to 0 and start the table in Camera Mode (menu Table -> Camera Mode)
                   - enter debug mode and activate "Throw balls in player"
                   - drop balls all over the table and adjust the POV settings

- new table field height setting in the "Dimension & Slope Settings":
  Now you can define a real playfield height. If this value is raised, all elements on the table are also moved by that amount.
  For example: "table field height"=50 means everything on the table is raised by 50 units. This allows for real ball tunnels and more.
- objects can be placed -under- the playfield or move 'through' the playfield (think Ringmaster or Trolls)
  and will still be visible through alpha channel/cutouts in the playfield image (note that only -dynamic- objects will show up though, due to restrictions in the engine)

- new rubber element
  rubber object can be rotated around the X/Y/Z axis and shown in the editor if the checkbox "Show In Editor" is checked

- the thickness of a wire trigger can be scaled. 0 is the default thickness. To make it thicker use values like 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2... 

- spinners are mesh based. If the spinner bracket isn't the right one disable the "Show Bracket" settings and you will only see the spinner plate.

- introducing drop/hit target element. A drop/hit target is now a separate VP element. It is mesh based and different shapes can be selected from a drop
  down list. A target fires a hit event and has it's own timer like walls when used as drop targets.

- kickers are mesh based. In the kicker settings you can set "Fall through" so that if a ball hits a kicker(hole) the ball will fall through the 
  surface which is attached to it. This only works if the wall is higher than the playfield, it won't work if the hole is on the playfield.

- gates are mesh based. Another option was added to the gate element: "Two Way" if set the ball can roll from both sides through the gate

- flippers can now feature an image

- add material editor

  -> quick and basic explanation:
     - First of all select if you want to design a metal material (steel, gold, silver, aluminium, etc)
       or any other one (plastic, wood, rubber, etc)

     - Then select the base color of your material
       (note that this can/will be modulated by the (optional) image on your object(s) later-on,
        so if you need your object image to look as true to the original as possible, set the base color to full white,
        otherwise you can also just use the base color to change the brightness or colors of the object image)

     - If you selected a non-metal material you can now in addition add some subtle reflectivity via the glossy layer color
       (otherwise simply set it to full black, but leave at grey to full white for a more natural behavior)

     - Then select the shininess of your material (0.0 means very very dull reflections, 1.0 means perfect mirror-like reflections),
       of course this only has an effect on metals or if you used the glossy layer

     - For some materials it can now also be realistic to add an additional clearcoat layer on top of everything
       (otherwise simply set it to full black)

     - After testing the look of the material on an object (use a curved one if possible, e.g. the default rubber (with thickness >30) or a complex primitive),
       you can tweak the edge brightness parameter: Usually it should just be left at 1, but if you think the edges are unnaturally bright, reduce it

  -> pro tip:
     - In nature, each object has a bit of glossy, so try to -never- set the glossy layer to full black on non-metal materials!

- assign sound-,image-,material- and collection-manager to hot keys (F2,F3,F4 and F8)

- new shader based inserts/lights/bulbs
  bulbs are special in many aspects:
   - They optionally feature a built-in mesh that "emits" light to the viewer
   - One can use them to add a lighting effect over other elements (use the Modulate option to blend between additive (0) and multiplicative (1) behavior, try to keep this around 0.9 to best support the day->night slider)
   - In addition they can be used to add a lighting effect from below for all transparent materials (like playfield plastics and transparent ramps) via the Transmit option

- new shader based mesh ball

- new shader based materials/lighting (full HDR pipeline)

  -> due to the new lighting and materials the orientation of vertex normals on imported primitives is now extremely important!
     to test if everything is correct, try to tone down the environment emission scale and see if all your objects are correctly lit -only- from above

  -> always try to tweak the two lighting components (some lightsources above the table plus the environment image light surrounding the table) separately
     by setting one of the two emission scales to 0 and then configuring the other one on its own

  -> the new environment image -must- be in Latitude/Longitude format (see for example http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial04.php),
     and also keep the resolution low (512x256 should be enough)

  -> the night->day slider will scale these two lighting components, and in addition
     the script now offers NightDay, which returns the range in 0..100, so that additional tweaks can be done in the script, depending on this value
     this night->day setting can also be set automatically via the video preferences, but requires to fill in the correct latitude and longitude of your location
      (in decimal degrees,-90..90 (North positive) and -180..180 (East positive), like openstreetmap.org does)

- new (optional) playfield reflections
  This option is a table option and can't be blindly activated on all tables. Because authors have so many different ways to build tables it's nearly impossible to handle the reflection in every case.
  If you're building a table and you want to use this option the following rules apply:
  - the reflection only applies on the playfield not on upper playfield areas or separate walls used as a playfield.
  - don't overdo the reflection strength of the ball/playfield reflection. Depending on the playfield texture a value around 50-120 should be good enough. Otherwise it looks unnatural.
  - don't use decals of the size of the playfield as an overlay or you won't see the reflection neither.
  - the reflection effect is actually very simple. VP flips all static elements on the z-axis (z=0) and renders them into a texture. This texture is blended over the playfield. Therefore special care must be taken 
    for mesh primitives. You have to set the pivot point of a mesh well. If you try to compensate a wrong pivot point in VP by adjusting the xyz position it could result in a wrong mirrored element. You will notice it
    because e.g. a mirrored post isn't mirrored under the actual post instead it's rendered a bit below on the playfield and the reflection looks odd.
  - if needed, disable certain elements from the reflection via the respective flag in its options
  
- Ball reflection on playfield can be enabled/disabled via script for separate balls with "ReflectionEnabled". For example when you create a new ball from a kicker then: kicker1.CreateBall.ReflectionEnabled=1 activates the reflection on the playfield

- new (optional) color grading step
  like in movies or photography, one can now add an (almost) artificial color grading step at the very end of the rendering process
  (see https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/PostProcessEffects/ColorGrading/index.html
   and skip to 'Color Correction' to learn more about how this is supposed to work and for a clean 1:1 mapped 256x16 LUT texture to start with, the default table also includes one as ColorGradeLUT256x16_1to1.png)
  you can load the 256x16 LUT texture via the Image Manager like any other image, and then select it in the Backdrop->Colors&Formatting options
  (it can also be changed dynamically via the ColorGradeImage variable of the table in the script,
   for example to change the look of a table completely (invert colors, make everything red/blue/whatever, etc))

  -> only after -finishing- up a table completely, you should use this functionality as the very final beautification step!
     (also make sure that there is not already a LUT selected in the backdrop settings when you take the screenshot in VP for the further tweaking)

  -> do not save the new LUT texture as jpg, but rather as lossless png or bmp!

- images/textures transparency is now -only- based on the alpha channel of the loaded images, no transparency color/hack support anymore

- images can now feature high dynamic range (HDR), via the .exr and .hdr file formats, which is supported on:
  - the ball image (use the Mirror Ball Map format, see http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial04.php),
  - flashers and (pass-through-mode-)lights and the background image (don't know where to get useful HDR images for these though),
  - and -especially- the environment image (use the Latitude/Longitude format, again see http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial04.php)

- add new PlayHit() and PlaySlingshotHit() function to the bumper / wall. If called the bumper/wall will play the hit animation as if a ball hits the element but without triggering the actual hit event.

- add LastCapturedBall function to the kicker element. It returns the last captured or the current captured ball. If no ball could be found or the ball is already destroyed an error message will be displayed

- EM Reels do not feature raw Text/Font input anymore, only Images (this was already unsupported in 9.9.X, but is now officially discarded)

- internal DMD support (access via script, input levels are 0..100 (or RGB/0..255 for DMDColoredPixels))
  to display the DMD, use a TextBox with the magic keyword "DMD" as text
  to be able to connect to VPM, use a recent VPM (2.6 or newer) and a recent core.vbs (3.44 or newer) and follow the instructions there
- DMDWidth, DMDHeight, DMDPixels (or DMDColoredPixels) to steer the DMD added to Table Script methods

- improved smoothness for ramps (centripetal Catmull-Rom splines)
- ramps can now in addition use the height parameter of their control points (its used as an offset in addition to the normal ramp behaviour)
- in the editor: control points of ramps have a new read-only "Real Height" information. The "Height Offset" is just an offset for the current height. 
  E.g.: Top/Bottom height of the ramp is 100. If you add 25 to the "Height Offset" the "Real Height" shows 125. This is more important if you use a sloped 
  ramp with bottom height 0 and top height 60 and add new control points on the ramp. The height information is interpolated from one control point to the 
  next one, so the "Real Height" shows you this value and the "Height Offset" can be used to easily adjust the height.  
- changed opacity/transparency handling for ramps (Alpha/Acrylic have been deleted, only the material opacity value is supported now)
- the control point for the bottom ramp has a blue color to identify which side of the ramp is the bottom one

- GetElement, GetElementByName, GetBalls added to Table Script methods to have simple access to the elements and all active balls on the table
- OnBallBallCollision(ball1, ball2, velocity) can be used as a Callback in the script to handle Ball to Ball collisions
- renaming of IsVisible properties (flasher, ramp) to Visible

- a whole lot of script-editor changes:
  Dwell Tool Tip
   When the mouse pointer is left to "dwell" over a keyword, the Script Editor can display additional information:

   e.g. for: 1056 dim scoringTimer:scoringTimer = 0 'How long DOUBLE SCORING will go on

   - The actual definition of the keyword. [dim scoringTimer]
   - The line number of the definition of the keyword. [Line 1056]
   - Any help/comment associated with the keyword. [How long DOUBLE SCORING will go on]
  Dwell start time and the display of the help/comment may be adjusted in the Code View preferences.

  Highlighting
   This is done by keywords that fall into the following categories:
    1. Visual Basic reserved words.
    2. Table Script Subs, Functions, Dims, Consts, Properties and any member of these.
    3. Table components.
    4. Visual Pinball Core.vbs file.
    5. Comments
    6. Literals
    7. Default Text
   The following properties of each keyword may be adjusted in the Code View preferences:
   Active, font, color, size, bold, italic, etc. 
   If a keyword is already defined outside the table script it will be highlighted in the original definition color,
   but the dwell tool tip will be of the re-defined keyword in the table script.

  Auto complete
   Suggestions which keywords are displayed in a dropdownbox underneath your typing according to the characters you have typed.
   The number of typed characters before suggestions are displayed can be adjusted in the Code View preferences.

  Word highlighting
   When double clicking a word it will be highlighted throughout the Table Script.

- two new methods of ball decals added. If 'Logo mode' is unchecked the decal texture will be additively blended based on it's alpha values.
  This way you can add scratches to the ball (see the default table for an example). In 'Logo mode' the decal texture is blended as an overlay 
  (blend mode 'Screen' in Photoshop/Gimp) to apply a logo or a second image on the normal ball texture.

- flasher supports custom shapes and multi texturing. You can define two separate images and define a filter to blend these two images.
  in addition there is now a modulate option to define how the flasher blends with the underlying elements (0(=full additive)..1=(only modulate), try to stick with something like 0.9 to best support the day->night slider)
  plus the opacity and amount parameters can be set to values > 100%
  to fade a set of flashers in/out easily you can use the IntensityScale in the script, so that you do not need to use different opacity values
  look into the CommandReference.txt for additional changes to the functions that can be used

- collections can now group elements together. If you enable 'Group elements together' flag and you click on one element of the group all other members 
  of that group are selected. So you can move/scale/rotate them without multi-select element by element. If you want to select just one element of that group
  just shift-left click on the element and you can manipulate only that element. Unchecking the 'Group elements together' flag disable this feature for this collection.

- ctrl+mouse wheel zooms in/out. The old way of using ctrl+left click for zooming in and ctrl+right click for zooming out is still possible.

- enable "Throw Balls in Player" mode, and by pressing the middle mouse button a ball will fall from the table glass height onto the table. This way you can place some balls on tables if a wall is used as the playfield.

- extend right click behavior for multi-select to hidden items

- the property menu can now be a floating window (old behavior can be restored in the editor options)

- remove old shadowing code and replace it with optional screen space ambient occlusion
  additionally one can also enable ambient occlusion for dynamic objects (via the global video preferences and also the table options)

- its not necessary anymore to manually override the texture filtering quality in the global gfx cards options (NVIDIA control panel, etc)
  if you need HQ filtering, please only use the checkbox in the VP video preferences instead

- new 4x Anti-Aliasing mode that does brute force oversampling
  (can optionally be combined with VPs builtin FXAA or the control panel FXAA/SMAA/etc for even more smoothing)

- add third mode for FXAA: extreme (and retweak the quality FXAA mode)

- 3D stereo now also works on most Intel and AMD systems, not just on NVIDIA 
- removed 3D stereo AA, its always enabled now
- added 3D stereo offset, which can be used to offset the table "into" or "nearer to" the monitor

- add flag "Alternative Depth Buffer processing" to the video options
  use this option if you get the corresponding error message on table launch

- adaptive vsync works again, it will disable vsync automatically if FPS drop below monitor refresh rate (not on windows XP though due to missing functionality there)
  enable it by setting the FPS Limiter to 2 (1 will still be using 'real' VSync and any number above the monitor refresh rate (usually 60Hz) will just limit the FPS)
  - additional note: remember to -not- disable Aero on Windows 7/8/10 to be able to use vsync!

- optional texture compression to save some gfx video memory (at the cost of rendering quality and loading time)
  (for now the textures have to be a multiple of 4 in both x & y resolution to make them compressable.
   this can be abused though to 'disable' texture compression on certain critical textures by making them -not- a multiple of 4)

- support primitive vertex sizes > 65535 and redo primitive drawing in the editor-UI 
  (there is now a new setting for each primitive, set to 0 to switch to the old approximate drawing mode (usually fast),
   1 to draw each and every triangle (usually slow) or inbetween to approximate the outlines of the object (lower values are faster))

- primitives can optionally be reduced for the use in the physics core (so that highly detailed objects do not cause stutter on collisions)
  by setting the new 'reduce polygons' options (0=no reduction and no slowdown on loading .. 1=high reduction of polygons and slower loading)

- export of the entire table to an .obj file (Menu File -> Export -> OBJ Mesh)

- mesh import dialog added. The options are:
  * "Convert coordinate system" : Converts a mesh to the left handed coordinate system used by DirectX
  * "Center mesh to it's midpoint" : The midpoint(pivot) of a mesh is calculated and the whole mesh is moved so that the midpoint is at the origin (0,0,0)
  * "Place at primitive's position" : The old/normal placement function. The mesh isn't moved and will be placed relative to the primitives base position
  * "Place at mesh's absolute position (use mesh's middpoint)": The mesh is transformed so that it's midpoint(pivot) is at the origin (0,0,0) and then moved to it's absolute position
                                                                where it was placed in the 3D editor (e.g. Blender)
  The last option is useful for the following workflow:
   1. export the table as one huge .obj file (File -> Export -> OBJ Mesh)
   2. import this obj file into your 3D editor
   3. place additional meshes on the table or replace existing objects
   4. export each object you have added or replaced into a separate .obj file
   5. import each .obj file and in the import dialog select "Place at mesh's absolute position (use mesh's midpoint)"
      so that the object's pivot point will be the object's midpoint and the base position of the primitive is changed to the position from the 3D editor

  * "Import mesh's material" : Loads the corresponding .mtl file and adds the first material in that file.
                               For instance: if the mesh .obj file is called "bumper.obj", then there should be a file "bumper.mtl" in the same directory.
                               But only some basic material settings are imported due to the limited .mtl format, for Blender the used material parameters are:
                                Blender diffuse color -> VP base color
                                Blender specular color -> VP glossy layer
                                Blender specular hardness -> VP shininess value
                                Blender transparency alpha value -> VP opacity amount
                               When imported the primitive has the imported material automatically assigned.
                               Note that any textures aren't imported automatically though, this must be done as usual with the help of the image manager.

- add additional debug mode when pressing F11 multiple times to visualize the content of only the static buffer.
  this can be used to optimize for performance by trying to put as many elements as possible into this buffer, for example:
  - objects that are un-necessarily using a material with opacity enabled
  - objects missing the static rendering flag (if there is one for this type)
  - walls that can drop but never use this flag

- reactivate old VP9.0 easter egg (and improve it :))

- new external audio library for music playback (BASS)
  this allows to use different formats than just MP3, e.g. OGG

- use miniz library to compress primitives

- 64bit port (handle with care, might still cause issues)

- script editor updated to use custom extensions within Scintilla (based on 3.6.2)

- technical compile note: make sure to install Microsoft SDK 5.0,7.0A,7.1 or 7.1A, if you compile VP and get missing header errors (optionally set the include path inc\winsdk)

VP 9.9.X PM5 Plunger/Accel/Surround MOD b Changelog
----------------------------------------
- fix "all sounds to rear channels" bug

VP 9.9.X PM5 Plunger/Accel/Surround MOD Changelog
----------------------------------------
- add surround sound options/configurations:
 1) Basic 2CH audio - this should operate exactly as it did before. Forward/rear panning is ignored.
 2) All effects to rear - Moves the table sounds to the back audio channels. This allows one to move the sounds into the cab like one was able before, but without needing a second sound card.
 3) Surround, front is front - This is the best setting when using a dedicated card for the surround sound table sounds. It makes the front channels the front of the cab (closest to the player). This way if one uses older versions of VP, the old legacy output still works well.
 4) Surround, front is rear - This is a pretty "vanilla" surround setup.  If you were to play on a home theater or with virtual 3D headphones, it's the most appropriate. The "front" speakers are in the rear of the cab (furthest from you). If VPinmame also uses the same soundcard, it will share the audio with these front channels. 
 5) 7.1 surround (aka 6ch audio) - If one wants to drive the backglass, and 4 channel table sounds all off of one card, this is the setting to use. It shifts all of the table audio to the side and rear channels, leaving the fronts available for VPM and backglass sounds. This might also be a good setting to try if you are using just 2 speakers in the cab and 2 in the backbox, the table sounds will pan partially towards the front in 4 speaker mode, letting the backbox provide some of the surround effect.

 Please note that these modes are used in conjunction with the Windows speaker configurations. You can use any mode on any speaker system.
 Some sound cards even have virtual surround options that would work with this setup. You could set up a full 7.1 setup and dedicate it to just the playfield if you wanted with option #3 or #4, and use a separate card for VPM.

VP 9.9.X PM5 Plunger/Accel MOD Changelog
----------------------------------------
- all PM5 physics (and additional) changes

- backport plunger/accel/nudge changes from main VP

- minor fixes and backports from main VP
 - fix UI issue with the layer buttons for high desktop resolutions
 - disable visual touch/pen feedback to save one frame of input latency/lag
 - fix timers that dis/enable themselves in the script
 - fix EMReel crash when image is missing and reel value is nonzero
 - extend right click behavior for multi-select to hidden items
 - fixed rendering of overlapping balls
 - include optional nudge filtering (selectable in the keys dialog)
   and remove implicit dead zone handling (if you have the dead zone setting at 0% and now experience problems, set it to at least 1%)
 - native support for the Pinscape Controller
 - CPU affinity setting

VP 9.9.5b Changelog
------------------------
- fix "all sounds to rear channels" bug

VP 9.9.5 Changelog
------------------------
- add surround sound options/configurations:
 1) Basic 2CH audio - this should operate exactly as it did before. Forward/rear panning is ignored.
 2) All effects to rear - Moves the table sounds to the back audio channels. This allows one to move the sounds into the cab like one was able before, but without needing a second sound card.
 3) Surround, front is front - This is the best setting when using a dedicated card for the surround sound table sounds. It makes the front channels the front of the cab (closest to the player). This way if one uses older versions of VP, the old legacy output still works well.
 4) Surround, front is rear - This is a pretty "vanilla" surround setup.  If you were to play on a home theater or with virtual 3D headphones, it's the most appropriate. The "front" speakers are in the rear of the cab (furthest from you). If VPinmame also uses the same soundcard, it will share the audio with these front channels. 
 5) 7.1 surround (aka 6ch audio) - If one wants to drive the backglass, and 4 channel table sounds all off of one card, this is the setting to use. It shifts all of the table audio to the side and rear channels, leaving the fronts available for VPM and backglass sounds. This might also be a good setting to try if you are using just 2 speakers in the cab and 2 in the backbox, the table sounds will pan partially towards the front in 4 speaker mode, letting the backbox provide some of the surround effect.

 Please note that these modes are used in conjunction with the Windows speaker configurations. You can use any mode on any speaker system.
 Some sound cards even have virtual surround options that would work with this setup. You could set up a full 7.1 setup and dedicate it to just the playfield if you wanted with option #3 or #4, and use a separate card for VPM.

VP 9.9.4 Changelog
------------------------
- fix UI issue with the layer buttons for high desktop resolutions

- fix an issue with Mot-Ion / Pinball Wizard controllers that suffer from calibration drift as they warm up

- backport CPU affinity setting

VP 9.9.3 Changelog
------------------------
- disable visual touch/pen feedback to save one frame of input latency/lag

- fix timers that dis/enable themselves in the script

VP 9.9.2 Changelog
------------------------
- new plunger code (see Plunger pdf)

- fix text selection if in previous selected text box a change was made

- extend right click behavior for multi-select to hidden items

- fix EMReel crash when image is missing and reel value is nonzero

- updated to latest FreeImage.dll (3.17.0)
- script editor updated to use latest scintilla (3.6.2)

VP 9.9.1 Changelog
------------------------
- fixed some memory leaks

- fixed rendering of overlapping balls

- include optional nudge filtering (selectable in the keys dialog)
  and remove implicit dead zone handling (if you have the dead zone setting at 0% and now experience problems, set it to at least 1%)

- native support for the Pinscape Controller

- script editor updated to use latest scintilla (3.5.1)

VP 9.9.0 Changelog
------------------------
- rendering engine has been ported to DirectX 9 and now takes much better advantage of 3D hardware

- Region Updates, Region Optimization, Alternate Render are not needed anymore due to the new graphics pipeline and have been removed

- true fullscreen setting has been removed due to incompatibility with VPinMAME. Instead, a windowed fullscreen option has been added to the list of video modes

- add options for wire ramps (define diameter and distance x/y of wires)
- add sphere mapping to wired ramps if an image was assigned to a wired ramp

- add CurrentAngle function to spinner

- add depth bias option to flasher, light, primitive and ramp to fine tune depth sorting

- enable NVIDIA Optimus cards by default

- new video setting: Force anisotropic texture filtering. This results in higher quality results, but can affect performance on lower end cards

- stereo 3D AA is now basically for free and can always be enabled if stereo 3D output is used (currently stereo 3D is limited to NVIDIA only though)
  Note that the depth/parameters of stereo had to be changed. As a positive side effect, the two stereo parameters are the same for most tables now,
  so there is now a global setting in the video preferences. These can still be overwritten per table though.

- FXAA now has two modes: Fast (similar to old setting) and Quality

- new FPS limiter field in Video Options:
  0: disable frame limiting
  1: enable vsync
  If set to anything higher than the monitor refresh rate, the engine will limit the FPS to this rate (but of course without using real hardware vsync).
  Adaptive vsync had to be disabled for now for compatibility with Windows XP.

- new field "Maximum prerendered frames" in Video Options:
  Lowering this value will reduce input lag and sometimes also stutter, but may come at a performance cost.

- running as administrator is no longer required (except for tables which write high scores to system directories). UAC setting removed from executable.

- updated to latest FreeImage.dll (3.16.0)
- script editor updated to use latest scintilla (3.4.1)

- technical note: the minimum version to compile VP is now visual studio 2008 (incl. feature pack)

- take a look at https://github.com/c-f-h/vpinball/wiki/Table-Upgrade-Guide for some additional help with problematic VP 9.2.1 (or lower) tables (and more)

VP 9.2.1 Changelog
------------------------
- this is the final release to be based on DirectX 7

- add "To Collection" to the context menu to assign a selected element to a collection
- add moving of single selected collection in the collection manager

- add CurrentAngle() function to the gate object

- add "Is Toy" checkbox to disable collision handling on mesh primitives completely. 

- add collision detection to mesh primitives together with hit threshold and hit event

- add Z offset to the backdrop options. With this settings you're able to zoom in/out the table without changing FOV/Inclination/Layback settings
- add Z scale option to the backdrop options. With this setting you're able to reduce/increase the overall depth of a table.

- add table dimension manager for an easy way to calculate real table dimensions into VP table units and vice versa

- add a ball throwing feature to VP. To use it check "Throw Balls in Player" in the debug window (ESC -> "Debug Window") and by left clicking and holding the left mouse 
  button you create a new ball and it throws the balls in that direction you move the mouse cursor when you release the left mouse button. If you click on a non 
  moving ball you can reuse that ball and no new calls will be created. A right click on a ball will remove that ball from the table.

- add touch support for tablets (windows 8 and upwards)
  current mapping:
   upper left - add credit
   middle upper left - left magna save/2nd button
   middle lower left - left flipper
   lower left - start
   upper right - quit (press for 2 seconds to exit VP completely)
   middle upper right - right magna save/2nd button
   middle lower right - right flipper
   lower right - plunger 

- add Alpha-Flasher element. Use this element to add (additive) alpha flashers instead of abusing the alpha ramp element. The flasher is a 'dynamic' element, that means it is not pre-rendered
  and it'll be updated every frame.
  Limitations:
  If 'Display Image In Editor' option is selected and the flasher is rotated the image won't rotate due to a DX7 limitation.
  If the flasher is not an additive alpha flasher you can colorize the image with 'Color' if you don't want that effect set the color to blank white (RGB 255,255,255).

- add height offset to bumper element

- add additional (optional) parameters to PlaySound to increase/decrease the frequency, apply all the settings to an already playing sample and choose if to restart this sample from the beginning or not
  all parameters are now: PlaySound "name",loopcount,volume,pan,randompitch,pitch,useexisting,restart
  pitch can be positive or negative and directly adds onto the standard sample frequency
  useexisting is 0 or 1 (if no existing/playing copy of the sound is found, then a new one is created)
  restart is 0 or 1 (only useful if useexisting is 1)

- per table setting of adaptive vsync (-1 = default, 0 = off, 1 = automatic detection, anything else: refresh rate in Hz)
- change per table settings for AA, FXAA and ball reflection (-1 takes the default from the video preferences, 0 forces off, 1 forces on)

- tweak key input code to save one frame (or more?) of lag

- change the old 'Physics Max.Looptime' setting to 'Physics Max. Loops'
  it allows to specify the maximum number of iterations spent in the physics update.
  by setting it f.e. to 1, the rendered frame updates will -always- match the physics updates, everything above 1 allows for multiple physics updates per frame
  (2, 3 or 4 can be good values for this, as it slows down the physics temporarily if the FPS drop below 50, 33 or 25 in these cases).

- import/export of global physics options sets
- import/export of local/table physics options sets (that could then be reused globally of course and the other way round)
  Note that for local/table export the first found flipper is used to export the flipper physics settings (and for import all flippers will be assigned with the same settings)

- add optional ball trails/motion blur (also adjustable per-table)
- add script option 'DisableLighting' for balls to disable lighting. This also allows to change the color of the ball via 'Color' directly

- add enabled flag to flippers

- separate/new texture maps for the lighting of lights (more details) and bumpers (brighter)

- fix problem with DMD/VPinMAME window being hidden behind VP window

- secondary/backglass sound output (by DJRobX)
  if a sound effect contains 'bgout_' in the name or '* Backglass Output *' in its path then it is played via the secondary sound output (music always)
  this can also be done with existing tables by using the new 'To BG Out' button in the sound manager

- script editor updated to use latest scintilla (3.3.9)

VP 9.2.0 Changelog
------------------------
- alpha ramps can now select to trigger region updates (also via script: Toggle via UpdateRegions or a single one via TriggerSingleUpdate) to avoid having to use the refresh-light trick
- primitives can now select to trigger region updates (also via script: Toggle via UpdateRegions or a single one via TriggerSingleUpdate) to avoid having to use the refresh-light trick

- add 'real' 3D mesh primitives, these can be loaded via .obj files (for example exported out of Blender)
- add lighting option for primitives
- add sphere mapping to 3D mesh primitives (useful to fake reflections)
- add static rendering feature to primitives: if you set the 'Static Rendering' option, the primitive will be pre-rendered and you can't change any parameters from within the script. This is
  helpful if you want to use 3D meshes for posts or toys which won't be animated at all.
- add static rotation for primitives (ObjRotX, ObjRotY, ObjRotZ) to change the basic orientation of a primitive. The old rotation/translation settings animate the primitive. 
  all rotation/translation settings can be used out of the script.
- rotation/translation of primitives can be changed from within the script with the properties .RotX, .RotY, .RotZ, .TransX, .TransY, .TransZ, .ObjRotX, .ObjRotY, .ObjRotZ
  or for backwards compatibility you can use .rotandtrans0-8

- add configurable lightsources: point, directional, spot; these share the same coordinate system as the table geometry (angle/rotation/scale independent! setting the direction of a directional light to 0,0,0 restores the old behavior though)
  note that DX7 is still vertex lighting based, thus all lit objects MUST feature reasonable triangulation, like f.e. huge walls (the playfield itself is triangulated 100x100)
  look at the built-in default table to get a feeling for the setup of these lightsources
- add exact lighting option to table (if you experience lighting problems with dynamic ramps, primitives or the ball, please enable this)
- add shadow orientation. In the table options under Lightsources you can change the shadow orientation by adding a factor to X and Y. Doing that you can change the projection of the shadow on the table.
  This is needed if you use the extra light sources to create a more real lighting/shadowing.
- add flag to walls and gates to disable lighting and shadows (to assist in using fully artist driven lighting)
- add flag to light objects to disable the lighting calculations when the 'On Image' is set (so that behavior is the same as when only using a color)
- add lightmap for light objects: If option "'On Image' Is Lightmap" is checked you can define a lightmap for the on image. If the light is switched on the lightmap is rendered together with the off image.

- add flag for alpha ramps to optionally use additive blending (to cope with 2D-lighting-hacks like halos/flashers)
  note that in order to implement fake GI/lighting or flashers via alpha ramps you should follow the following guidelines:
  1) if multiple alpha ramps overlap, then the drawing order (see below) and the height level of these ramps have to match, so that the lowest ramp gets drawn first, etc (make sure to move same height alpha ramps to slightly different heights first!)
  2) uncheck the 'normal 3D stereo' to not have each 3D user have to do this on his/her own (please do this only for lighting or flashers!)
  3) to go for maximum performance disable visibility or the alpha flag for turned off lights/flashers via the script

- add modern plunger texture mapping support and correct coloring

- add per-table sound & music volume settings (0..100% scaling of the global VP settings)
- add per-table software FXAA setting (only works if also enabled in the video settings)
- add per-table alpha ramp accuracy
- add per-table region updates and region optimization (-1 takes the default from the video preferences, 0 forces off, 1 forces on)

- add layering of table elements
- add selection dialog where you can select one or more elements out of a list of all elements in the table
- add easy selection mode if you right-click on an element in the context menu you can select those elements which are stacked under the mouse cursor
- add drawing order (via 2 modes: Hit and Select), you can move elements up/down in a list to change the drawing order
  Hit:    If you click on an element all elements which are over/under that clicked element are shown in the list box
  Select: If you select a bunch of elements, then the selected elements are shown in the list box
- add editor panning feature. In the editor hold ALT and move the mouse and the view will change in the direction the mouse was moved. 
  It just reacts on mouse movements if you don't move the mouse nothing will happen.

- add reflection option for balls (configurable per table). If you enable this option the ball is mirrored on the table. With reflection strength you can define how much the ball will reflect. 
  If the value is too high the mirror effect will look odd.
- add fake antialiasing(AA) as a global option in the video settings and a per table setting
- add 8 sets of global physics options to tweak some of the table and flipper settings that can then optionally override the table settings (when enabled in the table physics options and/or the flipper physics options)
  this enables quick changes to flipper and physics settings for a whole bunch of tables (for example to tweak for less input lag or adapt the ball simulation/'speed')
  the 8 different sets can be used f.e. to tweak for different hardware generations or the manufacturer

- add additional (optional) parameters to PlaySound to set the pan and/or randomize the pitch of the played sound effect: Instead of  PlaySound "name",loopcount,volume  one can now use  PlaySound "name",loopcount,volume,pan,randompitch
  pan ranges from -1.0 (left) over 0.0 (both) to 1.0 (right)
  randompitch ranges from 0.0 (no randomization) to 1.0 (vary between half speed to double speed)
  so f.e. PlaySound "FlipperUp",0,0.5,-1.0,1.0 would play the sound not looped (0), at half the volume (0.5), only on left speaker (-1.0), with varying pitch (1.0)
  look at the built-in default table to get a feeling for the setup of these parameters

- script editor updated to use latest scintilla (3.3.6)
- add multi comment/uncomment feature to the script editor
- add function list to the script editor

VP 9.1.5 Changelog
------------------------
- add flag for ramps to optionally make them not influence the 3D stereo rendering (to cope with 2D-hacks like halos/flashers/GI)
- expose new 'Region Updates' in Video Options (disabling this can be faster on some graphicsboards, especially NVIDIA Optimus Laptops)
- expose new 'Region Optimization' in Video Options (disabling this can help issues with NVIDIA AA, enabling this can help performance and fixes issues with NVIDIA FXAA)
- optimize alpha ramps a bit
- enable some caching for DirectX functions to help performance
- fix more problems with primitive rendering
- correct issue with adaptive vsync
- fix some micro stuttering on multi-CPU systems
- add purely software/CPU-based FXAA workaround (please do -not- enable FXAA in the NVIDIA driver then if you need to use this!)
- cleanup some of the UI
- add correct UAC setting (no more 'Run as Administrator' necessary)
- add large address handling (no more '4GB patching' necessary)
- replace default ball/lamp images and some of the default table settings (mainly physics related)
- correct stylized table rendering in backdrop editor view
- fix command line parser (problems with running tables like playboy from hyperpin, etc)
- optimizations/small fixes
- updated to latest FreeImage.dll (3.15.4)

VP 9.1.4 Changelog
------------------------
- corrected primitive rendering - thanks Toxie!
- optimizations/fixes
- Added support for different sound device output

VP 9.1.3 Changelog
------------------------
- Added controller button support to key options for all controllers - Koadic!
- Added single wire ramp object type - thanks Rascal!
- Added modern plunger type - thanks Rascal!
- Added plunger color options
- Added support for 3D TV rendering - Toxie!!!

VP 9.1.2 Changelog
------------------------
Fixed bugs:
- Set as Defaults is ensured safe - loading a table will ignore the stored defaults to ensure the table is loaded how it was saved
- Deadzone slider is modified to reflect how deadzone worked in previous revisions
- SSE was going to be utilized, but magnets reacted sluggish, so reverted to 'fast' code without SSE again.

VP 9.1.1 Changelog
------------------------
Fixed bugs:
- Copy and Paste Decals
- Layback causing Graphic glitches with ball decals
- Radio buttons in Video Options Dialog
- Tabstops in Backlass Options
- unhandled exception with script errors
- Text Decals not showing
- Kickers and Triggers that are in the same position caused lockups
- transparency issue with 32bpp bmp Files
- bumpers and slingshots were disabled at start of the game when not visible
- Textures were cropped at MaxTexDim at very special conditions
- Alpha Ramps were not showing with Balls created from script.
- Textures near screen border were distorted on some tables
- Scale Dialog default field was checkbox - changed to scaleX-value

New features:
- Added slider for Alpharamps Accuracy. If Alpharamps are causing performance problems (and they will likely do!), try setting this slider to the left. Ramps are displayed with less surfaces then.
- New experimental feature: Ball stretching against table and monitor stretching. Three options: 1st: like before, 2nd: don't stretch ball, 3rd: don't stretch ball and take Pixel aspect ratio of monitor into consideration. Choose ( R) Monitors only if you have a rotated Windows desktop.
- Implemented right click 'Set as Default'. This options sets the current properties of an object as the new defaults for that object type.
- little optimizations

Important:
Tables made with 9.1.x may be incompatible with older versions due to the new features, but tables made with 9.0.x can be loaded and played in 9.1.x.

VP 9.0.10 Changelog
------------------------
Thanks to Scrooby's help, I think we have an appropriate deadzone interface now.  It is a global setting for all tables and doesn't affect the keyboard for X and Y axis.
HD Render and Reorder has been moved to video options

You can now set maximum texture dimensions for lower powered graphic hardware without exporting images (BMPs will still need to be exported and resized if they are too big)
*Added Kicker.CreateSizedBall (float radius) - Returns Ball
*Added Video Option for Chipset graphics that cannot create big textures (only non BMPs supported). Redesigned dialog.
*Added Layback feature (Should we rename this feature? I don't know a better name. Does anybody have a better description?).
Layback is located under the field of view field on the backdrop options for the table.
Basically it appears to change the vertical orientation of the final rendered table.  It is an alternate version of Field of View rendering, and will only be available from 9.10 and newer.
Field of View must be greater than 0 for Layback values to be used to render a table.

Items on table are now displayed in a non-kartesian world to give the viewer the imagination to stand more in front of the table instead of flying over it, when using FOV.

*Fixed Near-Plane Bug with inclination set to 0.
*Added Support for various Picture formats (*.jpg;*.jpeg;*.png;*.gif;*.ico;*.IFF;*.PCX;*.PICT;*.psd;*.tga;*.tiff;*.tif)
*Added Alpha Support for Ramps

More optimizations and testing by Toxie

Cupid added PNG support using FreeImage.  VP 910 will require freeimage.dll to be located in the directory VP is being loaded from - perhaps someday we'll have PNG built into VP to eliminate this dependency

As required by the FreeImage Public License:
If it is not possible to put such notice in a particular Source Code file due to its structure, then you must include such notice in a location (such as a relevant directory file) where a user would be likely to look for such a notice. (such as this changelog file)
"The contents of this file are subject to the FreeImage Public License Version 1.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/freeimage-license.txt
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the License."
No modifications were made to the freeimage.dll file, or internal freeimage source code, so that covers our use of the dll in a free capacity.


VP 9.0.8 Changelog
------------------------
Corrected keyboard handler for message boxes
implemented 10% dead zone to motion/slope/analog axis controls


VP 9.0.7 Changelog -- 9.0.6 skipped
------------------------
emreel lock not loaded after save (noah)
ball needs to be allowed outside playfield area (scapino)
removed remaining minimum black masks for ramps, reels, images, lights, kickers, and top and side surfaces
Corrected volume control

Plunger scatter velocity requires global table difficulty to be >0
Global table difficulty valid values from 0.0 to 1.0 - affects amount of scatter on walls as well as plunger variance


VP 9.0.5 Changelog
------------------------
December 27, 2009 - updated VP9 for your playing amusement. Approved by Nanotech Entertainment.
changelog

1) Finalized PinballWizard and ushock motion controls - should be accurate for X/Y/Z axis and no more changes should need to be made to it again

2) added Plunger.MotionDevice scriptable property - 0=nothing connected, 1=PinballWizard, 2=uShock Board

3) Plunger.Position now returns a value from 0-25.  No scripted math calculations are required.

4) Export Sound now works for all supported sound formats

5) EMReels now have overlapping transparency compatible with Randy's vp8.1 implementation

6) added Plunger.Visible property - this is not scriptable, but allows the plunger to not be rendered

7) Corrected key mapping for Add Credit 2 - you can now remap that key

8) Key Preferences screen is now properly fixed for accepting new keycodes - before if you clicked a bunch of buttons without pressing a key it looked messy with ???? in each clicked button field, now it is neater.

9) corrected crash to desktop error when table name was deleted from properties window - this error had existed since the inception of visual pinball

10) Reordering of table elements added - this will increase compatibility with ATI cards.  This changes the rendering order of all table objects.
DROPWALLS
BUMPERS
GATES
SPINNERS
FLIPPERS
LIGHTS
/RAMPS - needs more work

Textboxes are drawn first, EMReels are drawn second, Decals, Kickers, Acryllic Ramps are drawn last

11) Corrected issue with control points - left mouse button held down followed by right mouse button was not firing the left button release code routine, causing the undo buffer to skip all subsequent events.

12) Restored 16-bit display modes.  Windowed mode uses your desktop color depth.

13) Translate now works for Textboxes and EmReels - select more than 1 item to get the option.

14) Updated compiler to VS Net 2008



VP 9.0.4 Changelog
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December 6, 2009 - updated VP9 for your playing amusement. Approved by Nanotech Entertainment.
changelog

1) worked some more on the pinball wizard plunger "Z" axis
2) corrected attached joystick/gamepad interference with the player - For those game controllers please use software like Joy2Key
3) removed ball blurs, as well as frame updates from spinners, gates, and moving objects will be smoother with increased framerate.
4) restored functionality of RGB 0/0/0 for invisible gates, spinners, flippers, and bumpers
5) Corrected unitialized/unvalidated info for loaded flipper and textbox settings.
6) Removed requirement for msvcr71.dll


VP 9.0.3 Changelog
------------------------
October 12 2009 - updated VP9 for your playing amusement. Approved by Nanotech Entertainment.
changelog

1) Edit Properties Pane status is now corrected. It has been broken since tech beta 5. It is persistent, meaning if it was visible last time vp was open, it will be visible next time you open vp. Edit/Options now works again.
2) VP8 Colored slingshots are now available. This is fully compatible with Randy's vp8 implementation
3) PlungerName.Position is now available to the script. This will provide a raw value of the mechanical plunger for Pinball Wizard and Cabinet users. Divide the returned value by .04 to get a number from 0-25. You can then base an emreel, wall animation, or other graphical representation on that number to custom animate the plunger object. You could also use the mechanical pinball wizard plunger as an entirely separate type of interface, with accurate pull strength - ie pool cues, balloon/rubber band/spring tension, I'm sure you can come up with more.
4) Nudge has been reversed. A right nudge - moving the machine to the left, moves the ball to the right. A left nudge, moving the machine to the right, pushes the ball to the left.
5) Ball decals work again.


VP 9.0.2 Changelog
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1) Fixed command line options
2) Fixed windowed mode
3) Fixed checkboxes
4) Corrected reversed pinball wizard plunger
5) fixed crash bug on exiting unsaved tables
6) corrected version display
7) remapped ball diagnostic key from "B" to "O"

VP 9.0.1 Changelog
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 updated VP9 for your playing amusement. Approved by Nanotech Entertainment.
1) Fixed Crash on exit
2) enabled blinking lights
3) EMReels & Decals enabled by default


VP 9.0.0 Changelog
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December 2 2008 - VP9 for your playing amusement. Brought to you by Nanotech Entertainment.
FEATURES
    * Optimized for vpm.
    * LOTR runs close to full speed with emulated sound.
    * Ball blurring/stutters/etc have been greatly reduced.
    * This still has lag/issues with 26 balls in play on Johnny Mnemonic.
    * Translate locked triggers.
    * Plunger and all other objects can be locked in the editor.
    * Sound/graphic exporter/table unlocker.
    * Dual display span mode support so vp has full control over the backbox display as well as table.
    * Table rotation - 360 degrees possible.
    * Full physics options for slope, oblique correction, flipper settings, ball dampening, scatter angle, friction, gravity.
    * Table scaling support X+Y.
    * Table bottom height - set the bottom of the table lower than the playfield surface for realistic holes.
    * Scriptable exit table to desktop method.
    * Reduced engine crashes.
    * Support for Pinball Wizard Input Controller.