Pinup Popper
Pinup popper files
Pinup Player ( allows to use pup packs)
Pinup Front end ( Table manager and launcher)
Baller Installer ( All in one )
What is Pinup Popper
Pinup Popper is a front end designed to manage tables. The reason it is so popular is because this is the front end of choice by many virtual pinball addicts but also because of the developer, Nailbuster is very active in the virtual pinball community by helping on different social media sites. He has also released many guides on popular Pinup popper features.
Pinup Popper is loaded with functionality helping users to get the best virtual pinball experience. For example, He has developed a multimedia server access where users can easily download the artwork for the tables with one click of a button.
one of Pinup Popper Killer feature is the Pup Packs. Pup packs are additional video animations synchronized with the gameplay. Users are creating many multimedia themes for tables where virtual pinball user using Pinup Popper, can take advantage of the extra multimedia experience. We call that multimedia package a Pup pack.
They are available for download freely on Vpuniverse.
A Pup Pack for the Flintstones VPX.
When a certain action is triggered on the table, the Puck pack animation is triggered on the backglass. It can also be text or an image on what we call a topper screen or a full DMD.
Pre-Requisites
* Disable the Anti-virus
I Disabled my Anti virus from day 1. The reason is this can create false positive and block files. It also creates your tables to be sluggish.
* Always unblock your files when downloading.
The Unblock-File lets you open files that were downloaded from the internet. It unblocks PowerShell script files that were downloaded from the internet so you can run them, even when the PowerShell execution policy is RemoteSigned. By default, these files are blocked to protect the computer from untrusted files.
Set your Windows display that way
Also make sure that your Scaling is set to 100% on all display
Getting Started
How do i get started with Pinup Popper
One thing i have to say, Be prepare to be frustrated when things don't work at first. This software and the Pup packs requires all the stars to be aligned in order for it to work. If you are like me when testing something on the computer or unpacking and using the latest tool i bought on amazon, we don't always Read The Fucking Manual. It is So important that you read all sections before using. The author(s) puts a lot of efforts " non remunerated by the way " in creating and supporting the software. They put even more of their time putting all the information in a read me file. Read it Read it Read it
Now once configured correctly , you will be amazed at the overall experience.
Step 1
" RTFM"
All steps, including images and videos on how to do it" are available online.
take the few hours required and get to know the software well. It is so more fun when you understand everything you do"
A Pup Pack for JP's Deadpool
When a certain action is triggered on the table, the Puck pack animation is triggered on the backglass. It can also be text or an image on what we call a topper screen or a full DMD.
Pinup Player Installation
Installing PinUP Player (STEP ONE): You will find the link on the website
Installing Pinup Player
- Download Pinup Player
- Unblock
- Extract
- Copy all files to a folder of your choice. I recommend sticking with the
standards.
- I copy mine in C:/Vpinball/PinupSystem
Right click the PinupPlayerRegister.bat and run as administrator and you will be propped with the Pinup Player Screen config setup. Let's talk about the different screens and whether or not you need them.
A topper is another screen above the Backglass. If you don't have one, you can set a dedicated space on the backglass screen . Typically Toppers are displaying images and text. They can also be a looping video.
Example of a Topper animation. This is The real Ghostbuster animation created by SERGIOSOUZA.
Toppers can be downloaded from many places, such as Facebook Groups, Discord, VPUniverse, VPForums and the Built in media server in Pinup Popper, but we will get back to that later.
Select all screens and size it to the proportions you want. If you have only a single screen setup, like i will show in this tutorial, you will put topper, Slim DMD on different locations on your main screen without overlapping them. You can always come back later and tweak the size and location of the Pinup Screens. But for now, save it and exit
Copy the PinUPPlayerB2Sdriver and you are going to paste it where your b2s server files are located. If you followed me thus far, your path is going to be in the VisualPinball folder.
( Note: Look where your B2S_Setup.exe file is located and use that location to add the plugins folder )
If you have a plugins folder, open it and right mouse click and select paste shortcut. If you don't have a plugins folder, just create one.
This is what your folder should look like. Now the B2s driver is installed. But we need 1 more thing before completing this installation.
Navigate to C:\Vpiball\PinupSystem\PinUPPlayerVPinMame and select all files and right click and cut.
Go to your Vpinmame folder is located"C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME"
and paste it in there.
In the Vpinmame folder, you will now have the PUPDMDControl.bat file. Right click it aand run it as Administrator.
Now we need to edit the DmdDevice.ini and enable pinup popper. I suggest you download Notepad++ , it is a good free software for editing text files.
Around line 290, you will see an entry for pinup , set the variable enabled = true
When you launch the table, the backglass will also launch, right click on it and check the activate plugins and uncheck Error messagewithout backglass.
Close the table and re-launch, the Plugins settings button should be enabled.
The plugin is active. And the Pinup Player is complete. To the next section
INSTALLING PUP PACKS
The community makes the pup packs and they are very complex to make. It is difficult to synchronize the video triggers with the table actions. Sometimes you will notice that some pup packs overlaps the table audio and it gets very noisy, This is just the reality. All pup packs are available on VPUniverse. You can also check the VPS and often the pup pack link is in the table description.
Downloading the file
For this tutorial , i decided to use JP Deadpool.
DeadPool Table V5.1 & PupPack 2.0
Download the file and unblock and extract.
Copy the JP's Deadpool v5.1_VPX8(Pup).vpx to your VPX table folder.
Copy the pup pack folder jpsdeadpool to your
\PinupSystem\PUPVideos
And all that work is now paying off
Pinup Popper Front End Installation
This is a front end software allow you to add, manage, organize and launch tables. Pinup Player MUST be installed 1st.
Download, unblock and extract Pinup Popper by dropping them in the same folder where Pinup player is installed.
Right click on PinUPPopperRegister.bat and run as Administrator.
You will be seeing this but you can close it as we already set up our Screens layout while installing Pinup Player.
If you have a real DMD, you need to set the DMD Slim to 512x128 and enable it and set it to Show always On and set it to your backglass by moving it.
I can't possibly explain all options, i will tell you about the most used options. For further details, visit Naibuster's Wiki
You should not change anything in this section unless you have a Full DMD setup, then change the Apron/FullDMD to Active and Update.
In the Emulator/Launch setup section you can add sequences of programs starting or adding parameters to tweak the table launch . Nailbuster has on the wiki, all the information about the different parameters. Check it HERE
The controller Setup tab will allow you to setup the keyboard keys and cabinet buttons to perform actions in Pinup Popper. Double clicking it will prompt a Yellow key input waiting to be configured.
This is the screen/Theme section and you can set the screens to be on or off. This will affect only the pinup popper front end screens , not your pup packs.
If you have a real DMD, set the DMD to Show forced back.
If you have DOF and want to have Lights effects within Pinup popper front end, change the useDOF from false to true and save.
If you have a real DMD, set useDMD to true and mirror
Tables Management
- To add a new game to the front end, click add Game.
- The Emulator deop down can allow you to only scan for a specific system
- Click scan for new games.
- iI will scan games located in the table folder
- It will only show games that have not been added to the front end
Select all games and add to System
When the games are added the the system they will turn green
Now you need to add the games in a playlist.
Media Manager
This section is a multimedia server built in and you can preview and download the media for the front end.
Select the media manager tab
Clicking on the Globe icon next to the AudioLaunch is supposed to give you access to the multimedia server. We have an error that is due to the old version being used. You will need to update Pinup Popper.
***** Before Upgrading Pinup Popper, you should always backup your table database. This is the table list, all the media you have set and the Playlist. So this is super important.
Backing up the database
We will backup the Database. This is a single Sql file. Go to Popper Setup/Backup DB and click yes. It will save the Database here:
Save it somewhere safe. When it's time to restore this Database, you only have to rename it to PUPDatabase.db and drop it in the PinupSystem.
Now you have a backup of the Database, Let's update.
Updating Pinup Popper
#1 Let's go to Pinup Popper Wiki and let's get those files.
#1 Let's go to Pinup Popper Wiki and let's get those files. You have to be careful here and read the title of the files. If you followed what i did, you would be downloading the files highlighted in yellow. Upgrading from 1.4.5 to 1.4.6 . This update updates both Pinup Player and Pinup Popper Front end.
#2 Download, Unblock and extract. The upgrade is very simple, you just drag and drop the new files overwriting the old one. Make sure Pinup Popper is closed completely. And Re-Launch Pinup Popper.
Lets' go back to the Media Manager section and try clicking on the Globe icon next to Launch audio.
Doing the same thing for the backglass, DMD, Playfield, Audio, Wheel and anything else you want to add.
When you media is selected and applied, the field is turning green.
Clicking Exit and Launch will launch the Front end.
We set the media for Apollo13 and as you can see, this is what we can see in the front end.
You can now set all the media for your games. don't forget to backup your database .