RocketBlinky - 3rd Party LEDBlinky Quick Setup Tool

[newoski]

RocketBlinky is a 3rd-party tool that can, in a matter of minutes, auto-generate an LEDBlinkyControls.xml supporting over 160 HyperSpin systems. Translation: It takes 99% of the work out of setting up LEDBlinky.

Demo Video:

Hi Everyone,

At long last, I’m proud to unveil the official release of RocketBlinky. This project started off as a simple idea and quickly grew into something much larger. A huge thanks to SpotUp for his staggering knowledge of older systems, his unwavering enthusiasm as I started to crack under the ever-growing scope of the project, and for his countless hours alongside me as we added “just one more system” to the XML. And an equally huge thanks to DJVJ for lending his coding skills to make a simple-yet-effective GUI. I’d also like to thank everyone that took the time to beta test the project in its various stages of completeness. With that said and without further ado… RocketBlinky is here!

**Before using RocketBlinky, always backup your current LEDBlinkyControls.xml in case you run into problems**

WHAT IS THIS?
RocketBlinky is a 3rd-party tool and is not supported by LEDBlinky. It can auto-generate an LEDBlinkyControls.xml that supports over 160 HyperSpin systems in a matter of minutes.

IS IT OFFICIAL LEDBLINKY SOFTWARE?
No. RocketBlinky is a 3rd-party tool. Please do not contact Arzoo/LEDBlinky Support with questions about RocketBlinky. Instead, please post in the appropriate thread on the HyperSpin forum.

HOW IS IT USED?
RocketBlinky is NOT a shortcut to avoid learning LEDBlinky. RocketBlinky IS a shortcut to get your cabinet setup as quickly as possible, on as many HyperSpin systems as possible, without the countless hours spent programming each system or researching and programming per game control functions and colors for systems like AAE, Daphne, Doujin Soft, Locomalito Games, MAME, Sammy Atomiswave, Sega Model 2, Sega Naomi, Sega Triforce, SNK Neo Geo and Taito Type X. In fact, it will take longer to read these instructions -- which you definitely should do -- than it will take to get your system setup!

HOW DOES IT WORK:
Simply put, LEDBlinky lights arcade controls by matching the controls and KEYCODES defined in your LEDBlinkyInputMap.xml with the KEYCODES defined in your LEDBlinkyControls.xml. For MAME, LEDBlinky doesn't use the KEYCODES, just MAME's input names like P1_BUTTON1 or P1START. To customize an LEDBlinkyControls.xml to your unique cabinet, RocketBlinky uses search/replace logic and a global Base.xml file to create a new LEDBlinkyControls.xml customized to match your unique control panel.

COMPATIBILITY:
RocketBlinky supports control panels with:

Buttons
Up to 8 buttons per player

Admin Controls
Exit, Pause, Select

Pinball Controls
Up to 2 Left Flipper buttons and up to 2 Right Flipper buttons
1 Pinball Plunger (this can be mapped to any button/joystick directional you choose)

REQUIREMENTS:
Before using RocketBlinky, you'll need to:
1. Install or update to the latest version of LEDBlinky
2. Create an LEDBlinkyInputMap.xml using LEDBlinky's GenLEDBlinkyInputMap.exe
3. Configure your LEDBlinky settings via LEDBlinkyConfig.exe
4. Setup LEDBlinky with your preferred Frontend/Launcher
5. Define either a FE Active Animation within LEDBlinkyConfig.exe or add your preferred Colors to the HyperSpin Front-End Controls layout
To define a FE Active Animation, run LEDBlinkyConfig.exe, click on the FE Options tab, and choose an FE Active Animation from the dropdown
To add Colors to the HyperSpin Front-End Controls layout, run LEDBlinkyControlsEditor.exe, click the FE button, double click on each Control and then choose a Named Color from the drop down.
6. Because rom names are sent via command line, for per game mappings to work on systems like AAE and Sega Naomi, your rom/game names must match official HyperSpin Databases for the buttons to light properly. If your XML names don’t match, LEDBlinky will use the system default layout for that game.

GETTING STARTED
(Before getting started, please complete the 6 REQUIREMENTS outlined above)
1. Run RocketBlinky.exe
2. Using the dropdowns, select mappings that match your control panel's joystick and button mappings. If your panel doesn't have the corresponding control, leave the field blank.
3. If your control panel has Admin buttons, select the mappings that match your control panel. If your control panel has a Pause button, you'll want define both your RocketLauncher Pause button as well as your MAME pause button, within the GUI.
For RocketLauncher to function properly, these buttons should use different buttons for RocketLauncher Pause and MAME Pause. If your panel doesn't have dedicated admin buttons, leave the Admin fields blank.
4. If your control panel has Pinball controls, select mappings that match your control panels flippers. Select the control panel button, plunger, or joystick directional that you would like to use for the plunger. If your control panel has only one flipper per side, use LeftFlipper1 and RightFlipper1 and leave LeftFlipper2 and RightFlipper2 blank. If you don't wish to setup any Pinball controls, leave the fields blank.
5. After mapping all desired inputs, click the GENERATE button and a new LEDBlinkyControls.xml will be created.
6. Copy/Paste the LEDBlinkyControls.xml to your LEDBlinky directory
Backup your previous XMLs before replacing it
7. If LEDBlinky.exe is currently running, close the application completely before testing.
This only needs to be done when using a new/modified XML, as LEDBlinky only reads the XML at launch.

SUPPORTED SYSTEMS
AAE
Aamber Pegasus
Acorn Atom
Acorn Archimedes
Acorn BBC Micro
Acorn Electron
Alf TV Game
American Laser Games
Amstrad CPC
Amstrad GX4000
Apogee BK-01
Apple I
Apple II
Apple IIGS
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari 8-bit
Atari Jaguar
Atari Jaguar CD
Atari Lynx
Atari ST
Bally Astrocade
Bandai SuFami Turbo
Bandai WonderSwan
Bandai WonderSwan Color
Big Fish Games
Camputers Lynx
Casio PV-1000
Casio PV-2000
ColecoVision
Commodore 16 & Plus4
Commodore 64
Commodore 64 Games System
Commodore 128
Commodore Amiga
Commodore Amiga CD
Commodore Amiga CD32
Commodore CDTV
Commodore MAX Machine
Commodore VIC-20
Creatronic Mega Duck
Daphne
Doujin Soft
Dragon Data Dragon
Dragon 32
Dragon 64
Elektronika BK
Emerson Arcadia 2001
Entex Adventure Vision
Epoch Game Pocket Computer
Epoch Super Cassette Vision
Exidy Sorcerer
Fujitsu FM Towns
Fujitsu FM Towns Marty
Fujitsu FM-7
Funtech Super Acan
Future Pinball
GamePark 32
GCE Vectrex
Hartung Game Master
Hector HRX
Hidden Object Games
Jupiter ACE
Locomalito Games
Luxor ABC-80
Lviv PC-01
Magnavox Odyssey 2
MAME
Matra & Hachette Alice
MGT Sam Coupe
Microsoft MS-DOS
Microsoft MS DOS
Microsoft MSX
Microsoft MSX2
Microsoft MSX2+
Microsoft Windows 3
Microsoft Windows 3.x
Radio-86RK Mikrosha
MUGEN
NEC PC-8801
NEC PC-9801
NEC PC-FX
NEC PC Engine
NEC PC Engine-CD
NEC SuperGrafx
NEC TurboGrafx-16
NEC TurboGrafx-CD
Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64DD
Nintendo DS
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Famicom
Nintendo Famicom Disk System
Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo Game Boy
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo Game Boy Color
Nintendo Game Boy Japan
Nintendo Game Boy (Japan)
Nintendo Pokemon Mini
Nintendo Satellaview
Nintendo SuFami Turbo
Nintendo Super Famicom
Nintendo Super Game Boy
Nintendo Virtual Boy
Nintendo Wii
OpenBOR
Othello Multivision
Palcom PX-7
Panasonic 3DO
Partner
Pecom 64
Pinball Arcade
Pinball FX2
Philips VG 5000
PopCap
RocketLauncher
Sammy Atomiswave
ScummVM
Sega 32X
Sega CD
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Dreamcast VMU
Sega Game Gear
Sega Genesis
Sega Mark III
Sega Master System
Sega Meganet
Sega Model 2
Sega Naomi
Sega Nomad
Sega Saturn
Sega Saturn Japan
Sega Saturn (Japan)
Sega SC-3000
Sega SG-1000
Sega Triforce
Sega VMU
Sharp MZ-2500
Sharp X1
Sharp X68000
Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
SNK Neo Geo CD
SNK Neo Geo Pocket
SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color
Sony Playstation
Sony Playstation Minis
Sony Pocketstation
Sony PSP
Sord M5
Spectravideo
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Visual Pinball
Watara Supervision
Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer
Tangerine Oric
Texas Instruments TI 99-4A
Thomson MO5
Tomy Tutor
WoW Action Max

 

[djvj]

Great work newoski!

Since there is a thread here, might as well note you can post here for help as well.

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[newoski]

Great work newoski!

Since there is a thread here, might as well note you can post here for help as well.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Thanks again for the coding help! And yes, please feel free to post here as well for support. I'll be crowdsourcing additions to MAME. There are still games to be added there...

 

[timekillerjay]

newoski, this looks great! I'll have to check it out when I get home. Quick question- the voice in your demo video sounds GREAT (way better than mine- MS Anna I believe). Is that a MS voice, or something else? I really want my voice prompts to sound that great!

 

[newoski]

newoski, this looks great! I'll have to check it out when I get home. Quick question- the voice in your demo video sounds GREAT (way better than mine- MS Anna I believe). Is that a MS voice, or something else? I really want my voice prompts to sound that great!

Thanks, looking forward to your feedback once you take RocketBlinky for a test drive. My bartop is running Windows 7 64 Bit Professional. It was a lot of trial and error to find a voice that worked. Lots of TTS voices that should have worked, didn't. As a result, the only voices that I can recommend are offered by Ivona. The voice I'm using is called Brian. The good news, they work flawlessly. The bad news, they're not free. I think I found Brian online for like $45. Well worth it, in my opinion, to get rid of MS Anna. To be clear, I have no affiliation with Ivona. In my testing, their voices were the only ones that ever actually showed up in LEDBlinky's voice dropdown, once installed.

 

[timekillerjay]

Thanks, looking forward to your feedback once you take RocketBlinky for a test drive. My bartop is running Windows 7 64 Bit Professional. It was a lot of trial and error to find a voice that worked. Lots of TTS voices that should have worked, didn't. As a result, the only voices that I can recommend are offered by Ivona. The voice I'm using is called Brian. The good news, they work flawlessly. The bad news, they're not free. I think I found Brian online for like $45. Well worth it, in my opinion, to get rid of MS Anna. To be clear, I have no affiliation with Ivona. In my testing, their voices were the only ones that ever actually showed up in LEDBlinky's voice dropdown, once installed.

Awesome! Thank you.

 

[timekillerjay]

Ok, so I tried RocketBlinky. I like it a lot. It saves a ton of manual entry. I did notice one strange thing though- The key I chose for "SELECTKEY" seems to be ignored and "Enter" is used instead. (See screenshot).

I use P1B1 for my select key in Hyperspin. P1B1 is mapped to LCONTROL (MAME default).

Some notes on the UI:

* Selecting each key from the drop down is tedious. It would be awesome if there was a "load defaults" button that would populate most fields with like, MAME defaults or something

* It would also be nice if I could select which systems to write controls for. My Arcade only has a fraction of the systems that got written. Now my ledblinky config is loaded with systems I don't have and I have to search for the systems I do have if I want to make a manual change.

Great work on the program overall!

One last question: How do I get my voice to announce "Primary control" like yours does in the video?

 

[newoski]

Hmmmm. Travelling this weekend, but would like to login and take a look if you're OK with TeamViewer. Shoot me a PM

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[newoski]

Primary Control is defined in my setup. That's simply an LEDBlinky setting. Speak Primary Control. Turn it on

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[newoski]

Regarding MAME defaults, there is a way, bit not built into UI. Would require a separate defaults, that you import. Easy implementation, with a separate file. PM me. I like you're ideas

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[newoski]

Ok, so I tried RocketBlinky. I like it a lot. It saves a ton of manual entry. I did notice one strange thing though- The key I chose for "SELECTKEY" seems to be ignored and "Enter" is used instead. (See screenshot).

I use P1B1 for my select key in Hyperspin. P1B1 is mapped to LCONTROL (MAME default).

Some notes on the UI:

* Selecting each key from the drop down is tedious. It would be awesome if there was a "load defaults" button that would populate most fields with like, MAME defaults or something

* It would also be nice if I could select which systems to write controls for. My Arcade only has a fraction of the systems that got written. Now my ledblinky config is loaded with systems I don't have and I have to search for the systems I do have if I want to make a manual change.

Great work on the program overall!

One last question: How do I get my voice to announce "Primary control" like yours does in the video?

I'll be testing the Select bug as soon as I'm back from travels

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Tapatalk

 

[shitoken]

*
I am having problems from the Day 1 for improper colours lightning up.

I have rechecked all the wirings and changed from keycode to joycode
in ledinput.xml and created the same in rocketblinky.

But still the buttons does not light up as per the system and games created by rocketblinky.

Even the basic system like snes does not light up the right colors.

I am using Ultimate I/O with Andy Color RGB Buttons

System Win7 pro.

Hope someone can help me out. I have spent weeks from demo ledblinky till I bought but still same problem. Thanks alot

Tapatalk を使用して私の A0001 から送信

 

[newoski]

*
I am having problems from the Day 1 for improper colours lightning up.

I have rechecked all the wirings and changed from keycode to joycode
in ledinput.xml and created the same in rocketblinky.

But still the buttons does not light up as per the system and games created by rocketblinky.

Even the basic system like snes does not light up the right colors.

I am using Ultimate I/O with Andy Color RGB Buttons

System Win7 pro.

Hope someone can help me out. I have spent weeks from demo ledblinky till I bought but still same problem. Thanks alot

Tapatalk を使用して私の A0001 から送信

Have you gotten it working at all WITHOUT RocketBlinky? If you haven't tested without RocketBlinky, try deleting the LEDBlinkyControls.xml that RocketBlinky created and just using the MAME defaults. Let me know if those work properly.

 

[erkrystof]

Just wanted to drop a line thanking you for this tool. I'll definitely be including it in my documentation videos on my pedestal arcade.

 

[shitoken]

Newoski last night thank you very much for your help. For thanking you for your new program and excellent skill I will do a donate to support you.

As soon as finished before going to bed I tried to launch HS and Ledblinky was launched as well via EDS. But P1 1-8 and P2 1-4 Buttons was lit up in white color and the same in all systems and games. But we did direct test it was fine.

Arzoo have viewed my debug files and he have replied in the arcade forum as below. Can you get his meaning?

Hi,
I believe we've been corresponding via email and there's something wrong with the way you have HS configured - it's passing "ledblinky" as the ROM/Game parameter rather than actually game selected. I would suggest posting a question on the HS forum and make sure to mention that HS is passing the wrong parameters to LEDBlinky.

I should also mention that RocketBlinky is not associated with LEDBlinky - so you would need to contact the RocketBlinky dev for support with that app.

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[newoski]

There are a few things we can test. RocketBlinky has nothing to do with it, though, since the command line tests work correctly.

1. Disable EDS and try using RocketLauncher to control LEDBlinky

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[shitoken]

He have sent above screen shot

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[newoski]

Turn on TeamViewer and PM me your login

- - - Updated - - -

Turn on TeamViewer and send me your login

He have sent above screen shot

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[bobmoo79]

Hi Newoski, just found this thread this morning and wanted to say it looks great. I'll be trying this when I get home later!!


I notice TTX is not included in the list. Do you plan on adding TTX in the future?
I just spent the last couple of days setting up each game that I have installed so not really a problem for me.

 

[newoski]

I believe that's an accidental omission. Taito should be on the list. I'll confirm today.

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