Roger Sharpe interview - mentions Gala lanes twice

Skip to 1 hour, 24 minutes and listen through the end:
https://soundcloud.com/loserkidpinballpodcast/ep-321-past-present-future-with-roger-sharpe

water ski coin pusher for sale!

No way I can see paying to ship this beast from Rhode Island, but at least there's some good photos.  There were definitely at least 2-4 of these in the skylight room
https://www.ebay.com/itm/CROMPTON-SILVER-SKIS-6-SECTION-COIN-PUSHER-TICKET-REDEMPTION-Shipping-Avail/324142613206?hash=item4b7867c2d6:g:vTIAAOSwQENeaTER

Here's a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mc1Ts87FTc

Solidworks importing into Unreal engine

FINALLY!! This is what I've been waiting for.  Being able to do all my modeling in solidworks, then converting to Unreal so that not only can anyone open it, but it can be used as a VR envoirnment.
https://youtu.be/Gv_meeIAqws

Going to see what this is capable of

READY PLAYER ONE inspired me, so started modeling again

So first off, google street view has officially updated, it now shows the PILOT gas station:

I'm glad I snagged a 360 of galaxy world before it got switched over.  So today I decided to start tracing the top down 2d map (I grabbed the scale legion too).  I then imported that into solidworks, extruded up 14 feet (the doorways are usually 7 feet, and it looks like there's a height of a full doorway above).  I'm figuring there's probably a good 4 feet of wall on the flat roof leaving 10 feet of actual ceiling.

What I think I might do is print the building on paper, and sketch the layout of the inside before I start haphazardly modeling.



As far as the building assembly, I think I need to separate it into chunks:


1. building floor + walls (so I can easily model the interior without a roof getting in the way)


2. The various heights of the floor


3. All the half walls throughout


4. Objects (desks, games, etc)


5. Ceiling


6. Assemble everything on some sort of terrain (parking lot, grass, basic roads of north avenue and Gary), possibly the street lights and the white castle

Pop-a-ball

For some reason I binged on redemption videos on youtube this past weekend.  I have a slight desire to find a coin pusher game.  I think it would be a neat thing to have in an arcade when guests are over.  Put prizes inside and make them want to earn them.
Anyway I occasionally I search outside my pinball world on ebay.  I found this local item in skokie, a pop-a-ball redemption game.  I definitely remember this in a few spots in galaxy world.  I remember it's attract mode would be to randomly pop the balls as you walked by.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pop-A-Ball-Redemtion-Arcade/112709315324?hash=item1a3dffaafc:g:CKAAAOSwl9RaExdu

status

So I recently found new free software that makes photogrammetry quick and easy (zephyr), but results are still very rough (even experts using tripods).  I mean photogrammetry looks pretty decent when it's texture mapped, but when you turn that off and just look at the raw wireform it looks rough and blobby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSgTKHQznh4

At this point my best bet is to just bite the bullet and continue modeling from scratch based on the top view google map, and all the 3d views from google earth (to get the shapes and heights correct).  I've also messed around with lighting inside solidworks, as well as walkthrough mode so theoretically I could do some renderings once I have everything modeled.  Also in the last 6 months, there has been a solidworks to VR plugin.  So rather than trying to learn unity or unreal engine I should be able to translate directly to VR:

http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-products/Integration/simlab-composer-SolidWorks-integration.aspx

https://youtu.be/-0WPu7X5CBU

One thing I need to start thinking about are what games to put in it (and this will be partially from memory, and making decisions about what to include over the span of 20-30 years since I can't possibly include everything).

In the sunlit area (where the blocked off laser tag ended up towards the end), I know I want to include:

* air powered fuzzy guy target game (no idea the official name of this, haven't been able to find photos yet)

* Skeeball

* water skiing coin pushers (can't find this either).  I remember it had the slot where you could point where the quarter landed.

* rad mobile

* virtua racing

* arm wrestling

* Tekken

In the pinball area I know I need to include bk2k and T2.  I remember playing banzai run there, however this was always kept in the upper level

The fighting game list needs to include:

Street fighter Turbo (on giant screen)

Street fighter the movie

Mortal Kombat

Time Killers

Killer instinct

Other mentions:

Crossbow

APB

Super hang on (riding version)

Revolution X

Horse video gambling game

Capcom bowling

Photos inside galaxy world

So I had a comment on one of my posts that wanted to see the photos of the inside.  It appears that Mike hasn't kept his domain up, so I'm going to post those photos here.  I've also found a few additional photos searching through google images (mostly of the connecting bowling alley).  Mike also sent me video footage of a walk through around 2013, but I don't want to post that since his kid is in it and I don't want to post it without his permission.  The footage will eventually help me model the interior space.  Anyway enjoy!