37 replies to this topic

[GRONI]

Hi,

 

I was thinking about doing plungers with a primitive. Since I am no scripting guru to create new functions, i was wondering, If anybody already gave it a try.

 

Thanks for answers in advance

 

Groni

[zany]

Not me...interesting....give it a try!

[dark]

It wouldn't be hard to make, 3DSmax has a spring object built into its 'dynamic objects'  with fully configurable settings like, spring radius,thickness,size,length, how many turns etc, all of which can be animated.  Unfortunately there's no way to store animation properties for 3D objects for VP and all the animation has to be done in VP via scripting.  With that being said in order to show the spring contract and expand, you'd need to swap visibility between a series of different models that have all been exported from the 3D software through their various stages of the animation.  So really it wouldn't be any easier than the current plungers but on the plus side it would be angle independent and maybe look a bit nicer but angle dependency hasn't really been an issue with plungers.

 

I'm no scripting guru by any means either, I only know what can be done based off my experiences working with table authors, specifically UncleWilly has given me a lot of input and feedback regarding methods of using 3D objects in VP.

[zany]

One way to do it is to have it as two prims....one will be the shaft itself end the spring the other. And the spring can be made as one single angeled ring and have multiple rings that flatens out in the angle, and the distance between them decreases....smart huh!

[unclewilly]

The default plunger in vp9.9 i believe is a 3d mesh. If you set it to modern it looks rather nice and is angle independent

[GRONI]

The default plunger in vp9.9 i believe is a 3d mesh. If you set it to modern it looks rather nice and is angle independent

Yeah, but it´s not kind right to me. All this plunger do is stretching the image.

 

I guess I have to use the Ramp Plunger from JP.. Maybe a 2D Primitive will do also with Imageswaping. I think the Primitive Image swapping is slighlty quicker than the ramp version. Also you would need only one 2d Primitive for that.

[Shoopity]

I actually used one in my Bill Paxton Pinball table.  I've even put it in my Cactus Canyon table.  If you download the most recent version, you'll see it.  I know it's not great since the tip gets squished too; like Zany said you'd have to use two meshes.  Also, this primitive is just the built-in primitive with 20 sides, rotated sideways; if someone made an actual OBJ mesh, it would look even better.  Scripting wise it's easy:

On Plunger key down you turn on a timer.

This timer decreases the .Size_Z while a the same time increasing it's .PosY by half as much as you decreased the size (this wouldn't be needed with a custom mesh since you could set the Origin of the mesh at the bottom instead of the middle like it is with the default Primitive).

Currently I have it set to when you key up the plunger key, it just resets the size (so it immediately returns to full size... that's some strong spring) and position, but you could easily turn on a timer that very quickly increments the size and turns itself off when it gets back to the original size.

Edited by Shoopity, 05 October 2014 - 12:45 AM.

[unclewilly]

How would that work with a digital plunger kit

[freneticamnesic]

This shouldn't be too hard. You can adjust the scale of a primitive, so a fully decompressed spring can be "compressed" just fine, however the issues you have is the wire on the spring eventually looks too thin... I supposed it would require a bit of trial and error. Unless you could do something clever with it, where the underside of the spring that you can't see when it's uncompressed is "thicker" than the top side, and as you compress the spring, it rotates around slowly to the thicker side. Or I'm overthinking it, and the spring would look fine without having to be tricky. I don't have a spring primitive to test out. You still need 2 primitives, the post & rubber, and the spring.

How would that work with a digital plunger kit

I think you have to time it to match the speed of the standard VP plunger object

[dark]

@Shoop:

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if I made a 3D model replica of a plunger and you just scaled it to simulate it's pullback and spring coil compress, the coil/spring's wire would reduce in size as well meaning you're just warping it, which in my opinion would be undesirable since it's not realistic. 

[GRONI]

Best way would be to model seperate Plungers in different states of pullback. Maybe 10 or 12 different models put in a collection and there you go. My main problem was not how to model that, it was more a scripting question

[dark]

Best way would be to model seperate Plungers in different states of pullback. Maybe 10 or 12 different models put in a collection and there you go. My main problem was not how to model that, it was more a scripting question

I think so too, I suppose I could make one at some point but I'm already pretty far behind on model requests.  It wouldn't take long to rig up, tricky part is getting the metal and lighting looking just right.  Some good references for a standard plunger's look would be helpful.

[Shoopity]

Well my way looks super smooth, but at extreme pull can get squished.  The multiple mesh route means animation so you're at the whim of how many "frames" you're will to make.  I'm not at all familiar with how the digital plungers work with VP, if it's a case of the plunger feeding VP a certain number at certain points in the pull (e.g. 23% pulled would mean VP is getting fed the number 23) then you could just match up those numbers with the amount the mesh is squashed.

 

Like I said, take a look at my Cactus Canyon WIP and you'll how it looks (the concept anyway, among other things, the center rod looks like it's at the top instead of in the middle of the springs).

 

I think Zany had the right idea (if I understood him correctly; if I didn't then he gave me the idea): have a mesh of just one ring (or a 360 degree portion), then have 20 or so of those meshes all equally spaced apart.  For the pull, each mesh moves down, the mesh closest to the bottom moving slowest/shortest amount, the one at the top moves the fastest/longest distance.

Edited by Shoopity, 05 October 2014 - 04:16 AM.

[freneticamnesic]

oh god that would require so much math

[zany]

I look forward to see the alternatives here in action!

[sliderpoint]

The default plunger in vp9.9 i believe is a 3d mesh. If you set it to modern it looks rather nice and is angle independent

 

I agree.  Although I would like to see it be a bit bigger is all.

[GRONI]

 

Best way would be to model seperate Plungers in different states of pullback. Maybe 10 or 12 different models put in a collection and there you go. My main problem was not how to model that, it was more a scripting question

I think so too, I suppose I could make one at some point but I'm already pretty far behind on model requests.  It wouldn't take long to rig up, tricky part is getting the metal and lighting looking just right.  Some good references for a standard plunger's look would be helpful.

 

It´s a quick one, not too hard to make. 3dsmax have good options for that. I guess I will build that in about 30 min

[unclewilly]

Maybe someone could talk to fuzzel about this tk see if it could be added to vp10.

For me im alright with the default plunger for now. It is the most accurate with my digital plunger kit from zeb

[GRONI]

something like this Stern Plunger should work. Maybe some tweaked textures on it, and it´s ready to go

Attached Files

•  plunger.jpg   54.34KB   11 downloads

Edited by GRONI, 05 October 2014 - 12:31 PM.

[GRONI]

I just putted together a group of plungers in different pulling positions. Let´s see if I can figure out to make this work

 

 

Attached Files

•  plunger2.jpg   29.54KB   5 downloads