2087 replies to this topic

[toxie]

this will be awesome indeed.. and our todo-lists are already pretty long with a lot of insane ideas on it..

 

and thanks again to mukuste for being stubborn enough to "just do it".. otherwise i guess fuzzel and me would have dragged this on for much longer..

Edited by toxie, 18 February 2014 - 12:31 PM.

[unclewilly]

I'd love to get a look at your to do lists

[bent98]

Yea me

I'd love to get a look at your to do lists

so would I.

[Xendo]

Has touch controls for tablets been added to the DX9 versions yet?  Just tested test3 and touch controls don't seem to be working.

[StevOz]

Sorry if this offends as it most likely will, never mind the to do list, just would like to know there is a change log list as this is just best coding practice.

 

Not to lessen the efforts of those that go forth or belittle the great achievements they have made, though you already most likely would find such a resource invaluable.

[toxie]

The plan of the devs was that we will have open discussions at some point, so basically the same as it was now with the alpha/beta threads, but currently we are all just collecting ideas, maybe some of them too wild/weird..

 

Tablet support: Has been fixed in the meantime, so the next test build will feature that again. Same goes for FXAA, AA and Stereo 3D (the latter only on NVIDIA so far though ).

[vampirolatino2]

Cheers! Thanks for the info and the time spend in this project. Keep up the good work everyone!

[mukuste]

Apart from the more menial small issues that still have to be fixed about the DX9 renderer, I think the todo list is more of a conceptual thing right now

 

To add a bit of detail to what toxie said: the one thing we've discussed in depth so far is the new lighting engine, so I guess this will be the first project. There the first big step will be, I think, to get the HDR rendering pipeline set up and use that to make pretty insert lights. After that, GI and maybe an idea for ambient illumination that I had. That should make VP at least as "shiny" as FP, I hope moreso.

 

After that it's pretty much open. One thing that was mentioned was to have meshes to render gates, spinners and maybe other elements, and later on also to use them for the physics. One thing I want to do, though I'm not sure how well it will work out, was to unify desktop and fullscreen tables so that we don't need two different versions of each table. With everything being done with true meshes instead of bitmaps on new tables, this might actually be very possible.

 

And what I want to do at some point is to dig deep into the physics engine and see what I find. I have some dream projects here, like simulating the elasticity of the flipper rubber. I have no idea whether any pinball sim does that and whether it even adds any realism, but it might be a fun thing to try.

 

So you see, loads of fun ahead If people want to discuss and suggest other stuff, maybe this is a good time to start the VP10 brainstorming thread? Or it might be too early, I don't know.

 

@StevOz: Changelog is implicit in the commit messages of the version control system, although major changes also get added to the Changelog.txt file.

Edited by mukuste, 18 February 2014 - 02:35 PM.

[DJRobX]

One thing I want to do, though I'm not sure how well it will work out, was to unify desktop and fullscreen tables so that we don't need two different versions of each table. With everything being done with true meshes instead of bitmaps on new tables, this might actually be very possible.

 

This seems like a logical step, but to do this properly I think backglass visuals need to integrated into the engine.   That way the backglass image can either be rendered dynamically as part of a "3d model" of a pinball machine (as FP and PBA does) or on the 2nd/3rd monitor in cab.   This also would allow for the 16:9 "Tall" hybrid view tables that Rascal has been doing.  I haven't tried those but they are apparently a very good fit for tablet use. 

 

I think once you get VPM DMD visuals and backglass images into one cohesive renderer, it will eliminate a lot of the headaches people have getting VP set up properly.

 

 

[zany]

Love to hear about the ambient/global lightning......maybe an option to read the surrounding light from a ie. a webcam and apply it to the ingame light!

[ClarkKent]

And what I want to do at some point is to dig deep into the physics engine and see what I find. I have some dream projects here, like simulating the elasticity of the flipper rubber. I have no idea whether any pinball sim does that and whether it even adds any realism, but it might be a fun thing to try.

If you can do something about the physics I would recommend to make the ball more controllable by the flippers. At the moment it's hard and almost every time a lucky shot to precisely shoot in the desired direction. This can not be compared to a real pinball machine in any way.

 

And the ball should have more mass. As the moment it behaves almost like a rubber ball than a steel one...

[toxie]

just for the fun of it (i.e. what could be doable in realtime), this is running at 300fps on my machine: 

Attached Files

•  Untitled.jpg   70.29KB   18 downloads

[zany]

I can see it is Fish Tales....but i don't get the rest of the ghost pic!

[mukuste]

Ah so that's SSAO I guess? Looks pretty neat. Shame about the artifacts between the habitrail wires, it does take away from the effect a lot. Maybe something can be done about that...

 

 

 

And what I want to do at some point is to dig deep into the physics engine and see what I find. I have some dream projects here, like simulating the elasticity of the flipper rubber. I have no idea whether any pinball sim does that and whether it even adds any realism, but it might be a fun thing to try.

If you can do something about the physics I would recommend to make the ball more controllable by the flippers. At the moment it's hard and almost every time a lucky shot to precisely shoot in the desired direction. This can not be compared to a real pinball machine in any way.

 

And the ball should have more mass. As the moment it behaves almost like a rubber ball than a steel one...

 

 

The tricky part is figuring out why the ball doesn't behave as it should. All the basic parts are in place, you have the ball, the flipper, the rigid body collision, this can all be simulated accurately, but maybe something is missing. So my idea was that perhaps simulating the actual way the rubber is compressed, grips the ball and then expands again to return extra momentum to the ball can add some extra realism. But it's just a crazy idea of mine. I wish I could get high-speed camera footage of a flipper hitting a ball...

Edited by mukuste, 18 February 2014 - 08:22 PM.

[zany]

Keep all the crazy ideas comming!!!

[ClarkKent]

Ah so that's SSAO I guess? Looks pretty neat. Shame about the artifacts between the habitrail wires, it does take away from the effect a lot. Maybe something can be done about that...

 

 

 

And what I want to do at some point is to dig deep into the physics engine and see what I find. I have some dream projects here, like simulating the elasticity of the flipper rubber. I have no idea whether any pinball sim does that and whether it even adds any realism, but it might be a fun thing to try.

If you can do something about the physics I would recommend to make the ball more controllable by the flippers. At the moment it's hard and almost every time a lucky shot to precisely shoot in the desired direction. This can not be compared to a real pinball machine in any way.

 

And the ball should have more mass. As the moment it behaves almost like a rubber ball than a steel one...

 

 

The tricky part is figuring out why the ball doesn't behave as it should. All the basic parts are in place, you have the ball, the flipper, the rigid body collision, this can all be simulated accurately, but maybe something is missing. So my idea was that perhaps simulating the actual way the rubber is compressed, grips the ball and then expands again to return extra momentum to the ball can add some extra realism. But it's just a crazy idea of mine. I wish I could get high-speed camera footage of a flipper hitting a ball...

You can always come to my place and play a little on my pinball machines Cyclone or Red and Ted's Roadshow...

[jimmyfingers]

Ah so that's SSAO I guess? Looks pretty neat. Shame about the artifacts between the habitrail wires, it does take away from the effect a lot. Maybe something can be done about that...

 

 

 

And what I want to do at some point is to dig deep into the physics engine and see what I find. I have some dream projects here, like simulating the elasticity of the flipper rubber. I have no idea whether any pinball sim does that and whether it even adds any realism, but it might be a fun thing to try.

If you can do something about the physics I would recommend to make the ball more controllable by the flippers. At the moment it's hard and almost every time a lucky shot to precisely shoot in the desired direction. This can not be compared to a real pinball machine in any way.

 

And the ball should have more mass. As the moment it behaves almost like a rubber ball than a steel one...

 

 

The tricky part is figuring out why the ball doesn't behave as it should. All the basic parts are in place, you have the ball, the flipper, the rigid body collision, this can all be simulated accurately, but maybe something is missing. So my idea was that perhaps simulating the actual way the rubber is compressed, grips the ball and then expands again to return extra momentum to the ball can add some extra realism. But it's just a crazy idea of mine. I wish I could get high-speed camera footage of a flipper hitting a ball...

 

I believe what's missing fundamentally, besides the elements for a full 3D model concept / ball allowing for more realistic collisions resulting in ball spin, is that the properties for the components of the virtual pinball table (wood, plastic, rubber, and especially steel) are too similar / limited and a major thing such as density / mass for an object's area are not considered. I've theorized and posted about this before and wouldn't be surprised if the benefits that my BMPR routine yields could be largely accomplished by just having the ball be recognized in that it is made of steel (i.e. heavier in it's space that it occupies than a wall of the same area). Having the ability for adjusting friction and elasticity on objects isn't enough for better modelling and more natural interactions. The momentum of the ball I feel would greatly improve if we could tell VP it's made of a heavier substance. It would take more to get going but also more to stop (just like a real table) and that aspect would yield some improvement in two problems with VP - the ball typically moves to fast / gets turned around too quick, yet doesn't carry it's lateral momentum well or transfer naturally from an up-table direction to a downward (and accurately accelerating) one.

 

I do agree with you in the aspect of some objects and how they "give", especially the rubber objects, as it is an important element and the cushioning factor of various materials has a reasonable bearing too on ball trajectory (this would likely be needed for some spin as a ball contacts a rubber and pushes it not only in but possibly down for a bounce back with upward direction - possibly for some air ball too). 

 

There are a lot of aspects that will come into play and warrant discussion around the physics (and you'll also get no single consensus as it seems tastes vary and some people like the typically overly fast pace of VP).  Probably best to get all the graphical changes sorted and a real 3D environment possible first as that would be needed anyway for the basis of new / better physics.  That being said, if you guys manage to get new accurate dynamic lighting going with all that DX9 can do and can update the physics to have a more realistic / dense ball with ball spin - the holy grail of VP's evolution to a simulator and single biggest thing missing from the program and game play currently IMHO - that will be the day that VP becomes a whole new thing.

Edited by jimmyfingers, 18 February 2014 - 09:02 PM.

[mukuste]

@JF:

 

The interesting thing is that ball spin is already simulated in VP. You can see it clearly, for instance, when a ball with a decal is rolling down a flipper. I take it then that people consider it not to be simulated well in particular situations? It's always so difficult to discuss these things because reference material is hard to come by, and different people will proclaim different behaviors as the more "realistic" ones. But I'd love to hear which aspects of the simulation people don't find convincing.

 

The mass thing is also more tricky than it sounds. There is a ball mass parameter in VP which you can even set by script, but it only affects ball/ball collisions. The thing is, if you consider the collision between a ball and an immovable wall as a pure elastic collision, then the mass of the ball has no effect on the outcome. So again there is some oversimplification here, perhaps in the aspect of considering the wall as immovable... certainly, as you say, a plastic wall will have a certain amount of give when hit by a heavy object like the ball. Again, identifying unconvincing model situations would be interesting here.

 

But this is getting rather technical and certainly off-topic here. I'm very interested in the topic though and want to have this discussion in more detail at some point.

[perplexicon]

I think - and don't take my word as gospel, because I am only a lurker round these parts! - that I've read in another development thread that the decal rendering is not indicative of the actual spin of the ball? I may have my wires totally crossed here, but at some point I picked up the notion that it is just a visual effect.

[jimmyfingers]

@JF:

 

The interesting thing is that ball spin is already simulated in VP. You can see it clearly, for instance, when a ball with a decal is rolling down a flipper. I take it then that people consider it not to be simulated well in particular situations? It's always so difficult to discuss these things because reference material is hard to come by, and different people will proclaim different behaviors as the more "realistic" ones. But I'd love to hear which aspects of the simulation people don't find convincing.

 

The mass thing is also more tricky than it sounds. There is a ball mass parameter in VP which you can even set by script, but it only affects ball/ball collisions. The thing is, if you consider the collision between a ball and an immovable wall as a pure elastic collision, then the mass of the ball has no effect on the outcome. So again there is some oversimplification here, perhaps in the aspect of considering the wall as immovable... certainly, as you say, a plastic wall will have a certain amount of give when hit by a heavy object like the ball. Again, identifying unconvincing model situations would be interesting here.

 

But this is getting rather technical and certainly off-topic here. I'm very interested in the topic though and want to have this discussion in more detail at some point.

 

Can you confirm from the code that ball spin is actually simulated and I’m wondering at times whether it’s being confused with just the code for the ball rotation (i.e. spinning being able to be done free from the table and in an opposite direction to the ball’s vector).  The decal does show some interesting aspects but I’m still not sure if it’s spin or just the rotational effect of the ball on the appearance / location of the decal on the ball.  Need a full 3D “amiga” ball like the one done in the Unity 3d Pinball demonstrations.  Lastly, I still don’t know how much I trust the decal, even though it looks cool when the ball is in motion because when you trap a ball the thing is still circling around like an eye floatie

 

As far as the mass of the ball, I don’t think just comparing it to the object collision for diminishing its importance is accurate as most of the motion we see for the pinball is when it’s not colliding and would be relevant for simply rolling characteristics. If only to discuss that point vs. the intricacies of collision interaction, the ball for sure would have a difference rolling across the playfield surface if it has more mass as mass is an element in calculating kinetic energy (.5mv^2 – m being mass and v being velocity) and has an effect on it’s momentum.  Plus there’s other aspects possibly needing consideration if the object is rotating.  Like I said in my last post, the concept of starting it moving would be harder but it would stay rolling longer.  VP’s ball is closer to a plastic ball in how it behaves with less force to move and less kinetic / momentum witnessed in it stopping easier (before any collision aspect is concerned and only the friction and slope of the table / playfield relevant – assuming a constant gravitational force).  A ball with more mass would take a stronger flip / acceleration component to bring to speed but remain in that velocity longer.  Anyway, in short, I don’t see how mass being a part of classical mechanics kinetic energy calculations could not yield it to be relevant for pinball simulation.

 

Like you say, we (the community) can and should have this conversation in more detail at some future point with more people involved and indeed physics talks could spiral way off from the current goals of the short term roadmap.