1002 replies to this topic

[vampirolatino2]

IMHO the PAPA videos in youtube will help this development a lot, those videos are amazing! Got me hooked watching all the videos... unbelievable skills.

[The Loafer]

On the randomness issue: I have a firepower and recently a knowledgeable friend helped me rebuild the kickback. Result: it's pretty random still, sometimes the ball will hit the blue targets, sometimes it won't. I love that about it.

I also own a stern tron which is in amazing condition. If the ball is shot in the arcade scoop and I keep the right flipper up, it will bounce around above the sling with the usual result that it will either slide down the sling or go over to the right flipper inlane with both results in being "trapped" by the right flipper. But every now and then, the ball will hit the right flipper, bounce up over the sling, passed the right inlane and drain in the outlane. It does this rarely but it happens.

There can be many reasons why it happens on a real pin. Maybe the rubber on the flippers is more worn out, maybe an adjustment to the arcade scoop kicker needs to be done but the fact is: it happens and on many a tron, I should know I've played at least 6 different ones and noticed this on 4 of them! Its rare but it happens, maybe Because real world pins on average are never perfectly maintained, so this reality should not be ignored. From this, one can conclude that most people playing pins are exposed to this randomness more than otherwise, so this speaks to why many may be passionate about why random is important.

Most importantly, I think artistic impression from the table author should be allowed so that he/she can implement this as they see fit. For this reason, my thinking is the tool needs to have the option for some randomness built into it so they can achieve whatever they want with their table. Not horrid forced randomness because then the curtain is pulled and we can see the wizard behind pulling the strings, so IMHO subtle is the way to go for this... But as usual with these, the author knows best for his/her table.

I do totally understand the point behind forced randomness being bad though, especially if as stated, the wizard becomes too noticeable. But as much as that is true, I could also state if that shot coming out of the arcade scoop leads to the exact same result of ball being trapped by the right flipper, I will be the first to say "ok, I can see the wizard hiding behind the curtain... ". This may not be true of every pins scoop shot, but it is in this case anyway.

Loaf

[mukuste]

I do totally understand the point behind forced randomness being bad though, especially if as stated, the wizard becomes too noticeable. But as much as that is true, I could also state if that shot coming out of the arcade scoop leads to the exact same result of ball being trapped by the right flipper, I will be the first to say "ok, I can see the wizard hiding behind the curtain... ". This may not be true of every pins scoop shot, but it is in this case anyway.

 

Exactly. Like every other physics parameter, it is something that needs to be tuned by the table author to get the best results. Both no randomness and too much randomness are bad and unrealistic.

 

I don't know why people started bringing up forced randomness, that was never on the table. Everything has to be under author control.

[gtxjoe]

How about a setting that forces the table to age over time and would requires maintenance periodically to have it play correctly

 

BTW, I love playing the physmod tables with the green ball markers enabled, very cool to see what's going on

[JavaJack]

IMHO the PAPA videos in youtube will help this development a lot, those videos are amazing! Got me hooked watching all the videos... unbelievable skills.

Definitely. I watch all the PAPA tutorials as they come out. They're great. Good reference material, especially for very subtle things like cradle separations that use ball-to-ball contact when the outer ball goes up briefly, rides down the sling rubber, and bounces off the inner ball.

[atarian]

There are some horrible examples in Pinball Arcade where the mathematical simulation resulting in the exact same behaviour over and over is illustrated. From memory I think it is the Funhouse kick out where you hold up the flipper and it goes back to the kickout and you get stuck an infinite loop . Therefore I think people realise now Mukuste was talking about tiny variations to allow for mechanical differences resulting from air temperature, humidity, the way the oil is spread placed on a spring, etc.

On a aside note nearly every pinball I get to play in real life is knackered with weak flippers. Sometimes I prefer to play these rather than a brand spanking new machine as I never see these in real life. The idea of profiles mentioned earlier sounds like a nice idea (an ability to which between saved physic sets from the VP player would be great - the author or forum members can provide one or more profiles). Example profiles could be Prestine machine, Nearly new, Worn or Shagged Out.

[JavaJack]

Prestine machine, Nearly new, Worn or Shagged Out.

I can see how some folks would enjoy this. You will need different leaderboards for these, though, for people who enjoy comparing high scores.

[The Loafer]

This is going to be long

 

I know this is not a bug report but I felt it wise to share my thoughts since they contemplate a change in opinion and want people to think about things from a bit different perspective.

 

First the good news:  I'm starting to like the new physics more and more, in fact if my testing keeps going as it is, I might even use the word "love" LOL.

 

As per some suggestions my new testing was going to start with unplugging the virtuapin controller.  Well, I did not unplug it but I did mess with the deadzone a bit and I think this is helping.  In addition to this, I also had followed some suggestions by Big Boss on how to properly setup the global parameters, default set #1, etc.  So I don't know if its one or the other or a combination of both, but the extra speed I felt was pulling the ball to the bottom is no longer as apparent or even an issue, it seems right.  I am guessing its the deadzone, it's possible because my virtuapin controller is slanted a bit and maybe the new exe picked up on that so its pulling down.  Doesn't matter, it works now!!!   Nudging doesn't seem to be as sensitive though, but I believe this has been mentioned previously that it would be beneficial to have yet another registry setting that separates the new physics tests from both 9.2.1 and from vp9.9.0,

 

At the beginning I felt like maybe there may have been a lag issue but the more I play it the more I think it's just my mind needing to not compensate for previous skewed flipper physics and just need to flip when I'm supposed to, which is a little bit earlier since there is more variations of shots now (I kept hitting the slings but now, everything is fine).  This time I stuck with it and played about 12 games of BSD and after the 4th game, this wasn't an issue anymore, I got used to it. more on this in a bit...  Just to be certain thought, I will have to check windows settings, etc to ensure something didn't get updated windows wise that may have disabled an option that in turn is causing some lag.  As well, I have set up the db2s and do have ledwiz set up, so hopefully the old LEDWiz pre-DOF's little lag isn't coming back, but like I said, the more I play the more I think this was a mind game.

 

The table I am testing all of this with is Bram Stoker's Dracula (not the 8 step GI) with version 2 of the physics exe and the physics do seem to be good. After about a dozen games, I went back to testing it with the regular vp9.9 and noticed that version was playing smoother than the new physics versio.   I went back to the physics v2 and changed the adaptive vsync from the recommended 120 back to 1 and now its pretty smooth.  I wonder why my pretty powerful cpu/gpu combo (Intel i7 3.5-3.9ghz with 570 GPU) doesn't seem to handle the 120 setting?  Tested more with setting of 60 and that seemed better, though I seemed to be getting bouts of slow down every now and then (actually better to say "rare")

 

SO... back to the physics discussion, after playing the dozen games or so on the new physics, I decided to play a few games using the standard vp dx9.9.0, playing the 8 step GI BMPR version.   So what do I notice now?

 

- I hit the left ramp shot, noticed I hit a bit of the side wall and... the ball still goes up the ramp all the way around to the right.  After 10+ games on new physics, that just felt "wrong" and yes, it would be wrong on a real pin too because that is a missed shot.

 

- As well, I noticed every now and then, the flippers are not always consistent, especially on back-handed shots.  Never bothered me before, but now... I'm noticing it.

 

- the floating ball:  OK, time to eat crow. As much as I felt the ball was accelerating downwards and I do think it was, I now feel on the old physics, you can really notice the floatiness once it hits something that causes it to slow such as near the slings.  Jeez, crow doesn't always taste so good...  but yeah, it really becomes that noticeable.

 

So why are older physics bothering me now?  Is it a case of rose-tinted glasses?  I don't think so, but I do believe we "train" ourselves to compensate, and of course for VP players the proof of this is how most of us never really noticed any pronounced lag until DX9 version came out and the recommendations to change some windows/NVidia settings. We knew it was there but we compensated and the game was fun. but now if I play an older version of VP pre-dx, , it's extremely noticeable, especially without doing the windows/NVidia setup that helps eliminate lag..

 

So an immense "thanks" once more to you Mukuste for this new addition and also to Big Boss who's worked pretty tirelessly in helping me with great suggestions.  I think, rather I know I'm officially converted

 

Rob

Edited by The Loafer, 05 May 2014 - 10:03 PM.

[BigBoss]

I agree with all the randomness discussion. I'm sorry if I derailed any progress here. I got concerned when it was mentioned that the real TZ you can't hold the flipper on ball eject because sometimes the ball drains. It should never drain on kickout from slot machine. But I see now its very small variance we are talking about and table author configurable stuff. Sounds really good.

Edited by BigBoss, 05 May 2014 - 10:50 PM.

[Slydog43]

thanks Loafer, I had a little issue with 9.2.1 and 990 with a little stutter every once and a while (a few times during a game perhaps).  Not very consistant so it was very hard to nail down.  I think by changing adaptive vsync to 1 from 120 cleared it up.  Only played 3 games, but no stutter what so ever, butter!  I also changed my dead zone from 0 to 10% as I also have a virtua analog plunger/nudge kit V2.  Not sure if that had anything to do with it.  I have said this many times before, but I'm not touching my setup anymore until there really is a reason to (like vp 10 beta, I think I will build another machine for vp 10 beta).Thanks everyone for making this a great hobby (obsession)

[The Loafer]

To ckovanda :

re: his message:  Melon's new Twilight Zone, the left ramp diverter.  if you shootup the left ramp, the ball wraps around and flies through the diverter and disappears for good.  setting the diverter mass to 1 and power to 2400 allowed the ball to be diverted normally.

 

I think T2 chrome had a little launcher flipper that need the mass and strength changed in order to get the ball to leave the launch lane.

 

 

---------

 

 

Hi,

 

Can you point out where this diverter is? I just saw the ball disappear through the playfield and it seems to be related to your description, however I can't find it in the editor (groan that's on me).  Every diverter described as such in the table objects that has an adjustable "mass" setting seem to already be set to 1.

 

Thanks,

 

p.s.  is it me or is the quote not working like usual?

 

Loaf

Edited by The Loafer, 06 May 2014 - 04:20 AM.

[ckovanda]

To ckovanda :
re: his message:  Melon's new Twilight Zone, the left ramp diverter.  if you shootup the left ramp, the ball wraps around and flies through the diverter and disappears for good.  setting the diverter mass to 1 and power to 2400 allowed the ball to be diverted normally.
 
I think T2 chrome had a little launcher flipper that need the mass and strength changed in order to get the ball to leave the launch lane.
 
 
---------
 
 
Hi,
 
Can you point out where this diverter is? I just saw the ball disappear through the playfield and it seems to be related to your description, however I can't find it in the editor (groan that's on me).  Every diverter described as such in the table objects that has an adjustable "mass" setting seem to already be set to 1.
 
Thanks,
 
p.s.  is it me or is the quote not working like usual?
 
Loaf

On the right side of the table, where the ramp splits, you can see in the editor a thin bar that has a pivot arc. Right click over it and look for a "diverter" labelled item in the bottom of the right click list. When I find diverter gates, if I don't give them mass, I find a fast ball will blow right through them and disappear.

[open6l]

Guys - anyone else getting VP crashes with physicsmod2 when running WOOLY-B2S? The non-B2S seems to work fine but with the B2S build as soon as you launch the ball and it reaches the top of the table (under the pillar) it crashes. I've added a screenshot with the area in question.

 

 

Edit: I've removed the wall and floor to show the ball:

 

Edited by open6l, 06 May 2014 - 06:01 AM.

[mukuste]

There was a crash on WOO in all recent DX9 versions that I only found and fixed for RC1 (which is 9.9.0) AFAIR. I don't think these changes made it into the physmod3 version yet (much less physmod2). So that's probably it.

Edited by mukuste, 06 May 2014 - 06:07 AM.

[mukuste]

This should be a treat, Melon's CFTBL in an extensively tuned physics mod version by UncleWilly. He says

 

This is close to the real table of my friend. The ramp and the whirlpool bowl behave extremely close to the real thing with these settings.

 

I haven't had the time to try it, but I trust it's great. Thanks to both Melon and UW for their work on this!

Attached Files

•  CFTBL 1.0 -melon- PhysicsMod.UW.DT.vpt   29.13MB   227 downloads
•  CFTBL 1.0 -melon- PhysicsMod.UW.FS.vpt   29.13MB   694 downloads

Edited by mukuste, 06 May 2014 - 08:03 AM.

[ASOT]

Will give CFTBL a run after dinner!

[mukuste]

This is going to be long

 

Thanks for the detailed feedback, Rob! It's good to hear that the new feel is growing on you.

 

It's good to know that unplugging the VirtuaPin controller fixed the weird acceleration you saw. This might be related to the fact that certain nudging devices are 10 times stronger in the physmod than in 9.9, as reported by Slashbot -- or was it 10 times weaker? What is the factor you had to adjust your gain by? I had a look at the nudging code to try and fix this, but it's such a convoluted mess after what the UltraCade guys did to it that I haven't gotten far yet. Maybe someone can tell me if there are different ways to set up nudging with an analog joystick and with an accelerometer? That might be the key.

 

Just to be sure -- the version of Dracula that you tested in the physicsmod did not use BMPR, right? Because that would seriously mess with the physics.

 

As for lag: in the physmod, you should generally get away with setting the frame limiter/vsync field to 1 so that you get true vsync at 60 Hz. However, this might increase input lag a bit since the frame times are now longer, so to compensate, you could try changing the Max prerendered frames setting in the Video preferences to 1 if you have it at 2.

 

If you get stutter or perceived non-smoothness, you should always check the F11 display. Two things to look out for: can your hardware reliably sustain the frame limit that you have set (60 or 120fps)? And do the max frame times deviate noticeably from the average frame times? If these two factors are both ok, then I would expect smooth gameplay in the physmod version. VP9 has bugs in its physics code where you will likely never get fully smooth gameplay at 60fps, I consider 120fps the minimum for that to run well. So, in a way, the physmod version actually takes some load off the GPU since it can now run at half the framerate, though it does tax the CPU significantly more of course.

 

As for adapting back to 9.9... it's funny how the brain works, isn't it. I can deal with the floatiness after a few games, but the flippers tend to drive me crazy when I go back to VP9, and there are only some very well tuned tables which remain playable in VP9 for me.

[unclewilly]

Randr shot some nice video of the table. He would place the ball on the bowl ramp at different positions on the ramp and just let it roll.
I used a test kicker kicking at zero strength at those positions and adjusted the tables slope and gravity until the ball matched almost exactly the amount of revolutions in the whirlpool bowl.
Then I tuned the rest of the table after that.

Flippers stayed at the standard people have been using as the shots still all felt right.
I did tune elasticity and force on many other playfield objects
I also removed all the ramps physics helpers when doing the tests

Edited by unclewilly, 06 May 2014 - 08:58 AM.

[mukuste]

Randr shot some nice video of the table. He would place the ball on the bowl ramp at different positions on the ramp and just let it roll.
I used a test kicker kicking at zero strength at those positions and adjusted the tables slope and gravity until the ball matched almost exactly the amount of revolutions in the whirlpool bowl.
Then I tuned the rest of the table after that.

 

Ah, that's interesting. What values did you end up with, are they far from my suggested values of 1 for the gravity and using the true table slope? Do you know what slope your friend's Creature is set up at?

[unclewilly]

No not far off.
Slope I believe was 6.
For gravity and friction I used either .9 or .95 for both. I can't remember off the top of my head which value I used.

I'm quite happy with the physics. And I think by the time you add this to the main branch authors will have a much easier time tuning tables.
I used to spend many hours tuning flippers, but with the new physics it is quite easy. Had to bump up the elasticity on some obj ejects to get the bounce how I thought it should be, particularly the posts at the top and the tops of the slings.
On the gates as well for the ones that a ball bounces off of in the closed position.

I think loafer put it right, that many people will take some time getting used to more correct physics because they have compensated for the flaws in the old physics for so long.


Can't wait to see what you do with the nudge routines.

Great job with this