118 replies to this topic

[rosve]

dampening of 60

To me, this number controls how fast a ball can travel on the table, like a speed limit.

Correct!
[from the vp guide] "Dampening Speed – Sets the maxballspeed, which is the top speed the ball is allowed to travel at."

However, I still don't have any/a good description for "Dampening friction" - if anyone knows how to describe the effect of this please let me know.

Regards,
Dan.

Without being absolutly sure about this I belive that the Dampening Speed is like a threshold level and the Dampening Friction is applied to the ball when it's velocity goes over the Dampening Speed value.

At least that is how it seems to work.

/Roger

[chas]

What is return strength? What is power law? Why is OC necessary?>>>>>>>>>>>>

i will try to answer your question.

im pretty sure return strength is how fast the flipper returns to its seated start angle.

power law multiplies or increases the strength of the flipper.

OC i guess you mean OB for oblique.
oblique is necessary to raise the trajectory angle of the ball off the flipper.
the higher the number, the flipper will kick the ball up more towards the middle.

when i first started i used speed.
i did get more accurate shots but the flippers were too fast.
used OB then slowed the flippers down with SPEED worked well to get a more realistic flipper speed with good accuracy.
when i set up flippers i first do the scale to size and length thing and set a fair gap.
then create a strength and speed, OB on 0 to search for a desirable feel and speed of the ball at a comfortable speed for my eyes to see.
then bump up the oblique if necessary.

[chas]

from the vp guide] "Dampening Speed – Sets the maxballspeed, which is the top speed the ball is allowed to travel at."
Without being absolutly sure about this I belive that the Dampening Speed is like a threshold level and the Dampening Friction is applied to the ball when it's velocity goes over the Dampening Speed value.

At least that is how it seems to work>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

if i remember correct, when i lowered the number of the dampening it seemed to lower or made the table play soft including pops flippers and elasticity.
raising dampening did the opposite.
does anyone know more about dampening?

Edited by chas, 19 December 2011 - 09:33 PM.

[rosve]

from the vp guide] "Dampening Speed – Sets the maxballspeed, which is the top speed the ball is allowed to travel at."
Without being absolutly sure about this I belive that the Dampening Speed is like a threshold level and the Dampening Friction is applied to the ball when it's velocity goes over the Dampening Speed value.

At least that is how it seems to work>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

if i remember correct, when i lowered the number of the dampening it seemed to lower or made the table play soft including pops flippers and elasticity.
raising dampening did the opposite.
does anyone know more about dampening?

Of course it affects how the table plays (pops and slings...). The ball will hit objects with lower speed and therefor bounce off with less power. This type of basic dampening filters are very common in most regulation algorithms.

[jimmyfingers]

power law multiplies or increases the strength of the flipper.

Power law is not a simple multiplier but, to my knowledge and experience, effects the strength at the base vs. the tip of the flipper. I have discussed this setting (and other flipper settings) with Eala who knows a great deal about this and experimented with it in EM style tables. I typically lower it and increase strength so that the shots off the heel / base area don't fly around the table compared to weaker tips shots (balances the two areas more when at a lower number) - mostly while trying to emulate the weaker flippers of EM tables without large deviations between the zones on the flipper. It is an exponential function to my knowledge as well and part of the non-linear application of it's magnitude.

[EalaDubhSidhe]

dampening of 60

To me, this number controls how fast a ball can travel on the table, like a speed limit.

Correct!
[from the vp guide] "Dampening Speed – Sets the maxballspeed, which is the top speed the ball is allowed to travel at."

However, I still don't have any/a good description for "Dampening friction" - if anyone knows how to describe the effect of this please let me know.

Regards,
Dan.

Without being absolutly sure about this I belive that the Dampening Speed is like a threshold level and the Dampening Friction is applied to the ball when it's velocity goes over the Dampening Speed value.

At least that is how it seems to work.

That's pretty much spot on, and also highlights the two inherent problems that using dampening as a straightforward 'speed limit' is prone to; either the limit doesn't kick in immediately if the friction is set low, or will wildly overcompensate if it's set high. This wouldn't be a problem if you could calculate a set value for the dampening to be applied, but it's the ball's own variable speed that knocks the theory into a cocked hat as there's no way to allow for different instances of the velocity going over the limit by varying degrees.

Edited by EalaDubhSidhe, 19 December 2011 - 11:01 PM.

[chas]

ok wizards,
how about scatter angle in the 911 user guide section 5.5 for the flippers.
just 1 line.
all it says it creates a random trajectry angle of the ball.
i experimented with it a little with flippers and slings awhile back.
i think i tried 5, 10, 20 and maybe higher to see what it does.
did not see a noticible difference.

so what do the higher numbers do?

Edited by chas, 20 December 2011 - 08:23 AM.

[chas]

Of course it affects how the table plays (pops and slings...). The ball will hit objects with lower speed and therefor bounce off with less power. This type of basic dampening filters are very common in most regulation algorithms.

Of course it affects how the table plays (pops and slings...). The ball will hit objects with lower speed and therefor bounce off with less power. This type of basic dampening filters are very common in most regulation algorithms. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Rosv,
what i meant was dampening effects the entire table.
cannot use dampening for the ball, pops or 1 object.
thats how it seems work.

[rosve]

Of course it affects how the table plays (pops and slings...). The ball will hit objects with lower speed and therefor bounce off with less power. This type of basic dampening filters are very common in most regulation algorithms.

Of course it affects how the table plays (pops and slings...). The ball will hit objects with lower speed and therefor bounce off with less power. This type of basic dampening filters are very common in most regulation algorithms. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Rosv,
what i meant was dampening effects the entire table.
cannot use dampening for the ball, pops or 1 object.
thats how it seems work.

The dampening speed affects the ball velocity, not objects on the playfield.

[Wizards_Hat]

ok wizards,
how about scatter angle in the 911 user guide section 5.5 for the flippers.
just 1 line.
all it says it creates a random trajectry angle of the ball.
i experimented with it a little with flippers and slings awhile back.
i think i tried 5, 10, 20 and maybe higher to see what it does.
did not see a noticible difference.

so what do the higher numbers do?

Interesting - not something I'd ever tested before & just took someone else's word for it when writing the user guide.

So...set about properly testing this today set up a table to automatically flip a ball rolling from a kicker, and took percentages of the angles flipped (I let each different scatter angle fire for over 100 shots).
Changing the scatter angle makes virtually no difference - I tried several values between 0 & 1 (0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.75, 0.9, 0.99, 1.0), and several values above 1 (1.5, 3, 6.2, 25, 1000)
There is always a random element. The ball will travel along the same trajectory about 65-70% of the time, and vary by up to 2.5 degrees over the length of the table the other 30-35%

Anyone else ever experimented with this, or managed to get a noticeable difference? Be very interested to hear.
Regards,
Dan.

[analog999]

FYI - I just found this thread. Haven't had time to read it all, but it might have some useful information some of us haven't seen.

http://www.vpforums....;hl=performance

[destruk]

ok wizards,
how about scatter angle in the 911 user guide section 5.5 for the flippers.
just 1 line.
all it says it creates a random trajectry angle of the ball.
i experimented with it a little with flippers and slings awhile back.
i think i tried 5, 10, 20 and maybe higher to see what it does.
did not see a noticible difference.

so what do the higher numbers do?

Interesting - not something I'd ever tested before & just took someone else's word for it when writing the user guide.

So...set about properly testing this today set up a table to automatically flip a ball rolling from a kicker, and took percentages of the angles flipped (I let each different scatter angle fire for over 100 shots).
Changing the scatter angle makes virtually no difference - I tried several values between 0 & 1 (0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.75, 0.9, 0.99, 1.0), and several values above 1 (1.5, 3, 6.2, 25, 1000)
There is always a random element. The ball will travel along the same trajectory about 65-70% of the time, and vary by up to 2.5 degrees over the length of the table the other 30-35%

Anyone else ever experimented with this, or managed to get a noticeable difference? Be very interested to hear.
Regards,
Dan.

Increasing the "global table difficulty level" should have an impact on scatter angle. - by default that is 0, so that's probably why you don't see a difference. Or perhaps it just doesn't work.
--edit-- it seems to work for walls as expected - setting a wall to scatter angle of 100 and table difficulty to 1 you can see it. I didn't test anything else.

Edited by destruk, 20 December 2011 - 10:51 PM.

[rob046]

power law multiplies or increases the strength of the flipper.

Power law is not a simple multiplier but, to my knowledge and experience, effects the strength at the base vs. the tip of the flipper. I have discussed this setting (and other flipper settings) with Eala who knows a great deal about this and experimented with it in EM style tables. I typically lower it and increase strength so that the shots off the heel / base area don't fly around the table compared to weaker tips shots (balances the two areas more when at a lower number) - mostly while trying to emulate the weaker flippers of EM tables without large deviations between the zones on the flipper. It is an exponential function to my knowledge as well and part of the non-linear application of it's magnitude.

This is interesting. I never looked into this setting. You explained well what it does, but you didn't give any numbers. By lowering it, what number/setting do you choose to use there? Then, by how much do you increase strength? I want to know more about this cuz it sounds like it just might cure some of the remaining issues I have with VP flippers.

[scott-Detroit Pinball]

That is an interesting thread. So I agree, Groni did a great job with the Banzai Run physics. He obviously has the notion of how it's done correctly. He used an OC of 3.2, with a dampening of 60! I tried a 70 dampening on Wh20 and it felt slightly off, but it did seem to make the rolling shots better, without hurting the catch shots. I'll do some more testing using some of his numbers to see if there is an improvement.

I guess I could sum up my problem with my settings on whitewater is that as the ball moves faster, the OC seems to get smaller. Almost makes me wonder if the OC value could be changed on the fly in the software, according to ball speed.. like on a given curve or something.

Edit - nope, same problem with the extra wide shots on a moving ball shot. Also 60 dampening really really makes the ball feel very heavy, not realistic at all.

Its interesting you mention Banzai Physics, I worked with Groni on that, I was actually playing my BR right next to my Virtua Pin test version. An Interesting monkey wrench that gets throw into the mix, is that these games play differently on different peoples computer set up.
I ran into that issue right off the bat working with Groni, I have an accelerometer on my system for nudging, and Groni doesnt..... That seemed to have a huge impact on the physics. I would nail down some settings to my perfect BR, almost to the point that they were playing exactly alike. I would then shoot these numbers off to Groni and they would be un-playable settings on his system. His stuff was way too fast on my rig and my stuff was way too slow on his.
-One of the physics effects I am trying to recreate is the weight of the ball. on Banzai I can actually feel the ball when I am flipping it on the real game.

-The second physics effect that I would love to recreate is, is the ball speed-- the ball shoots out of and off of slings and other shots lightning fast and then appears to slow down rather quickly after about 12 inches to a more managable speed. Most VP games the rate of the ball is fairly constant all the time, and not the huge variences seen in real pinball tables.

Scott
Detroit Pinball

[jimmyfingers]

power law multiplies or increases the strength of the flipper.

Power law is not a simple multiplier but, to my knowledge and experience, effects the strength at the base vs. the tip of the flipper. I have discussed this setting (and other flipper settings) with Eala who knows a great deal about this and experimented with it in EM style tables. I typically lower it and increase strength so that the shots off the heel / base area don't fly around the table compared to weaker tips shots (balances the two areas more when at a lower number) - mostly while trying to emulate the weaker flippers of EM tables without large deviations between the zones on the flipper. It is an exponential function to my knowledge as well and part of the non-linear application of it's magnitude.

This is interesting. I never looked into this setting. You explained well what it does, but you didn't give any numbers. By lowering it, what number/setting do you choose to use there? Then, by how much do you increase strength? I want to know more about this cuz it sounds like it just might cure some of the remaining issues I have with VP flippers.

I didn't give numbers sorta intentionally as it depends on the table and whether going for modern or old but the main thing I mentioned regarding levels was that it "balances the two areas more when at a lower number" (Power Law) - the two areas being heel / base and the tip. I know one specific number regarding the power law I used for a few EMs and that was to set it down to about 1.5 which made the heel a little weaker but less divergent in shot strength then the tip, which is why I then upped the strength setting a bit to compensate which affected both areas more similarily after lowering the power law (I cannot recall what the magnitude / numerical increase on strength was and just went by look / feel). I first started this after watching some videos of an EM I was trying to personalize. It's also seemingly a squared function and I don't know for sure but I imagine will have largely different results when working with the couple different approches people are doing with one being the high speed / low strength settings the other being ones that are more even between those two settings.

I would suggest experimenting on a table but hope this helps as a starting point.

[Aaron James]

I like this topic...because no matter what table i download...i somehow always end up messing with the flippers to get it "just how i like it".

[Noah Fentz]

That is an interesting thread. So I agree, Groni did a great job with the Banzai Run physics. He obviously has the notion of how it's done correctly. He used an OC of 3.2, with a dampening of 60! I tried a 70 dampening on Wh20 and it felt slightly off, but it did seem to make the rolling shots better, without hurting the catch shots. I'll do some more testing using some of his numbers to see if there is an improvement.

I guess I could sum up my problem with my settings on whitewater is that as the ball moves faster, the OC seems to get smaller. Almost makes me wonder if the OC value could be changed on the fly in the software, according to ball speed.. like on a given curve or something.

Edit - nope, same problem with the extra wide shots on a moving ball shot. Also 60 dampening really really makes the ball feel very heavy, not realistic at all.

Its interesting you mention Banzai Physics, I worked with Groni on that, I was actually playing my BR right next to my Virtua Pin test version. An Interesting monkey wrench that gets throw into the mix, is that these games play differently on different peoples computer set up.
I ran into that issue right off the bat working with Groni, I have an accelerometer on my system for nudging, and Groni doesnt..... That seemed to have a huge impact on the physics. I would nail down some settings to my perfect BR, almost to the point that they were playing exactly alike. I would then shoot these numbers off to Groni and they would be un-playable settings on his system. His stuff was way too fast on my rig and my stuff was way too slow on his.
-One of the physics effects I am trying to recreate is the weight of the ball. on Banzai I can actually feel the ball when I am flipping it on the real game.

-The second physics effect that I would love to recreate is, is the ball speed-- the ball shoots out of and off of slings and other shots lightning fast and then appears to slow down rather quickly after about 12 inches to a more managable speed. Most VP games the rate of the ball is fairly constant all the time, and not the huge variences seen in real pinball tables.

Scott
Detroit Pinball

I prefer no dampening speed at all and a higher playfield friction. This would give you what you're looking for.

IMO, a table with proper physics doesn't need to artificially slow the ball, when it has the right settings on the flippers and other objects.

[Sabbat]

I prefer no dampening speed at all and a higher playfield friction. This would give you what you're looking for.

IMO, a table with proper physics doesn't need to artificially slow the ball, when it has the right settings on the flippers and other objects.

Yea but, even the orbit shot on JP/NF Whitewater is way too fast. Shoot the ball through the right bumpers and its instantly around the table and at your left flipper. Just sayin

[Noah Fentz]

I didn't have that.

There are so many blinding fast shots in pinball, though, it's not too unrealistic.

Just saying.

[Sabbat]

I didn't have that.

There are so many blinding fast shots in pinball, though, it's not too unrealistic.

Just saying.

Totally, it just catches me off guard sometimes eh