3889 replies to this topic

[ICPjuggla]

My understanding was the physics were not completed!

Will they be completed in the released version of VPX?

[Shockman]

Oh. So what chas was saying makes sense after all. If you want a bigger ball to represent a normal size ball you will need to reduce the mass to get normal physics.

[The Loafer]

Huh?  I thought the devs said you have to manually change the ball mass?  Boy that's why I'm not a table developer, your guys are awesome to understand this stuff!

[ICPjuggla]

Huh?  I thought the devs said you have to manually change the ball mass?  Boy that's why I'm not a table developer, your guys are awesome to understand this stuff!

Actually Loaf it's confussing to us too! lol

[Shockman]

Me to, but I think I figured it out. You can change one without changing the other, but if you do not set those values individually, a relationship is formed.

[sliderpoint]

My understanding was the physics were not completed!

Will they be completed in the released version of VPX?

 

"It was my understanding that there would no math!"  lol - sorry that seemed so appropriate right now.

[chas]

will all of this stuff for ball size and mass for the script be explained in the change log?

i have not DLd yet.

my PC has an infection. 

[Shockman]

On second thought I am not confident I have it figured out. Toxie's last statement was a contradiction to his other statements.

 

What's confusing is mass and size are the same concept here, unless you are talking about it being hollow or made out of smoke or something. A lighter material would not mean less mass, would it? It would have to be less dense too. I have been thinking of mass as a mischaracterization of weight. I'm not sure I was wrong.

 

This ball is 83. Too big to get stuck. Acts just the same. More mass without setting mass, but not a bit more weight.

 

[ICPjuggla]

Wow, you got some big balls there Shockman! lol

[Shockman]

On second thought I am not confident I have it figured out. Toxie's last statement was a contradiction to his other statements.

 

What's confusing is mass and size are the same concept here, unless you are talking about it being hollow or made out of smoke or something. A lighter material would not mean less mass, would it? It would have to be less dense too. I have been thinking of mass as a mischaracterization of weight. I'm not sure I was wrong.

 

This ball is 83. Too big to get stuck. Acts just the same. More mass without setting mass, but not a bit more weight.

 

Giving it more mass (10) made it react to the pop bumpers (before it would bounce off the cap because it could not fit under it to work the pop. But when hit with the pop or a flipper is just acts weird. like it was shot out of a cannon. It can force it way then into places it can get stuck, so in that respect like it has more weight, but it should not go ballistic off the flippers so it is acting like it has no weight there.

 

Maybe the point Toxie is trying to make is to not mess with size and mass.

 

 

I didn't mean to quote myself.

 

Anyway the result of this experiment is that mass is a mischaracterization of weight, and there is no automatic relationship. And that setting mass higher will make it act both heavier and lighter.

 

Just an observation, not a complaint. I could be missing something, or otherwise not thinking well, but I have definitely used unrealistic extremes to make this point.

Edited by Shockman, 10 March 2015 - 05:19 PM.

[toxie]

>Maybe the point Toxie is trying to make is to not mess with size and mass.

 

actually no.

originally i just wanted to say that you guys shouldn't forget about the ball mass when changing the ball size (as they are obviously related).

 

 

on an unrelated sidenote: the next build will feature a pretty insane performance boost. 

[freneticamnesic]

INSANE! CHECK IT OUT EXTREME CHEDDAR!

[bent98]

 

 

on an unrelated sidenote: the next build will feature a pretty insane performance boost. 

I hope we can run 4x AA @ 60 fps

[Shockman]

To follow up. A ball that size with a mass of 2 was a very realistic representation of a bigger heavier ball, and played well, and instead of bouncing off the cap like it did with mass not set, or plowing through to be poped by the bumper like it did with mass set high, it gets stuck under the cap and does not make it to the pop.

 

Very nice.

 

So the final conclusion is that if you want a steel ball that is bigger than a pinball then set the mass up along with it, but if you are needing a bigger ball just to better look like a normal size pinball (because of a wrongly sized table) leave the mass unset (1).

200 fps increase would be nice. 400 would be insane. 

 

Not setting a standard, just making a guess. Overhead space to run post processing would be nice.

Edited by Shockman, 10 March 2015 - 05:52 PM.

[lio]

"Performance boost" always sounds good :-)
What magic optimization did you come up with?

[toxie]

A pretty obvious one, but so far i never thought about this of being some kind of big bottleneck (so it was rather low on my todo list)..

If you realize it though, then its of course super-obvious: All lights/flashers that are off should not even go into the pipeline or do -anything- at all.. (d'oh)

(especially as there are tons and tons of lights on pinball tables :/)

[bent98]

how much fps increase are you getting? of coruse the more a table has the better the enhancement. 

[Shockman]

Hopefully you can use some of the extra power to make the plunger work better. It's a very old issue. I have discussed this in the VPX test thread too. But have been bringing it up for years.

 

Open a new table and just tap the plunger key. The ball goes way up, more than a third up. Press and hold it for about 1/2 a second, it goes way up, more than a third up. Try to hold it any longer and keep the ball in the lane. NOW try to adjust it using anything. stroke length, speed, anything, and see if you can make it work any better.

 

It can't count very well. It has never been able to count above 24, and that is bad, but when it starts counting at 7 it's crap.

 

If the computer has time to do it I would suggest instead of 24 to increase that count just a bit to one million. One thousand might work though. As a bare minimum that might fool us into thinking it is smooth visually and sound physically would be 180 if the stroke length is 180. I'm sure my Vic20 could do that.

 

It sounds rude but don't take it personally. It has always been worthless. That is why 20 tables might have 6 or eight solutions to avoid using a VP plunger. And Zero using it. If any of them were perfect you could just save time and effort and delete the plunger and code function. Unfortunately the best working solution would be a VP plunger.

 

I think I have good flipper settings in mmpac, but they took a long time, and the plunger is still not allowed to touch the ball. The plunger is just for visual effect.

 

Before I would let a VP plunger object hit the ball I would choose to throw randoms at the impulse plunger and use them to launch the ball

Edited by Shockman, 10 March 2015 - 08:15 PM.

[toxie]

mjr is currently looking into some of the plunger code, so contact him please with the details.

[Shockman]

I would trust any of you to fix it right. There is nothing I can imagine that can be done to make it worse, including no reaction to input.