26 replies to this topic

[wrd1972]

Okay I have been on the fence with VP10 flipper action. Let me explain.

 

It is my opinion that with all VP10 tables (including my own), the direction the ball takes when being flipped, is far too wide. On both of my real pins and nearly every other real machine I have played, the ball direction after being flipped is much less wide (more steep) or in other words, more straight toward the top of the table.

 

Here is an illustration:

 

In VP9, there was an oblique angle adjustment and that helped greatly in dialing in the angle at which the ball is hit. I just dont see a similar adjustment on VP10 tables but in all fairness. Maybe I just dont see it. Anyone else notice this? How can I make a ball that is hit by the right flipper, travel less, far left? EG more like the illustration above.

 

Thanks

Edited by wrd1972, 15 September 2016 - 07:52 PM.

[nFozzy]

Flipper Mass / Gravity affects trajectory the most, and flipper friction (but only if the ball bounces off the flipper).

 

Lower flipper mass or gravity will sharpen the angles to all the shots

[wrd1972]

Okay I lowered the mass to .8. This helped a bit but I still would like to see it shoot even more straight.

Anything less than .8  causes a weird ball bounce off the flipper.

[Ben Logan]

Glad you brought this up, Wrd. I notice that the right flipper has a tendency to hit far left, and vice versa. From the cradle position it doesn't seem to be as much a problem. But, when the ball is traveling down the inlane, my shots are often far wider to the opposite end of the playing field from the flipper.

I mainly attribute this behavior to digital pinball flipper lag (all platforms have it: TPA, VP, Zaccarria, Pro Pinball). I.e. I'm simply hitting the ball later on the flipper (toward the tip of the bat) than I intend to, due to lag. The perception is that the flippers don't shoot the balls where they should. But maybe the trajectory is indeed spot on (?)

The other thing I notice, especially when the ball is traveling fast down the inlane is that the inner flipper (the thicker part of the flipper bat) has far less power than I expect it to compared to my real pins. When ball is traveling inlane, shots successfully made to the inner playfield feel weaker than they should in my experience. I do understand of course that shots toward the tip will naturally be stronger due to leverage. But, still... Maybe cranking friction would help this?

We can always crank up the flipper power, but then shots toward the tip of the bat feel too strong. Wish there was a way to balance the power distribution.

From cradle position, this too doesn't seem to be as big of a problem.

Edited by Ben Logan, 15 September 2016 - 08:58 PM.

[wrd1972]

Does anyone know why the oblique angle was removed from flipper physics. If it were still there, my issue would be fixed in seconds rather than having to crank up other  seemingly non-related parameters.

[Drybonz]

Does anyone know why the oblique angle was removed from flipper physics. If it were still there, my issue would be fixed in seconds rather than having to crank up other  seemingly non-related parameters.

 

Hey wrd... ask in the 10.2 beta thread.  I think it's the type of thing that is being discussed there and toxie and fuzzel are likely to respond.

[wrd1972]

Done.

[gtxjoe]

What's are all your flipper settings?  Coil ramp up will also affect the resulting angle.  Using value of 3 I would expect it to go more to the left in your example.  With value of 0, more to the right...

[Shockman]

Does anyone know why the oblique angle was removed from flipper physics. If it were still there, my issue would be fixed in seconds rather than having to crank up other  seemingly non-related parameters.

 

These settings are related and need to be dialed in. Hitting shots up the middle is timing only when the physics are set proper, at least on the users part. Wide angles from the inlane is that wee pit of lag, or worse lag in the flippers I suspect.

 

A proper slope plays a huge part as well if you are trying to set flippers according to a real set.

 

The oblique correction was not physics. It was added value to make up for lower resolution. It was taken out when physics got good enough to not need it. None of the new flipper physics is backward compatible so it's not needed, even for legacy. 

[freneticamnesic]

I believe it's just your flipper settings. I don't see this issue and find I've got far more control with the flippers than I know what to do with

[Knorr]

Higher flipper end angle and friction + inlane friction should solve this. I also lower the flippermass to 0.8 - 0.9 and try to increase the strenght - both help to increase the rotation speed of the flipperfinger.

[StevOz]

I think the real issue is point of impact, is this a pre-emptive strike or a delayed strike, neither of which current VP physics seems to address correctly..I'm not in the know as to how the VP source code reads the flipper angle/velocity at point of impact or the point along the flipper it actually hits or if it even does that at all.

 

I'd really like to know the details on how the source code handles such hit events and for it to be explained, that would be great.

 

Basically it needs to be hard coded into the source code any other editor or scripted flipper settings can only average out the extremities.

Edited by StevOz, 16 September 2016 - 12:27 PM.

[redafoe]

Hi,

 

Am I the only one to notice that the FP conversion tables on Visual Pinball X feel really different from the ones directly built on it ?

 

On every FP conversion tables that I encountered (Metallica, Iron Man, TRON, Walking Dead..) I had to tweak the flippers, table gravity & slope settings in order to make it feels more "right" compared to let's say Demolition Man, or Dirty Harry.

 

And the DT view too since I have the impression to play on a "smaller" playfield sometimes.

 

They're still great recreation tables to play on

 

Have fun !

 

**********EDIT**********

 

Someone kindly just answered me on another topic that the default friction/elasticity values of most elements on FP conversion tables are too low. Increase the elasticity and friction of those definitely helps.

Edited by redafoe, 10 January 2017 - 04:32 AM.

[DJRobX]

Does anyone know why the oblique angle was removed from flipper physics. If it were still there, my issue would be fixed in seconds rather than having to crank up other  seemingly non-related parameters.

 

Oblique correction was a parameter to work around limitations of pre-PhysMod physics.   Without it, it was impossible to shoot the ball towards targets in the center of the table. 

[wrd1972]

Ah this came back up. I have spent a ton of time with vp10 flipper physics and finally got pretty close to what i wanted for funhouse. I still find it a bit difficult to het a more realistic ...straighter shot without the ball speed overly increasing. But its an ongoing learning experience.

[redafoe]

Is it related to the playfield friction ?

 

I had some hard times to find the correct balance between, slope, gravity & playfield friction without taking into account the fact that you can add more commands in the script with BallMass and BallSize.. Add to this the flipper settings and you can have a big mess to set it all correctly

 

But like I said some tables need (or even don't) minor tweaks to be OK, on some others you really need to modify all elasticity/friction of all elements on the playfield..

Edited by redafoe, 11 January 2017 - 08:09 PM.

[wrd1972]

Back from the dead and still on the quest for the elusive "best as possible for a simulation" flipper physics..

 

So to this day. I have not been able to recreate the real trajectories when the ball is flipped on VP BBBB. As a re-cap, when the ball is hit by the left flipper on my real BBBB, he trajectory goes more left (wide) than it should compared to the real pin. It needs to tighten up a good deal.

 

Today I was messing around with "EOS torque" and "EOS torque angle" and I feel confident that adjusting these two values, went a very long way to making the trajectories much more realistic. These are the settings if someone wants to try:

 

So can I please get a detailed explanation on these two settings? It seems that as I raised EOS torque, the shot got more realistic on its trajectory. I would dare say dramatically better. But I think 1.5 is the MAX I can go. When I tried 2, weird crap happened with the ball dribbling on the flipper.

 

Even the ball trapping feels more real.

 

Discuss

Edited by wrd1972, 27 March 2017 - 07:06 PM.

[nFozzy]

EOS torque tweaks the strength of the flipper when it's at the end of stroke, I think it's a percentage of the set strength.

 

So you'll get the same glitchy behavior at high EOS that you would if you went with super high strength on your flippers. Anything over 2200 strength can be glitchy in my experience, but that's with ballmass / flipper mass at 1 so YMMV.

[wrd1972]

Fozzy,

So I changed mass to 1 and strength to 2200. Still feels very accurate. Now I can trap a ball on the right flipper and give it a quick flip up and through the spinner lane. This was impossible before. Used to hit the drop targets.

 

Here is my table if anyone want to try it an comment.

https://www.dropbox....)_1.2a.vpx?dl=0

[Thalamus]

I'll give it a try - got a bit sick of shooting some left side ramps ... need a break from Diner ;-)

Edited by Thalamus, 27 March 2017 - 07:56 PM.