Pinball Labs Kickstarter

chinzman93 · Dec 14, 2015

I didn't see a posting here so in case anyone is interested....

Would be nice to have something that has a proper editor and that will support cabs. The VR support could be very interesting as well. Hope this makes it! It would go a long way to easing my disappointment with FS decision on cab support. I would suspect if this makes it...table support would come pretty quickly. I was planning on redoing a few of my VP tables in VP10, but may wait to see if this makes it.

Pinball Labs Discussion thread at VPF:
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=32576&page=1

KS Page is here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1820215579/pinball-labs

Ben Logan · Dec 15, 2015

Here's a link to a YouTube video showcasing what Pinball Labs can do. It's amazing. Incredible lighting, great ball physics, 3D viewing. You guys are going to go bonkers for this if you haven't seen it already. The guy behind the project goes by "tmek" on the forums. He's very intelligent, creative, enthusiastic, and best of all... completely dedicated to his Pinball Labs project. We're just a few hours into the Kickstarter campaign, and he's already met 10% of his goal.

Check it out!

tmek · Dec 15, 2015

Hi Guys! I'm tmek, the creator of Pinball Labs.

Here's another video showing Pinball Labs interacting with VPinMAME. The switches, lamps and DMD data are all exposed via the API and that can be made to drive external hardware like real world flashers and solenoids in virtual pinball cabinets.

Pinball Labs Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...9/pinball-labs

francis247uk · Dec 15, 2015

Great potential, also the flippers already sound better than TPA's

chinzman93 · Dec 16, 2015

Here is a link to the downloadable alpha (proof of concept) to play around with.

https://mega.nz/#!rIwVFTBS!nPrLgVrwTbQM3mJs6FMjOQhH460ziMis7yo0yj6aBhs

dudel · Dec 16, 2015

Wow, awesome! Backed!

mpad · Dec 16, 2015

Backed!

DA5ID · Dec 17, 2015

Heard it was a possibility but what is the probability that this will be released for Mac osx? Apple pinball folks have zero options for a pinall emulator. I have been itching to design some tables.

tmek · Dec 17, 2015

Because Pinball Labs is built on Unreal Engine 4 and UE4 supports Mac OSX and Linux it will eventually come to Mac and Linux in some future version (assuming the Kickstarter succeeds). However it's going to require that I have a Mac environment to build and test for mac and Linux environment to build and test for Linux and some customization and tweaking etc. So that all takes a good bit of time even though technically UE4 supports both of those environments.

Also bear in mind that PinMAME is windows only. Some of the other external add-ons that people will likely write might not have MAC/linux versions either.

chinzman93 · Dec 18, 2015

That would be the great thing about this. With a table editor, a user would be able to change as much or as little that they desire. Don't like a flipper sound, change it. Don't like a pop bumper sound, change it.

karl · Dec 18, 2015

Backed it, just now. I truly hope that your kickstarter is a success, but 18 000 is gonna be tough. I just wish that the community was a bit bigger.

Still, best wishes!

poposchmatzer · Dec 18, 2015

Hope this kicks FS into outer space. Backed

SilverBalls · Dec 19, 2015

The demo show very impressive visuals and really good physics. I backed it at Wizard level. Best of luck.

mdscales · Dec 19, 2015

I'm really curious what the package will look like. How many tables in the game when finished? How easy to add in user created tables (dealing with VP installs is a pain). Are there any VP designers already working with the tools so it launches w support?

tmek · Dec 19, 2015

mdscales said:
I'm really curious what the package will look like. How many tables in the game when finished? How easy to add in user created tables (dealing with VP installs is a pain). Are there any VP designers already working with the tools so it launches w support?

Hi mdscales, I like to think of Pinball Labs as a tool for creating (and playing) virtual pinball machines much the same way that Photoshop is a tool for creating and editing images. We'll probably include at least three fully completed example tables, plus a lot of tutorial videos on using Pinball Labs. Ease of installation has been a feature request mentioned many times so I'm doing my best to make things as easy as possible, both to use and install. A lot of that will come from the fact that Pinball Labs is being built on top of Unreal Engine 4 which provides a wealth of features and functionality for developing commercial grade video games and apps.

I'm planning to use popular and open file formats for defining the virtual pinball machines. Things like JSON, JavaScript, PNG, JPG, OGG, FBX, etc. Ideally this will make it very easy to share tables. I'm also hoping this will allow tools to be written that can at least do partial conversions of existing tables from other simulators/editors.

Edit: I wanted to add if you guys would consider sharing or tweeting the Kickstarter or perhaps adding the line below to your forum sigs it would help out tremendously. The kickstarter had a great first four days but pledges have been dropping off these past two. Every little bit helps, Thanks for your support!

lettuce · Dec 19, 2015

What a nice surprise!!

This looks excellent!

Maybe tmek could add a $50-60 tier reward if backed at that level he would take requests for building a table of their choice

crazyflipperfingers · Dec 20, 2015

lettuce said:
What a nice surprise!!

This looks excellent!

Maybe tmek could add a $50-60 tier reward if backed at that level he would take requests for building a table of their choice

Are you suggesting he takes requests for building a digital version of a real pinball table? If so, I don't think that is a good idea at all. I assume the product is intended to be a digital pinball construction set of sorts and not a direct competitor of Farsight. I seriously doubt he wants to get involved with licensing or the potential problems associated with the lack thereof and stealing other people's copyrights.

Ben Logan · Dec 20, 2015

Backed it at wizard level. Can't wait!

PS - CrazyFlipper your TPA wish list looks great. Love Williams SolidSates from that era. Good taste in gaming, sir!

tmek · Dec 24, 2015

SilverBalls · Dec 24, 2015

Happy Christmas tmek. After viewing your video above I noticed you posted another couple of interesting videos people here I am sure will like:

Side by aside Fishtales (Pinball Labs and papa video):

Pinball Labs Kickstarter

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