Ask Me Almost Anything

[FarSight_Matt]

I started at Farsight a year ago and I'm willing to answer reasonable art related questions you have. I'm a generalist which means I model, texture, photograph etc.

Also, let me know if there's anything art related you want fixed on Season 7+ any other seasons I think are locked as far as the art goes. I've worked on every table since Wipeout.

EDIT: Trello page for what I'm working on for PBA: https://trello.com/b/UiJQ0MY1/pinball-arcade-art-fixes

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Welcome! This thread certainly deserves a bit more attention.

@admins, would you mind taking this all the way to the top (if you wanna rock n roll)?

 

[FarSight_Matt]

Doesn't seem to be much competition in the Art Discussion forum.

 

[suffocater]

Will there be a big update for all the old tables? Meaning mostly high resolution playfields, some fixes like the around the left TOTAN flipper etc.?

 

[psykil]

Hey Matt! I imagine some of these tables are in pretty rough shape when you get a hold of them. How much "restoration" work do you guys have to do when digitizing a table?

Also, what table has been the biggest pain in the ass to work on?

 

[Russell Bergman]

Hi Matt! Thanks for taking art suggestions and questions. Off the top of my head here's a few things I remember from some tables art wise and beyond that need fixing:
1. Cirqus Voltaire....missing both lightning bolts at both ends of the neon tube.
2. Firepower....The design around the coin mech, plunger, and start button is reversed.
3. Pin•Bot.....missing the glorious lighted topper.
4. Scared Stiff.....The infamous key hanging from the backbox is still there.
I think there's just a few more art issues, and I'm going to check tables tonight.
*oops, all of the tables I mentioned are before season 7. Doh!

 

[FarSight_Matt]

Will there be a big update for all the old tables? Meaning mostly high resolution playfields, some fixes like the around the left TOTAN flipper etc.?

That isn't up to me. That seems like a lot of work though!

Hey Matt! I imagine some of these tables are in pretty rough shape when you get a hold of them. How much "restoration" work do you guys have to do when digitizing a table?

The most restoration work is done on the playfield, that can take up to 2 weeks. As well as restoration, we have to remove the posts and things that can't be removed from the playfield. Here's a comparison from Wipeout:

Also, what table has been the biggest pain in the ass to work on?

Pistol Poker was a surprisingly complicated table for me. So many pieces, multiple levels and the backglass is an item too, I also baked more lighting into more textures then we have ever done on a table before. Every plastic, sticker, backglass and both playfields have baked GI lighting. That table has 416 individual textures for DX9, compare that with Spanish Eyes' 122 textures.

 

[FarSight_Matt]

Hi Matt! Thanks for taking art suggestions and questions. Off the top of my head here's a few things I remember from some tables art wise and beyond that need fixing:
1. Cirqus Voltaire....missing both lightning bolts at both ends of the neon tube.
2. Firepower....The design around the coin mech, plunger, and start button is reversed.
3. Pin•Bot.....missing the glorious lighted topper.
4. Scared Stiff.....The infamous key hanging from the backbox is still there.
I think there's just a few more art issues, and I'm going to check tables tonight.
*oops, all of the tables I mentioned are before season 7. Doh!

I'll check these out anyways and see how long it would take, the problem with fixing the really old tables is that I'll want to fix everything! I'll check out the keyhole thing though, that sounds awful...

I've updated a few coindoors, here's one comparison.

 

[PiN WiZ]

Sticky granted...welcome to the forum Matt.

 

[DA5ID]

Hi Matt, art is missing on many of the plastics on ghostbusters - they just have the gray matte , this is the Stern pinball arcade version on iOS

 

[FarSight_Matt]

Hi Matt, art is missing on many of the plastics on ghostbusters - they just have the gray matte , this is the Stern pinball arcade version on iOS

I haven't touched this table, but maybe I can figure it out. Can you show me which textures(or at least one) that are missing? I checked the obvious issues (resolution higher than 2k, etc) but didn't find anything obviously wrong. There's a resolved bug for missing baked lighting on plastics which might be it, so maybe you just have to wait for the next update.

 

[BostonBuckeye]

I haven't touched this table, but maybe I can figure it out. Can you show me which textures(or at least one) that are missing? I checked the obvious issues (resolution higher than 2k, etc) but didn't find anything obviously wrong. There's a resolved bug for missing baked lighting on plastics which might be it, so maybe you just have to wait for the next update.

Hi Matt,
I emailed the Farsight Support team a screenshot of this issue back on 11/2 and just emailed it to them again to see how things are progressing with this issue. Yes it has been almost 3 months since this has gone unfixed. If I can figure out how to copy the screenshot into this thread I will.

 

[Spork98765]

If I can figure out how to copy the screenshot into this thread I will.

Post the image to a hosting site, like imgur.com. Then get the url for the hosted image and place it between img tags like this

 [img]yourimg.jpg[/img]

 

[BostonBuckeye]

Post the image to a hosting site, like imgur.com. Then get the url for the hosted image and place it between img tags like this

 [img]yourimg.jpg[/img]

Thanks. Never used one of these sites before so once I am able to register I will post the image. Registering on imgur.com doesn't seem to be working right now. May try one of the others.

 

[Russell Bergman]

Hi Matt. The coin door pic you posted is a great improvement, and hopefully in the future the artwork around the Firepower coin door can be corrected. Here's two more kinda minor art issues I found:
1. Wild Card....The distributor sticker complete with phone number is on the apron. I so want to call it like it is 867-5309. Lol!
2. Xenon (I know, before season 7)....The backless has a Williams logo reflection on it, and it's a Bally table.

That's all I found since my previous post list. Thanks for looking into this!

 

[FarSight_Matt]

1. Wild Card....The distributor sticker complete with phone number is on the apron. I so want to call it like it is 867-5309. Lol!

https://i.imgur.com/XJXjC5e.png

2. Xenon (I know, before season 7)....The backless has a Williams logo reflection on it, and it's a Bally table.

https://i.imgur.com/bA1c4Q3.png


Not sure when these fixes will go out though, or if.

Thanks. Never used one of these sites before so once I am able to register I will post the image. Registering on imgur.com doesn't seem to be working right now. May try one of the others.

You don't need to register to imgur, you can just copy an image, go to imgur.com and hit paste and it'll upload your image. On mobile it's a bit different, but you still don't need an account.

 

[Spork98765]

2. Xenon (I know, before season 7)....The backless has a Williams logo reflection on it, and it's a Bally table.

It is a mirrored backglass that is showing what appears to be Diner in the same room when the image was take. The Diner is a Williams, that is what is reflected. The reflected image has a grand total of 0 (zero) to do with the game it is reflected on.



This is one of those nonsense issue that have been dealt with previously. FarSight has issues to correct, but bogging them with erroneous claims and nonsense is what lead to them ignoring all legitimate claims as well.

 

[Russell Bergman]

I sincerely apologize Spork. I was just going through all issues dealing with art, and I wasn't thinking of this not being a legitimate claim. For a solution, I won't post/suggest backless reflection claims along with other stuff I spot. Plus I didn't know Xenon was dealt with previously. I was going through all the tables last night and the only two tables I spotted and wrote down with anything art wise was Wild Card and Xenon.

 

[FarSight_Matt]

It is a mirrored backglass that is showing what appears to be Diner in the same room when the image was take. The Diner is a Williams, that is what is reflected. The reflected image has a grand total of 0 (zero) to do with the game it is reflected on.



This is one of those nonsense issue that have been dealt with previously. FarSight has issues to correct, but bogging them with erroneous claims and nonsense is what lead to them ignoring all legitimate claims as well.

To be fair, it took 5 minutes to fix both issues. If they ever do plan to recompile these tables for whatever reason the fix will be live and have only taken 5 minutes. Another thing, I'm in the art department, there aren't many bugs that are my responsibility.

 

[BostonBuckeye]

Hi Matt,
Okay. Finally got it to work. Here is the screenshot of Ghostbusters for SPA on iOS.

https://imgur.com/a/fCRQH