Disappointed in texture quality

[jaredmorgs]

Not that much time. Future Pinball often uses redrawn playfields and the creators are lonely hobbyists.

We could continue this discussion ad-nauseum. How long do the hobbyists have to complete their tables? Bet it's longer than a couple of months from table purchase to release.

 

[shutyertrap]

Let me clarify. Someone complained that the textures looked bad and that FS should purchase the playfield art from a site like classicplayfields.com

I took a quick look at the CPF website FAQ and saw that their playfields are reproductions that are usually redrawn by their artist.

I think TPA looks great considering the platforms they support and the need for balancing performance and visuals. I question the usefulness of the suggestion that they purchase reproduction playfield art from a third party.

Are these reproduction playfields even legal from a licensing standpoint?

Yes, CPR is fully licensed to do what they do. They are on their own for resources though. Nobody at Williams is handing them art files.

 

[ClarkKent]

If they really have all original machines available they ported than they should be even more ashamed of the texture quality they present. And if they dismantle each machine they should be way more ashamed. Each part can be scanned in high resolution. Photoshop pros can make them look like new in a jiffy. And I do not accept excuses for low polygons because of different platforms: The polygons are also bad on the Windows version.

I've redrawn some playfields by myself for fun and I know it's some work. But - and that's the big BUT - they want money for their recreations! And as soon as I want money for something I make it the best I'm able to!

They should reach this level of quality to satisfy their customers (just a png out of a vectorized version): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3705/57n9h8hb_png.htm

 

[Megahurtz]

Given some of the questionable textures, especially in the older tables, I really wish there was a way users could mod the game to replace the existing textures with higher quality/fixed ones. If Farsight doesn't have the time or money to do it themselves (which is unfortunate...), I wish the community could help out.

 

[shutyertrap]

If they really have all original machines available they ported than they should be even more ashamed of the texture quality they present. And if they dismantle each machine they should be way more ashamed. Each part can be scanned in high resolution. Photoshop pros can make them look like new in a jiffy. And I do not accept excuses for low polygons because of different platforms: The polygons are also bad on the Windows version.

I've redrawn some playfields by myself for fun and I know it's some work. But - and that's the big BUT - they want money for their recreations! And as soon as I want money for something I make it the best I'm able to!

They should reach this level of quality to satisfy their customers (just a png out of a vectorized version): http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3705/57n9h8hb_png.htm

Truth is, we really don't know all the steps FarSight takes in making these tables. There has been much speculation, things we have been told, and things we were told that later turned out to be a distortion of the truth.

I have been up to FarSight twice. I have spoken directly to various members of the team in various manners. With my own eyes I can tell you they do indeed break down the tables. I have been told they photograph the play fields. As far as I know they do not have a 3D scanner, meaning they create their own models. We have been told they have high Rez files for everything, but how and where they use these files, I don't know.

There are Bobby King interview threads here on the forum. Read and give a listen. Many of these issues you bring up are dealt with there. I am in no way defending the often head scratching choices in textures and poly counts, but they swear they have hardware related reasons. Take that as you like. I am not of a computer tech background, so I can't argue the fact. I am from a camera background and can complain about many of the lighting choices ad nauseum.

Our forum has been active in trying to push FarSight in achieving better. If you saw what the Terminator skull looked like originally, you'd know we can be successful. The PS3 megapatch was partly due to our diligence in not letting things stay as they are. The important thing to remember us that constructive criticism is key, that certain things are never going to change, and others are simply beyond what FarSight can, or is allowed to do.

Search the threads, you'll find you are not the first nor fifth to ask these very things.

 

[Biff]

You may want to see this, Kent.

(December 2011)

 

[ClarkKent]

I do not know if they are aware that they do not need to make their own 3d models. They just need the original objects, Strata Photostudio 3D and a good cam. With this method many original looking 3d objects were done for VP.

 

[ClarkKent]

I know the video above. I wish they would do it with the exact same amount of precision they are showing in the video. That's all.

 

[Tann]

TPA is (probably) profitable for Farsight thanks to the mobile markets. Although it (probably) lowers the overall quality on more powerful devices (PC and consoles), I'm OK with that. Because I doubt TPA would have reached a fourth season, with only the "traditional" videogame markets.

The PS3 megapatch is the proof that FS tries to do the best, given all supported platforms and limited ressources they have.

And don't forget that (digital) pinball is still a niche. A growing niche, but a niche.

 

[Kratos3]

Perhaps the increasing performance of mobile devices will help in this regard. TPA on my 5s looks pretty impressive.

 

[Jeff Strong]

This is a very common topic among those new here. The short answer given by FarSight is that they constrain the poly count based on the platform and how fast a frame rate it can run at. According to them, it's not just about the polygons, but the number crunching needed to run the emulation Roms at the same time.
!

FarSight owns all the tables themselves, so it's not like they don't have a reference. I personally saw their Genie, and it had wood showing all over the place. They know how to recreate the graphics just fine. As was pointed out above though, attention is paid more towards the mobile market, and those devices are getting lower poly builds.

Poly counts and texture quality are two very different things though, but yeah.

The good news is the textures have improved lately.

 

[jaredmorgs]

This post deals with my experience on the Android platform since TPA was released. There is some speculation, indicated with parenthesis in-line.

I'll throw this into the pot now, having just pulled the trigger on a purchase from Amazon US. I'll be getting an NVidia Shield Tablet. Google "shield.nvidia.com" to see what this $299 tablet is capable of.

This device is the beginning of a trend in mobile markets where hardware is catching up fast (FAST) with PC.

It is a dedicated gaming tablet. Speakers with bass-reflex ports. A Wi-Fi direct controller (half as latent as Bluetooth) . It's own built-in controller mapping software (that does not require root). A mode where you can connect it to your TV in "Console Mode".

I unreservedly believe I could run PC quality polys and textures on this tablet. And it still wouldn't break a sweat (just throw an .apk my way FlippyFloppy with PC assets )

FarSight have an opportunity to develop for this new age of device, but (I speculate that) it will require a significant amount of re-tooling in their SDLC.

I'm painfully aware that FarSight also have the challenge of where to "draw the line" with mobile. Considering this course of action has the following consequences:

• Which version of iOS or Android do they stop supporting.
• What minimum device spec should they cut off support at?
• How will that affect existing customers on the platform (we're talking refunds of all table purchases, or other recompense if they decide to do that)?
• How will cutting out everything below iOS 4 or Android 4.1 affect their future revenue projections?

This is where it starts going from black and white, to grey.

The only way FarSight could move into the 64-bit era of Mobile platforms is to re-release The Pinball Arcade as a fresh release on Google Play. New minimum hardware targets and OS cut-offs.

This is very similar to what Zen Pinball had to do in the last year when people purchased tablets that made it impossible for them to play the game smoothly. They refunded people's purchases on the platform.

Now, we're a long way away from this place I believe. It is worth thinking of the possibilities if Farsight decide to re-release as a "HD" version. I believe they are not disposing of their tables this time around, after being stung with Pinball Hall of Fame, so it is possible (but by no means confirmed in any way) that a re-release of the game may occur in future years.

Pinball is a cyclical hobby. Generally every 10 to 15 years the hobby goes through a renaissance of sorts. We're seeing it now with pinball houses ramping up production as new markets emerge.

With a cache of tables that are now incredibly valuable to home collectors, and a pedigree of producing realistic digital pinball, I think we can look forward to good things in our future.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

With nVidia Shield you can stream from a PC to the tablet. At this point tablet performance goes out the window and it's all about bandwidth and network latency. Steam also offers a similar product. It doesn't work for tablets (yet).

 

[jaredmorgs]

With nVidia Shield you can stream from a PC to the tablet. At this point tablet performance goes out the window and it's all about bandwidth and network latency. Steam also offers a similar product. It doesn't work for tablets (yet).

Yep, you need a big, fat 5MB/s tunnel to be able to pull that off. And NVidia admit that even then it wouldn't be suitable for "hardcore competition play" where milliseconds win the game.

The tablet still has to render the stream at it's end though. So while it is about bandwidth/latency, you couldn't play a PC game on a Nexus 7. It doesn't have the grunt and the GPU cores.

This is not why I'm getting this tablet though. It is more about form factor (8" is the money-shot of screen size IMO), the fact that it does away with BT for game controllers (I continue to have key repeat issues on Android 4.4.3 and 4.4.4 which makes playing TPA an exercise in frustration), and that it allows your monitor to become a gaming rig.

It also has external storage, so you can have yourself a 128GB tablet if you want. I'll be getting a Class 10 SDHC of at least 32gb capacity locally to shove in it. It has app2sd so that means that all apps can be installed to the SDHC
with absolutely no noticeable performance decrease.

 

[mpad]

Interesting, but some older tables have good textures, some have crappy blurry textures. The new ones have great textures.
They all run on the same platform.
So it's all about how they are made in the first place.

 

[ClarkKent]

For my part lowering quality for not-so-powerful devices only seems to be an excuse. They have all the power they need for the Windows and PS4 platforms and the quality is not better there. As far as I know Windows versions are always the best and than ported with a lower quality to other devices. It would be very weird if they argue that the quality for the Windows version must be lower to be compatible with tablets.

Nevertheless the quality of some tables is really great, like JunkYard. So it's possible. But as most really great tables are from season 1 and 2 it's a shame that the quality there is not really good. Look at BOP - the playfield is just horrible! I hope for an texture update but I do not think they will do this...

 

[soundwave106]

Nevertheless the quality of some tables is really great, like JunkYard. So it's possible. But as most really great tables are from season 1 and 2 it's a shame that the quality there is not really good. Look at BOP - the playfield is just horrible!

I do think that the early focus really was on the mobile market (PC wasn't even released until a year after the mobile releases). Some of the older tables, as well as the Pinball Hall of Fame re-releases in general, do not look as good as the newer Season 3 tables, that's for sure.

The PS4 release order is a bit weird (Season 1, the newer tables, and a big gap in between). Perhaps one of the things Pinball Arcade is doing for this is improving some of the textures to take advantage of the higher hardware specs of next gen consoles. If that happens, at the very least PC textures could eventually follow and be upgraded. (This of course is speculation. But when you say "BOP is horrible" I assume you mean on the PC. There's a Youtube video of BOP on the PS4 and it does look initially look improved to me...)

 

[Terminator]

I was thinking about getting the Shield Tab. But I heard they will pack the Tegra K1 dual-core 64-bit processor (codename: Project Denver K1) in the next Shield Tab. The current one is packing the quad-core 32-bit K1. I think that extra push from the Denver chip will definitely be a true PC in tablet form.

 

[shutyertrap]

For my part lowering quality for not-so-powerful devices only seems to be an excuse. They have all the power they need for the Windows and PS4 platforms and the quality is not better there. As far as I know Windows versions are always the best and than ported with a lower quality to other devices. It would be very weird if they argue that the quality for the Windows version must be lower to be compatible with tablets.

And this is why people say FarSight has too many platforms they are putting the game out on. Obviously there are short cuts being taken. Anyone seeing season 3 on the PC can also notice that tables have vastly improved. The problem is, TPA is a moving train. It left the station house with a 4 table release and hasn't stopped since. They have learned to do things better now, but there's no time to go back and apply what they have learned to the older stuff. In the mean time, they've picked up more passengers with the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The Wii U keeps trying to catch the train, while Windows 8 mobile never bought a ticket.

Meanwhile in the 2+ years since TPA was released, the mobile platforms have increased their capabilities, but FarSight can't cut off the dead weight of older OS. Think about it; the iPad 3 was new when TPA came out. Personally I see this as the biggest hurdle. The mobile/tablet market is not holding back the PC, but it is holding back itself.

So ask yourself this, if you were in FarSights shoes, what would you do?
- Stop making tables at end of season so that past seasons can be brought up to speed?
- Stop worrying about older OS compatibility and only worry about current?
- Rescan all tables for visual upgrade?
Because those are the things that have been asked for a long time. The answer is they won't take a break from making tables because there is no money in going back; they don't want to piss off a large user base and cut off that source of revenue by saying upgrade your device; they have over 40 tables and 1 guy that maintains them, so tearing down to a clean play field is too much to ask, on the top of the fact they say they have hi-rez pics of them already.

We all wish FarSight was a much larger studio than they are, so that they can handle the immense work load they've tasked themselves with. They aren't though. In our podcast, we have mentioned that they need to grab the low hanging fruit, while giving them time to work on the bigger problems. One thing that isn't going to change is the train moving forward. There is always a next table, and the majority of users want that more than those wishing for graphical tweaks.

 

[jaredmorgs]

...The problem is, TPA is a moving train. It left the station house with a 4 table release and hasn't stopped since...

Yep, this is the issue. This type of problem is also referred to commonly (at least in the industry I work in) as "Fixing the aircraft while flying".

The only way they could address these issues is stop at Season 3 for TPA Gen 1.

Then take an arbitrary amount of time off from releasing to retool, rework the TPA emulation engine, and sound mixer (hint, just emulate the BGM and SFX guys). Along with a host of other stuff that I'm probably skimming over because, frankly, I just don't know what is truly involved in producing something like TPA.

Then after eating nothing but ramen noodles during this period because they are not getting any revenue, release TPA Gen 2 with all the older packs included with visual upgrades in line with today's technology.

And expect to pay for the updated "HD" packages because of the extra effort involved in producing them. And don't even start to talk about cross-buy/license porting/other tight-arse tactics. This. Stuff. Costs. Money. Life isn't a free ride. Devs have got to eat.

People playing along at home will start to see why just "makey better less suck" is not as easy as flicking a switch. That being said, I would love to see overall improvements to the game, and with some luck and continued support of the franchise, we may even see them. We just need to be patient.

</2cents>