Enhanced version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation table on PS4 to be shown at E3

[shutyertrap]

When I interviewed Bobby back in December, he said if implemented, it wouldn't be a slider, but probably 3 presets.

As for why we need it, well even FarSight can't seem to decide on a lighting scheme since every table seems to be different. Go ahead, pop in Cirqus Voltair and then look at Genie and tell me we don't need lighting options.

Finally, I second, third, or whatever number it's up to that playing the same table in a well lit room is a completely different experience from playing it in the dark. One is not better than the other, but both are essential for the full experience.

 

[karl]

One more vote for the slider here. I'd be ok with a 3 point slider or even a 2 point if that makes it easier to implement. This should be pretty easy to do on consoles and PC, but I can understand that Farsight does not have much spare time a the moment, working on ps4, pc, WII-U and spending most of their day keeping the mobiles up to speed on updates. I feel pretty confident that we will see a slider coming our way in the not to distant future because hey, it's a really cool and necessary feature

 

[Kemetman72]

Wow this table looks great. BUT I have been in the emulation scene for nearly 20 years, and if you make it too fancy,such as ball reflectins from every angle, then you risk what true emulation is. No one in real life can see something like that. I am just saying don't go overboard with extra effects that can't be seen by the human eye. LIghting yes that's all nice. Per Pixel ray-tracing for a ball? A shiny ball is a shiny ball to me. Not everyone is going to upgrade to the PS4. I am just going to rebuild my 320 gig slim which seems the best made out of the three models. 10x the power (call me jaded) doesn't excite me. Actually if you go truly about emulation thre way MAME does the PS4 probablt doesn't have the raw power to emulate a machine that's as complicated as the PS3. Hence Gakai. They also have the tech to install trophies into ANY game without altering the original programming. It was an artivle I read and wouldn't ya know it it disappeared and no mention has ever been made since. I have also read Sony is on the verge of bankruptcy. I have no idead about that, but they have been eating a loss giving out free multiplayer online for a long time. So in conclusion please still for the sake of preserving history dob't go overboard with wild effects. Just my opinion.

 

[Mark W**a]

I've always found the "lighting slider" thing people keep wishing for a bit silly-sounding. Would you really be altering it all the time? I wouldn't. I want the developers to pick one lighting scenario and make it fabulous. Making optional lighting schemes for a single table is just not a very efficient use of development time.

That's what they've been doing. Though the results are sometimes less than fabulous, as you put it. Some tables, like NGG and White Water, look muddy and poor with the "halfway light, halfway dark" scheme. Others look fantastic (Cirqus, Theatre, Creature). Others, we don't know what the hell happened (Harley, Taxi, Genie).

Having 3 presets would allow you to have, "lights on" (bright, iOS style look) normal (what they are now) and lights off (show off the incredible light shows that these tables produce). On PS4 they should be able to do a full range slider though that we really want.

At this point I'd be happy even if it was a PS4/Next Gen only feature.

If all the lights are actually producing light like a real light would on the PS4 version wouldn't that not really take that much work?

That's what I'm thinking as well. Dynamic real time lighting means that it should, by default, be possible.

When Farsight said they would only have 3 presets I think they meant for the current console builds, since that lighting is mostly baked.

 

[Mark W**a]

I think you're right.

What makes you guys say that? This worries me since you are seldom (if ever) wrong about things.

All PS4 games, to my knowledge, were running on real PS4 hardware (versus Xbone which was running off of PC's). Not that that should matter..

Hopefully the table art on the PS4 version is just a place holder for higher resolution art.
That way they could zoom in closer and still maintain a realistic, smooth look.

Another thing I am wondering is if the PS4 version of TPA is going to support stereoscopic 3D.

It's extremely hard to tell from this screen grab. It's not a direct captured shot it's compressed pulled from a youtube video hence why the textures look blurry.

It is my understanding that the 360 and PS3 use the same textures as iOS... and the textures on an iPad with 2k+ resolution looks amazing... one thing you can tell from this screen is that the anti-aliasing is juiced way up, maybe even some AF in there as well. I would like to see higher res textures... 8 freakin' gigs of ram, et al... but I'm not sure how much better it can get tbh.

The way the lights flash and pulsate is so damn realistic in that video. I'm very excited and love the new look.

 

[spoonman]

What makes you guys say that? This worries me since you are seldom (if ever) wrong about things.

All PS4 games, to my knowledge, were running on real PS4 hardware (versus Xbone which was running off of PC's). Not that that should matter..



It's extremely hard to tell from this screen grab. It's not a direct captured shot it's compressed pulled from a youtube video hence why the textures look blurry.

It is my understanding that the 360 and PS3 use the same textures as iOS... and the textures on an iPad with 2k+ resolution looks amazing... one thing you can tell from this screen is that the anti-aliasing is juiced way up, maybe even some AF in there as well. I would like to see higher res textures... 8 freakin' gigs of ram, et al... but I'm not sure how much better it can get tbh.

The way the lights flash and pulsate is so damn realistic in that video. I'm very excited and love the new look.

I agree.
I would like to see some high res shots of the PS4 version from Farsight, but I'm guessing they want to wait until its more polished.

I believe most of the table art remained the same between The Williams Pinball Hall of Fame and TPA. I've done side by side comparisons between the two games and the resolution of the artwork seems consistent.
For the most part it looks good, but when zooming reveals a lot of compression artifacting and low resolution texture.

I just hope they scanned the table art at a much higher resolution than we see here.
I've been scanning a lot of archival photos and other media since the early 90's and back then we thought resolutions around 1000px (@300dpi) would be enough for years to come, but now I find myself having to rescan much of it all over again at higher resolutions.

It would probably be a pain if they had to rescan all of their table art resources again, but if they want the table too look convincing during zooms and table guide view at 1080p they will have to have better quality art to go along with their improved lighting.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I agree.
I would like to see some high res shots of the PS4 version from Farsight, but I'm guessing they want to wait until its more polished.

I believe most of the table art remained the same between The Williams Pinball Hall of Fame and TPA. I've done side by side comparisons between the two games and the resolution of the artwork seems consistent.
For the most part it looks good, but when zooming reveals a lot of compression artifacting and low resolution texture.

I just hope they scanned the table art at a much higher resolution than we see here.
I've been scanning a lot of archival photos and other media since the early 90's and back then we thought resolutions around 1000px (@300dpi) would be enough for years to come, but now I find myself having to rescan much of it all over again at higher resolutions.

It would probably be a pain if they had to rescan all of their table art resources again, but if they want the table too look convincing during zooms and table guide view at 1080p they will have to have better quality art to go along with their improved lighting.

We may know more when the PC version reaches beta. One of the options is supposed to enable the use of uncompressed textures. Whether that will be an "at launch" feature is unknown, however.

 

[ER777]

If all the lights are actually producing light like a real light would on the PS4 version wouldn't that not really take that much work?

If the PS4 has built-in controls for adjusting the level of illumination coming from each light source then you're probably right, it really shouldn't be that hard to implement in theory. However, I'm still somewhat hesitant to assume that a dynamic slider should be a quick and easy thing for Farsight to implement without hearing it from them. Its easy to underestimate how much effort is required for this type of thing.

 

[netizen]

Isn't this slider type idea going to be dependant on how the lights are modelled by FS in the first place? If they are just lit circles where the inserts are and the slider just makes them brighter, sure that's theoretically easier. But if they model 3D bulb under the inserts to throw proper shadows etc it gets very complex and having user adjustable settings makes for far too many variables to alter. Not just on the front end but in the code to make it happen and all interact smoothly.

 

[shutyertrap]

Isn't this slider type idea going to be dependant on how the lights are modelled by FS in the first place? If they are just lit circles where the inserts are and the slider just makes them brighter, sure that's theoretically easier. But if they model 3D bulb under the inserts to throw proper shadows etc it gets very complex and having user adjustable settings makes for far too many variables to alter. Not just on the front end but in the code to make it happen and all interact smoothly.

Except it's not the lights on the table itself you'd be adjusting, but the light in the room. Pro Pinball, with their tech demo, showed exactly what everyone is wanting. You could have the lights full up in a room, you could have them turned off completely. The lights on the table never changed in intensity. Since that is a prerendered table, obviously they have more control. With the PS4 and PC though, this same effect should be more than possible.

 

[smbhax]

Its easy to underestimate how much effort is required for this type of thing.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. And the point about pins looking different and neat in day and night is perfectly valid, of course; like at Seattle Pinball Museum they turn the overhead lights off at a certain point in the evening and suddenly everything's transformed. Although this does make me wonder if a more ideal setting is in fact somewhere between the two, ie where you can still see the effects of the lights clearly, but can also easily make out the printed artwork. That's the first thing I would try for; anything beyond that is gravy. Probably their ST:TNG *is* the closest they've come to achieving that so far, except for the pinky orange tint in the current versions.

 

[brakel]

I have also read Sony is on the verge of bankruptcy. I have no idead about that, but they have been eating a loss giving out free multiplayer online for a long time. So in conclusion please still for the sake of preserving history dob't go overboard with wild effects. Just my opinion.

Sony as a whole is fairly healthy. Their electronics division has been doing so poorly for the last few years that it is dragging down the performance of the whole and their shear size has them encumbered to some degree. On the good side their entertainment division continues to out perform the rest of the company. After 5 straight years posting yearly losses this year will not only show them as posting a profit but they recently doubled their projected profits this year. Earlier this year they were able to sell office buildings in both the US and Japan not only helping their bottom line for this year but also for years to come. Those sales are also a sign that Sony is addressing their need to run leaner. Not only is the cost of their free PS3 online multiplayer an almost immeasurable cost compared to the whole of Sony's holdings (total assets in excess of 150 billion dollars), Sony's gaming division has been a money maker year in and out since the PS1 days with only a departmental loss reported in the first couple of years of the PS3 due to manufacturing costs. They have also reported that the PS4 will not have the same deep startup costs of the PS3. Depending on how Sony decides to amortize the development costs of the PS4, the gaming division might post a profit this year as well.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Fun fact: 63% of Sony's total operating profit comes from...selling life insurance and other financial services.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/b...utter-its-not-electronics.html?pagewanted=all

 

[brakel]

Fun fact: 63% of Sony's total operating profit comes from...selling life insurance and other financial services.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/b...utter-its-not-electronics.html?pagewanted=all

They're a bank! Who knew?

 

[Lord Boron]

That how all companies want to go now. Look at GE. They don't want to make things because that cost money. They just want to sit back and let money come in. No factories, no material cost, no pesky employees, and a guarantied government bailout of things go wrong.

 

[ER777]

Fun fact: 63% of Sony's total operating profit comes from...selling life insurance and other financial services.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/b...utter-its-not-electronics.html?pagewanted=all

Very interesting article. I never knew they were an insurance company in Japan either. At least they refer to the video game console line of business as one of the more successful parts of the electronics division, and not one of the parts putting its electronics division in trouble.

 

[spoonman]

I'd even be happy with having the option of playing the table without the lighting effects. I wish some of the tables were bright, colorful, and vivid like with the Android port, for example.

That's more of what I think of when I hear "Day/Night option". Just seeing the table art without it being darkened would be cool.

 

[pseudokings]

two (multi-part) comments:
1. Glad to hear FS and Sony have decided to do some form of the "upgrade path" - hopefully the price point will make it worthwhile for people. Some info on said price point soon might spur on PS3 sales while waiting for PS4 some.
2. A Day/Night slider would be cooler than 3 presets, but even 3 presets would be better than what we have now, and to anyone who doesn't get why this would be a great feature if the lighting is all done to actually mirror real lighting: go on Youtube and look at real pins in different room lighting scenarios, it should convince you. Personally I wish at this point they'd add the option to change the color on all the light bulbs so you can "color theme" like people do when LEDing tables these days. I know this will never happen (though I doubt light bulb color or brightness is covered by the "as it left the factory" contractual requirement, as bulbs are expected to be changed), but check out some vids of BSD on Youtube with default lighting and then color themed. Can make a huge difference in "cool factor". Would pay extra, "Pro" style, for the option (within reason).

 

[phreaker47]

I've always found the "lighting slider" thing people keep wishing for a bit silly-sounding. Would you really be altering it all the time? I wouldn't. I want the developers to pick one lighting scenario and make it fabulous. Making optional lighting schemes for a single table is just not a very efficient use of development time.

If all the lights are actually producing light like a real light would on the PS4 version wouldn't that not really take that much work?

If it's a true dynamic lighting system, then it could easily be a universal option across all tables.

 

[smbhax]

Oh I see what you mean. I guess. I think I'd prefer each table to have its environmental lighting tailored to what works best for that table. Compared to that I suppose a generic lighting environment, even with a "slider" adjustment, might be easier to produce. I don't think it would look as good, though. I mean, potentially. But I think I'm just not a slider person, so don't worry about me.