General Illumination

[Fuseball]

Just watched a clip of TOTAN on IGN and I swear the GI is doing the amazing rippling effect that the actual machine does! For anyone unfamiliar with the inner workings of real life pinball machines, General Illumination or GI is the software controlled brightness of the light bulbs underneath inlands, slingshots and other playfield plastics as well as the backglass illumination.

So, do all the tables have dynamic General Illumination support emulated on PS4?

Does Attack From Mars have a proper dynamic lighting strobe and Cirqus Voltaire a similar neon?

GI support alone makes me now really want a PS4. It's such an integral part of a game's atmosphere and drama.

 

[superballs]

GI looks like it's going to be really sweet though I wish the current consoles had them as they are quite capable when it comes to lighting.

 

[dtown8532]

I watched a little of the gameplay stream on twitch but stopped because I didn't want to see anymore before actually playing it on my PS4, which currently, is acting like little more than a paperweight right now due to having nothing I really want to play on it.

 

[Fuseball]

Played an in-store demo today of Cirqus Voltaire and the lighting is pretty spectacular. It really makes a massive difference to the feel of the game. Very impressed.

 

[superballs]

It's a shame my local EB has FIFA 14 instead of TPA.

 

[The loafer]

PA is on there too, just quit the demo and you will see pinball arcade and a few others you can try

 

[superballs]

I'll have to check that out tonight i think

 

[The loafer]

Did you try it?

 

[Fuseball]

Well, I finally got myself a PS4 for Destiny... but of course I'm playing TPA just as much on it.

I've got to commend Farsight for the effort made to get the GI lighting implemented and working so well. It might not sound like much of a feature, but it makes a world of difference on some games - particularly those John Popadiuk ones (TotAN, ToM and CV) which I like so much. They feel so much more like the real thing now.

It's kind of a shame that AFM still doesn't get a strobe effect. I was actually surprised at that and the game loses a lot without it. I would love to see it implemented some day.

One downside of the emulated games looking so much closer to the real machines is that the unemulated ones (Black Knight in particular) look even more sub-standard. I guess that emulation of that has proved impossible, which is a shame. The simple but effective lighting effects on that would have looked great on the PS4. I hope that when season 2 hits, Centaur gets GI support.

 

[mystman12]

My brother got a PS4 for Destiny as well, but I'm just happy to be able to play TPA on it! I'm also really happy you can trial tables on this version, so I was able to check out a lot of them. I really do love the new lighting, I can't wait to see White Water with it. It really makes a huge difference, the light shows are so much more noticeable now, so I've started seeing the lights do neat things I never noticed before. (Like the rippling effect in TOTAN, or how the clock in Funhouse advances one after each bell ring after locking the first ball, etc.)

 

[Kratos3]

My brother got a PS4 for Destiny as well, but I'm just happy to be able to play TPA on it! I'm also really happy you can trial tables on this version, so I was able to check out a lot of them. I really do love the new lighting, I can't wait to see White Water with it. It really makes a huge difference, the light shows are so much more noticeable now, so I've started seeing the lights do neat things I never noticed before. (Like the rippling effect in TOTAN, or how the clock in Funhouse advances one after each bell ring after locking the first ball, etc.)

Are you new here? You're supposed to rip the PS4 version.

I can't wait to get a PS4 and play TPA on it!

 

[Fuseball]

Seems like the General illumination support is only there for the WPC-era games. It's a shame that it isn't implemented on BK2000 for example, which makes excellent use of switching off all the lights at various times. I know the System 11 games don't have the sophisticated dimming features of WPC but they are CPU controlled and designers like Steve Richie use that as a big part of their lighting effects.