Live Catching - Is it possible?

[SilverBallAddict]

I've been watching a lot of footage from that official pinball site (can't remember name offhand) and I've got to say that Kerin Bowens is a legend! His voice over instructional videos are amazing and I just watch amazed as he goes from one thing to another adding his own twist as he goes.
Anyway, enough of Kerin as he knows what he's doing! I've seen him "live catch" with almost ease & although I know he's a champion I've tried this on many an occasion & it either bounces off flipper or I time it so well it doesn't bounce but rolls straight off flipper & drains. I was just wondering if on a console the physics of this are just too much or I need more Practice. Thx for reading.

 

[xAzatothx]

Not currently possible in PA with current flipper + ball physics. Think this is the holy grail and we all hope to get it one day.

 

[SilverBallAddict]

Thanks xAzatothx, it's good to know that my questionable skill is not under threat!

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Not currently possible in PA with current flipper + ball physics. Think this is the holy grail and we all hope to get it one day.

Not entirely true. They're ugly as sin, and whether they could properly be called live "catches" is questionable, but on the consoles if you flip at the same time you would to do a real live catch and then nudge ever so slightly in the opposite direction (nudge left for right flipper and vice versa) so that the bounce lands back on the flipper and not in the drain or on the slings, you can get the same effect.

It's a lot harder on the mobile devices, but even then on some tables it's possible; CFTBL is particularly amenable to live catching. There's certainly plenty of room for improvement in this area, though.

 

[Richard B]

I was just wondering if on a console the physics of this are just too much or I need more Practice. Thx for reading.

Think this is the holy grail and we all hope to get it one day.

No, this is not too much for the consoles to handle, and, while a needed feature, is hardly the holy grail. This has been done on the original Pro Pinball games (at least the last two), and VP has supported this for a long time. VP currently has the Ball Momentum Physics Routine (usually called BMPR, formerly called the Momentum Mod), which is incorporating even more advanced features, such as variable flipper strength (10 levels), enabling the high-level tricks you see in the PAPA videos, and necessary to reach the highest scores.
Bobby King did say they would address this issue starting in Sept. at the earliest, though I am not sure if they have started this yet.

 

[Animator_pin_fan]

Yes, we want all of these techniques:

Currently TPA can do post passes, and drop passes, but TPA desperately need some flipper sensitivity so that you can do some subtle bumps and bounces which are particularly useful during multi-ball. And of course live catches, and drop catches too!!

 

[neglectoid]

live catching is one skill i just don't have. i have to admit that i really haven't tried to hone this particular skill. i have done it a few times on accident IRL and almost soiled my pants. it feels so good when it happens.

 

[Baintz]

Speaking of live catches, I posted this in the Real Pinball subforum, but everyone deserves to see it.

The greatest live catch you will ever see (skip to 08:15):

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

And one of the greatest tables for tournament play.

 

[lettuce]

Love Bram Stokers Dracula do you think we'll ever see it in TPA??

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

Hopefully 2013.
Don't know about the license costs.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

And one of the greatest tables for tournament play.

And also one of the most difficult even in its factory-default state. If FarSight releases this one, it really ought to come with a warning label.

(If FarSight would kindly substitute full-length flippers in the TPA version for the lightning ones, I promise I'd look the other way... )

 

[Richard B]

And also one of the most difficult even in its factory-default state. If FarSight releases this one, it really ought to come with a warning label.

(If FarSight would kindly substitute full-length flippers in the TPA version for the lightning ones, I promise I'd look the other way... )

I won't. If the original is brutal, the TPA version should also be brutal. I hate mastering the TPA version, only to get the living hell kicked out of me by the real life counterpart.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I was being facetious there.

 

[mrhorseshoe]

You can do a pseudo live catch on TPA. If you flip at the right moment, you can kill the momentum of the ball very nicely. It will still bounce a small bit but most of the time it will end up resting on the flipper.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

You can do a pseudo live catch on TPA. If you flip at the right moment, you can kill the momentum of the ball very nicely. It will still bounce a small bit but most of the time it will end up resting on the flipper.

I've managed something like a live catch on TPA's Black Hole when the ball was heading toward a point near the base of the lower left flipper. I don't think it'd work if the point of contact were further toward the tip.

The physics of real-world live catches is actually somewhat mysterious to me. I get drop catches, but live catches are the one case where I don't really understand what is going on. How is the situation more able to decelerate the ball than a held flipper? Is it that the flipper is itself decelerating? Is some nonlinear quality of the flipper rubber in operation? Granted, I haven't thought about it very deeply, but I haven't seen anyone else analyze it in detail either.

 

[Bonzo]

Not that much of a physics expert myself, but I guess it's the momentum of both ball and flipper exactly equaling each other out. Think of Newton's cradle as something with a similar effect.

 

[SilverBallAddict]

I agree with you Bonzo, having watched a lot of Kerin Bowens, I've thought a lot about what's actually going on in a live catch. I've come to the conclusion that the speeds cancel each other out. Rather like two cars hitting each other on a highway, they both come to a complete stand still, don't they!?

 

[Bonzo]

Yeah, and you have to time this exactly. If you're too late the force that lifts the flipper will continue to impact the flipper and push the ball back up. And if you're too early the flipper will obviously have stopped moving before the ball hits it.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

I agree with you Bonzo, having watched a lot of Kerin Bowens, I've thought a lot about what's actually going on in a live catch. I've come to the conclusion that the speeds cancel each other out. Rather like two cars hitting each other on a highway, they both come to a complete stand still, don't they!?

There are two quantities involved in any collision, though, momentum and energy. The momenta do cancel each other out like that, but the other question is what happens to the kinetic energy: that is, why is this particular collision with the flipper already in motion so much more inelastic than a bounce off a held flipper?

In the held-flipper case, the flipper behaves essentially as a brick wall; the momentum seems to get transferred to the pinball cabinet as a whole, just as if the flipper were a static target, but not so much energy is dissipated so the ball can bounce quite a lot. Here, that doesn't happen: the flipper mechanism seems to be more responsive to a push when it's moving than when it's held.

Is the additional absorbed energy in a live catch mostly going into the flipper rubber, or into resistive load in the solenoid (this is my personal wild guess), or somewhere else?