Android - Bug Observed Bugs in Twilight Zone (v1.7.0 BETA)

[jaredmorgs]

Nik i want to test something, im going to make a build with the ball tech reverted. I want to see if you still see the issue in lag.

Send this to me as well Ryan. I experience the ball lag on TZ in Beta 2. And that is on a quad core Tegra TF300T

 

[jaredmorgs]

Ryan, this is not a TZ critical issue, but worth citing just in case you have not had a chance to look at other bug threads.

Have you seen the issue about music loops used in the games not being seamless/gapless?

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/2675-Game-music-playback-gap-issues

Although not reported by anyone else in that thread, Bonzo also reported on the IRC room that he can replicate this on his device as well.

Do you have any thoughts about this, and why this gapped playback would be happening?

It it something to do with how the emulation technology manages music playback on Android devices. Maybe a setting relating to gapless playback?

I know some sound files in the apk are .ogg files. Could it be something to do with how these are "recorded"?

 

[netizen]

@ Netizen - are you sure it doesn't work.
I have very little control over mine as well, simply because the controls are cr@p.
It's more luck than control to be honest.

Crappy video footage. Maybe I am doing something wrong after all, apart from not keeping things centred very well

 

[Animator_pin_fan]

Seeing that video makes me think, this is how I wish the nudging on mobile devices would work in stead of just touching an area.

 

[Nik Barbour]

Crappy video footage. Maybe I am doing something wrong after all, apart from not keeping things centred very well

Nope - that doesn't work anything like mine and is definitely 'messed up'.
Mine is not good to control, but you can roll the camera, pinch zoom, and pan (but can't rotate), and the 'back' button is half clipped off from my portrait view.
I'd video it for you, but the only camera I have is the phone I'm playing on - sorry mate!

(I watched that clip right through, thinking, he's gotta do something different at the end, can't just keep trying over and over - maybe a little dance or something. Disappointed.)

 

[xAzatothx]

some good news. I solved my performance issues on TZ. I discovered that if I either a)turned off WiFi or b) turned off auto data sync the problem went away.

Seems there was a background app that was syncing data and the action caused an interrupt in the TZ frame rate which the code couldn't recover from. I never actually tried pausing and resuming to see if this fixed it or not. I have very few apps installed, so it might just be my email syncing.....

I'm happy with this work around, but I feel the code should really be able to recover from such an interrupt and re sync the frame rate? I'm sure others will run into this and It never affected the gophers table.

I don't have the flipper performance or slow down others are reporting, but I think this is because the Nexus 7 is too powerful to suffer from slow down in this area?

btw: has anyone managed to get the Yellow skill shot achievement? I'm sure I have, but it doesn't register as a completed standard goal.

 

[Nik Barbour]

Yeah I got yellow skill shot standard goal, but it was under beta ver01.

Just got a new bug - gumball jammed, sent another ball through to knock it loose, resulted in 2 balls jammed at top of gumball machine.
Massive nudging (and cussing) resulted in Tilt whilst gumball cam was still active.
The camera panned to plunger cam, still displaying "Tilt" across the screen. I could plunge, but "Tilt" across screen was permanent and was permanently stuck at plunge cam.

The audio was constantly playing click - click noise as if 2 balls were banging together.

Second time I've had this fault after gumball jam, with the camera sticking at plunge view - but first time tilt display is permanent.

 

[xAzatothx]

Nik - I'm sure the real life machine jams often enough but appreciate the attendant should be able to sort and you shouldn't get permanent TILT.

btw: with ref to the HOF, if I select the HOF option PA crashes and closes completely. What is HOF supposed to do?

 

[night]

I would like to give some comments on the playfield artwork. I attached the image, made it a bit lighter so the numbers are better visible:

1. The clock looks BAD. It's too ugly even for a beta version. Whoever approved of this should take a day off. The transparant plastic is not working, it turns into milky-white. One suggestion: remove the transparent plastic in front of the clock, leave the sides of the clock with the plastic texture. This simulates transparency and still gives the illusion the whole clock is made of plastic. I have a screenshot of a TZ table where the clock is blue(!), this works-and-looks a lot better (see image below).

2. The glass of the gumball machine is almost invisible, it needs a reflection!

3. The material here looks like chrome, in the example it is clearly made of another material (plastic?) and is darker in color. (see image below)

4. Farsight, please do something about your plastic texturing, these ramps almost looks like chrome, it's grey, it's dull and looks in no way like clear transparent plastic. Take the glass texture of the gumball machine and fine tune it a little.. put that on the ramps, it just can't look any worse than this.

5. I just marked these parts as an example, but there are tons of little screws and bolts that are missing on the TPA table if you compare it to a real one...

6. And again, are these lights made from grey opaque stuff? It should be clear plastic!

-What's wrong with the ball, why does it look dark and not like chrome?

Overall, the Chromework is so-so, transparency simulation is just plain bad. Shadows are forgotten(?)..

One general comment about the graphics of TPA tables; besides all the 3D elements, they are 80% texture mapping (which can't go wrong if your original scans are good) and the other 20% is up to Farsight. And then I am talking about chrome, plastic, lights, etc. And this extra 20% of input is weak. The tables look harsh and very 3D in appearance. It looks like the 3D-work we saw back in the 1990s. A good simulation of reality boils down on good texturing, shadows(!) and lighting. There are hardly any shadows which makes the elements not 'one part' with the table. FLAT looking. Like they are floating around! More shadows from all the elements on the table itself, don't be so afraid of using shadows! Look at the image below, for example you see a shadow of the chrome railing over the table, where is it on the TPA table?! There is no depth. It looks like there is a very ugly bright spot on it, lacks in atmosphere..

I just played Theatre of Magic. This table looks very good, has convincing shadows and hey, the transparent plastic is convincing! Creature of the Black Lagoon, horrible plastic ramps.

Now that wasn't nice, was it? No hard feelings.


Close-up of a real TZ table:

 

[Bonzo]

Guess these are mostly decisions to help performance. Just like the opaque ramps on NGG.

 

[Nik Barbour]

Nik - I'm sure the real life machine jams often enough but appreciate the attendant should be able to sort and you shouldn't get permanent TILT.

I'd estimate, out of the last 10 games, 3 have had to be abandoned due to gumball jamming at top, and further play not being possible.
I've probably had a further 2 games out of the 10, where the first jam was dislodged with a second ball.

That's approx 50% of games affected, with 30% game ending.

Is anyone else getting this high a frequency?

Surely the real machine can't be jamming like this.
Probably pixel density on my device (was Jared's suggestion).

Just thought it should be noted.

 

[xAzatothx]

I've had 1 jam in about 50 games and that was when I was running with the reduced framerate.

 

[night]

Guess these are mostly decisions to help performance. Just like the opaque ramps on NGG.

If they can make glass on a gumball machine then they can make transparent plastic. I refuse to believe this the best we can get.
And the shadows can simply be part of the texture map.

And what is wrong with the ball btw, why is it grey and not chrome?

If this is a 50.000K table make it look like one.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Blue/white clock isn't the production clock.

The ball has gone screwy since they introduced ball skins.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

For everyone's reference, here's the clock from CP Pinball's Twilight Zone. I apologize for the image quality; I haven't quite mastered the camera on my new phone.

Note the heavier and different-style font on the numerals. TPA's clock is not the late-model clock; it's the early-model clock with the late-model color scheme added.

 

[Ryan Routon]

How's your neck after the smash?

Is the car totalled - or repairable?

I was rear shunted years ago - whiplash was not pleasant.

Yeah not fun, car is totalled and neck is better, doing some physical therapy. More than anything dealing with old car new car, insurance, medical blah blah, huge time sink

 

[Nik Barbour]

Yeah not fun, car is totalled and neck is better, doing some physical therapy. More than anything dealing with old car new car, insurance, medical blah blah, huge time sink

At least you're ok - hey! Good to hear your doing better.

Guy I work with had a smash recently. He was physically ok, but heartbroken because his '84 immaculate show condition VW Scirocco, which he'd had since new, was totalled.
Insurance paid out - but you just can't go and buy a car with that history just anywhere!

 

[Ryan Routon]

thanks =)

We are still looking into the ball slowdown issue and I will keep you guys updated. We are starting to profile the code and it seems to be spending a bit more cycles in the emulation than it used to.

Can you guys try beta 2 non-emulated tables and see if you still see the slow down (black hole, black knight, big shot) ? Make sure the ghost bug is not in effect.

Going to get you guys a new build to mess around with tonight (meant it for lastnight but had to run down the mountain to grab a check).

 

[jaredmorgs]

Nik - I'm sure the real life machine jams often enough but appreciate the attendant should be able to sort and you shouldn't get permanent TILT.

btw: with ref to the HOF, if I select the HOF option PA crashes and closes completely. What is HOF supposed to do?

I've never had this happen on a real TZ machine. The ball path is well-designed to ensure balls don't get caught here on the IRL table.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I'd estimate, out of the last 10 games, 3 have had to be abandoned due to gumball jamming at top, and further play not being possible.
I've probably had a further 2 games out of the 10, where the first jam was dislodged with a second ball.

That's approx 50% of games affected, with 30% game ending.

Is anyone else getting this high a frequency?

Surely the real machine can't be jamming like this.
Probably pixel density on my device (was Jared's suggestion).

Just thought it should be noted.

I took a closer look as to how the TPA Gumball Wireform Habitrail looks, and I think there may be a problem with how the wireform has been rendered where it goes from the half loop to the sharp right angle.

The real table:

As you can see, the rail goes into a sharp right angle to put the ball into the gumball. At the exit of the habitrail, there is a metal box where the opto sits which is where the ball hits against.

Compare that to how the TPA version is rendered:

You'll notice that on closer inspection, the front right rail looks like it is bent in a bit. I'm not sure whether this is just an anomaly of the view in TPA, but the rail looks really mangled at the exit. In fact, the gap in the rail at the front is way bigger than the IRL version. Perhaps this is why balls are getting caught on some devices?

Unless the rail is just for "visual look" and when coded the ball actually follows a ball path coded into the game (I think vPinMAME tables had this feature for getting balls to travel on ramps and things).