PBA : Free Camera Mod

[Robert Misner]

i agree that the second one looks amazing and is basically what I would consider the perfect angle and zoom for a 16:9 portrait display that isn't laying flat like a cabinet.

i've been considering getting this 34' 21:9 monitor and put it on a vesa desk mount (it only weights 17pounds) that I can rotate to portrait wiith a leaning angle of about 45degrees. and ditching my dual monitor setup.

I zoomed in abit to get the right aspect ratio and this is an optimized lets it zoom in more while retaining the full backglass effect.
question for me now is will TPA let me run it at 2560x1080 the native resolution of that display.

 

[SickBoy]

WHEW! Okay so after around 8 hours of work on this today (no joke), here's my collection of 1st-pass "minimal necessary to show for UI-less play (where possible... my "13 tables can't have UI-less play" prediction was right)" screenshots.

BANDWIDTH WARNING
Also, SweetFX warning. I will go back and take screenshots of all the tables again once DX11 comes out... but for now you'll just have to deal with the SweetFX settings (if you're curious what all the tables look like with it, then this is a good resource for that as well )

http://imgur.com/a/p9wgd

I own every table, so that is an album of all 57 currently released.

Now obviously most of of the tables could be shown a lot more love in making the backglass area centered as much as the flippers... but digital perspective is a fickle mistress at best. It takes a LOT of effort to make the tables "even" feeling (as shown in my initial screenshots of TAF... well, the 2nd screenshot at least). Again, none of the hardcore effort is because of the mod (it's easy as pie to use)... it's all because you don't end up realizing how brutal it is to balance perspective to table elements until you start messing with it. FOV and table rotation could help (elements I avoided for the most part in the 1st pass), but it's a lot of back and forth to really balance it all.

My priority for this first pass was as follows:

1. Center the flippers as much as possible (I actually used a ruler on my monitor, and did photoshop comparisons of the exact 50% spot... it still isn't perfect, but I started to get lazy early on)
2. Center key elements of the table that essentially *need* to be centered for a proper feel (example: Black Rose's cannon shot)
3. Show everything necessary for UI-less play, where possible (damn you 13 UI-required tablessss!)
4. When possible, be as consistent as I can with the angle of the table.
5. Everything else.

Because of #1 and #2 the backglass tends to be off-center. You'd think it'd be easy to balance it, but trust me it's not. I could easily spend several hours tweaking the proper perspective and centering of all elements for a single table (and eventually I will), but 57 tables is a LOT to individually tweak.

Some of the things I've learned in this experience:

- Digital perspective is insane and really just comes down to personal preference based on priorities
- Tables requiring full backglass views (Cyclone, Scared Stiff, Lights... Camera... Action!, etc) are brutal to balance when it comes to view angles and centering
- Outlanes are the bane of my existence... they always have been play-wise, but now they're the thorn in my ass for making optimized camera angles
- 8 tables require a full backglass view to be properly playable
- 2 tables require a 1/2+ backglass view to be properly playable
- Pinball tables aren't really centered around the flippers... the play is, but the physical machine isn't. Thus a "real life" camera angle would almost always have the flippers off to the left due to the space the plunger lane takes up. Whodathunk?!


I plan two different paths in the future:

1. A second, much more in-depth pass at every table using my current criteria.
2. A more standardized hybrid view that *always* shows the entire backglass. The only issue here is that some tables have backglass toppers, and I haven't decided how I'm going to handle that.


Hope you enjoyed my rambling and screenshots! I'll be blathering on about something else soon enough

 

[mpad]

Woah!
Nice.
So where did I miss how to get the cam mod? Private party?

 

[SickBoy]

Woah!
Nice.
So where did I miss how to get the cam mod? Private party?

Private party at the moment, filled with untrained monkeys in negligee and thousands of naked Elvis impersonators.

 

[Robert Misner]

those look amazing sickboy..very exciting

 

[NoEx]

Wow that's a lot of work SickBoy! Especially when it comes to center the flippers with a ruler on the screen

I never thought of playing with this "hybrid view" before but it looks really nice!

 

[Tann]

Hope you enjoyed my rambling and screenshots! I'll be blathering on about something else soon enough

Awesome. Thanks for all the work done (8 hours!!).

FS, take note!

 

[Locksley]

Amazing view. Looking (see, pun...) forward to yet more camera angles to use ingame

I actually use different settings for different tables so yours will be most welcome!

 

[Shaneus]

So you probably can't give us the cam mod yet, but could you post the SweetFX settings? I'm honestly surprised at how good it looks!

 

[SickBoy]

So you probably can't give us the cam mod yet, but could you post the SweetFX settings? I'm honestly surprised at how good it looks!

You are correct in that I can't share the camera mod, but the SweetFX settings I use are from Xanija's settings for Attack from Mars and Who Dunnit (source): https://www.dropbox.com/s/iy93brawi9cmv46/PAsettings003.txt?dl=0 I use the same settings for all the tables and find it to be a really great balance.

 

[Flipperdeflip]

Congrats, you pulled something off that Farsight neglected to do for three years even though it was requested from day one. I'd be ashamed if I was them.

 

[Nightwing]

Maybe no comment, but a few of them have viewed the thread. As for expressing thoughts...they may not be able to when it comes to a mod, especially when they themselves are developing a cab look. I would rather have no expression at all than a cease and desist!

Completely agree!

 

[Aurel]

Congrats, you pulled something off that Farsight neglected to do for three years even though it was requested from day one. I'd be ashamed if I was them.

Yes, and it should be a lot easier for the original development staff to add something like that as they know perfectly the engine of the game and have the source code...

More than that, I'm sure their pincab mode (if it comes one day) will be unusable for most of the pincab owners as it appears they 'want' to configure the view themselves and the probability it works in our home-made cabs is almost zero

 

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Good work Sickers - Looks amazing!

 

[seattlemark]

Good work Sickers - Looks amazing!

Of course, credit is equally shared with NoEx for coming up with this Mod in the first place. Thank you both NoEx and SickBoy!

 

[SickBoy]

Pshaw, all credit should go to NoEx. I'm just someone using his tool that took the time to show what every table can be like in a very narrow set of criteria. Anyone else testing could have done the same thing.. I just like to babble and share what I do

(Thanks though!)

 

[nudnick]

NoEx ... just a recommendation ...once you do release to public, can you start a new thread for it so that your link to it will be in the 1st post and easy to find? Also it will keep us eager folks from checking this thread every 5 minutes to see if its been released yet

 

[Robert Misner]

i'm curious are the camera positions adjustable in realtime or is this limited to presets?
Reason I'm asking is I've been watching some videos of the Better Arcade Mode(BAM) for the future pinball mode..and it seems like this might be a great way of interfacing to TPA.

If you haven't seen it BAM uses wiimotes,Ps3eye, kinect etc for headtracking that moves the camera around in real time to create a real depth to the playfield.

https://youtu.be/89AnFISP7k4 video shows the effect.

Might be totally incompatible..and jumping the gun by a country mile..but its an interesting idea

 

[SilverBalls]

i'm curious are the camera positions adjustable in realtime or is this limited to presets?
Reason I'm asking is I've been watching some videos of the Better Arcade Mode(BAM) for the future pinball mode..and it seems like this might be a great way of interfacing to TPA.

If you haven't seen it BAM uses wiimotes,Ps3eye, kinect etc for headtracking that moves the camera around in real time to create a real depth to the playfield.

https://youtu.be/89AnFISP7k4 video shows the effect.

Might be totally incompatible..and jumping the gun by a country mile..but its an interesting idea

Completely adjustable in real-time with a similar interface as BAM. Even the ball continues to play if on the play field.

 

[Robert Misner]

very exciting time for digital pinball I must say.