Pinball Arcade physics

[Espy]

+1

The flipper physics are the one area I think TPA could use the most work.

It seems like it would be easy enough to increase the tilt meter sensitivity and tone down nudging to make that more realistic. Actually, I think Zen is more accurate in that respect. One good nudge gives you a warning, and it's not even a big nudge.

I still remember playing a Funhouse with a broken tilt meter. It was hardly any fun at all.

Yeah, Zen takes nudges seriously. Only the most minute nudges aren't picked up. When I play Zen, I have to keep track of how many nudges I've used, wait for the warnings to time out etc. With TPA I rarely get one warning.

 

[karl]

I am not a physics expert but I have played pinball and Zen doesn't feel natural at all unless it is supposed to be in a zero-gravity environment and the flippers surface is supposed to be aluminum and not rubber.

Having played Zen first, Pinball arcade immediately felt more realistic to me.

Agree on all points! TPA feels a lot more like the real thing than Zen. If we must compare TPA to other pinball engines, the only real contest is PRO pinball and the old PRO pinball engine is still superior to TPA, in my opinion. Not meant to put TPA engine down. It is still good, but there is always room for improvements

 

[mpad]

The new Physmod of VP is amazing! So the race for the best physics will be between VP10 and Pro Pinball.
TPA is very good imo, just a little weight and ball spin missing.
ZEN is just ZEN.

 

[superballs]

The new Physmod of VP is amazing! So the race for the best physics will be between VP10 and Pro Pinball.
TPA is very good imo, just a little weight and ball spin missing.
ZEN is just ZEN.

I just started dabbling in the vp physmod and I'm very impressed with where it's going.

Vp is heading to a place where it will soon be limited by the author's ability and the assets available.

I've actually been playing with the coil ramp up settings in physmod5 on the cftbl test table and have some decent results with that, along with adjusting return strength and overall flipper power and speed (mass) which is making fine flipper control more and more possible.

I wish I was better with the editor because I would start modifying tables to play with as well.

 

[smooverr]

I just played the new nightmod of AFM in VP 9.9...WOW...closest to Pro Pinball physics I've seen yet. Ball is a BIT light, but otherwise amazing!

 

[Zorgwon]

I just played the new nightmod of AFM in VP 9.9...WOW...closest to Pro Pinball physics I've seen yet. Ball is a BIT light, but otherwise amazing!

can you do a backhand.from the right flipper to the scoop? On the real table and TPA you can.

 

[mpad]

can you do a backhand.from the right flipper to the scoop? On the real table and TPA you can.

I don't know if being able to make a certain shot is the key aspect of great physics. It's more a matter of tuning skills.
Of course this should come naturally if the physics are right.

The guys making the real version of timeshock statet that they had to alter the table layout slightly for some shots to work. Interesting.

Sure the ball and it's movement around the table should be as realistic as possible, but for me it's more of a "this just feels right" thing. With all the gravity, mass, spin and acceleration going on just the right way. If you switch from regular to Physmod VP you can just feel that it's more realistic. And the ton of complex physics behind it is just amazing (if you follow the authors thread).

 

[Shaneus]

The new Physmod of VP is amazing! So the race for the best physics will be between VP10 and Pro Pinball.
TPA is very good imo, just a little weight and ball spin missing.
ZEN is just ZEN.

How new is new? Last time I tried VP was probably around 2-3 months ago when they were just starting out (relatively) with the updated physics on VP9. They were great then, but I got over having to mod each table individually.

 

[mpad]

Edit: I think it was you who posted this here and got me interested in VP again

Physmod5 is there since a few months and it looks like the author took a break. But it is pretty much finished I guess. They already put it in VP10.
Good thing is that for newer tables there is often a specially tuned pm5 version made or they even release it with VP99 and pm5 version right away. So no manual tuning.

 

[vikingerik]

I don't know if being able to make a certain shot is the key aspect of great physics. It's more a matter of tuning skills.
Of course this should come naturally if the physics are right.

Good simulation physics isn't about making shots easy or accurate. It's about getting all the details right to enable all the subtle flipper moves. This involves intricate aspects like nonlinear response of the flipper coil, the difference between the stroke and hold coils, the interaction of ball spin on the flipper rubber, the impact of the ball's mass and momentum on the flipper, even the compression of the flipper rubber by an impacting ball and the strength it imparts in rebounding.

This is what Pro Pinball does right and TPA doesn't. From all these details comes the emergent behavior of all the subtle moves you can do with real flippers: drop catches, live catches, tap passes, post passes, cradle separations. TPA doesn't build those moves from first physical principles. It makes the moves possible through cruder adjustments of geometry and predefined railroading. Some folks are just looking for the canned moves and think TPA's physics are fine, but I can see deeper and see underneath what's going on and what isn't.

 

[Zaphod77]

Fine flipper control is nice, but when a shot is literally impossible because one frame is too soon and the next frame is too late, it totally breaks immersion for me. And that is a VERY common problem on digital pinball games.

TPA is pretty good about this, for the most part. it has issues with shots near the tip of the flipper, and sometimes a shot will be harder then it should be, but they at least try to minimize it.

That said, when a pinball game doesn't have this problem, i tend to demolish it. and this applies to MANY TPA tables. SOme of them are just as easy to beat on real life though. Here's my list of tables that if you can't destroy them in TPA, something is wrong. None of them exist in TPA yet.

1) Bad Cats. easiest center ramp to loop ever, to get extra ball with. sweet spot is exact center of left flipper.
2) back to the FUture. left ramp is easily looped over and over. sweet spot is end of right flipper.
3) DE Batman (first version) center ramp is even easier then bad cats to loop. sweet spot center of right flipper.
4) Police Force (again with the EASY center ramp. an early flip)
5) Stargate (battle mode+insta catch flippers=much pwnage)


there are others, but i cant' think of them right now.

 

[Potrzebie]

There does seem to be a millisecond or two of latency in flipper response. Perhaps this is common to a touch-screen platform. Haven't yet played TPA on multiple boxes yet.

 

[kinggo]

well, it's more than just millisecond or two. Flippers are to slow. On the real thing with new coils you can't even see them move while in TPA..........

 

[WhiteChocolate]

i recently tried a ps3 demo for some 'tap-beat' music kind of game that had a whole user setup for synchronization - can't remember the name, but it had a sych setup that ran for about a minute long, having you tap out one certain beat, about one second long, for a whole minute - probably about 90 bpm, then it would set itself (so it said) to 'predict your taps' by like, 14 ms or so based on the test. would anything like that maybe help some of the control input in tpa?? (seems to me, i doubt it - ball-to-bounces seems too random, not rhythmically oriented enough for predictive control taps like that - is it?)

 

[Zaphod77]

would not work for TPA. at all. with music games you can compensate by changing the judgement. that won't work for pinball at all.

 

[Rich Lehmann]

I was playing Zen Pinball for the first time today and I have to say the ball does behave more natural off the flipper. There is way too much bounce on TPA it's like there is flubber on the flippers. Ha, that rhymed. No but seriously, the ball is way too springing off the flipper in TPA.

 

[mpad]

I was playing Zen Pinball for the first time today and I have to say the ball does behave more natural off the flipper. There is way too much bounce on TPA it's like there is flubber on the flippers. Ha, that rhymed. No but seriously, the ball is way too springing off the flipper in TPA.

Yeah, the so called "lead ball" and sticky flippers in zen. I think more weight and acceleration go in the right direction, but they overdid it a little.

Over at VP some genius is experimenting with physics and it is the best and most authentic thing I have seen in virtual pinball. except pro pinball maybe.
Only downside is that this is custom and far from any standard...

http://vpforums.org/index.php?/top...ODv5-Hybrid-Flipper-Tricks-Video#entry282449

Edit: direct YouTube link
http://youtu.be/vYyJEjhlW0k

 

[dave950lam]

One thing I regularly is some really odd geometric bounces. Like the Drains you get on Firepower from striking the 2 and 5 arrows. In real life, I never got these drains on real FP's. Other strange-angle bounces off the top of a slingshot straight to the outlane. Dead bounces off various things that should have more bounce.

P.S.. One more thing, any game with center posts.....If the ball hits the post SDTM, it bounces back. But hit it from an angle and the ball dead-bounces, 'vibrates' between the post and flipper, and drains.

 

[anonymatt]

Farsight should do a Kickstarter for a new physics engine, haha.

 

[smooverr]

can you do a backhand.from the right flipper to the scoop? On the real table and TPA you can.

Sorry haven't logged in for a while, to answer your question, yes you can