Pro Pinball

[netizen]

Just an FYI fro anyone who wasn't a backer, Pro Pinball will be delayed due to longer than expected rendering times.

having produced some of the final very high resolution renders (2200 x 2560) it has become clear that we're going to need significantly more time and/or rendering power than we had anticipated to render everything to the highest of standards.

I'm very sorry to say that this means it is highly unlikely we'll be able to release the game in December as we'd hoped. We've already purchased some additional hardware to speed up the rendering, but we need to do much more, so we're going to be bringing a load of powerful cloud based servers into play too.

I appreciate this must be disappointing news, but hopefully a few more months wait will be tolerable, given that it has been well over a decade since the original game came out.

Thank you for your support and understanding, we are doing all we can to get this to you as quickly as we can without compromising on quality.

Ade.

 

[Dutch Pinball ball]

A few more months to upscale some renders?

Hmmmm......

 

[open6l]

A few more months to upscale some renders?

Hmmmm......

You'd think all that kick starter money would have helped fund some hardware... Hmmmmm is right!

 

[night]

I render a lot myself, high resolution, more than 300dpi at large sizes, complex models with many textures and high in poly count. Photo-realistic. This takes about a few hours to 24 hours at best on a 6 years old Mac Pro.. It's not that they have to make 1,5 hour animation Pixar movie with a zillion rendered images. Pro Pinball is 'pre-rendered single images of a pinball table.

 

[Espy]

So the new Pro Pinball is pre-rendered like the old ones?

Not sure why, but I thought these remakes would be full 3D.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Folks,

How about instead of speculating why the delay is attributed to rendering, actually *ask* Ade in the Kickstarter project.

The team is approachable, and this type of difficult question is best asked directly.

FUD is not productive, when a more detailed answer is probably just an email away.

Do share the canonical answer here once you hear from the team.

 

[Baron Rubik]

Folks,

How about instead of speculating why the delay is attributed to rendering, actually *ask* Ade in the Kickstarter project.

The team is approachable, and this type of difficult question is best asked directly.

FUD is not productive, when a more detailed answer is probably just an email away.

Do share the canonical answer here once you hear from the team.

You could also ask in the Pro Pinball forum.
https://www.pro-pinball.com/forum/

 

[jaredmorgs]

You could also ask in the Pro Pinball forum.
https://www.pro-pinball.com/forum/

Probably even better...

 

[Baron Rubik]

Probably even better...

There is actually already a thread for it.
https://www.pro-pinball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=212

 

[Heretic]

id been wondering about this for a few days. i suspecteced the physics engine only as it has never been demoed, im ok with waiting.

hope things go well

sounds like theyve bit of more than they can chew in that timeframe

 

[SilverBalls]

I don't know enough about the rendering times but could it be they are rendering multiple permutations of different lights going off/fading at different times and in parallel which maybe amounts to 1000s of frames. Then add all the different views could that account for the time? When I look at the Kickstarter video of the lighting sequences it looks so impressive I can imagine the tech behind it is pretty complex. Looking at what they did in 1995 they are obviously perfectionists.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Hairy,

Your 1001 posts are just as classic as the Arabian Nights.

 

[night]

I don't know enough about the rendering times but could it be they are rendering multiple permutations of different lights going off/fading at different times and in parallel which maybe amounts to 1000s of frames. Then add all the different views could that account for the time? When I look at the Kickstarter video of the lighting sequences it looks so impressive I can imagine the tech behind it is pretty complex. Looking at what they did in 1995 they are obviously perfectionists.

Yes, that makes sence. I was a bit quick with my answer, if they render all the different lighting fx, that could be a complex job indeed.

 

[mmmagnetic]

So the new Pro Pinball is pre-rendered like the old ones?

Not sure why, but I thought these remakes would be full 3D.

Then they would look and perform a lot worse.

Prerendering might seem like an ancient technique, from the times of Donkey Kong Country and static backgrounds, but when it comes to games where 95% of the playfield is in a permanently fixed position, using this style is actually their biggest strength.

It also means they are almost completely independent from any kind of graphical engines, because so little is actually being rendered in real time. It frees up a lot of computational power for the physics engine.

I play most of the TPA tables with a fixed camera anyways, so I would love prerendered version of the TPA machines like this. This will almost certainly never happen, and I´m fine with the look of TPA as it is, but it´s nice to want things

Folks,

How about instead of speculating why the delay is attributed to rendering, actually *ask* Ade in the Kickstarter project.

The team is approachable, and this type of difficult question is best asked directly.

FUD is not productive, when a more detailed answer is probably just an email away.

Do share the canonical answer here once you hear from the team.

Thank you. It bugs me when people imply that developers are lazy when they don´t know anything about their workflow (not just this specific project, but in general).

 

[infernogott]

True that. I hate moving cameras on pinball games, so for me all pinball games should be pre-rendered.

 

[night]

Then they would look and perform a lot worse.

Prerendering might seem like an ancient technique, from the times of Donkey Kong Country and static backgrounds, but when it comes to games where 95% of the playfield is in a permanently fixed position, using this style is actually their biggest strength.

It also means they are almost completely independent from any kind of graphical engines, because so little is actually being rendered in real time. It frees up a lot of computational power for the physics engine.

I play most of the TPA tables with a fixed camera anyways, so I would love prerendered version of the TPA machines like this. This will almost certainly never happen, and I´m fine with the look of TPA as it is, but it´s nice to want things

I give your post a big fat +1

 

[Worf]

Nevermind that the 2560x2560 render is NOT the largest they need. That's probably among the smallest - they probably have to add 4K and maybe even an 8K resolution to the mix.

Tablets and laptops are already pushing 2560 pixels in one dimension.

 

[Sumez]

I love pre-rendering, myself. Some VP tables look much better than the TPA version because they are actual photos as opposed to live rendered 3D models. Hell, I think Diablo 2 looks much better than Diablo 3, and I never understood why anyone thinks otherwise.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Been a while since the last post...anyone still excited?

 

[Jeff Strong]

Been a while since the last post...anyone still excited?

Any new info?