Should TPA have gone the pre-rendered route, like PP Remastered?

[Richard B]

After seeing just the lighting tech demo, I'm wondering whether TPA was correct in choosing the polygonal route over pre-rendered. Not only would this allow better looking tables (especially on mobile platforms), but it would also allow more processor power freed up for physics, and (possibly) faster, cheaper development times.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Prerendered imaging can look very nice, but it costs you: Single fixed camera angle (unless you're willing to run multiple prerenderings and accept massively increased resource size), no option to do dynamic lighting or even user-adjustable lighting beyond a basic gamma setting, no dynamic ball reflections, etc.

Also, the code that runs FarSight's tables is not entirely their own. The ROMs that run these tables are mostly black boxes; FarSight does not have direct control over what they do. Contrast this to Pro Pinball tables, where Silverball presumably knows and controls every state the table could possibly be in, and can generate the prerendered images corresponding to each of those states. Then ask yourself, what happens when a ROM-emulated prerendered table gets into a state that was not foreseen (as they often do, see Cirqus Voltaire's behavior for many examples) and needs to load a prerendered image that isn't there? At minimum, you're going to have missing or corrupted graphics; more likely the table will outright crash.

 

[BonzoGonzo]

hm, never actually thought about the prerenderd vs on-the-fly situation... good points sereneseven

but doesnt the pro pinball tech demo show the user adjustable lighting that is beyond basic gamma stuff?

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

but doesnt the pro pinball tech demo show the user adjustable lighting that is beyond basic gamma stuff?

If you're speaking of those two sliders in the upper left, those are filters on top of prerendered graphics. Look carefully at the GI by the slings when they're adjusting the ambient lighting. The nearby table does not change at all when the ambient lighting on the rest of the table is changed. If it was true dynamic lighting, the table parts illuminated by the GI should brighten/darken slightly when the ambient is changed, but it doesn't (because, of course, it's prerendered).

There may be clever ways to give the illusion of dynamic lighting in the finished product, and actually, this tech demo is not bad - I might not have noticed had I not been specifically scrutinizing the lighting. While I am knowledgeable of the basics of rendering (I used to work on image enhancement for digital surveillance systems), the state-of-the-art in this field is admittedly black magic to me.

 

[Jeff Strong]

The original Pro Pinball games had multiple camera angles, but you had to reload the table each time you changed the angle. I'm guessing they'll probably do the same with the new versions, which isn't too big of a deal because most people use the same camera angle every time after they find the one they like. The part that seems like the biggest negative to me is the lack of dynamic lighting and ball reflections.

 

[BonzoGonzo]

If you're speaking of those two sliders in the upper left, those are filters on top of prerendered graphics. Look carefully at the GI by the slings when they're adjusting the ambient lighting. The nearby table does not change at all when the ambient lighting on the rest of the table is changed. If it was true dynamic lighting, the table parts illuminated by the GI should brighten/darken slightly when the ambient is changed, but it doesn't (because, of course, it's prerendered).

There may be clever ways to give the illusion of dynamic lighting in the finished product, and actually, this tech demo is not bad - I might not have noticed had I not been specifically scrutinizing the lighting. While I am knowledgeable of the basics of rendering (I used to work on image enhancement for digital surveillance systems), the state-of-the-art in this field is admittedly black magic to me.

to be honest i din't dig that deep into the video, just clicked on it once out of curiosity and found it to be pretty good looking for a prerender

anyway thanks for the info, helps understanding all the stuff that goes on behind games a 'tad' more

 

[bavelb]

Would they (TPA) have been able to go the prerender route with tables with moving toys like Rudy, The Ringmaster, the ball in CV, frankie and drac?

 

[Jeff Strong]

Would they (TPA) have been able to go the prerender route with tables with moving toys like Rudy, The Ringmaster, the ball in CV, frankie and drac?

The original Pro Pinball tables have moving toys too, but that's with late 90's era graphics (which actually still look pretty good after all this time)....we'll have to wait and see how they look with the updated tech.

 

[mmmagnetic]

The toys you mentioned don't actually have that many unique states, so I think that wouldn't be a problem. Drac might need a lot of frames because he moves around so much.
Rudy could have seperate frames for the eyes and the mouth, and the ringmaster only moves up and down and blinks.

I tend to think of it like this: If it would work in Donkey Kong Country for the SNES, it would work here too (...not that I'm an expert or anything...)

I personally play with a fixed view all the time, so the graphics might as well be prerendered. Polygonal graphic get better and better, even on mobile devices, so TPA might look almost photorealistic in a couple of years, maybe even on tablets. But right now, the tables look rather flat on iOS (with the console version looking much better, especially CV), while that PP demo looked absolutely stunning.

Both approaches have their pros and cons, I much prefer atmospheric, crisp visuals over a camera that zooms and pans. As long as the graphics on TPA continue to improve, I don't really mind. I think it's interesting to have two products that are so different.

 

[Richard B]

Did TPA make a mistake when they went with real-time, not pre-rendered, graphics?

I love TPA's engine, but after seeing what Silverball is pulling off with their Timeshock remake, I'm thinking TPA screwed up big time. As nice as TPA looks, you can never get the same level of detail if you render in real time that you can using pre-rendered. The only advantage with real time is that you can move the camera, but how many tables really require that? A large proportion of players even lock the camera!

 

[Jeff Strong]

Richard, I merged your new thread with this older one. Let's keep the discussion centralized here.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

No, I don't think they made a mistake. Rather than quote myself, just scroll up 10 posts for my reasoning.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Pre-rendering would probably also increase the size of the table assets, and increase the amount of work they'd have to do to port the game to different platforms.

I can see pros and cons to either approach. For early 1990s computer hardware, pre-rendering was clearly the way to go, and you could make a case for it being the superior choice on mobile. I'm not so sure about modern consoles, which have serious horsepower devoted to rendering 3D meshes.

 

[Tabe]

Funny there's this thread as I was actually thinking about this exact subject last night. And my answer:

Yes, TPA should have gone pre-rendered. The graphics on several of the tables - Gorgar and CFTBL being two prime examples - are simply not up to the standard set for this generation of consoles. Meanwhile the Pro Pinball games, even the PS1 versions, still look fantastic 15 years later. And there's no question that the physics in Pro Pinball are superior to TPA and that's at least partly because of the graphics system being used.

So, yeah, TPA should have gone pre-rendered.

Tabe

 

[BonzoGonzo]

if you wanted tpa to be on one platform only (for every single display resolution out there it would have to be remade and thats just not a very viable option) , then yeah, they should...

 

[Richard B]

if you wanted tpa to be on one platform only (for every single display resolution out there it would have to be remade and thats just not a very viable option) , then yeah, they should...

Silverball is planning releases on several platforms. I don't see why TPA couldn't as well.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

TPA released on multiple platforms.

And from the lack of dynamic lights and ball reflections, those would most likely be in the remastered games. Can't wait to see the spinning crystal in action, and at least a gameplay video of Timeshock! whenever they finish.

 

[Kolchak357]

I enjoy TPA as is, but I would probably like it even more if they went the pre rendered route. I'm all for crisper graphics and I hate the roaming and zooming camera stuff.

 

[BonzoGonzo]

Silverball is planning releases on several platforms. I don't see why TPA couldn't as well.

is planning to release it on several platforms... that is why they have a kickstarter of 400k (how much of that is for the new pat lawlor table i dunno), which will not make it... unless in the last 17 hours they miraculously manage to get the missing 240k...

pinball is just not a very profitable venture either in rl or as a video game as it once was... well not yet, at least

so while you and i may drool over a nicely rendered pinball table, for a company that is making the said pinball table, is just not a very profitable thing to do... they could easly spend all the time and resources that go into these kind of things on something that is way more popular, and in return get way more revenue (it's all business at the end of the day)... so for a company to go further digging a money pit that is pinball by doing prerendered stuff is... well, not very viable

so no, i don't think farsight made a mistake by not going the prerendered route - i rather have 10 more/less classic tables for my xbox360, many of which i played in rl, than none

 

[Richard B]

is planning to release it on several platforms... that is why they have a kickstarter of 400k (how much of that is for the new pat lawlor table i dunno), which will not make it... unless in the last 17 hours they miraculously manage to get the missing 240k...

pinball is just not a very profitable venture either in rl or as a video game as it once was... well not yet, at least

so while you and i may drool over a nicely rendered pinball table, for a company that is making the said pinball table, is just not a very profitable thing to do... they could easly spend all the time and resources that go into these kind of things on something that is way more popular, and in return get way more revenue (it's all business at the end of the day)... so for a company to go further digging a money pit that is pinball by doing prerendered stuff is... well, not very viable

so no, i don't think farsight made a mistake by not going the prerendered route - i rather have 10 more/less classic tables for my xbox360, many of which i played in rl, than none

Real-time is more, not less, costly.