You think we'll ever be able to do a tap pass?

[amv71]

By that I mean this:

http://youtu.be/UbyKhPE921w

That's near witchcraft, that is. I assume the PBA flipper physics would need an overhaul to allow variable strength flipping. IIRC one of the other sims has gone wild on flipper physics modelling (future pinball?) and yes, there are other issues to fix, but wouldn't it be cool to get closer and closer to the real thing in the future?

 

[PoSTedUP]

all you really need is analogue buttons (pressure sensitive) like the DS3 triggers or buttons and have the flipper emulate it in a slight delay b4 the button fully flips the flipper. giving it a slight jolt should send it to the other side if they include that animation in the flipper-to-ball output. would deff be cool.

 

[PC.Doctor]

I did some tricks like that when I want the ball to get from one side of the flipper to the other. I would usually have to flip the flipper when the ball is like the farthest end of that flipper. Most of the time, I manage to do that but some times I don't.

But to do that actual tap pass, as seen in the video, you would have to assign each flipper to an analog input (a joystick of some sort). Digital input will not do at all (they either have binary values either 0 or 1: so when that flipper button is pressed, the flipper automatically goes all the way up).

 

[crystal]

By that I mean this:

http://youtu.be/UbyKhPE921w

That's near witchcraft, that is. I assume the PBA flipper physics would need an overhaul to allow variable strength flipping. IIRC one of the other sims has gone wild on flipper physics modelling (future pinball?) and yes, there are other issues to fix, but wouldn't it be cool to get closer and closer to the real thing in the future?

hi andrew the vidoeo is cool....like it

 

[switch3flip]

You can do those in TPA by nudging instead. At least on android. Harder on P3.

 

[vikingerik]

Digital input works for this. Real pinball machines have digital switches for the flipper buttons (optos since the mid 90's). They're either on or off, there is no variable input.

What TPA is missing is extremely fine timing sensitivity. Those tap passes are done by pressing the flipper button ultra quickly, probably about 1/200th of a second. TPA probably just checks the input state only once per frame at 1/60 second (and this is what gives rise to TPA's railroad physics, that at 1/60 second input resolution there's only a small finite set of possible results.)

TPA would need the ability to operate in real time regarding flipper input, as real machines do, responding in exact real time rather than quantized to 1/60 second. It's unclear whether that's even possible across TPA's breadth of platforms.

 

[superballs]

I did some tricks like that when I want the ball to get from one side of the flipper to the other. I would usually have to flip the flipper when the ball is like the farthest end of that flipper. Most of the time, I manage to do that but some times I don't.

But to do that actual tap pass, as seen in the video, you would have to assign each flipper to an analog input (a joystick of some sort). Digital input will not do at all (they either have binary values either 0 or 1: so when that flipper button is pressed, the flipper automatically goes all the way up).

Digital input works for this. Real pinball machines have digital switches for the flipper buttons (optos since the mid 90's). They're either on or off, there is no variable input.

What TPA is missing is extremely fine timing sensitivity. Those tap passes are done by pressing the flipper button ultra quickly, probably about 1/200th of a second. TPA probably just checks the input state only once per frame at 1/60 second (and this is what gives rise to TPA's railroad physics, that at 1/60 second input resolution there's only a small finite set of possible results.)

TPA would need the ability to operate in real time regarding flipper input, as real machines do, responding in exact real time rather than quantized to 1/60 second. It's unclear whether that's even possible across TPA's breadth of platforms.

Actually, what TPA is missing is proper flipper acceleration.

The inputs are in fact digital and even the analog triggers in TPA function as digital switches as far as the emulation framework is concerned but they allow for two stage flippers ti be used

In real life, a flipper has to accelerate from rest to its full end of stroke speed. If the flipper is released and only allowed to return partially to its rest position, then it won't be able to reach full speed which allows these subtle maneuvers. The degree to which this is effective depends on how fast within the limits of it's stroke the flipper can accelerate.

TPA doesn't do this properly the flipper is instantly traveling as fast as it can the moment the flipper button activated. Meaning that the force it applies to the ball is the same whether it's traveling it's entire stroke or just 1/16th of it.

 

[Tom]

Digital input works for this. Real pinball machines have digital switches for the flipper buttons (optos since the mid 90's). They're either on or off, there is no variable input.

What TPA is missing is extremely fine timing sensitivity. Those tap passes are done by pressing the flipper button ultra quickly, probably about 1/200th of a second. TPA probably just checks the input state only once per frame at 1/60 second (and this is what gives rise to TPA's railroad physics, that at 1/60 second input resolution there's only a small finite set of possible results.)

TPA would need the ability to operate in real time regarding flipper input, as real machines do, responding in exact real time rather than quantized to 1/60 second. It's unclear whether that's even possible across TPA's breadth of platforms.

On every pinball machine i have seen there has been blade switches for the buttons,

 

[MonkeyGrass]

Heh. You guys are funny.

I'm just glad to finally have mostly lag-free flippers on the PS3!!

What you dudes is talking about is just cra-cray!!!

 

[superballs]

Heh. You guys are funny.

I'm just glad to finally have mostly lag-free flippers on the PS3!!

What you dudes is talking about is just cra-cray!!!

Totes Mcgotes

 

[amv71]

True, but it's the nearest I'll get to owning (or even playing) the real thing now so I'd love it to get as close the the real thing as possible! One can but dream...

 

[Zaphod77]

The tap pass really only worked well with the old style bally thicker flippers used on games like eight ball deluxe.

With your typical thin bat Williams high power ramp shooting flipper, its not realistically doable.

 

[PoSTedUP]

Digital input works for this. Real pinball machines have digital switches for the flipper buttons (optos since the mid 90's). They're either on or off, there is no variable input.

What TPA is missing is extremely fine timing sensitivity. Those tap passes are done by pressing the flipper button ultra quickly, probably about 1/200th of a second. TPA probably just checks the input state only once per frame at 1/60 second (and this is what gives rise to TPA's railroad physics, that at 1/60 second input resolution there's only a small finite set of possible results.)

TPA would need the ability to operate in real time regarding flipper input, as real machines do, responding in exact real time rather than quantized to 1/60 second. It's unclear whether that's even possible across TPA's breadth of platforms.

sounds legit. but yeah i doubt on TPA with digital, deff with analogue tho, imo.

 

[Espy]

The tap pass really only worked well with the old style bally thicker flippers used on games like eight ball deluxe.

With your typical thin bat Williams high power ramp shooting flipper, its not realistically doable.

I was able to tap pass quite reliably on a PotC recently.

 

[Shaneus]

The tap pass really only worked well with the old style bally thicker flippers used on games like eight ball deluxe.

With your typical thin bat Williams high power ramp shooting flipper, its not realistically doable.

You're crazy. I can do it on my High Speed and pulled it off several times during my visit to Texas on a couple of WPC/95 machines and newer Stern ones.

Actually, what TPA is missing is proper flipper acceleration.

The inputs are in fact digital and even the analog triggers in TPA function as digital switches as far as the emulation framework is concerned but they allow for two stage flippers ti be used

In real life, a flipper has to accelerate from rest to its full end of stroke speed. If the flipper is released and only allowed to return partially to its rest position, then it won't be able to reach full speed which allows these subtle maneuvers. The degree to which this is effective depends on how fast within the limits of it's stroke the flipper can accelerate.

TPA doesn't do this properly the flipper is instantly traveling as fast as it can the moment the flipper button activated. Meaning that the force it applies to the ball is the same whether it's traveling it's entire stroke or just 1/16th of it.

Bang-on. If you just tap the flipper, it shouldn't go all the way up unless you hold it.

There's something else I've noticed either as a result or is a symptom of the above, and that's if you look really carefully at the flipper when you engage it and let go, you can see several frames of animation when you disengage it, but when hitting it it only seems to go from off to on with no intermediate movements. The flipper should be treated like a car's accelerator... when you put your foot down the RPMs don't go from 0 to 8000 instantaneously, just like they don't go from redline to 0 when you release the pedal. Same should go for flippers.

And it shouldn't be that hard to do

 

[Zaphod77]

Actually i suspect the issue is that it's simply physically impossible to tap and release fast enough without using an actual flipper button. since i have no ability to framestep, i can't really test this.

The flipper appears go go from bottom to top in 2 or maybe three frames. because of the way the switches work in keyboard and controllers they just can't make and break fast enough to be on for one frame.

 

[LooksLikeumissed]

By that I mean this:

http://youtu.be/UbyKhPE921w

That's near witchcraft, that is. I assume the PBA flipper physics would need an overhaul to allow variable strength flipping. IIRC one of the other sims has gone wild on flipper physics modelling (future pinball?) and yes, there are other issues to fix, but wouldn't it be cool to get closer and closer to the real thing in the future?

I will be attempting this tonight on the PS4. The ball physics on the PS4 are great. I can nudge and flipper swap without a problem, but yet to try this... on video games or in real life. may head to the arcade at Lunch also - and frustrate myself whilst loosing money.

 

[vikingerik]

Actually i suspect the issue is that it's simply physically impossible to tap and release fast enough without using an actual flipper button. since i have no ability to framestep, i can't really test this.

The flipper appears go go from bottom to top in 2 or maybe three frames. because of the way the switches work in keyboard and controllers they just can't make and break fast enough to be on for one frame.

Keyboard buttons can indeed press and release that fast. I've done low level debugging of a Guitar Hero clone on the PC and seen the frame by frame controller input.

superballs is right, that TPA always moves the flipper the full stroke even if the flipper button isn't held down for that long. I believe the timing resolution is also a factor: 1/60 second is actually rather coarse resolution compared to how real machines can operate with precision much closer to real time.

 

[superballs]

Keyboard buttons can indeed press and release that fast. I've done low level debugging of a Guitar Hero clone on the PC and seen the frame by frame controller input.

superballs is right, that TPA always moves the flipper the full stroke even if the flipper button isn't held down for that long. I believe the timing resolution is also a factor: 1/60 second is actually rather coarse resolution compared to how real machines can operate with precision much closer to real time.

That's not exactly what I said though. What I said is that the flippers in TPA don't accelerate on a bell curve. It's instant full power. It doesn't matter if the flipper is fully down or only 1/8" down. It returns at full speed and exerts full power on the ball. A real life flipper will not hit it's maximum rotation speed if allowed only to drop slightly and will do not much more than tap the ball because it needs to accelerate from rest.

I really think that proper flipper acceleration would make a world of difference in TPA.

 

[neurokinetik]

Keyboard buttons can indeed press and release that fast. I've done low level debugging of a Guitar Hero clone on the PC and seen the frame by frame controller input.

superballs is right, that TPA always moves the flipper the full stroke even if the flipper button isn't held down for that long. I believe the timing resolution is also a factor: 1/60 second is actually rather coarse resolution compared to how real machines can operate with precision much closer to real time.

I guess the question is, could we ever at some point get a sampling rate higher than 60fps? I'm sure several of the platforms (especially the PC) have the CPU power to run at twice, or maybe even triple that. On the PC, it could be an adjustable setting based upon a system benchmark that determines if the hardware is capable. Maybe implement it sort of like frameskip in MAME if the system gets bogged down and can't maintain the high rate, to keep people from trying to run at the high settings with an underpowered PC with the intent of slowing everything down.