Zaccaria Pinall - Update v1.2

[tripleplonq]

Maybe I'm just too slow/old or it's a hardware thing, but I would like to be able to adjust the physics to a higher degree.
All criticism aside, I still think that ASK has nailed the physics, ball rotation etc., everything is consistent and much more plausible than what other iOS pinball apps offer.
And the graphics are better than what i've expected to be possible on this device two months ago. That in itself is is worth platinum.

(Platinum is buying all tables without discount, skipping Gold Membership.)

 

[mrtangerineman]

I played some more. Physics seem completely overhyped, is it me? I tuned everything down in the menu, almost all to 0 exept the table degree which I set on 7 and the flipper elasticy on 50, these settings seem(?) more real, but I make a wild guess here. Anyway, with settings set to 0 the flipper force and bumper force seem way too powerfull! Youtube vids look more relaxed in the physics, but I hardly have any reference.. I thought the physics before the update where more spot-on than it is now, and the physics adjustments won't get the wild edge of the physics.

When we set table degree to 0 the ball should not roll down at you anymore, bumper force set to 0 should have 0 force and set at 100 the force should be max. Then we can fine-tune it, but now we hardly can.

Keep in mind that I had some stutter issues on my iPad2 before the update, perhaps I am used to slower physics, I would love to hear other opinions, I might be wrong.

Quite agree. Played time machine quite a lot yesterday on simulation setting. Just watched a good 15 minute YouTube gameplay vid and it is WAY different so I thought I'd tinker with the physics to try and replicate the machine in the video. Realised quickly this would be impossible as even on zero the flipper power is much too high. Also the many options available to change still wouldn't allow accurate replication as I would want to make other changes such as slingshot sensitivity, slingshot power (independent to bumper), rubber friction (independent from table) and perhaps even ball mass.

 

[Vinc3Has3]

I've been running (25,0,33,100,0) for the last hour on all tables and am happy with the way the ball's handling (as happy as I can be without a tap nudge, that is ;^) And the physics settings seems to behave the same on all tables for me.

Once I get the tables down I'll probably speed it up by reducing friction; increasing the playfield angle much more makes the ball feel like a rock. Once I have that under control I'll mess with the bumpers. I do like all the options; each has a noticeable effect.

Like your settings. After a bit, I cut the slope even more (10,0,33,100,0).

The new upgrade settings make all of the games a different experience. Not just faster or harder, but shot angles are now different: ramps I could make before are much tougher to nail. I don't know if that's good or bad. No matter what, however, I'm enjoying the Zaccaria tables, and the developer's attempts to bend their program to our collective wills... Many thanks!

 

[Zsolt]

First of all thank you for your feedback!

As you noticed we have made numerous changes in v1.2, and we know that the new physics engine and other new features could causes some issues. All of these changes will be tweaked, fixed and improved by every update as long as it's necessary. We develop the new physics engine continuously to be more accurate, more realistic. This is the most important part of a pinball app. We think the physics will be better and better by the upcoming updates. As well as new features will be improved and fixed. For example graphics tweaks will be saved by tables.

Your feedback, suggestions and ideas are important to us. They help us a lot to make these features better and flawless. So thank you for your effort!

 

[Shaneus]

Is there an option in this for a touchscreen tilt? I can't find anything anywhere on it, neither an area on the screen that's used for tilt, or menu option.

There seems to be a very subtle gyroscope-based tilt, but it doesn't seem to do much.

 

[night]

Now that we can turn the dirty glass texture off I have to say I prefer it without the 'dirty' glass look. But I miss the feeling of glass..
This is so well-done with Revenge of the Rob-o-Bot where you can see a very light reflection of the backglass on the table-glass. It feels so real.
Perhaps something to consider for Zaccaria?

Not the best example as it really shows best when you see the game in action, but here is a piccy:

 

[unclewilly]

Will we see an android version anytime in the near future, or maybe a pc version at some ooint

 

[night]

After a bit, I cut the slope even more (10,0,33,100,0).

Good settings, definitely an improvement!

 

[jhamdotme]

It's great to see that people are sharing their custom settings, and I’m glad to hear that we'll soon be able to tweak everything on a per table basis.

It's a little tough working with those sliders, though. They're very imprecise, and the speed doesn’t vary the farther away from the slider you are, like it does in Apple's media apps. Perhaps in the future, we could have a field somewhere where we can just type in the numbers that we want. And once we get it how we want it, it would be nice if we could save our custom settings and give them a name.

And another thing, it would be great if we could have a custom URL scheme for quickly adjusting out settings. All of the custom parameters could be saved in a special URL that would launch the app and automatically apply the settings. (e.g. zaccaria://farfalla:10:0:33:100:0:"Vinc3Has3") This would apply these custom settings to the Farfalla table, and it would name these settings accordingly.

 

[jhamdotme]

I’ve been having a lot of fun with this update on my iPad. The first camera in portrait works great. But I can’t seem to find an agreeable camera angle that works with the iPhone 5, in either landscape or portrait. There are so many options, you'd think I’d be able to find something.

I’d try to sort this out with a custom camera view, but I have no idea what any of the settings mean. Has anyone found something that works?

 

[DeeEff]

I’ve been having a lot of fun with this update on my iPad. The first camera in portrait works great. But I can’t seem to find an agreeable camera angle that works with the iPhone 5, in either landscape or portrait. There are so many options, you'd think I’d be able to find something.

I’d try to sort this out with a custom camera view, but I have no idea what any of the settings mean. Has anyone found something that works?

I just installed ZP on miPhone5, and have to say the iPad blows it out of the water! The taller aspect ratio of the iPhone5 really messes up cameras 1-3 in portrait, huh? (Can't see outlanes, which is pretty much unacceptable for Devil Riders and Farfalla's "last chance" flippers.) I played around with custom camera views, but given the settings bugs that currently exist (see http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/4427-Zaccaria-Pinball-custom-camera-questions-bugs), I can't make anything really good. If I was going to be spending any time with ZP on my iPhone (I'm not), I'd go with landscape, camera 1, and squint.

That said, the custom camera settings go something like this:
- Four Camera View checkboxes correspond to in-game cameras 4-7; pick which one you want to edit.
- Top / Lower View checkboxes show you the checked view but don't affect any settings.
- FOV (Field of View) would be zoom (without changing your viewing position). Left = close, Right = far.

These two settings cannot be previewed from the Settings screen as they deal with tracking ball movement:
- Camera Slide controls transition speed between Top and Lower views. Down = very fast, Up = slow.
- Dead Zone controls x-axis (left/right) camera panning. Down = none, Up = lots.

These three settings appear twice - once for Top View and once for Lower View:
- Eye Position determines your y-axis (in relation to the table) position. Left = you're standing right up against the table, Right = you're standing quite a bit back from the table.
- Eye Height determines your z-axis (again in relation to the table) position. Left/Down = you're short, Right/Up = you're tall.
- View Position determines your view angle. Left = looking up, Right = looking down.

And yeah, the settings screens don't work very well on the iPhone - everything's too small to select reliably. I think the settings UI should get a complete rework for smaller screens instead of just miniaturizing the tablet UI, but that's obviously easier said than done.

Anyway, I hope something up there helps!

 

[night]

I just installed ZP on miPhone5, and have to say the iPad blows it out of the water! The taller aspect ratio of the iPhone5 really messes up cameras 1-3 in portrait, huh? (Can't see outlanes, which is pretty much unacceptable for Devil Riders and Farfalla's "last chance" flippers.) I played around with custom camera views, but given the settings bugs that currently exist (see http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/4427-Zaccaria-Pinball-custom-camera-questions-bugs), I can't make anything really good. If I was going to be spending any time with ZP on my iPhone (I'm not), I'd go with landscape, camera 1, and squint.

That said, the custom camera settings go something like this:
- Four Camera View checkboxes correspond to in-game cameras 4-7; pick which one you want to edit.
- Top / Lower View checkboxes show you the checked view but don't affect any settings.
- FOV (Field of View) would be zoom (without changing your viewing position). Left = close, Right = far.

These two settings cannot be previewed from the Settings screen as they deal with tracking ball movement:
- Camera Slide controls transition speed between Top and Lower views. Down = very fast, Up = slow.
- Dead Zone controls x-axis (left/right) camera panning. Down = none, Up = lots.

These three settings appear twice - once for Top View and once for Lower View:
- Eye Position determines your y-axis (in relation to the table) position. Left = you're standing right up against the table, Right = you're standing quite a bit back from the table.
- Eye Height determines your z-axis (again in relation to the table) position. Left/Down = you're short, Right/Up = you're tall.
- View Position determines your view angle. Left = looking up, Right = looking down.

And yeah, the settings screens don't work very well on the iPhone - everything's too small to select reliably. I think the settings UI should get a complete rework for smaller screens instead of just miniaturizing the tablet UI, but that's obviously easier said than done.

Anyway, I hope something up there helps!

I recently bought Revenge of the Rob-o-Bot for my Android phone. I doubt if playing pinball on a phone is a good idea, the ball and flippers are microscopic on such small screens. It's always a compromise, but it's cool to have it with you in your pocket anyway.

 

[night]

A bug I noticed. Each time you start Zaccaria the game mode is set to 'Arcade'.

 

[dagwood]

I tend to agree with much of what some of the others here have said. I'm really not liking the latest version, all the tables are just crazy fast even with bumper & flipper force sliders set to zero. In fact the sliders don't seem to do much at all

This is nothing like the game play experience I remember of the real tables from that era. Sure, the well maintained ones had pretty fast game play, but most gave you a fighting chance to play a good game. The new engine is just brutally fast and reminds me of TPAs Big Shot table. This has just taken the fun out of playing ZZZ Pinball (for me). While Zsolt gets things sorted, I wish there was a way to unistall this version and go back to the previous one.

 

[night]

I tend to agree with much of what some of the others here have said. I'm really not liking the latest version, all the tables are just crazy fast even with bumper & flipper force sliders set to zero. In fact the sliders don't seem to do much at all

This is nothing like the game play experience I remember of the real tables from that era. Sure, the well maintained ones had pretty fast game play, but most gave you a fighting chance to play a good game. The new engine is just brutally fast and reminds me of TPAs Big Shot table. This has just taken the fun out of playing ZZZ Pinball (for me). While Zsolt gets things sorted, I wish there was a way to unistall this version and go back to the previous one.

The ASK team is very commited to their users and Zaccaria, I'll bet they sort it out and make it close to perfect.

As far as the physics settings option goes, the problem is that '0' does not mean 0 but 'a little less than' 100, and this does not help a lot. If the settings would be extreme at 100 and none at 0 then we could fine-tune it. I hope these parameter bars will be updated so we can share the best settings here, and hopefully save these settings per table as well, as each table is individual and different. Think about it, if ASK could get this right we will have all control over the physics, how unique and great is that? We can really set these tables to our hands.. I am certainly looking forward to the next update!

 

[tripleplonq]

Another bug (1.2):

iCade support: When I pull back the joystick, the camera setting changes, and then the table enters an infinite backwards-nudge loop. (app restart helps, the same happens when I try to set the joystick-backwards setting to none/disabled)

But -apart from backwards-nudging- I like this nudging setup.

ETA: Not a bug, but the global mechanical sound for standup targets is loo loud. It should sound more like a pencil hitting a fingernail, but almost inaudible. This one sounds more like a relay (And it has an echo).

 

[tripleplonq]

Feature request:

-Fixed custom camera option. An additional radio button (top/lower/both) would do.

-Nudging options in iCade configuration menu.