VPE: Terminator 2 WIP

[freezy]

So, I figured that since I'm working on T2, why not document the process here a bit. It's a lot more fun to watch than just talking about physics features anyway.

 

T2 was the first table I started working on in VPE, and it has already gone through two major refactorings, neither of which was fully backward-compatible. As a result, I'm essentially starting again from scratch. I'll begin with a barebones playfield and some inserts connected to a running ROM.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/o9lis6Z3JTw

 

Given the playfield orientation, I recorded this in portrait mode, so it ended up in Shorts. 🙄 Let me know if that's okay with you. There's not much new there yet, but there's more to come soon.

 

Enjoy, and subscribe to this thread if you'd like to receive notifications about future updates.

 

Cheers!

[freezy]

Okay, I admit that I had this working before I created the thread.

 

Added flippers, slingshots, playfield switches, targets, the plunger and some wire guides.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/P5d_EPq5344

Edited April 1 by freezy

[Gravy]

So cool....  looking forward to the future (except for those Terminators and the whole nuclear war thing).

[MauiPunter]

Thanks, Freezy!

[Rappelbox]

Awesome graphics! 👍🏻

[foofoorabbit]

14 hours ago, Gravy said:

So cool....  looking forward to the future (except for those Terminators and the whole nuclear war thing).

Maybe instead of fighting them, pinball will unite us and we’ll just have friendly pinball competitions with T-800s and T-1000s.

 

And we’ll need to thank @freezy for saving us from total destruction because obviously all the real pinball machines won’t have survived thermonuclear destruction but digital pinball will.

Edited March 30 by foofoorabbit

[BostonBuckeye]

Freezy, T2 looks absolutely amazing. It looks very close to being photo-realistic. Thank you very much for all of your hard work on creating VPE. You are a genius! 

[freezy]

Thanks! Little update with the brand new gate model I created for the asset style guide.

 

[Cliffy]

my god it's perfect

[robertms]

I could frame that

[BostonBuckeye]

Wow! Looks amazing!

[freezy]

Added the sleeved posts. For the color I've kind of followed this awesome restauration project.

 

 

Also, some first shooting

 

 

[foofoorabbit]

Haha, this looks amazing even without the GI and the plastics… imagine when everything is in place and lit up!

Edited April 1 by foofoorabbit

[CarnyPriest]

Ha! Good one. Look at the date. I'll believe it when I see it!

[Gravy]

That first shots video is pretty cool, thanks for showing the progress. I set my cabinet playfield screen to portrait mode temporarily so I could full screen the youtube video and have it fill the screen, it gives a better idea as to how accurate the physics may feel compared to watching on an upright landscape monitor.

I was particularly interested in the how the ball spin affected it's movement at 0:21 when it was caught momentarily in a spin just above the left bank of targets and then fell downwards whilst hugging the targets due to the continued spin... it felt pretty realistic although perhaps slightly different to how a VPX Nfozzy table might react (perhaps the ball felt slightly less weighty than VPX in your video? Not even sure which is more true to life to be fair). No doubt there will be lots of tweaking of physics as time goes on and I'm excited to see the future of this project.

Edited April 2 by Gravy

[foofoorabbit]

The rubber post holding the gate went from green to yellow in just a day.

Edited April 2 by foofoorabbit

[Gravy]

40 minutes ago, foofoorabbit said:

The rubber post holding the gate went from green to yellow in just a day.

Fading caused by the high levels of UV over the last few days due to increased sunspot activity. The level of detail in VPE is intense, Freezy has really gone the extra mile.

[Cliffy]

7 hours ago, freezy said:

Added the sleeved posts.

Looks like he used my color post sleeves- smart fella

https://www.passionforpinball.com/colorsleeves.htm

[makmak]

7 hours ago, freezy said:

 

Also, some first shooting

 

Too real not to be published on 1st of April 😃

[foofoorabbit]

Also, this is the first time I see accurate physics for targets getting hit (or at least much more lifelike than other pinball engines.)

 

For the most part, other engines just kind of only have two states for targets -- not hit and hit, with only a slight change in the position of the target when hit. But here in VPE, you see it being knocked back (result of transformable colliders?) and probably (not clear from the couple videos yet) to various degrees depending on how hard they're hit.

 

edit: same with the slingshots... they're not just two states... you actually see the hammer move and stretch the elastic. @freezy even slow-mo'ed the slingshots in one video to show it off.

 

I don't think any of the other pinball engines have that much detail... most have the slingshots rendered in two states -- at rest and activated.

Edited April 2 by foofoorabbit

[freezy]

Yes, slingshots are properly animated. However, hit targets use the same code as VPX. Maybe the better lighting in Unity makes them more alive-like, but they animate the same as in VPX. It's even the same mesh here, although textured properly.

 

Didn't know you produce colored sleeves @Cliffy, that's awesome!

 

@Gravy Thanks for testing this out, but for cabinet mode there's going to be more tweaking necessary to properly project the playfield in the right angle.

 

Glad you guys like the physics so far, I hope we don't run into any weird bugs on the way..

[freezy]

Discovered depth of field! Completely useless apart for render porn..

 

 

[foofoorabbit]

Duuuude! That’s incredible… I can see this being a feature for creators… they can have the fly-by camera, as well as depth-of-field shots to show the details.

 

Of course, some of this stuff won’t matter for people running this in cabinet-mode… but would be amazing in desktop-mode to showcase the table.

 

edit: could also be used for tutorials on the rules

Edited April 2 by foofoorabbit

[BostonBuckeye]

Insane! Looks like you videoed a real table.

[Cliffy]

6 hours ago, freezy said:

Didn't know you produce colored sleeves @Cliffy, that's awesome!

I invented the color post sleeve in 2008. Before that all you could get were black real rubber, some fat yellows rubber and data east/stern molded hard plastic mostly in red. Everything out there that isn't mine is a knockoff, albeit some use much different material and a lot more colors than  the 12 I make