VPE: Terminator 2 WIP

[makmak]

On 4/13/2025 at 5:30 PM, freezy said:

Okay, so I've added the remodeled plastic ramp, the habitrails and the two switches on the ramp.

 

 

Took the opportunity to create a prefab for the micro switches, now the next step is to animate them properly when a ball passes through!

 

 

It makes no sense to post pics of real machines in a virtual pinball community 😜, you are definitely nuts

[griffindodd]

Unbelievable! Subbed.

[freezy]

Switch animation done. Looks pretty nice. Had work on the debug ball shooter for a moment in order to properly film this

 

Clip is in slow-motion.

 

 

[Cliffy]

it even bounces like the real thing. niiiiice

[freezy]

Yes, you can define your own animation curve for that:

 

That's how it animates out when the ball leaves the switch collider.

[TerryRed]

24 minutes ago, freezy said:

Yes, you can define your own animation curve for that:

 

That's how it animates out when the ball leaves the switch collider.

 

Taking me back to my Lightwave animation days.

[makmak]

if you zoom in a little more you can see microparticles of dust wirbling around the balls path

Edited April 20, 2025 by makmak

[freezy]

Added plastics! Thanks again to @g5k for all the measurements

 

 

 

[foofoorabbit]

Like many have said before, this really could be mistaken for the real thing. I guess the pot light reflections off the plastics adds that extra touch of realism for this video.

Edited April 21, 2025 by foofoorabbit

[freezy]

Here the entire table so far, without any blurring

 

[Dariusz75]

Mission almost accomplished😃

 

Edited April 22, 2025 by Dariusz75

[freezy]

4 hours ago, Dariusz75 said:

Mission almost accomplished😃

 

 

Depends on the mission, hehe

[Dariusz75]

Mission to make digital pinball great again💪👍😃

[kiloNova]

17 minutes ago, Dariusz75 said:

Mission to make digital pinball great again💪👍😃

Again? Digital pinball is already better than it has any right to be! I feel like @freezy's accomplishments are pushing modern tech into fantasy territory. I've been obsessively following his progress and forcing my gf to watch the YT short progress updates while exclaiming, "ISN'T THIS F****ING AMAZING?!?!" I'm absolutely going to be single in the near future if @freezy makes any more progress

[freezy]

Haha, shoutout and apologies to your GF!

[anarkizt]

Beyond amazing. I very much love to watch all these videos. Like asmr for the eyes. Can't wait for the next video!!!

[PastorLUL]

good looks freezer

[freezy]

Got this little guy in!

 

[freezy]

I’ve been working on the drop-target animation.

 

VPX’s default animation is fairly rudimentary: it simply moves the drop target straight down by a configurable distance. In reality though, the target rotates first before the spring pulls it down. I’ve therefore created a new drop-target animation component that lets table authors describe the motion with a curve, giving them plenty of room to fine-tune the behavior. For example:

 

 

This ends up looking like that:

 

 

You’ll notice the target sits slightly above its starting position after it’s being pulled back up, until the coil is de-energized. Right now that pause is baked into the animation, but it could instead be triggered dynamically when the ROM actually turns the coil off. I'd be interested in anyone's opinion about that. I think the current setup works well, but there may be cases where a dynamic version would be more noticeable.

 

Edited April 25, 2025 by freezy

[foofoorabbit]

My opinion is that if you’re aiming for an accurate simulation, the ROM would dictate when to de-energize the coil and make the target fall back into place (instead of it being baked into the animation)… this would, I’d imagine, be taken care of easily for SS tables but probably more work for EM table scripts?

 

I also guess it depends on if some ROMs differ in length of time to de-energizing the coil? If every drop-down target on most tables pops up and then drops back into place in the same amount of time, then if it’s easier to just make it part of the animation, then do that.

 

Still though, you’ve added microswitches which ups the realism of pinball simulation… you might as well let the ROM decide when the coil is de-energized and only reset the target at that time.

edit: what would happen if the ball hits the target a second time before the animation ends? It almost happened in the slow mo shot (@ 21 seconds) in the video but the target was properly reset right before it was hit again.

 

IRL, I’d imagine the target wouldn’t drop down if the coil is energized and keeping the target up.

Edited April 25, 2025 by foofoorabbit

[Cliffy]

From your video I think you've nailed it Freezy. These 2 coil drops are pulsed only. The target must go up slightly beyond the stop bracket which is always under spring tension holding it against the back of the target. So it pops up and then falls back till it hits the stop bracket. The knock down coil only comes into play when other rules are met and the cpu then pulls in the upper coil and stop bracket releasing the target to drop. Your simulation shows a perfect ball hit, knock back off the stop bracket and resultant drop and reset. Nicely done sir

[freezy]

@foofoorabbit Yes thanks for remembering me that I'll have to take care of that. Collider-wise, when the target is hit while pulling up, it would go back down again. However, in the real world, it would probably continue going up, since the coil is still active? If anyone has a more precise idea how that works, that'd be good to know.

[gear323]

Looking amazing Freezy!  Love the attention to details. 

 

There is one bug in the G5K awesome version of this table.  When you shoot the cannon and multiple targets are lit you should be able to hit 2 targets with one shot if you aim right in between the two.    That does not work in the G5k version on VPX.    Hopefully you will be able to address that here!

[Dariusz75]

Did You tested version 1.25?

 

[freezy]

@gear323 Yes, there are quite a few things from @rothbauerw's DT code that I'd like to integrate, this is one of those.