Flipper viewing angels / POV questions..

[Dipkid]

Hi All. I play on a cab with a 43" 4K PF.  Most of my tables POV looks great, without much fiddeling, especially newer stuff like the VPW tables.

My problem is the POV on some tables. I cant stand seeing the whole underside of the flippers.

 

It really throws me out of the immersion. (You dont do that on a real machine right, leaning over it.. been a while..?)

(I guess it would make sense if playing desktop, or if I was 3" tall and looked at the table thru the coin-door..)

 

But if I try to fix the pov with layback, inclination etc, I end up messing up the rest of the table.

one version of MM for example, If i twist & turn the settings so the flippers look good to me, then the castle looks so distorted that i can see straight into the roof, heavily tilted forward...

 

Am I just being insane, can it be fixed, can I rotate the flippers? Any advices welcome.

Sorry if this is gets me The  Stupidest Question Ever Award...

 

This dosent look right to me..:

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Dipkid

[Wylte]

PoV Explained (as best I can)

 

Inclination - How tilted the whole table *appears*.  6 is the default slope VPX uses. I've got a standard starting point for each era that can be tweaked based on the table:  0 for EMs, 6 for modern, 12 if there are tall toys (or heads) or something on the backwall.

 

FoV - Camera "lens shape", larger number means more depth, like a "fisheye" effect, smaller is more "telephoto".  99% of tables I set this to 45.

 

Layback - Tilts & vertically stretches the appearance of objects on the table.  No IRL analogue, as it's a virtual trick.  I go up to 60 unless there is a toy getting stretched (heads esp.), in which case I back down toward 45 (unity with FoV).

*Note: FoV and Layback affect the appearance of the ball, stretching at the back or squashing it in the front.  There is the "Cabinet Anti-stretch" visual setting, but I haven't bothered with it.

 

Scales - Keep z-scale at 1.  Generally, keep x/y below 1 (possible image stretching at render, unconfirmed but why not).  Usually around 0.9:1 ratio, just trying for circles to be slightly "wide" (as if viewing the pf plane at an angle).

 

Offsets -  Camera position.  z is vertical/perpendicular to the pf (how "high" your camera is), x and y shift along those axes.  Completely table dependent.

 

Every setup/screen/table/person is unique - my suggestions are just suggestions!

 

6 hours ago, Dipkid said:

MM for example, If i twist & turn the settings so the flippers look good to me, then the castle looks so distorted that i can see straight into the roof, heavily tilted forward...

Off the top of my head for MM I'd start with:  Inc 6, FoV 45, Layback 45, x .9, y 1, z 1, then whatever offsets you need to center it.  I can come back with a screenshot and my numbers in a bit

[Dipkid]

thanks so much for this! gonna print this out at work tomorrow 😁

One problem for me then, might be I pull and push the X & Y scales pretty aggressively to make tables fit my screen corner to corner. 

Another dragon to chase and obsesse over.. so little playing, so much tinkering. but that's the definition of a hobby I guess.. 

[Wylte]

Here's what I came up with for MM.  Castle is maybe a bit stretched but I wanted to make the top lane inserts more visible.  I would crop out the apron to fit more table on the screen, myself

[Dipkid]

thanks a lot man, gonna try it out! really appreciate it.