Masters of the Universe - Collector's Edition

[TerryRed]

 

WORK IN PROGRESS

 

He-Man Multiball - "I... have... the PO-WEEEEEEEEER!!!!!"

 

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This is how you make the most powerful pinball game in the universe! I LOVE how this turned out!

 

Once the He-Man kicker is unlocked and He-Man is selected, then hit the kicker to lock a ball. Do this three times to start He-Man multiball. He-Man raises his sword and shouts those words that brought so much joy to young 80's kids. "By the Power of Grayksull!"

 

You'll see the power of Grayskull fire down from the skies into the sword of power. This makes all the lights on the table flicker and surge with power! Then He-Man yells those words... the words we all love to hear....

 

"I... have... the PO-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!"

 

Now you'll see He-Man radiate with the power of Grayskull animating from within, shown with powerful arcs of energy and lights flashing throughout the table! He-Man multiball beings with 4 balls being shot onto the playfield.

 

All multiball modes require you to hit all the jackpot shots first to make Super Jackpot Ready. Then from that point on the mode won't stop even if you drain to one ball. Skeletor's target bank lowers. Now you need to get as many remaining balls in there as you can for big points. You need to get the last ball in there to complete the mode and be rewarded with the Battle Armor He-Man toy!

 

If you are lucky enough to be able to play this in VR (when it's done)... you will be blown away. It looks amazing!

 

Yah... I have the power!

 

 

 

[SpacePirateScott]

It's pretty damn impressive.  How much is left to complete, and do you need Beta testers

[PsychoKiller]

amazing work as always. Glad you captured that old 80's feel. Such a huge part of He-Man. 

 

[TerryRed]

New Roton and Skeletor models

 

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Rom did a great job at making models for the original FP table many years ago, given what limited resources he had back then.

 

 

 

Today, you can find 3d scans of the original 80's toys, or many detailed models built from scratch with modern 3D modeling apps. 3d printers and scanners have really opened up many great resources, or possibilities to learn how to make new models.

 

Well... I finally decided to make new models for the Roton and to finish Skeletor's new model.

 

Lots of new modeling, converting, remeshing, uvwrapping, painting, and fixing scanned models. The original 80's toy was scanned into a 3d model, but that was way too detailed, so it needed to be converted down to a lower polygon model to be more practical for use in a game.

 

I was able to source some clean new redrawn stickers from the 80's Roton toy. So I needed to create new uvwraps for all of them... but boy did it make a huge difference.

 

 

 

 

I also decided to make an all-new rotating blade model, which really look nice with greater detail.

 

 

 

Skeletor's lower half was finally finished to match and fit with the new Roton model.

 

Turned out GREAT!

 

Video demo of Skeletor Multiball most likely coming.

 

 

[TerryRed]

Skeletor and Man at Arms showing off their new look and their new toy models.

 

Wish you guys could see this in 4K 144Hz. It looks really sweet in VR.

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

WORK IN PROGRESS

 

Skeletor Multiball update

 

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Finally, the last of the multiball modes is done.

 

For Skeletor multiball, you need to hit all 3 targets on the target bank to lower it, then shoot the ball into the Skeletor kicker (under the Roton) to lock the ball. Do this 3 times, then hit the target banks one last time to start Skeletor Multiball. Skeletor will quickly fire 9 balls at you!

 

All multiball modes require you to hit all the jackpot shots first to make Super Jackpot Ready. Then from that point on the mode won't stop even if you drain to one ball. Skeletor's target bank lowers.

 

Now you need to get as many remaining balls in there as you can for big points. You need to get the last ball in there to complete the mode and be rewarded with the Battle Armor Skeletor toy!

 

Any mode that is completed can't be replayed until all modes are completed and all toys collected (very hard to do!).

 

Now I can move on to other things like more Man-E Modes!

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

Some new baked lighting... now for the inserts. This is my first test with a few lights. Its a start... pay attention the guide walls on the outerlanes.

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

insert colour change test on yellow target and rubber post. Both the toggle mode and skeletor light affect target and post.

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

New Pre-Rendered Baked Lighting for Inserts

 

I finally decided to give this a try.

 

With VPX, it has no realtime dynamic lighting that renders in 3D space like most other videos games do. So to get around this limitation some newer VPX tables use the VP Blender Toolkit. It will import a VPX table into Blender, pre-render all lights on the table and bake them into textures, then cut every model that those lights touch into many 100's of smaller models (for each light combination). Then all the models and textures are added back into the VP table, and the rest of that process carries on from there.

 

On FP things are different. FP does have realtime dynamic 3D lighting that looks fantastic in all modes. You can make G.I., bulbs, flashers, spotlights, beacons all work with FP's dynamic lighting. It's easy to make tables look amazing, combined with shadowmaps, lightmaps and ray cast shadows... all created directly in FP itself without needing any other app. However, you can only have a limited number of these dynamic lights rendered at one time. So lights such as inserts can't use this lighting.

 

With MOTU CE, I already did some ray traced Blender pre-baking for G.I Lighting on the sidewalls and back wall, shadows on numerous models, and the VR Room. However, I finally decided to try to fill in the gap that always bothered me... the lack of inserts having more realistic looking lighting.

 

So I decided to take a similar, but different approach as VP Blender Toolkit tables. I looked at the inserts that were near any targets, metal walls, flipper, posts, the castle toy, etc and attempt to pre-render and bake lighting from those inserts into the textures for the nearby items. I did this in Blender manually for each item nearby an insert light and for each light's colour combination that was used.

 

I could have done the same as what you see on some VP BTK tables, and have the metals, clear plastics and reflective surfaces show the full reflection of the inserts and surrounding table items. I tested this and it worked fine. However there is a real problem with doing this... as those kind of prebaked textures only look "correct" from the one camera point of view (pov) that was used when they were baked in Blender. VP doesn't have dynamic camera views, so this is normally fine if you are using a static camera view (like in a cabinet) that never changes. Once you move the camera in-game or change to a very different pov, or play in VR and move your head around, then those reflective textures no longer look correct (they can still look cool though).

 

With FP however, it does have dynamic and moving cameras, and I also love playing FP in VR. So I rendered all the textures with no super glossy / reflective surfaces, and so they will look correct from all camera views and especially in VR, which FP really excels at.

 

I then imported all textures into FP and created new code that would monitor those lights in realtime. It will swap the pre-baked textures / control their brightness based on conditions of the gameplay, G.I lighting, what mode was being played, what colour the insert was set to, etc.

 

It turned out great! It really adds to the lighting and look of the game and fills that missing bit of lighting that stood out to me. Is it as good as a BTK VP table that does this for ALL lights and models on the table? No... but combined with FP's dynamic lighting and shadows this works very well and rounds everything out nicely!

 

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

New - Castle Grayskull Mirror display

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The table's original display didn't really do much on the original table except show a few small videos. Then I decided to have it mirror everything the HUD was showing... but I wasn't really happy with that either.




So I decided to replace it with a new model of the Sorceress Mirror from Grayskull. It plays an animation similar to the background used in the intro for the 80's cartoon.

It will display images of different characters for various callouts or splash events. It will also show you what mode you are playing in. The holograms blend perfectly to give a similar look to the original in the show.

I think this works better to fit with the theme of the table.

 

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

WORK IN PROGRESS

 

Wouldn't it be cool to have ray traced Neon lighting?

 

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While working in Blender on the MOTU CE table, I always loved turning on the neon lighting and making it "emissive" to see how cool it looked in Blender with ray traced lighting and shadows. I always wished I could make my tables look like that. Well...

 

Hold my Timmies...

 

 

First pic is the table in Blender with the neon lighting preview.

 

 

 

Second pic is a side by side comparison of the older lighting in-game on the left... and the new lighting in-game on the right.  As Blockbuster would say.... "WOW! What a difference!"

 

 

 

 

It's amazing what some pre-baked ray traced lighting, and a few smartly placed Future Pinball realtime dynamic lights will do. You need both to get this effect.

 

The prebaked lighting textures on the wall, ramps, etc makes it look more realistic. The FP realtime dynamic lights actually light up everything in 3D space around those areas.

 

I never thought all those months ago when I first tried Blender baking, I would actually have the table look very similar in FP, including the neon lighting!

 

 

So.... who's ready for some excessive neon lighting?

 

These pics show how the new neon ramp lights look when both ramps are on and the G.I. is off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These pics show how the new neon ramp lights look during different modes and with different colour combos, etc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks cool in pics. Looks VERY cool in gameplay. Looks insane in VR.

[TerryRed]

 

New - Neon and other lighting - Mega Gameplay Video Demo

 

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This video shows how the new (pre-baked / ray traced) neon ramp lights (combined with FP realtime dynamic lights) as well as all other new lighting, looks during different normal gameplay and the 11 modes I have so far. Lots of cool looking stuff!

 

This has got to be one of the most colourful games out there.

 

I've waited years to see those neon ramps look this good. I figured I would do it on a new (non Stern) Tron table first (now that I can do this... gimme time). This is the next best thing. I love it!

 

No, this does not mean it's almost done. More Man-E Modes to go and some other new features that may get added. At least now I can focus on that stuff now while having all this awesome lighting.

 

 

 

 

 

[TerryRed]

This was posted from Joe Picasso (Joey in another vpin group, haha.

 

T