Hi,

I've never tried making any FP tables, but have played a lot of them - downloaded from

http://www.pinsimdb.org/pinball/index-10-future_pinball

There are a few original tables on there that are pretty fun, the He-Man Masters of the Universe comes to mind.

I've tried on several occasions to try to learn FP. The interface frustrates me to no end, from the way you have to create objects in 2d, to the enormous learning curve of teaching yourself code to get anything to happen. I'm REALLY good at modeling in solidworks, but I've yet to find anything to convert to the formats that Milkshape3d requires to convert over to FPM.

The other major virtual pinball player/maker is Visual Pinball. The physics are probably better than FP's 2.6 Physics or Zedpinball physics, but you lose a lot in terms of graphics for original tables. The recreations are really nice, but that takes more knowledge of modeling than I have.

I've been using it for a while now.
I designed my Nightmare Before Christmas table with it.

See here: www.incitti.com/pinball/nightmare for info/download.

It's got its quirks, but once you learn them, it's a very handy tool.
I'm on to my second whitewood (had to move some things around a bit for flow.)
But here's what the first one looks like. I'm using P3-ROC.

image.jpg

I prefer Visual Pinball over Future Pinball. ; )

Actually, neither have realistic physics (though a new physics engine is in the works for VP), so if I want to actually PLAY a table and not just tinker with designs, stuff like Pinball Arcade works a lot better for that. Mind you, one advantage Visual Pinball has over Pinball Arcade is that you can do tap passes. : B

Oh and Mark, looks like you're making some really solid progress there! : )

When you add a wireform, un-smooth the first two points. Drag where you want your end point and add all the points inbetween rigid. Then smooth the points where needed.

I designed a System 11 style table called Junkyard Cats

Download here - www.junkyardcats.net

ss1.jpg

Mark and pinwizkid, both of your tables look amazing!

I loved your interview on.. spooky? coast2coast podcast? It's also a great tribute to system 11, any chance you're thinking about doing another?

Pinwiz, I've played your junkyard cats table a few times. You did a great job. I prefer FP over VP. Iron Man is by far the best FP table to play I think. Fantastic fun to play, as long as you have a good graphics card. I recently got a GTX 760 4Gb and man, what a difference! I think too many people play FP with crummy computers or laptops and complain. VP is okay, and the best table for me on VP is TOTAN. Nice job on that table. Makes me want to buy a real TOTAN now.

Future pinball physics are just so incredibly awful. I mean the ball just goes nowhere near where you aim. It has noting to do with the video card. I can't imagine anyone that enjoys real pinball to find future pinball even sort of fun. The ironman table, for example, looks great. But it plays absolutely nothing like the real thing - or any real thing. I guess if you're a player that doesn't ever aim shots and just flips blindly when the ball comes near the flipper, then maybe you might think its pretty good. The same all applies to released versions of VP. Only the physmod stuff is any good.

I noticed you're always bagging FP markmon, but each to their own. My shots go where I aim them, your brain adapts. I don't flip blindly. No computer pin sim is perfect, but it's better than playing no pinball at all. <shrug>
As for my video card comment, I meant the tables are so silky smooth now, not jittery like on my old video card which struggled on some tables.

I've played enough FP to know the physics engine well. It runs great on my cabinet. I play a lot of real pinball as well. The flipper shots are nowhere near where they should go. I bag on FP a lot because this is a pinball forum and I cannot imagine any pinball enthusiast enjoying FP. It's just so incredibly bad. Regarding "no computer sim is perfect", that's true. But many others play at least like pinball. FP is the worst of the worst. Physics wise I would rank it something like this from best to worst:

Pinball fx2
Visual pinball + physmod
Pinball arcade
Pro pinball alpha (good but flipper lag)
---- below here is somewhat unplayable ---
Visual pinball release ver
Dream pinball
Worms pinball
Future pinball zed physics
Future pinball.

Markmon: I've always seen VP as looking like crap, especially the dithering to get the translucent effect. However after watching a newer demo, it looks like VP has really come a long way. I may have to try it again

I have a GTX 660 and a 4 GHz AMD FX-8350 CPU with 8 cores. My main complaint with FP is the camera system more than anything else. I just can't get used to the way the camera system works in that thing, and the angles which disable the camera effects are just terrible for me. : P

I do agree with this statement though:

Now that I've got some experience on the real thing I can safely say that the only way I'm ever going to get good at real pinball is to play REAL pinball. The computerized stuff is good for experimenting with layouts or learning the rulesets of the real games and they are just as fun to play... but it really just isn't the same at all. : P

Yeah, not the same, at all.

I think VP physmod is good enough that you can actually improve your skills on real pinball. It requires ball control skills like drop catching, flipper bounce passing, to capture the ball. And the shot aims are very accurate. A lot of real pinball playability is now included here. Note this is applicable to unreleased physmod only (which will require all new tables and be in vp10). Regular VP sucks, a lot, in this regard.

Pinball fx2 physics are even better but because the tables are designed for longer ball times, you don't need some of these skills. The flipper bat angles are high enough to just catch the ball. The flipper bats are close together to make drains less often. But the shot angles are realistic. So you would definitely improve your real pinball shot aim.

The other simulators won't help much at all.

Waste of time trying to explain why FP is so bad, it's an endless argument. I'm bewildered how anyone can play it for longer than a couple of minutes. The editor however is the best out there and this thread was aimed at designers & tips? Again, waste of time derailing for another physics argument fest.

"Pinball fx2 physics are even better"

picard-facepalm2.jpg

Wasn't there talk that Farsight Studios was going to make their own pinball designer app?

Actually, from what I was told in an eMail reply I got from the Pinball Arcade support team a couple months ago, the PC version is supposed to be getting an update to include room lighting features at some point, though it hasn't happened yet.

I've actually sent a solid number of bug reports and feature suggestions to them. A couple things I've made mention of to them have indeed been fixed. The biggest change I really hope they make at some point is adding an option to disable the giant red "TILT" message that shows up when you tilt, because I find it takes away from the immersion factor. : P

I use FP for the editor, not the physics. It's just so damn thorough and accurate (and the help manual is a masterpiece in its own right). It's a shame that it is limited to PC, otherwise I would probably create more tables, as I have a bunch of original theme ideas for new games.

-BB

I'm clueless when it comes to scripting, but being a graphics guy, I've modded many existing FP tables to visually look more accurate, Cosmic Gunfight being the most recent. I also do a lot of pinball artwork for the 3dArcade frontend, so I've applied several of my redrawn cabinet "skins" to existing FP tables (also noticed that a few FP authors have used these skins as well).

Making some real progress on my custom game - Nightmare before Christmas

More info/pics here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152585691157735.1073741829.503092734&type=1&l=94d91d77bb
NBXM-2015-03-16.jpg

I think I am going to make a go at designing a pin. How have the dynamics matched up with the game you made? Did it help you in getting a good start to your design and save time over starting with prototype playfield and moving stuff around?

I wish whoever would make a 3 angels pin. Stuff is better than the TWD or WWF by miles.

No monster trucks or dinosaurs but I do have flashy lights and moving parts.

That's looking amazing man, you really should start a separate thread for it. Very cool.

+1000 - don't be shy!

please start your own thread and see where this goes looks like a real nice ramp flowing game

just call it "Nightmare" and let Aurich go to town on the art with out any handcuffs!

Agreed. That game looks like it will be pretty incredible.

Sweet layout!

I agree this definitely deserves its own thread. Thanks for sharing!

awesome work on the games MarkInc & Pinwizkid, congrats

Hi! Looks great,
i am currently working on a custom Mass Effect pinball, and am designing it in future pinball. My main challenge right now is the inserts, so i thought id ask how you solved those? Did you use some specific FP-inserts that match up with inserts you have bought somewhere? is so, where?

Thanks for all the kind words folks! Will keep me motivated to get this completed. I'll see about creating a dedicated post for the project.

I mostly used the inserts in FP - with a lot of fiddling with scale to get the blueprint to match the actual inserts. I looked at other FP tables and copied some shapes from them.

I bought a bunch of arrow, circles, rectangles and the last 4 diamonds from Marco - I couldn't find a clear 2 inch insert anywhere - so I made those myself with some acrylic.
I then made router templates for the shapes and did them all by hand. I tried to keep my FP table in synch whenever I made changes on the real table.
I saw somewhere that someone cut shapes in their playfield and then used liquid plastic to fill the inserts (with a star pattern pressed into the back)
Might try that for the next table I make.

Do you want this produced? Thoughts about non license theme, however close to what you thinking?

Mark that looks awesome. Design it and let Spooky or Heighway go after the license!

Consider laser cut acrylic for your inserts. That is what I used on St:mu

I've uploaded all my pictures to flickr and created a new topic for my game:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-nightmare-before-christmas#post-2420377

damn, that's a great whitewood. Between that and the one Elwin has been previewing on his channel, there is some hope in this world.