Alice in Wonderland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2013
Celts
Haggis, 2021
Magic Girl
Zidware Pinball USA, 2017
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland
Zidware Pinball USA, 2012
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland (Arcade Edition)
Deeproot, 2020
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland (Xtra Edition)
Deeproot, 2020Quoted from RCA1:Can't wait to see the arguing really blow up in this thread once something actually happens.
I hope not.
I hope Deeproot gets their game or games out, and I hope it's all we hope for.
That would be great for pinball, great for Pinside.
LTG : )
Quoted from TreyBo69:It's funny to me the number of people who think it's some Herculean engineering task to develop a system that could track the ball on the playfield without mechanical switches
Gerry, you really need to work on getting the P3 to more shows...
they have, its called optos (williams), proximity (heighway), touchscreen surface (multimorphic). heck i know kugler used a cheap webcam to detect dice dots on his homebrew casino pinball. also if musk can make a self driving car using nothing but cheap cameras (no lidar) i wouldnt think tracking ball position would be terribly hard
Quoted from Mr68:Magic Girl from American Pinball. 2017. It functioned, just not very well.
Define "functioned."
Quoted from TreyBo69:It's funny to me the number of people who think it's some Herculean engineering task to develop a system that could track the ball on the playfield without mechanical switches
Gerry, you really need to work on getting the P3 to more shows...
except... that wasn't the conversation. It was about doing it DIFFERENTLY than p3 had already done.
Quoted from PinMonk:Define "functioned."
Like a marble in a shoe box.
Quoted from flynnibus:except... that wasn't the conversation. It was about doing it DIFFERENTLY than p3 had already done.
No. That wasn't mentioned one single time.
Quoted from toyotaboy:i wouldnt think tracking ball position would be terribly hard
Its not getting the basic idea working that would be the issue, its the reliability. Throwing in a camera or two and some tweaked 3rd party software - great, now what happens when every 5th or 10th ball is missed? What about when things get weird with 6 multiballs and parts of the playfield that obscure views momentarily? Its not that it isn't doable, its the 'last mile' problem. And since you brought up Tesla, thats why 100% self driving cars aren't going to be shuttling people around anytime soon. Sure it can detect and react to things...but the 'last mile' issue - congestion, double parking, the chaos of school drop off...anything thats not a highway and things start getting unreliable. Dialing in the near total reliability is the hard, time consuming and expensive part.
None of this is to say I don't wish the best for whatever Deep Root is doing - I look forward to the reveals.
I don't really know how to rate games the way some of the top players do. I will certainly say that the games were not an initial hit as they all made it to some sort of close out if I recall correctly. CV being considered the worst game for operators at the time. Ultimately the art style of the games is now desired and the layouts are fun to shoot. The code is certainly the biggest disappointment but a casual player is almost always impressed with what people consider the JP big 3. I want to see some games out of deeproot. I'm excited to have another option out there for our location games.
Quoted from Mr68:Magic Girl from American Pinball. 2017. It functioned, just not very well.
I think you meant to say . . .
Magic Girl from Zidware, built to Jpop's specifications , under contract, by American Pinball
Quoted from toyotaboy:touchscreen surface (multimorphic).
Not a touchscreen, I believe it is an IR field over the playfield surface that tracks the ball
Quoted from cjmjmm2006:The code is certainly the biggest disappointment but a casual player is almost always impressed with what people consider the JP big 3
So you‘re saying if somebody likes TOM, TOTAN and/or CV they are at best casual players? That „serious“ players would not be impressed by these games? Nice touch.
Quoted from rosh:I think you meant to say . . .
I edited my original comment. Thanks for the clarity.
Quoted from zeddex:And since you brought up Tesla, thats why 100% self driving cars aren't going to be shuttling people around anytime soon..
I think I saw some news in the last 24 hrs to the contrary..2020 I believe was said.
Quoted from DS_Nadine:No. That wasn't mentioned one single time.
So wait.. you proposed a tracking system.. that you even admit is not feasible... to address a problem that you (should) know P3 already addressed, and did so successfully?
So you're back to reinventing the wheel with impractical ideas? You and the cameras in the ball guy should hang out more often.. two peas in a pod.
Quoted from EDMAN:I think I saw some news in the last 24 hrs to the contrary..2020 I believe was said.
Elon Musk says alot of things...and hey, hopefully its true! I am super skeptical though for the reasons I mentioned - he has been setting and missing deadlines for a while now on the "hey you can have your car drop off your kids and be an uber while you are at work" fantasy. I say this as an owner of a Tesla solar system, they make solid products.....just not buying it. And unlike pinball, which would just crater sales if a game were missing switch triggers a few times a game, the stakes are much much higher.
Quoted from branlon8:So you‘re saying if somebody likes TOM, TOTAN and/or CV they are at best casual players? That „serious“ players would not be impressed by these games? Nice touch.
they just dont hold up to a good player... i was amazed by TOTAN when i was new to the hobby but would never own one now that I know how to play pinball.
i mean, you could literally play the wizard mode in TOTAN until the earth ran out of electricity or your game melted...
Please steer me toward the "Raza" video - if, in fact, it's posted anywhere. I've read about it and, naturally, I'm curious to see it. I've searched for it in this thread but can't find it.
Thanks!
Quoted from LTG:I hope not.
I hope Deeproot gets their game or games out, and I hope it's all we hope for.
That would be great for pinball, great for Pinside.
LTG : )
I hope they make lots of great games.
But if they do, there will still be arguing here.
Probably better natured arguing than if disaster befalls, but still arguing.
Quoted from branlon8:So you‘re saying if somebody likes TOM, TOTAN and/or CV they are at best casual players? That „serious“ players would not be impressed by these games? Nice touch.
Not at all. I'm saying that casual players tend to appreciate the game more than someone that reads code before they play a game.
Quoted from flynnibus:So wait.. you proposed a tracking system.. that you even admit is not feasible... to address a problem that you (should) know P3 already addressed, and did so successfully?
So you're back to reinventing the wheel with impractical ideas? You and the cameras in the ball guy should hang out more often.. two peas in a pod.
"Not feasible" means that every play of thoughts has it's downsides that would have to be worked out and I don't claim to present you a fleshed out solution aka IAMRIGHT.
But I am.
I'm only think it further. I want it not only to work but to be cheap. So the question when developing something like I proposed is how much decrease in precision can you justify/ will be noticeable.
My proposed solution is for example not feasible if the cameras view is obstructed. So you have to evaluate if that is a major problem and how often there is something in between the top of the backbox and the glass. (Under the usual circumstances: Never)
So we could collectivly let our phantasy flow and work some of this out just for fun or just keep saying that everything is shit, impossible and everyone else is wrong.
And camera in the ball is a terrible idea for obvious reasons I pointed out immediately.
Oh and sadly I don't know of a single P3 in europe. Also I am not in pinball development but in automotive.
Quoted from cjmjmm2006:Not at all. I'm saying that casual players tend to appreciate the game more than someone that reads code before they play a game.
Or watches a YouTube vid
Quoted from DS_Nadine:"Not feasible" means that every play of thoughts has it's downsides that would have to be worked out and I don't claim to present you a fleshed out solution aka IAMRIGHT.
But I am.
I'm only think it further. I want it not only to work but to be cheap. So the question when developing something like I proposed is how much decrease in precision can you justify/ will be noticeable.
My proposed solution is for example not feasible if the cameras view is obstructed. So you have to evaluate if that is a major problem and how often there is something in between the top of the backbox and the glass. (Under the usual circumstances: Never)
So we could collectivly let our phantasy flow and work some of this out just for fun or just keep saying that everything is shit, impossible and everyone else is wrong.
And camera in the ball is a terrible idea for obvious reasons I pointed out immediately.
Oh and sadly I don't know of a single P3 in europe. Also I am not in pinball development but in automotive.
While I appreciate the back and forth, you are talking best case scenario. What happens when the ball "jumps" off a post due to old rings? What happens if there is a multiple happening and you have multiple jumps? Ball tracking will be lost. Then what? Play again?
Quoted from Jason_Jehosaphat:Please steer me toward the "Raza" video - if, in fact, it's posted anywhere. I've read about it and, naturally, I'm curious to see it. I've searched for it in this thread but can't find it.
Thanks!
It's just a slightly better than flash-looking animation. No pinball, no concept art, nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?amp;v=opAK-32MfJM
Comments are disabled on that video (wonder why??), so don't bother with the link if you're going for the comments 
Quoted from flynnibus:You should re-read yourself afterwards to understand just how ridiculous this is.
Is the ball also going to be transparent? Because it would need to be as it rolls so your cameras will have to see out every possible portion of the ball as the ball surface rolls past. And then we should talk about how you are going to fit all this in that space... and make it reliable as it goes through crazy G forces and impulses.. and must all fit in the size of a pinball.. and play like a pinball.
Oh and it needs to be powered... so we'll need a battery.. and a charging system...
etc etc etc.
DOA dude
You know (or maybe you don’t) the medical industry use cameras that fit in a pill swallowed by the patient, self guided and self stabilized. It’s the 10th of the size of a pinball.
But anyways, since you didnt read what I’ve posted after, I didn’t say it was realistic or doable, I also did not say it should be done. What I said though is that there was other methods than a camera to track a ball in a closed environment.
Quoted from Roostking:While I appreciate the back and forth, you are talking best case scenario. What happens when the ball "jumps" off a post due to old rings? What happens if there is a multiple happening and you have multiple jumps? Ball tracking will be lost. Then what? Play again?
I'm writing on a phone so I can't type all that again but I allready answered that ~2 pages ago.
Short: You don't track the ball. You just define areas (like switches) where the view (maye an infrared light) gets obstructed by the ball or not.
If you NOW in multiball shoot a slow ball in the left orbit and one in the right, the game will count it as an orbit shot also. The game doesn't track the ball. It assumes you made the shot because these two switches are hit.
Also this "play of thoughts" doesnt assume to get rid of all switches.
Quoted from PinMonk:It's just a slightly better than flash-looking animation. No pinball, no concept art, nothing.
Sorta' like the one that got many of us into this mess....
Quoted from flynnibus:You and the cameras in the ball guy should hang out more often.. two peas in a pod.
The ball doesn’t need a camera but you surely need glasses Mr Pea !
An Ir beam or an array of them, who said anything about a camera !
Quoted from adol75:The ball doesn’t need a camera but you surely need glasses Mr Pea !
An Ir beam or an array of them, who said anything about a camera !
We still can hang out tough. 
Quoted from DS_Nadine:We still can hang out tough.
With pleasure !
Quoted from Fulltilt:Sorta' like the one that got many of us into this mess....
Well, to be fair, they clearly spent more money on the 2019 version of essentially the same pitch.
Quoted from CrazyLevi:His games suck ass.
The best one he ever made he didn't even finish (World Cup Soccer - thanks to whomever at Williams took that project over).
There's never been a single more overrated "classic" pinball designer than Jpop. I do not and never will understand the cult.
You are alone with your opinion, but that you are entitled to.
Meanwhile 3 of his pins consistently are on every top 20 list. So they hold up as some of the best ever made.
Sounds like maybe you need a hug from J-pop Levi?
Quoted from wolfemaaan:Sounds like maybe you need a hug from J-pop Levi?
I can help arrange that!
—Robert, dT
Quoted from deeproot:I can help arrange that!
—Robert, dT
+10
Pics PLEASE.
Quoted from LTG:People tend to reap what they sow.
Playing arts and crafts ?
You really need to read the threads when things were coming apart and people started legal proceedings. The word "good" doesn't come to mind with what was going on.
LTG : )
100% agree with LTG!
Quoted from deeproot:I can help arrange that!
—Robert, dT
I hope to be hugging a Deeproot pinny here in Australia in the near future!
: )
Quoted from adol75:You know (or maybe you don’t) the medical industry use cameras that fit in a pill swallowed by the patient, self guided and self stabilized. It’s the 10th of the size of a pinball.
But anyways, since you didnt read what I’ve posted after, I didn’t say it was realistic or doable, I also did not say it should be done. What I said though is that there was other methods than a camera to track a ball in a closed environment.
They also don't hit them with bats and throw them around at a few m/s or smash them with other steel objects. You're comparing apples and cucumbers.
"There are other methods..." and you illustrate that with examples you acknowledge are not "realistic or doable"
That's the idiocy of this thread over the last two days... supporting points with stuff you know is complete garbage. Knew so much.. you even went back to the well three times to refine it..
Quoted from DS_Nadine:I'm writing on a phone so I can't type all that again but I allready answered that ~2 pages ago.
Short: You don't track the ball. You just define areas (like switches) where the view (maye an infrared light) gets obstructed by the ball or not.
If you NOW in multiball shoot a slow ball in the left orbit and one in the right, the game will count it as an orbit shot also. The game doesn't track the ball. It assumes you made the shot because these two switches are hit.
Also this "play of thoughts" doesnt assume to get rid of all switches.
Your idea simply evolves to what we already have.. optical switches. When you start addressing all the nooks and crannies you want in a game.. you end up with all these zones that can only be seen from nearby places.. and why bother with an advanced computed image if all you are doing is proximy detection.. so you end up with just what we already have. Optos or induction detection.
When you go to visual and expect a good FOV.. you end up doing what P3 already did.. a big open empty space.
There's a simple reason why pinball doesn't have any of this advanced technology.
It's not because it isn't possible. It's because everyone capable of doing it already have six figure jobs at SpaceX, Apple, Tesla, NASA, Lockheed Martin or (insert giant tech corp here).
Quoted from flynnibus:Your idea simply evolves to what we already have.. optical switches. When you start addressing all the nooks and crannies you want in a game.. you end up with all these zones that can only be seen from nearby places.. and why bother with an advanced computed image if all you are doing is proximy detection.. so you end up with just what we already have. Optos or induction detection.
When you go to visual and expect a good FOV.. you end up doing what P3 already did.. a big open empty space.
It would be way easier if you would just read what has allready been written before trying to proof some conspiracy.
It is an opto, exactly. I said that allready.
But with only one emitter and one recepient, so you don't need to tie lots of cables into a switch matrix and therefore save money.
Quoted from benheck:There's a simple reason why pinball doesn't have any of this advanced technology.
It's not because it isn't possible. It's because everyone capable of doing it already have six figure jobs at SpaceX, Apple, Tesla, NASA, Lockheed Martin or (insert giant tech corp here).
I think that is really dismissive of some of the very smart engineers that work at Stern for example.
Anything is solvable with money and man power, especially at the level pinball is at. A more accurate reason in my opinion is there is no business case or return on some of these ideas.
When JJP bailed on the pirates mech, that was an engineering failure due to lack of experience/smarts. They said so.
When Stern isn't putting video camera ball tracking in games, that's business smarts.
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:When Stern isn't putting video camera ball tracking in games, that's business smarts.
Yes.
But I'm talking about competition. And competition driving innovation.
It was business smarts of Stern to keep the DMD to keep development cost low. It would be business dumbness if they would still be doing this, competing with JJP.
JJP gives us nice games, so Stern has upped their game.
Deeproot says they want to keep the price low, so you have to rethink the development and manufacturing side of things. (Whatever they'll do.)
Camera replacing a couple of switches, tracking the flippers for an end of stroke switch replacement, while using ist maye also to be able to stream your game could potentially drive cost down while adding additional features.
Again: Not saying that this is the way to go.
Simpler example:
Most Pop Bumper Areas are totally seperated. Would it really change the outcome noticably when all 3 Pops are only driven by one switch line & coil?
Would it save money? I dunno! But it is something that could be evaluated if you see the need.
Even simpler and Stern allready does this:
If you don't have to hit targets in a specific order why bother intergrating a lot of seperate targets but include a big one, like in Munsters.
It is risky to do that if people think you're watering down the experience, since this is an obvious change. But they did it and will look if people get around accepting it.
Quoted from zeddex:Elon Musk says alot of things...and hey, hopefully its true! I am super skeptical though for the reasons I mentioned - he has been setting and missing deadlines for a while now on the "hey you can have your car drop off your kids and be an uber while you are at work" fantasy. I say this as an owner of a Tesla solar system, they make solid products.....just not buying it. And unlike pinball, which would just crater sales if a game were missing switch triggers a few times a game, the stakes are much much higher.
I don't know, last night I watched the SpaceX rocket take off from Houston. The booster rockets were spent and split off after about 4 minutes. 4 minutes later they landed perfectly upright in Cape Canaveral Florida at the exact same time. All done in 8 minutes! Musk is making real magic happen.
Quoted from DS_Nadine:Even simpler and Stern allready does this:
If you don't have to hit targets in a specific order why bother intergrating a lot of seperate targets but include a big one, like in Munsters.
It is risky to do that if people think you're watering down the experience, since this is an obvious change. But they did it and will look if people get around accepting it
This might be my "yelling at a cloud" moment because while I am all for experimentation and innovation, THAT is the single most insulting half-assed watered-down bullshit cost-cut I have ever seen.
I mean I have to ask, at that point why did they even bother with a single long target at all? Just use the scoring switch behind a stretched rubber ring. HA! I just saved Stern another $7 per game
Quoted from Wolfmarsh:I think that is really dismissive of some of the very smart engineers that work at Stern for example.
Of course it is. I've seen this argument before and it's always stupid and offensive.
There are PLENTY of people who work at Stern because they WANT to. They'd rather work in the pinball business than somewhere else. Many people have turned down higher-paying jobs to work in the pinball industry.
Most pinball companies aren't just hiring people who are otherwise unemployable off the street. They are hiring talented people who want to work on pinball machines.
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, become a Pinside+ member!
Hopkins, MN
Düsseldorf
Townsville And
