Spokane, WA
Quoted from benheck:You could have a pair of solenoids inside the virtual pin to give flipper feel. Perhaps a third as a general purpose knocker. Accelerators could feel nudges and also act as a tilt bob.
Then probably some higher resolution haptic feedback motors (near the flipper buttons) to simulate things such as the feel of ball roll or impact.
Pinball isn't skydiving, car racing or sex. It's a person watching a ball roll around under glass while they feel and hear the vibrations of mechanics.
"Better than reality" - you could do visual tricks like Zen Pinball. Things that can't possibly be built. Should keep it to a minimum, what I'd do is have cool mechs that would be too expensive / fragile for a real game, but still feel physically possible.
I have real flipper mechs, real sling mechs and real pop bumper mechs (along with chimes and a bell and a knocker) in my virtual cab. Oh, and an accelerometer for nudging and a tilt bob for tilts. It all definitely all adds to the effect but it still has a ways to go for total immersion, 3d and head tracking big amongst them. I enjoy it for what it is, definitely nice to be able to play all the machines that I don't get to play very often and will likely never own. To me it is a wonderful addition to a small collection. Then there is a whole other side to the hobby in creating your own tables, or recreating real ones and all the coding and art and everything else that goes along with it. It's all fun.
