Why only have one or the other? Do drop targets and a sling in the same unit. Once the 3 or 4 targets are down it works as a sling until something else happens and resets the targets.

You could very easily have chrome exhaust pipes coming out of the top of the head (or molded into the side of the head pointing up) with lighting and colored plastic shaped like flames inside the top of the tubes and just turn a fan on to activate them. With the motion and lighting, it would be a very cool theme-appropriate effect.

This is already looking like it will be a bitch of machine to move upstairs. That weight...

Cabinet art needs to read more action-y. Also, the mustard-y font and trim reads like caution tape to me. Red reads more exciting to me.

mad-max-cab-red (resized).jpg

Heh, if you want it to be.

After opening my big mouth, I realized there's not a lot of action-y art widely available on the internet for fury road that's finished. Lots of very rough concept art, though. Given what I found on google to work with, I do like the one I mocked up on the left side better than the one on the right...

mad-max-cab-sand (resized).jpg

Shiny and chrome. It's a car fetish series.

Why not try a flanged 4 way intersection? Never been done that I know of. If you put a hump on the ramp section going across and made the intersection big enough, the ball could "jump" the gap, then the right ramp exit could drop straight through with gravity (no jump for that direction and drop right in front of the upper right flipper.

The only unknown is what percentage of balls would be going fast enough to make the jump successfully, but that could likely be tweaked by ramp angle. And in multiball where it gets busy at the intersection, you could have pinballs colliding on the ramp action-style in a perfectly theme appropriate way.

Well, I didn't know you were extending that sub return in the redesign!

But yeah, an action-intersection with a jump one of the directions could be rad if the physics work out, and the ball collisions in multiball would be on-point for the theme. You could detect balls that were knocked off (enter switch, no exit switch) and give points for it so players could be trying to make collisions happen.

For that kind of a tight switch spot, why not just use an opto pair?

Your drawing made me realize that an opto spinner you can't see in one of the turnarounds would be rad to pour on the guzzoline and supercharge your car(s).

Well, you advertised yourself as "Sick" Nate...sickness is unrelenting.

You can throw an up-post into the channel path where the captive ball is to prevent multiballs from being possible at specific points, too.

You could also make the locked ball impossible to shake or nudge out by putting a divot or shallow saucer in the playfield where the ball is supposed to rest. The newton ball action would easily shake it free, but no amount of cabinet movement would do it (short of something like lifting the cab, which would tilt it).

Haha. Last words of the condemned...

Pretty sure Iron Maiden Prem/LE has you beat on the subway length.

Lost Alexander McQueen design?

Since you've gone down this road...it would make more sense as a spring-loaded actual shifter with a coil-fired ball launch. Pull down on the shifter to launch the ball and it soft-returns to the top position in a controlled manner ready for another launch. Similar to ball launch for Data East's Star Wars, but with a better design that makes sense in this theme.

Better than free. They're paying to have it taken away. But it ain't guzzoline. Needs refining.

F Self means you're screwed in any language.

Ben Heck already did a very similar design years ago:

Not built as heavy duty, but it's the same "ball completes the circuit to fire the pop bumper" design you've done here.

Ben pees liquor?

This doesn't really help. Basically if your metal CAP is smaller than a normal skirt (it seems like it is), then that's part of the problem. You'd need to make the pop bumpers closer to account for that or make your cap area when the ball first contacts both top and bottom larger.

I just measured a Bally/Williams skirt and it's ~2.375" in diameter. So you're probably 1/2" an inch off or more (when the ball touches the traditional skirt it doesn't trigger the pop, it needs to push down on it, which is probably 1/8" or more in) which can make a difference.

3.

The journey is the reward. Skipping all that would suck.

You still have time to integrate some that could be cool. Take Nordman's "wheel of fate" cut from Elvira and use that as inspiration for the "Wheel of Valhalla" on the apron by the left outlane. Mechanical (steering?) wheel that spins with sound when the ball drains on that side and awards you a reward (or also chance for something negative?).

You also have room for Medieval Madness type troll popups on your mid-playfield.

Lots of toy opportunities left on your design. Also, it would be nice if the ports lit up before the ball exited on the backboard then faded out as the ball left.

This is the HEP way.

Dunno about Pinball Life, but in general ball magnet resistance is related to how many drinks she's had.

I've got a 511-5065-ND which this says it's a straight replacement for and that one reads 4.7 to 4.8 ohms.

So many possibilities for modes on this. You could use the guzzoline battle where max and the warboys are spitting gas into the intakes back and forth as a ramp combo mode. War boy spits and you have to make the next ramp combo in X amount of time to have max spit gas in Furiosa's rig, back and forth. Could be an exciting mode if the timers are not too tight and not too loose to create tension. Maybe add balls to create warboy chaos and make the ramps harder to combo.

Guzzoline-battle.gif

Let's get that video posted!

That's awesome, but why is the sound barely audible?

This does look amazing, now make a lenticular version so it's 3D.

Code, art, and polish are the hardest part to get finished right. You're probably about 30% done with the project.

I'd scope out deviantart and see if you can rope an artist into the project from there. Lots of talent on display, but unfortunately pinball art is a very specific skill, so an artist with an eye that works for pinball (especially on the playfield) will be the trick. You don't want to end up with a Rob Zombie or Vacation America playfield.

You would not be the first homebrew to arrive at that point. Shame, though, because you have something that could be great. It just needs a lot more work on the code/art/polish.

With plastic and polycarbonate playfields my main concern would be bad for humans offgassing due to the sustained heat generated by the coils on long sessions. I think that's why everyone else has done wood with a poly top.

Depends on the KIND of plastic. It's not all of them (or maybe it IS and we just don't know what it's doing to us). I believe coils are nylon.

I'm not talking about sublimation. Offgassing happens at much lower temps than that, in some cases less than 100F. The plastic stays in one piece, but gives off potentially toxic VOCs, depending on the material in question.

I don't really need to get into a VOC discussion, just wanted SickNate to be aware of the potential health downsides of an all-plastic playfield.

I don't know what your editing setup is like, but you can split the headphone out on the computer audio and record that separately, then add the clean audio you recorded separately at the same time to the live audio and video and mix the levels to get great sounding audio with your phone video.

Or, if you're using HDMI, you can get the audio AND video clean and inset that in the corner of your live video of the playfield.

Looks great. You have the tool to make some really great-looking spotlights for the slings instead of those boring generic ugly spotlights. You don't HAVE to, buuuuut...it sure would look a lot better.

I'm also wondering if a demolition man-like pistol handle grip option for flipper control would fit the theme and give the cabinet a cooler look.

Wow, this should be very nice. Are you animating that screen stuff or will it just be stills?

Playfield looks great, but I'd caution on the over-use of browns in the center with the cracked ground. The Walking Dead pin art is 100% on-theme, but there's so much brown and red on the playfield, it's just ugly to look at. Also, most of Fury Road movie was on sand or sand blown over rock/clay, if I recall. Maybe the marsh area could have the kind of ground you're depicting. Your art is very compelling. Fill that playfield up with it. There's no need for a Rob Zombie playfield that's way too empty.

Charlize Theron will need a harder, more badass facial expression in the final. The placid expression in the concept art looks like it's from a Summer's Eve commercial.

Looking forward to seeing this all come together!

Ah, I hadn't seen the comic and didn't realize you were just using that to make the art.

Still, it's a cool look for the pin.

Put out the word with college illustration/animation students to get it done free/cheap. Find one that has the style you want/need. They would kill to have this in their student portfolio.

I worked for a YEAR free in a library and another YEAR for free before I was hired on at a computer store when I was a teen. I've been doing video games for consoles over three decades now, so yeah, I know a few artists.

Student artists have different demands than people later in life that have families, etc to support, so it's not an impossibility to find one that wants a cool project to put on a resume. So with that in mind, thank you for your opinion. It's not fact in every situation.

I haven't asked, but I've done it. Gladly. And it paid off. Yeah, it was a long time ago when I didn't have responsibilities of life and family to support, but that's the definition of the student time of life for many, many young people.

But whatever. It was advice based on my life experience. Take it or leave it, but don't pretend it doesn't happen and don't pretend it doesn't have a chance of working out well for some who takes the shot.

The store I worked at for free for a year made money off the sales I made.

Somehow you're STILL confusing established adults with jobs with the STUDENTS IN SCHOOL I initially suggested. I never suggested professionals or established adults. I also said CHEAP was an option - as in still paying the students. Your "challenge" makes zero sense because it's completely different than what I suggested.

And again - whatever. It was advice based on my life experience. Take it or leave it (and DON'T CHANGE IT for the purpose of your unrelated argument), but don't pretend it doesn't happen and don't pretend it doesn't have a chance of working out well for some students who take the shot.

Commercial product is a little different than a homebrew. Let's be clear I'm not recommending this path for a commercial product. Might work, but if you're making money on it, the calculus changes.

Although technically Heighway didn't make any money in the end, so...

Anyway, way off subject. I'm done.

Dammit, you're right. I'm apparently still dabbling in that working for free thing, 30 years on.

That settles it. I'm putting you down as a reference for my portfolio.

Only I wasn't suggesting an internship. And if you can walk away at any time, you're neither indentured nor in servitude because there's no contract and no ownership by one party of the other during a contract period. So you're commenting on something completely different than what was suggested.

This earns an F for debate.

The second one is better. The bigger and more focused the central figure(s) are, the better. Don't make JJP's mistake with The Hobbit's first playfield (right side, below). It was fine enough art, it's just everything was too small and unimpressive for a playfield. They completely re-did it and it was better (left side, below) with more of a focus on the dragon, which was much larger in the middle of the PF.
hobbit-pf-compare (resized).jpg

You don't really NEED an EOS if you handle the timing in software.

So what's the new flipper for?

You have that saucer right below that platform. You could remove the platform and have the guide for the saucer pull back at certain times so you can pop the ball up with one flipper and bat it with the other flipper button kind of like T-ball. Have a wall of targets suspended on the right side of the playfield you can only hit with this air bat.

The only hard part would be dialing in the scoop popper strength so you're not launching the ball into the glass when that mode happens.

Just stick 3 big fans on the top like a topper on Whirlwind and blast those when your in sandstorm mode.

Are those white spots on the inlane guides just inserts, or are they player or software-controllable walls that let you block outlanes to make the side with the block up "safe?"

Also, that left ball return will drop the ball past the inserts below, not on them, right?

I just realized that upper deck flipper is going to beat the crap out of the right inside cabinet on missed shots.

Very excited to see this in color on the PF with the plastics, etc. How far away do you think you are?

Deep/complex code is good. Confusing is bad. Are you using callouts to direct the player? That's preferred to on-screen prompts since looking up is rarely done while you're playing unless there's a break in the action.

Anything new to show?

Probably spring steel.

The screws are close to the ramp wall so they won't affect ball movement. They're also usually counter sunk into the ramp as much as possible. Since the ball is round, the screw head (in green below) is located on the ramp in the part the curve of the ball passes over that doesn't touch the ramp, so the ball doesn't touch the screws, only the wall and floor of the ramp.
ramp-screw-example (resized).jpg

Looks fantastic, but I feel like the car group by the flippers needs to be larger and the perspective maybe lowered a smidge.

I don't remember exactly what the center part looked like (it was the steering wheel?) but here's an example with that area moved up slightly to allow the car pack to be resized. If you tweak the perspective down a little on the car pack it should be even more impressive with the extra-imposing size.
fury-road-pf2.gif

The cars remind me of The Hobbit's first PF pass where Smaug was way too small, flying off over a mountain. Then they revised it to make Smaug giant, front and center. Instant improvement in impact.

Those cars are amazing and the formation of the cars chosen and placed on the art has impact. It will just have more if they're larger.

hobbit-pf-compare (resized).jpg

What about from backseat drivers?

So essentially the same as the mummy ball and the orb on Iron Maiden Prem/LE, just without a ball on the post.

Yeah, I was thinking about this project just the other day. Jonesing for another update...

As long as you're moving forward, that's all that matters. This project is too cool to sidetrack!

Is the art just iterating on what you already had for the PF, or a new direction?

Metal will severely limit light dispersion. Ask your friend. If they're sick of it, they'll tell you. And plastics will be a smaller, faster job, at least.

Yeah, tire tracks, smoke bellows, flames, etc on orbit plastics, etc. None of it on the same level as what's on display on the PF.

I'm disappointed. I expected you to have magnetic launchers to really get those balls moving. Just borrow some parts off a NASCAR pin and you're set, no designing necessary.

Stick one of those car door mini-projectors opposite it just below the PF and project flames on it when it's going to eject.

Looking at the Ride Eternal insert, it might be nice to make the insert a bit bigger and do something like Indy's ETERNAL LIFE insert where the text is screened over the insert, lighting up the words.

eternal-life-insert.jpg

Or, alternately, put a Valhalla symbol on the insert, since that's what they're always talking about in the movie.

valhalla.png

It's always hardest right before the finish. Looking great.

On your Apron "dashboard" you might want to experiment with attaching the needle for the speedometer to a spring tube attached to the servo rather than directly to the servo arm. It should give you a bit of analog bounce that way so it looks like a speedometer would on a 1960s/1970s era car instead of too-crisp motion of a direct servo attachment.

The analog physical gauge motif fits in better with the movie, IMO. LCD screens are in short supply after the apocalypse.

I feel like the crow and the flying warboy with the spears need to be stylized more to get rid of the very thin lines that make them up. They're the only two that don't really fit stylistically and don't work as pure icons.

The war boy will be the hard one to present.

I found a few crow ones online to maybe give some direction to having one made.

crow-1.png

crow-2.png

crow-3.png

crow4.png

Warboy looks ok. The nordic raven still has the problem of too much fine detail with lots of fine lines that clash with the look of the other icons. I think it needs to be simplified to match the others.

Looking good. How's the software coming along?

What are the items on the 4 rows of icons? Objectives or powerups?

Looking great.

Crazy this thread is 4 years old now. Pinball is not easy.

Voice of experience here. Wisdom.

I think chunky (but NOT clunky) works with the aesthetic of the theme.