Day 1
- Purchase was painless, but you would think they would tell you how to download the asset once you pay for it. Maybe everyone else on the planet is psychic and they automatically knew, but my first time, so, I didn't. I just googled it. You have to do it through unity itself using the asset store tab. Seems to work fine, I guess it's a unity thing. Unity also installs Visual Studio 2017, which may not be a good thing as Unity uses this as a script editor. (s-l-o-w)
- Downloading it was a tiny bit confusing, I had to keep telling it to import stuff etc. It also decided my public document folder was the place to put everything, which you really do not want.
- Keys have to be changed, as apparently the latest version of Unity has problems with the CTRL keys, I would put that info at the top of the pdf, so people notice it. Of course, maybe the next release, they could just change the defaults to the way everyone who uses VP and FP knows. Sure make it a lot comfortable for everyone. very tough to shake the table with the s and / keys, even from the shift as flippers, so I set them to FP/VP defaults. This way, I don't sprain my fingers trying to reach the nudge keys. Oh, no "special" keys as some games have 2 buttons per side? Is there a global setting for this?
- Looks a bit confusing, but takes time to learn. Tried out the first demo, it works fine. Not a big fan of the designs, but kind of nifty the first time you see it. Alas, I think by VP/FP standards, this would be one of those games where people play once or twice and then never play it again. I remember the first releases of VP, with the 2 games, (one of which was a very simple version of the arcade game High Speed) was a perfect example, as it was a very decent game that played well and was simple to figure out. As nice as the two demo games were to look at, they just were not that fun to play, some design no-no's in there, and lacked polish in the game play. Even a simple design like Bally's EightBall (1977) would be better, not just for playing, but also for people to tear apart and see how the program works bit by bit. They played like a decent flash game would, I think they were built by people who didn't play a lot of the arcade games. Bumpers were weak, the ball went very wild a few places, some flow errors, stuff like that. The physics needed adjusting for certain, so not rating the physics yet till I learn a lot more. They seemed good though, but haven't done things like flipper flicks etc but for the most part, the set physics are serviceable.
- The general appearance was very cartoonish, not very realistic. Some of the models needed replacing, very basic and just didn't look very nice. The animations were real good, but I can't help but wonder about using your own stock, like models etc. They use materials as well, this I never liked as it made things far more complex than we are all use to. I guess it has it's advantages. looking into that is way down the road, but I miss the stock FP/VP models already.
- Didn't see it in the manual, should be a "Pinball creators for Dummies" section right at the top that gives all the vital info for absolute beginners to use. Things like key settings, it was only when I went into the settings that I noticed the camera views. Personally, I like the FP method, with a view assigned to one of the F keys. Maybe a video made available? Global settings would be real good with this, but have to read the manual first. :)
- Can't help but notice, but the common names are very goofy compared to what we are use to. "Life" may be balls per game as a example, in fact appears to be a lot of things that are named weird. The devs are french, but still, maybe get english speaking people to go over this, as there are some pretty weird names even for objects. A "apron" is actually called a "Manual Board" (WTF?) etc. Some of them are kind of funny, but still, commercial program, should be a lot more polished.
- Alright, I changed the keys for the flippers, they worked fine in the editor, (you have to save it though in editor mode only) yet when I built the game to run as a exe, the keys were back to the default and used the ctrl keys and not the shift keys. The newest version of Unity has this bug. Hmmm... Oh, just found a major no-no a big bug with the flippers. If you do a key press, and then release the key, it's fine. BUT, if you press and hold the left flipper key, and then press and hold the right flipper key, when you release the left flipper key it still stays up. When you finally release the right key, then BOTH flippers will go down.
- I can see a problem with materials/meshs etc. When you click on the (very very tiny) icon to change say a material, everything is presented as one big listing, and not sorted by folder. For instance, the "playfield" material had about 7 or so files all named playfield, same with the models etc. Being able to view and use through the editor child folders would be a great idea. Think about it, FP and it's library files are exactly like that, after all these years, I have to have literally thousands of these files all lumped together in one listing. Try finding just that one file sometimes....
- Okay, so it's very different how this is laid out compared to VP and FP. It seems like a lot just from first impressions, maybe too overwhelming to a person with no experience with code, and the main source screen is so geek ware it's not funny. Looks like days/weeks/months/years of watching videos just to get a basic understanding of Unity is in order, then days/weeks/months/years of reading the manual as well, though it looks very good. Add to that days/weeks/months/years to learn scripting, and Houston, we have a problem. A lot of people who will try this have never used Unity, so they will be pretty lost very fast, it's a bit overwhelming as soon as you see it, and the vast majority will just give up as it requires a huge investment of time and the ability to learn some pretty high end complex stuff. Once you do, (if you have that patience to learn that is) I can see some big advantages to this way. Man, I thought VP10 was over complicated...
- So, first impressions. Not as impressed as I thought I would be. This should have been a lot better, if not easier to use at the very least. You can see the biggest flaw straight off, the fact it uses Unity as the editor and not a custom GUI like FP and VP. The first thing was when I loaded the first demo, I couldn't find it, apparently the view was from outer space, so it took quite a while to click down to a view able state. That really goofy setup to change views sure didn't help matters, I actually had to search to find out how to adjust the view in the editor, in fact, I will have to Google constantly because it's Unity. It's a great program, it's used by high end commercial games, but that's the thing. All we need is a top down view, not to the side or the bottom or any of the massive amount of things used for other games. I can see a lot of people getting frustrated with that bloody camera, in fact, Unity lost it's focus a couple times so I was jumped back to a outer space view.
VP and FP are far better and a hell of a lot easier to use, and those are freeware. This is a PAID program, and you expect it to be more customized considering the price. A proper front end editor is a absolute must just so the average person can use it. Unity is just way overkill as a editor, and well, 99.95 % of the entire population of this planet don't even know what a basic html tag is, they will more than likely walk away from this just from the investment of time it will take to just be able to use it. All people want is a simple editor, say drag and drop, that is easy to learn, and easy to use. This program needs a custom front end that was designed for just one thing, and that is to make pinball tables, and not anything else. Other people who have this already have learned Unity, but it's one of the most complex programs out there, I just installed it yesterday for the first time, and already had to search the internet several times to learn basic things. If I am building a huge open world FPS, sure I would use Unity, but for a pinball table? Nope, can't see too many people with that kind of time to learn, especially since there are alternatives out there that do the same job far easier. (And consider how complex VPX has become, that is saying something)
Still, as people already know, I never give up that easily, especially as I just paid 40 freaking dollars for it, so I will continue to work with this. I suspect some of my questions will be answered reading and going through the documentations (which is massive BTW) so as the days go on, I will be learning all the things needed. Going step by step, I figure it will take a month or so, there is virtually no community, so trial and error, a lot of reading, and more than a few swear words. see what Day 2 brings. Time to read that manual, work through it step by step, and start learning how to use this program.