Original Table Jungle Girl / FPX

Dec update

:whistle:And what it looks like in table view at the present moment. Made quite a few changes to say the least... Still a ways to go and need a couple BAM questions answered. I redid the main pf, threw out about 65 percent of it, and redrew everything so it looks a lot better now. Still have transparent plastics and shadows on them to do, and then the backglass and cabinet, then it's small stuff.

Maybe I will get this out before everyone dies of old age.
 

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Jungle girl backglass

Tentative backglass. A bit of work...
 

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Wow, I lost track of this one. Talk about some beautiful lighting, colors, detail, etc...
 
Thanks it's actually a surprising amount of work with multiple artists/inkers/colorists/images to make it all look the same as one complete image. Really learned a lot the last few months on how to do it. The toughest part is having to draw in the art myself to fill in any gaps. Thank god for the clone tool. :)
 
Just now I saw you mention "10 images and 70 layers" on FB.

Does that mean the average image needed to be broken down in to seven layers, or how did that work?
 
Depends on the image. I used about 4 different images for the leaves, as none of them were enough to fill in the sides, so I had to find and use multiple images and then spend the time to get them to "match". A lot of work with the photoshop filters, which I had to learn on the fly. Some layers were small cutouts of a leaf or 2 to fill in any large gaps.

The main image was very good, but it's more vertical than horizontal (comic book image) It was getting the size right, especially since the displays were 9 digit and not 7 (for the scrolling text and I like using big words) and then cutting out each section (like the Parrots) and place them properly in the image, and then redraw in the areas that were cut out and fill them in with art. (my GF noticed this, but I will be moving the flying parrot to the left side from the right, a blue parrot on a blue background was not a great idea) I had a problem with the width, it was too small so had to add a border and the leaves, and extended the sides every so slightly.

I also use different duplicate layers but with blends, like the overlay and soft light blend, especially on the leaves, as well as liberal use of the vibrance, smart sharpen, liquify and oil painting tools. Resources were a bit limited, but then I wanted to learn so I guess worth the effort. Sure learned a lot of new things the last few months, maybe in another 15 years if I decide to do another original table, I can remember some of this stuff.. ;)

I do admit it's rather a excessive amount of work though for a table that may be downloaded 450 times total.
 
Sounds like fun, for the most part!

I haven't messed with PS / PSlite for 10+ years, but did enjoy all the cool tools and filters. Unfortunately joint pain curtailed such projects pretty sharply. But speaking of filters, if I started producing art again, I'd have to give a serious think towards what degree the typical piece would be real-life vs digital. For example, some of the paper pixelations that took me months to finish could probably be done about as well with a couple filters, now. Zoiks.

Btw, taking a closer look at JG's layout, I'm kind of worried / dubious about those lower two bumpers. I could see some seriously jumpy / random / frustrating play arising out of the interplay between those, the slingshots, the flippers, and the outlanes. I'm thinking some posts surrounding the lower portions of those bumpers might clear up a lot of that, though. Maybe.

I guess you gave the PF a good, thorough test before moving on to the art, though?
 
Been playing it for a year now. :)

Actually plays quite well. There's a peg on the left to prevent the ball going down the drain lane, the other side is closed off with a gate. The bumpers are up quite high, the idea came from viking, I raised my bumpers up to prevent that. The drains are very easy to save by the way, most of the time I lose the ball between the flippers.

In the first design, had 2 small posts and a single target in front, but the play was quite bad. The actual big problem is the inline targets to the player, very dangerous shot. Keeping people on their toes.

Yeah, this has been fun doing it.
 
*Fistbump*, Shiva.

Look forward to seeing it!
 
So am I, keep finding bugs in the code though. sigh
 
Dynamic flippers for Bally

Progress with bug fixes and new BAM features has been surprisingly good. (for me at least) The cabinet is done, a screenshot is attached. Next is to look at the backbox image and decided if the object space is worth the extra lights for game over/match etc displays.

Worked on those flippers,added the walls from Blues flippers, but after a bit of experiment, the 2 small flippers are no longer needed, as I settled instead to make the omega values quite a bit stronger at the base. Just a brief tutorial here about this...

The problem was the size of the Bally flippers and how weak the shots were towards the center of the table. The ball barely made it to the 2 inside lanes of the table,and I wanted far more speed.

The Bam dynamic flippers are quite good, but they are more for the T1 flippers (williams) as opposed to the T4 flippers I use. (bally/gottlieb) Using the base code for the T4 flippers causes problems with the speed of the ball at the base of the flippers (too weak) and also changes the angle of the shot at the contact point of the flipper to severely. It is also harder to aim, and the ball at the tip of the flipper will send the ball into the bottom of the slingshot. (The walls correct that,and reset the angles better) As well, because the Bally flippers are smaller than the williams flippers, it means there's less surface area,and the flipper contact points are closer together, and FP has always had problems with contact points being too close together

With the Williams flippers, the code is
Code:
omegaCorrectionl = MaxOmega - (LeftFlipperExt.ContactPoint * ((MaxOmega - MinOmega)/1.2))
which divides by 1.2

I have found with the Bally flippers that the speed of very vertical shots is far better if it is divided by 1.05 instead of artificially increasing the set Min and Max Omega values.
Code:
omegaCorrectionl = MaxOmega - (LeftFlipperExt.ContactPoint * ((MaxOmega - MinOmega)/1.05))

Using the shaped walls and getting them right really helps the aiming as well,as it's my theory that FP physics are too extreme in the amount of angle it adds to the ball movement based on the contact point of the flipper. It's worse with the Bally flippers because the bally flippers are 20% smaller and have 20% less surface area than the Williams flippers.

If you are using Bally/Gottlieb type flippers, using this modification and the flipper wall method greatly improves the flippers and the shots if you take the time to adjust it. You will see Jungle Girl fpx soon, as I am getting there...
 

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Aiming for next friday. still playing with it though, found a couple things, but that's me... Plays very unfp like, which is a good thing. I ended up using about 60-70 objects to fix the game play so it's very refined play.
Added some more graphics, a couple signs, and changed the text and removed lights to reflect the latest rule changes.
It plays very fast now, and is a bit flashy. Fun little game though, been really enjoying just playing it, when I should really be sick of looking at it by now.

Here's the latest screenshot. If my computer can handle it, do a video soon.
Future Pinball - © 2008 BSP Software Design Solutions 2020-01-31 11_58_54 AM.png
 
WIP Video of Jungle Girl fpx. Still a bit rough in places, most definitely needs some polish and a issue still to be corrected with the side targets custom physics and FP's inability to have a realistic bounce. (I did have to make major changes in the last month. geez...) Hopefully will get there soon enough, just don't think it's ready yet.

So, because I'm going on vacation very shortly, and won't be able to touch the game till March, Should I just release the game now rather than make people wait longer? Nothing really wrong with it, just minor stuff and more physics balancing and game play. What you guys think?


No comments on my game playing please. :)
Ball 3 is the multiball system. There's also a instant multiball from the skillshot, which is actually pretty easy (You can make it harder if you want)
 
Ah, I really love night versions of tables.

Anyway, maybe offer it to playtesters if you're concerned about quality issues?
 
I think a lot of people are more than happy to point out the flaws weather I ask them or not. Especially from the vp community :)
I see 2 issues in the video, think I can correct them at least. Hopefully more will not show up as the code is actually quite complex. Hard to offer to playtesters as there's some things in there that are very experimental and never been done before, and a lot of people may not understand the code and the way I do things (which is very weird to most coders) to be able to help.
The game is actually a bit of a mess codewise. You learn new stuff as you go along, so the code can get very messy and disorganized. Even highly compressed, the script is 6000 lines. If I uncompressed the script, and have each line on it's own line, and not grouped together it would be well over 20,000 lines. Doing the BAM Stuff especially. Just setting up the light/bulb settings would be over 1000 lines of code. THat was a hell of a lot of typing....
 
Just setting up the light/bulb settings would be over 1000 lines of code. THat was a hell of a lot of typing....
Zoiks! oO

Do playtesters typically look at code? I don't think I've ever done that, myself. Usually I just ask for the rules if it's an original. But whatever. Maybe just release it as a βeta, then. I'm sure the community will enjoy future revisions and such...

Btw, if you decide to release it exclusively here, do you mind if I mention the release at the "PN is NOT dead" thread at VPF? See, I was already thinking of linking people to some of the cool originals that can only be found here and at IRP, and Jungle Girl would obviously make a pretty fantastic addition to that short list. Anyway, just a thought.
 
good by me Nic, though some people there wouldn't be that happy about it, but then they can can go fuck themselves anyway. Don't really care about them, maybe a couple people will enjoy it if they know about it. If you wish to do that well thank you, I'm not welcome there. It will be here first as pinsimdb can be very slow, but the vast majority of fp users go there, including all the people that make tables. I was also thinking about vforums, but not a beta. Will load it up here though for certain, haven't really thought about it all that much.

Not sure if there will be a updated second release. I have learned a lot here, and would like to fold all that into fpxEngine, and get started on giving people what they wanted for many years.

Still,a few things I have thought of that would have been nice in JG.. :)
 
Thanks Steve. Pecking at the next update, but had one of those ideas so taking time for that. Same with the other table (Too many damn timers steve!) but you know what, when you dream up something, you go with it right? :)
 
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