FP Resolving Problems with Captive Balls on Future Pinball

[GeorgeH]

Over the years, I’ve had ongoing issues with captive balls. I often found that the ball would strike the captive ball but only move it slightly—or, in some cases, it would bounce off the surrounding pegs without moving the captive ball at all. I attempted to widen the gap between the posts, but this introduced the risk of the ball falling out. While working on the Williams version of Indiana Jones, I noticed that a previous table developer had used a rubber post on each side of the captive ball enclosure. This solution worked extremely well.

When I began working on Galaxia, I encountered the same problem again. I decided to try the technique used on Indiana Jones. However, the FP model of the rubber post used on Indiana Jones (a T1 post) was too large to fit on Galaxia. I experimented with two alternatives. The first was a small rubber post used on Medieval Madness. The second method involved using a round post created from a surface by a previous Indiana Jones table developer, with the Material Type set to rubber or plastic.

Both methods worked, though I discovered that the small rubber post only functioned correctly when its elasticity was set to "hard." On the post created from a surface, FP does not have an adjustment for hardness of the rubber on a surface. Evidently, FP assigns a surface with a material set to rubber to hard elasticity because I don't think it would have worked if it wasn't. The materials for rubber or plastic on the surface posts worked similarly. The rubber material has a little more bounce than the plastic but both worked. I suggest trying both.

Ultimately, I chose to use the round post made from a surface with the rubber material setting, as the small rubber post looked out of place next to the larger T1 post. I was able to give the round surface post a metallic appearance by applying the sphere-mapped "[chrome-silver]" texture. Since I had integrated FizX into Galaxia, I renamed the posts to Metal1 and Metal2 so that the automatically generated ball hit sound would produce a metallic effect instead of a rubber one.

I’ve attached a demo table that showcases both methods. I also included an overlay used to measure the gap between the posts, with each side set to 22 mm. A gap of 23 mm also works. In my experience, a 22 mm or 23 mm gap tends to deliver the best performance.

Update: I deleted the attachment of the first captive ball demo because the physics of the naive FP are so bad. I added the captive ball demo to my FizX template and attached it. Be sure to add the zip of the FizX 1K ball to the table if you want it to play correctly.

Update 5/12/25: I have discovered another method that improves performance of the captive ball. This method adjusts the angle of the two posts for the captive ball. First add an overlay on the table and set the height to 400 or 500 mm and leave the width set to the default. Then set the rotation so it is oriented between the flipper that is normally used to hit the captive ball and the captive ball as shown on the first screenshot below. Once you get the rotation correct, make the width wide enough so it spans both posts as shown on the second screenshot. You then use the overlay as a guide set the position of both posts so they just touch the overlay. Once you have that adjusted, you can change the width of the overlay to 22 or 23 mm and use the overlay as a measurement device to set the gap between the two posts as shown in the third screenshot.

Of course this method works when there is there only one flipper that would normally make the shot. On the table I am editing in the screenshots, the captive ball might be hit by the left upper flipper but it is intended to be used to hit a target above the captive ball.
If the captive ball is in the dead center of the table, then you should probably set the posts so they are parallel to the top and bottom of the table. Having the captive ball is in other locations that can be hit by both flippers may require some sort of compromise or or you might choose the primary one.

 

[madmrmax]

I started responding to this thinking about the newton ball change where scripting was used, then I recalled the difference between newton vs. captive :D

BUT that said, there might be an opportunity to use BAM scripting to get a better than "stock" experience. I'll have to try out your demo table!

 

[GeorgeH]

I started responding to this thinking about the newton ball change where scripting was used, then I recalled the difference between newton vs. captive :D

BUT that said, there might be an opportunity to use BAM scripting to get a better than "stock" experience. I'll have to try out your demo table!

If you figure out a better approach in the script, you can post it here.

 

[madmrmax]

@Wecoc - you do great with script based solutions -- have you done anything in the past to make captive ball respond better?

 

[GeorgeH]

Update: I added the captive ball demo to my FizX template because the physics of FP are so bad in the first demo. It is attached to the first posting. Be sure to add the zip of the FizX 1K ball to the table.

 

[Wecoc]

You could "fake" a captive ball similar to the Newton ball, with an invisible target and a dummy ball. The target would detect the speed and angle of the ball in impact, and the dummy ball would act accordingly. It may be a case-by-case solution, but it's basically like the Captive Ball Hitter script I posted, simply with an invisible target instead.

 

[Popotte]

OK, newton ball don't work with stock FP, but I never had problem with captive ball.

 

[pinhead1]

i can't open the file in post #1....i tried all the apps on my PC...
i think i understand the Q.
i had the same sometimes in VP9.....the ball fell through the captive posts
i left clicked, drag and highlight the object then used the direction keys up, down, left, right on the KB to move the object
1 VPunit at a time usually fixed it good enough to keep the ball from falling through.

 

[GeorgeH]

i can't open the file in post #1....i tried all the apps on my PC...

It is a Future Pinball file. I downloaded it and it plays on my PC.

You could "fake" a captive ball similar to the Newton ball, with an invisible target and a dummy ball. The target would detect the speed and angle of the ball in impact, and the dummy ball would act accordingly. It may be a case-by-case solution, but it's basically like the Captive Ball Hitter script I posted, simply with an invisible target instead.

It was actually @madmrmax that wanted your feedback. He will probably show up. Thanks for your response. Your captive ball hitter script looks cool although I have never worked on a table that has that type of configuration. Unfortunately, I don't understand it. It is too bad I am not better at script. I use your solution for spinners every time I encounter one. It works great.

OK, newton ball don't work with stock FP, but I never had problem with captive ball.

To my thinking, some of the misses should be hits. The incoming ball needs to be almost perfectly centered on the two posts to get a good captive ball hit that hits the target. If one post is hit first even by a small amount, the incoming ball is reflected to the other post and it can move between the posts very quickly. It sometimes ends up moving the captive ball a little but not enough to hit the target.

I have found that hard rubber posts seem to make it work better. I think the rubber absorbs some of the blow of the incoming ball so it doesn't move so sporadically. The idea to use rubber posts is not mine though. The rubber posts were used on the first version of the Williams Indians Jones table. I am thinking it was probably GLXB.

========

I happened to find this slow motion video of a real captive ball in motion. It seems the posts have a much larger diameter than the ones in FP.

 

[pinhead1]

i can't open the file in post #1....i tried all the apps on my PC...

George>>>>
It is a Future Pinball file. I downloaded it and it plays on my PC..

pinhead1>>>>my bad,,,,i cant open the "attachment" file in #1 in my PC....not the FP table DL,,,,
did you try my suggestion in #8 to stop the ball from falling through if i got it right what you are trying to do??
or you could use the editor to make the rubber bumper captive pegs bigger or smaller to stop the from falling through.
just a suggestion....it was easy
i don't know what elasticity you are using but .3 works ok in VP9.
i don't recall the captive ball having a lot of bounce when i played real PB
a direct hit would kick the ball to hit the target then came straight back to rest at the pegs...no bounce

 

[GeorgeH]

George>>>>
It is a Future Pinball file. I downloaded it and it plays on my PC..

pinhead1>>>>my bad,,,,i cant open the "attachment" file in #1 in my PC....not the FP table DL,,,,
did you try my suggestion in #8 to stop the ball from falling through if i got it right what you are trying to do??
worked for me....

The ball will stay captured if you set the gap correctly. I found that 22 mm works well. I just checked one of Popotte's tables and it was set to 23 mm. In the past, I tried moving the pegs that hold the ball further apart which I thought would expose more of the captive ball. It didn't help much. Of course if you move the pegs too far apart, the ball will fall out. ...But that is not the problem.

The problem I have on FP is described above but reposted here: "The incoming ball needs to be almost perfectly centered on the two posts to get a good captive ball hit that hits the target. If one post is hit first even by a small amount, the incoming ball is reflected to the other post and it can move between the posts very quickly. It sometimes ends up moving the captive ball a little but not enough to hit the target."

The best solution I have found is to use a rubber post set to hard rubber.

 

[pinhead1]

George#11
pinhead1>>>>what happens when you set the rubber to a softer setting?
most of the tables had plastic lane guides.
try removing the rubber around the pegs.
should be plastic lane guides for the ball and pegs to catch the ball...
maybe that's why you have too much bounce and can't get a good hit
i don't remember seeing rubber around the pegs for the captive ball....maybe pegs and plastic guides....
if i remember correct the plastic lane guides had a tapered narrow edge to catch the ball...no pegs
i guess you could use pegs if you want but no rubber.
now it's coming back to me.
this link kind of proved my suspicion...
captiveball...>>>

Google Search

any suggestions why i can't open the attachment file in #1?.....tried using different apps in the popup apps selection.
i tried notepad, word and a few more....no go...none worked.

 

[GeorgeH]

George#11
pinhead1>>>>what happens when you set the rubber to a softer setting?
most of the tables had plastic lane guides.
try removing the rubber around the pegs.
should be plastic lane guides for the ball and pegs to catch the ball...
maybe that's why you have too much bounce and can't get a good hit
i don't remember seeing rubber around the pegs for the captive ball....maybe pegs and plastic guides....
if i remember correct the plastic lane guides had a tapered narrow edge to catch the ball...no pegs
i guess you could use pegs if you want but no rubber.
now it's coming back to me.
this link kind of proved my suspicion...
captiveball...>>>

Google Search

any suggestions why i can't open the attachment file in #1?.....tried using different apps in the popup apps selection.
i tried notepad, word and a few more....no go...none worked.

The only way to open the file on the first posting is to install Future Pinball. Since you probably don't want to spend that much time doing it, I have attached some screenshots. The screen shot on the left is from the demo table on the first posting. The white squares are put there to measure the gap. The screenshot on the right is from an original table called Galaxia that I am working on.

I have to admit that the setup on the left side of the first screenshot doesn't look very authentic although I noticed that one of the people on the thread you posted used rubber on the posts as a fix to the Fireball table. I was surprised to see it used on the Indiana Jones table that I updated. At first I wondered why the original table developers did it, but I later figured out that it fixed the problems I was experiencing with captive balls in the past. I left it that way when I posted the table and no one complained. I tried setting the rubber to intermediate and later soft on the demo table. They both worked OK but didn't feel right on the game play. It didn't look right either because the captive ball bounced around the enclosure too much.

The setup on the right looks a bit more authentic because it appears to have metal posts even though the material is set to rubber. There is only one setting for the rubber material on FP but it plays like it is hard rubber. I noticed that some of the solutions on the Fireball table were to use plastic to hold the captive ball. I tried changing the posts to plastic and found that they work about as well as rubber. There could be some subtle improvement with plastic but it would take a lot more testing to figure it out.

The world of virtual pinball is a bit different than real pinball. We end up using some unconventional methods to make tables play more realistically. I can say that the rubber (or plastic) posts make the table play more like a real table.

I am thinking I may shorten the posts on Galaxia because they seem a little high even though they match the height of the rubber post beside them.

 

[pinhead1]

G>>>>The only way to open the file on the first posting is to install Future Pinball. Since you probably don't want to spend
that much time doing it<<>>
G, that's not fair to make a judgement call like that...
it's not i don't want to.....i am so far behind on my DLs, updates and installs.
my PC seems to play VP9 ok but seems be struggling with VPX and maybe FP.
Been dealing with an aging parent.
i posted my opinion on this because i knew something was wrong.

 

[pinhead1]

sorry G, i guess i wasn't paying attention when you said it was an FP file.

 

[GeorgeH]

I am sorry but I didn't intend to offended you. I didn't express my line of thought correctly which was that there aren't many people that would want to take the time to install FP just to play a demo table.

 

[pinhead1]

I am sorry but I didn't intend to offended you. I didn't express my line of thought correctly which was that there aren't many people that would want to take the time to install FP just to play a demo table.

no, you didn't offend me. it's ok...i know you didn't mean it that way.
i try not to judge someone when i don't know anything about them.
it;s more my fault because you did say it was an FP file.

 

[GeorgeH]

no, you didn't offend me. it's ok...i know you didn't mean it that way.
i try not to judge someone when i don't know anything about them.
it;s more my fault because you did say it was an FP file.

I appreciate your feedback. I didn't think about setting the material on the post to plastic until I read your posts.

 

[GeorgeH]

I have updated the first posting to include a completely different method of improving the performance of captive balls. This method involves moving the two posts for the captive ball so they are at a precise 90 degree angle to the trajectory of the incoming ball.

I also found that a gap between the two posts of 23 mm also works and updated the write-up so it says to use either 22 or 23 mm.

I have also discovered that the posts that have been built from a surface can be set to plastic. Both plastic and rubber work and the write-up was changed accordingly.