Hot Tip (Williams 1977) Better Obstructed Light mod

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  • #64614
    Schreibi34
    Participant
      @schreibi34
      Member

      Hot Tip (Williams 1977) B.O.L. mod

      Based on the Hot Tip table of 32assassin!

      A big thanks to 32assassin for letting me mod his wonderfull table

      More credits:
      Poppote for his artwork
      Gtxjoe for his help on the VP9 version

       

       

      5 users thanked author for this post.
      #64618
      Schreibi34
      Participant
        @schreibi34
        Member

        I had a nice conversation with HountFreaks about obstructed lights and that they are far from perfect. Some people like it, some people don’t. I was one of the persons who didn’t like them at all.

        So i took 32assassin’s Hot Tip table for testing. The table should be up after aproval. A big thank you to 32assassin for letting me use his table!!

        I started to fool around with the lights. I used this gameplay video as a model because i think this captured the lighting of a darker table pretty well:

         

         

        I also used this video to finetune the gameplay.

         

        I work as a CAD-Constructor in the german automobile design industrie. Sometimes i have to do renderings from my work for presentations. I’m far from perfect in this but i do know quite a bit about that lighting / shadow / material stuff. I looked at a couple of tables that were using obstructed lights. The problem was that the shadow area of the shaped light was way to dark because it’s just lights out right next to the full GI light. And the darker the setting of the table is, the worse it gets. Big lights make it worse too. When you look at a rendered picture you can see light reflecting and bouncing all over the place. Shadows are never completely dark on a pinball table and they are not as long. Only if you turn the roomlights completly off you will get those massive shadows.

        Just in case someone is interested i have written a little tutorial off what i have done. I have left you guys an example on my modded table on layer 7 to the right outside of the table. It’s a basic set of the 3 lights with an example of the triangle shadow to the center and the one that wraps around the post. The lights are preset to give you a good starting point for an environment emission scale of about 2-3 and the day-night slider about 1 increment from the left. This surely depends on the resources you are useing! Just copy the threepack to your table and experiment with it.

         

        Table grafics / materials are unchanged. Original 32A. Visually i just changed the lights. I used pictures of stripped playfields to position the lightsources.

         

        I am now using 3 lights per GI.

         

        1. A small one with high transmit (around 0,9 – and low intensity of about 3-4 depending on the plastic and personal taste) to show the light bulb through the plastic. Set the hight about 5 units below the plastic hight. If you want to use bigger lights on darker tables you need this to set a smaller highlight.

         

        2. Shaped / obstructed light with the rays being triangles with straight lines on the sides. The tip of the triangle ends in the center of the light source which makes it a lot easier to get a geometrical correct shadow (look at the template in layer 7). Select the obstructed light and ad 3 angled controlpoints next to each other by pressing F10. Pull the middle one to the center of the light. Be carefull. Don’t pull it over the middle because then the lightsource is under a shadow and the light turns off. Zoom in and make shure you stop before the centercross. Just pull the other two control points until the lines touch each side of the rubberpost.

        Now we have to make it look good for the DT users (thanks for wakeing me up, HauntFreaks). Wait with this step until you are sure that you have finished the tuning of your lights and shadows because scaling and readjusting the shadow after moving a light will benefit from the triangle shape.After you have finished the lighting add two more angled controlpoints (F10) where the shadowlines make contact to the rubberpost.Pull the controlpoint from the center to the post and make it smooth. Now you can wrap the shadow around the back of the post. You might need a second smooth control point (F11) to make it fit more perfectly around (this is also shown in the example on layer 7). Set this to a hight of about 0.5 because if you set it higher the viewing angle might cause an offset on the shadow.

        Transmit has to be set to zero for this light!

         

        3. Fully round GI that is at least 20% bigger (falloff) then the shaped light. Low transmit to light up the plastic the way you like it. Set the hight above the target hight and below the plastics. This light has a transmit value >0 and if you set it to let’s say 20 the targets will be lit from behind halfway up.
        The reflections on the ball will also benefit from this hight value because the ball will now be fully lit by the big lightsource. When set low, the ball will only be lit with the reduced transmit value.

         

         

        When you work with it, make sure you have at least two emty layers. Three would be better. Work with one threepack in let’s say layer 4 and use layer 5 and 6 for storeing so you can select single lightsets a bit easier. Chaos will make this a bad trip!

        You can play around with the values and balance everything to your likeing. A brighter shaped light will lead to more visible shadows. Also lowering the brightness of the fully round light will make the shadows more visible. Balancing is the key. You can also play around with falloff power to influence the fading of the shadows and for shure you can scale the size of the obstructed light to set the length of the shadows. If the triangles are centered correctly, the rays are not loosing contact to the rubber post when scaling.

        It’s important that the fully round light is at least 20% bigger (falloff) then the shaped one so the shadows fade into light. A falloff power of 2,5 is a good starting point for all lights.

        If you start to see things from the playfield through the plastics go to the material settings for the plastics and set opacity as high as about 0,998. On this table a opacity of 0,99 let’s me see stuff from under the plastic. This is because with this method there is a lot more light under the plastics.

        Baked in shadows might ruin the emersion of a dark table. They are usually rendered from gameroom/pub/arcade lights. Dark tables produce their shadows on a playfield level. Which means roomlights throw plastic shadows onto the playfield, GI lights throw it up to the ceiling. Only things that are lower then the light hight will produce shadows on the playfield. This table’s lighting has a mid to low overall brightness and a low opacity roomlight shadow would be the best choice for this setting. But sadly i don’t have the time and the knowledge to do ad this to the table.

         

        Ok, so much for now. I hope this was of some use for a couple of people. If hope my english was not too bad and you guys did understand what i was trying to say.

        Have fun and take care!

        3 users thanked author for this post.
        #65168
        Krille 81
        Participant
          @krille81

          Thank you very much for this kind of light mod. I like it very very much :) Good work :good:

          1 user thanked author for this post.
          #67577
          randr
          Keymaster
            @randr
            ModeratorMember

            quick video with chimes just credit and launched ball no flipping

            https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ad7ktp0cql2v8z/Video%20Oct%2025%2C%209%2019%2002%20PM.mov?dl=0

            ********************************************************
            Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
            So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
            for IOS and Android

            ********************************************************

            1 user thanked author for this post.
            #68018
            Schreibi34
            Participant
              @schreibi34
              Member

              Sorry for responding late! Will check it tonight! I was busy making primitives and learning to bake rendered textures in Blender.

              #68067
              Schreibi34
              Participant
                @schreibi34
                Member

                 That sounds awesome!

                It might sound stupid, but these are not real chimes with DOF, right? I now nothing about that DOF thing and what is actually available  :unsure:

                #68070
                randr
                Keymaster
                  @randr
                  ModeratorMember

                  Real chimes from real pinball machine.

                  ********************************************************
                  Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
                  So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
                  for IOS and Android

                  ********************************************************

                  #68073
                  Schreibi34
                  Participant
                    @schreibi34
                    Member

                    Nice!!

                    #69551
                    Ben Logan2
                    Participant
                      @benlogan2
                      Member

                      2.0 version looks so good. Thanks to you and Haunt. Excellent work.

                      1 user thanked author for this post.
                      #69553
                      Thalamus
                      Moderator
                        @thalamus
                        ContributorMemberModerator

                        Thank you Schreibi34. Just downloaded the table, will have to wait until tomorrow to try it. But, looking at the changelog it seems to be a lot of changes. Your first release was looking great already so I’m looking forward to try this one out.

                        And, thank you Hauntfreaks.

                        1 user thanked author for this post.
                        #69554
                        randr
                        Keymaster
                          @randr
                          ModeratorMember

                          Was good already so I’m sure this is great. Thank you

                          ********************************************************
                          Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
                          So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
                          for IOS and Android

                          ********************************************************

                          1 user thanked author for this post.
                          #69598
                          Ben Logan2
                          Participant
                            @benlogan2
                            Member

                            Is this one workin for you guys on VPX 10.4? I keep keep a VP needs to close error.

                            #69600
                            Schreibi34
                            Participant
                              @schreibi34
                              Member

                              It did run on my 10.4 install. I’m not at the cab so i can’t tell you the VPX built right now.

                              #69677
                              STAT
                              Participant
                                @stefanaustria
                                MemberContributor

                                I am at 3237 at it works well … thanks Schreibi :good:

                                1 user thanked author for this post.
                                #69683
                                Thalamus
                                Moderator
                                  @thalamus
                                  ContributorMemberModerator

                                  Latest here and it works great. Schreibi34 :good:

                                  1 user thanked author for this post.
                                  #73612
                                  blackvulcan3
                                  Participant
                                    @blackvulcan3
                                    Member

                                    This table is really fun, it’s a peach and the lighting is gorgeous.

                                    1 user thanked author for this post.
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