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What is the holdup on Batman forever, pf images, plastics, 3D models, everything, or is it just not a good table. The reason I ask is because I was at a guys shop getting parts for stellar wars and he had an unpopulated BAtman forever playfield. @Bord buying that one playfield for the build made me think of this. If that’s what we need I may make another trip down there to get a wood rail playfield and I could either take pics or see how much to buy it for better resources. I am sure if he has the plastics too I could get pics of those for nothing. Let me know
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We’re not lacking skills, that’s for sure. Look what @dark has been up to lately among others. Resources for sure are lacking but also desire maybe? I’ve been thinking a lot recently about being ok with some pinball games just not being worth playing/collecting/building. Not saying that is the case here, but my love of pinball has slowly shifted from love of all pins and a desire to play them to being ok with passing some games by entirely.
If BF was a 20 hour build split between a few guys then cool, but if we’re talking 100+ hours plus cash for resources then why aren’t we chasing Spiderman or Iron Man (or even Sega Star Wars).
Seriously not trying to dump on BF too hard, just trying to think about resource allocation these days. Scottacus started me on this by having a stripped and restored playfield for Pirates Gold and deciding it just wasn’t a game that needed to be made in VP.
Just my 2 cents. If the game itself means anything to you go for it.
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Just out of curiosity:
Is this because of the 300+ hours, that it takes to make a table in Blender, are starting to get on your nerves? Do you feel it’s better to wait for the next step in VP where every table could be made in 50 – 100h, looking as good as the prerender stuff? Because that’s more and more how i feel right now. Especially with the MSFS build i’m working on. I have about 100 cameras right now to capture the table with perspective textures. Only to make sure everybody can choose their own POV. And for the GI-OFF textures i will render through all those cameras again. Frank alone will get 8 Baked textures on 5 different meshes just to simulate the different lightstates. Don’t get me wrong! I love setting up the table in Blender up to the point where you can do a nice render and show it to the comunity! But 80% of the boring work is done after that! Thats 250h of boring repetitive work that doesen’t feel like a hobby! None of this would be necessary with a newer engine. This is not related to the Devs work! Guys, i love your work and i can’t thank you enough for everything you have done for VP!!! I’m just saying that i am running out of gas right now. No worries, MSFS will be finished, but what’s next?
@Tom
This is no hijack of your thread. I think this is an explenation of why some tables are not being made these days. A few well known authors seem to take smaller breaks inbetween tables. Maybe, and i say MAYBE, they feel the same and the smaller breaks get a bit longer after each table.
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Complex tables like this require allot of primitives. I don’t think anyone is willing to spend time making those models
unless HQ resources are available. this might just be my opinion can speak for everyone.
their are multiple VP9 tables that can be rebuilt in VPX and look good because of the HQ resources used in the VP9 version.
this is not one of them. the Batwing toy does look good though
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxhmjjscrmn18u9/Batman%20Forever.zip?dl=0
see a table you like help me find the resources so that I can finish it
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7qtake9whi5ium2/AAB4K4W78oMVlqSxTzKtGHTHa?dl=0You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I was interested in doing Batman Forever, but I could not find most of the artwork. I do understand Schreibi’s viewpoint however. Totan costed me a lot of time (about 60 hours … uh a little bit more (reference to another thread…)), and much of it is kind of boring UV/duplicating meshes/waiting for renders/texture work. For me it is kind of worth it, otherwise I would not have started on Whirlwind. But if I do not have highres images/scans of the plastics and PF, I seriously don’t see the point of doing all the 3d work.
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I have never played the real table and prob only played the vp9 once so wasn’t sure if the layout was the issue. When I saw all those playfields hanging on the wall Batman forever immediately stood out to me so I figured I would ask. It’s a 4 hr round trip drive back down there but the last time I went I was there for 4 hours bullshitting about pinball games, really nice guys.
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Is this because of the 300+ hours, that it takes to make a table in Blender, are starting to get on your nerves? Do you feel it’s better to wait for the next step in VP where every table could be made in 50 – 100h, looking as good as the prerender stuff?
haha YES.
I’ve been collecting all of my best quality assets and more or less staging them in Blender so that they are built and ready for the future. That way whatever pinsim can overcome VPX’s graphic limitations will have a whole arsenal of classic Stern games ready to go in possibly as few as a dozen hours each. I’m trying to think more like @dark, who is building assets to such a robust degree that they can be resources for many virtual pinball platforms to come. Honestly, 15 years from now no one is going need to model a new Frankenstein toy.
There will still be things to prerender in other gaming engines, AO maps etc, but not at the same level as you’re doing with MSFS for sure.
So IMO @armyaviation is on the right track. Collect the assets whenever you can get them (but probably only put in the legwork if you can scan or really know how to work around camera lens distortion) even if a VPX version never materializes. At that point picking up the project in the future just got a whole lot easier.
Although I do fear that if it takes another 2 years for a VPX engine update to show up a large amount of the already dwindling author pool will have moved on to other things.
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Definetly the right way to go! That’s what i had in mind when doing the LW-Tower and the Atlantis sub. Make it good and people can use it in the future. A good mesh is a good mesh!
Remember the threads about baking shadows and how this ruins the artwork and how nobody will ever be able to find the original resources for future versions? This is the point where it took off in the “wrong” (don’t take this too serios!) direction. Sometimes it feels like we should have used the hybrid (Blender / VPX) method more. A few metal renderings, a shadow layer and VPX lights (BOL-Mod…… LOL!). I’m still happy with the Vector table. I don’t know why i stopped using VPX the way it was supposed to be used.
Toxie, Fuzzel, don’t feel rushed by what i’m saying here! I just had to speak it out loud. A few good guys have left the building already and VPX is loosing a bit because of it’s age. I tried to put some fresh paint on it but it’s just to time consuming for me. I still hope a few guys like Flupper, g5k or Knorr will continue to make VPX shine. When VPX takes the next step, i am ready!
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There are a few factors that motivate authors to take a table on, one of them is a desire to make it better some how. Many contributors including myself have taken many projects on because they thought they could improve it some how. In life you have to choose your battles, if it takes pros like flupper and knorr roughly a year per table you can bet that they aren’t going to want to spend that year on a table they aren’t really interested and or a table with poor resources.
I have a similar attitude as bord, particularly in regards to my current vpx collection. I used to have hundreds of tables in the VP9 era leading into vpx but after a certain point in vpx’s life I decided vpx tables were consistently better than vp9 tables in all regards. So I ended up redoing my entire collection based on quality of tables. This meant I had to disregard a number of tables that I liked but I felt they were too dated to fit in with the rest. Some tables aren’t worth re-building or making in the first place unless it’s worth while to you, case in point Joust would have never….ever….been made in VPX due to 1). poor quality artwork 2). lack of interest and 3) such an obscure table, but I really wanted it done to play on my cocktail table (selfish) so I made it happen.
I’ve said before, it’s like the old field of dreams slogan “If you build it they will come” except in our case it’s resources and it’s “If you find them they will build it”. Batman forever isn’t the most popular table but it’s by no means a bad table, it has some interesting elements but with so many negatives piling on it, it’s not very appealing to build. BF is lacking resources, lacking general interest and would require a lot of work.
I want to point out the VP resource section of this site. When this site first started randr took feedback from me for organizing files and resources on this site. I wanted to build a 3D resource section in vpf originally but Paul never came through on that so when randr started up vpb I wanted us to get off on the right foot. However with that said I feel the section is under utilized. We have a lot of useful 3d objects/packs available there and it’s growing but there’s only a handful of play field/plastic scans. The VP resource area on this site really should be full of play field scans and plastics. For a long time the practice has been simply to rip resources from other (approving) author’s tables. I never wanted any of my models to get locked to a table because the author didn’t allow modding so I’ve tried to upload my models for download for future use as well as make it abundantly clear that my models are always freely available.
In conclusion I would like to encourage people to upload their table resources to vpb to really start making a virtual pinball resource library. I always imagined this site as the safe haven hub for collaborating authors and that’s what (to me at least) separated it from other sites. So whether you are just an end user an artist, a table author or what ever, if you have something that could be useful to the community, upload it, make it available and you never know when someone might be inspired.
This site’s relies on everyone’s contributions to be great!
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@schreibi34, I do remember that. There was definitely a hybrid era for me but it kept creeping more and more into full renders. Kind of a snowball effect.
Since it doesn’t seem like VPX will have any earthshaking updates like adding a collidable playfield was, I’ve been going through my past projects and trying to retire them for VPX in the best possible state. They’re categorized as dead (won’t revisit ever for any reason), retired (won’t revisit in VPX), VPX physics-only update, and VPX refresh possible. There are only four on the visual refresh list and only two of them feel absolutely necessary. Will feel good to not feel any pull toward additional improvements for VPX after that.
Hey @armyaviation, sorry for the threadjack. It has been a great place to think out loud so thank you.
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There are a few factors that motivate authors to take a table on, one of them is a desire to make it better some how. Many contributors including myself have taken many projects on because they thought they could improve it some how. In life you have to choose your battles, if it takes pros like flupper and knorr roughly a year per table you can bet that they aren’t going to want to spend that year on a table they aren’t really interested and or a table with poor resources.
I have a similar attitude as bord, particularly in regards to my current vpx collection. I used to have hundreds of tables in the VP9 era leading into vpx but after a certain point in vpx’s life I decided vpx tables were consistently better than vp9 tables in all regards. So I ended up redoing my entire collection based on quality of tables. This meant I had to disregard a number of tables that I liked but I felt they were too dated to fit in with the rest. Some tables aren’t worth re-building or making in the first place unless it’s worth while to you, case in point Joust would have never….ever….been made in VPX due to 1). poor quality artwork 2). lack of interest and 3) such an obscure table, but I really wanted it done to play on my cocktail table (selfish) so I made it happen.
I’ve said before, it’s like the old field of dreams slogan “If you build it they will come” except in our case it’s resources and it’s “If you find them they will build it”. Batman forever isn’t the most popular table but it’s by no means a bad table, it has some interesting elements but with so many negatives piling on it, it’s not very appealing to build. BF is lacking resources, lacking general interest and would require a lot of work.
I want to point out the VP resource section of this site. When this site first started randr took feedback from me for organizing files and resources on this site. I wanted to build a 3D resource section in vpf originally but Paul never came through on that so when randr started up vpb I wanted us to get off on the right foot. However with that said I feel the section is under utilized. We have a lot of useful 3d objects/packs available there and it’s growing but there’s only a handful of play field/plastic scans. The VP resource area on this site really should be full of play field scans and plastics. For a long time the practice has been simply to rip resources from other (approving) author’s tables. I never wanted any of my models to get locked to a table because the author didn’t allow modding so I’ve tried to upload my models for download for future use as well as make it abundantly clear that my models are always freely available.
In conclusion I would like to encourage people to upload their table resources to vpb to really start making a virtual pinball resource library. I always imagined this site as the safe haven hub for collaborating authors and that’s what (to me at least) separated it from other sites. So whether you are just an end user an artist, a table author or what ever, if you have something that could be useful to the community, upload it, make it available and you never know when someone might be inspired.
Nice post @dark, I was actually thinking this morning of having some playfield scans printed full size to hang on the wall, much cheaper than buying playfields for sure. I would probably even mount them to look like real ones (on plywood with major cutouts cut out). I have several 300ppi scans I’ve done or I’ve gotten from others that I should probably upload to share, then anyone could make their own posters
maybe others could upload some as well then I could have more posters 
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I have the sickest Centaur scan anyone has ever seen but don’t really have permission to share it publicly. Certainly free to anyone via PM. Would make an absolutely nuts poster.
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I’ve wondered about printing one of my redraws and turning it into a real table. hmmm….. guys can dream right
But back on the off topic on topic, I’ve changed the way I build a little bit and its “sped” things up tremendously. With RaB I hemmed and hawed about this and that for everything. I’d be embarrassed to say how may times I re-did those ramp. I never could get the textured to look right. When I did tmnt and now KK, I sorta gave up on texturing most things and let VPX do it magic. I still model the different objects but then just apply a material, or maybe a simple image. They may not blow anyone away, but I’ve been more happy with how they look now than I ever was before, plus it saves my sanity and weeks of work.
Also reminds me I’ve been terrible at sharing my resources independently of tables. I need to dig back through things and post some of those up.
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Talked to the guy today and he wants $380 for the playfield but apparently it’s pristine.
Unfortunately with my job now I don’t have any time at home so VP is on the back burner. I feel bad for not finishing escape from the lost world and for leaving Matt , @mlager8 hanging but I know he took a break too. Looks like I won’t be settled into my new job and moved until August probably so no VP for me. I am still an avid supporter and am trying to do anything I can to contribute like find resources, hence this thread. As far as unfinished tables, I would love to get escape from… done, not for me but for everyone to enjoy, not to mention for all of the work that Matt has put into the project. I know he has been discussing it with others here so hopefully we can get this done and out there. I think Matt needs this to be his first table release because he has definitely earned it and I will support him any way I can to get this out there. Thanks guys
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@armyaviation Hey Tom thanks for the shout-out. Yeah I will definitely get around to finishing Escape, but like you work has drastically changed lately and haven’t been able to devote nearly as much time as I was to VP (seriously had months where I was able to put in hours per day). I had wanted to try and make everything independent of POV and works from all view’s, but because of my lack of time and scripting I might end up sticking to a more traditional approach and rendering for a single cabinet POV.
@schreibi34 You definitely have a point about waiting for newer improvements. The unity pipeline demo that (maybe freezy?) is developing looking so fucking stellar. Unity is a top notch game engine and being able to leverage a more modern workflow between DCC applications and VPX would be such a time saver and ultimately make things looks way more realistic much easier. That real time flasher lighting is exactly the type of thing that needs to be implemented. Anyway it looks a ways off from actuality but hopefully it’s a tangible thing sooner than later.You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Yeah, definetly looking great! I just hope that Toxie and Fuzzel don’t feel like they are placed in the backseat. Or even worse give up on improving VP! I hope freezy and the devs are talking to each other in a good way!
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This is what I was able to find when researching this table (using google…):
https://mega.nz/#!hFYwFSbB!yQru_fM7tAK_1cFVCe_AR0d5J1SUV41S4yDrNTs9q54
As you can see, it might be a little better then the vp9 graphics, but still a long way off from scanned.
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Yeah, definetly looking great! I just hope that Toxie and Fuzzel don’t feel like they are placed in the backseat. Or even worse give up on improving VP! I hope freezy and the devs are talking to each other in a good way!
I believe the goal of that project is to port everything back into VPX so it’s not abandoning anything, just making it easier from an authors perspective. To that end I still think VPX is unparalleled in it’s physics, so in no way am I dumping on the work any of the devs here have done. I would hope praising the efforts to improve on one of the few shortcomings of VPX (lack of 3d view or bridge to 3d platform applications) is not seen as a slight or stepping on anyone’s toes, but rather a testament to the software’s longevity and wanting to build upon and modernize.
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Yeah, definetly looking great! I just hope that Toxie and Fuzzel don’t feel like they are placed in the backseat. Or even worse give up on improving VP! I hope freezy and the devs are talking to each other in a good way!
I believe the goal of that project is to port everything back into VPX so it’s not abandoning anything, just making it easier from an authors perspective. To that end I still think VPX is unparalleled in it’s physics, so in no way am I dumping on the work any of the devs here have done. I would hope praising the efforts to improve on one of the few shortcomings of VPX (lack of 3d view or bridge to 3d platform applications) is not seen as a slight or stepping on anyone’s toes, but rather a testament to the software’s longevity and wanting to build upon and modernize.
I certainly hope that’s not the goal. I certainly don’t see the need for a 3d editor to put 2D images back into something that doesn’t support 3d lighting/rendering and never will. vp11 may if they continue that way, vp10 (also known as vpx) won’t. The biggest shortcoming in VPX is lack of realistic lighting. period. 3d view, 3d editor, meh, while both would be nice are of lessor importance but do come along with moving to unity. Everything good in vpx can be put into unity, certainly can’t go the other way, don’t know why you would want to. as far as making it easier for authors/builders, I guess that depends on the builder, those that know unity and C-whatever will be ahead, the rest of us will have a hell of a learning curve. This will abandon vpx the same way vpx abandoned vp9, and rightfully so. And this certainly isn’t meant to step on anyones toes either, toxie and fuzzel know better than anyone the shortcomings of vpx.
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3d view, 3d editor, meh, while both would be nice are of lessor importance but do come along with moving to unity.
I heartily disagree with this part. Recreations of modern tables with complex toys and stuff going on at different heights is a fscking nightmare in the 2D editor. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve wasted restarting a table to get things looking/working right because I can’t just edit it properly in real time.
It’s grossly apparent when you start messing with VR and see all kinds of problems missed, or trying to fix tables that have balls that fall off ramps because there are gaps that aren’t easy to spot.
I’m looking forward to better lighting for sure.
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