PS3 Pinball Arcade in 3D

BlueMarble · Oct 25, 2012

I've now experienced Zen Pinball 2 in 3D on a PS3, and it is the most amazing video Pinball I've ever experienced! I'm hoping that The Pinball Arcade will receive the same treatment! Who else has experienced it, and how can we best go about encouraging Farsight to make this a reality?

Alright, back to Plants vs. Zombies in 3D...Wow. I can't get over how incredible this is. I dream of Medieval Madness in 3D!

SKILL_SHOT · Oct 25, 2012

Bring extra shorts if you get to try a SONY HMZ T-2 OMFG!

brakel · Oct 25, 2012

Get more people to buy (and use) 3D TVs. It doesn't make as much sense for farsight to make a feature that can only be used on consoles in the first place but then you factor in that only a fraction of console owners also own 3D TVs and it becomes even less of a priority.

SKILL_SHOT · Oct 25, 2012

Dont leave out features just because they cant be done on mobiles consoles should be the best well until PC comes out with top down multi display features but limiting a game because it cant run as well on a phone pfff! I understand your thinking but then why did ZEN do it? Because they want to make thier game better and it deffinatly will grab sales because its in 3D and set it self apart from TPA to a first time buyer who wants pinball.

Jeff Carpenter · Oct 26, 2012

I have a sony hx800 I love it.

spoonman · Oct 26, 2012

I agree. I am playing ZEN 2 just for the 3D effect. I would love to try TPA in 3D.

I bought a Sony PlayStation 3D Display when it dropped to $199 and was so impressed with it that I bought a second one a week later just for when the
first one dies! (I've heard some bad news about these burning out early, but so far so good).

Here's my top 5 3D games so far:

1. Zen Pinball 2
2. Super StarDust HD (The stars fly out of the screen!!)
3. MotorStorm Apocalypse
4. Gran Turismo 5
5. Uncharted 3

J2fold · Oct 26, 2012

2 the people who say Pinball 3D is a waste of time? Honestly that type of thinking is what sank Empires. The term thinking outside the box comes to mind, also lets mention that not many years ago people said the same thing about blu-ray and HD, When half the population still owned picture tube TVs. "Ah who needs HDLED, HDPlasma, HDLCD, and HDMI cables when a picture tube looks just as good." said the person with a picture tube TV, with video out cables who tried to play blu ray on it! Tech moves fast, heck my iPhone 4 looks dated and I bought it only 3 years ago. Do you want to know how fast things change? Pinball Arcade arguably blew Zen Pinball out of the water not less then 2 months ago. Now people are blown away by Zen 2.

brakel · Oct 26, 2012

SKILL_SHOT said:
Dont leave out features just because they cant be done on mobiles consoles should be the best well until PC comes out with top down multi display features but limiting a game because it cant run as well on a phone pfff! I understand your thinking but then why did ZEN do it? Because they want to make thier game better and it deffinatly will grab sales because its in 3D and set it self apart from TPA to a first time buyer who wants pinball.

I'm just looking at it from an ROI perspective. What is Farsight's Return On Investment for developing 3D TPA options? It will be less than a feature that can be applied to all gaming formats. Less than even a feature that can be used by all console users.

The OP's question was what can be done to encourage Farsight to develop 3D for TPA. I stand by my answer. Increase 3D adoption rates. 3D adoption is lagging way behind HD TV adoption and blu-ray adoption rates. The biggest reason cited is that people who bought HD TVs just a few years ago are not seeing a reason to upgrade to 3D until they need a new tv.

spoonman · Oct 28, 2012

brakel said:
I'm just looking at it from an ROI perspective. What is Farsight's Return On Investment for developing 3D TPA options? It will be less than a feature that can be applied to all gaming formats. Less than even a feature that can be used by all console users.

The OP's question was what can be done to encourage Farsight to develop 3D for TPA. I stand by my answer. Increase 3D adoption rates. 3D adoption is lagging way behind HD TV adoption and blu-ray adoption rates. The biggest reason cited is that people who bought HD TVs just a few years ago are not seeing a reason to upgrade to 3D until they need a new tv.

What was Zen Studio's ROI on implementing 3D on all of it's tables for Zen Pinball 2? It's hard to say, but you really have to look at it from many angles.

I can think of a few advantages to adding Stereoscopic 3D to your product.

1. It makes it seem like the developers are up on cutting edge and willing to go the extra mile. It's not for everyone, but the people who enjoy it, really enjoy it!
2. Sony has a special area on the PSN Store that groups all of the 3D content together and therefore may give someone looking for more 3D content the chance to find it when
they wouldn't normally see it.

Also, Farsight is not new to stereoscopic 3D. In fact they've done it before Zen Studios with their William's Pinball Hall of Fame collection on the 3DS.
I'm a fan of that as well, but honestly it just makes me want to play the tables in 3D on a larger screen.

I am hopeful they will add this option at some point.

flynnz · Oct 28, 2012

To all those saying it wouldnt be worth their time to add 3D, I don't think you understand how little it takes to add stereo 3D to games. They add a dummy camera set to the primary and change frame buffer and rate to display twice the amount of data. Hardly any coding or complexity needed. Hell on the PC there are middleware applications that can make any real-time game run in true stereo 3D. (again without changing a line of code on the games themselves) On the console side there are quite a few games that have had 3D stereo retro fitted after the fact because it is so easy to do. Also keep in mind, even if a small few can use the feature, those small few also are very vocal online. Adding to the overall "king of pinball games" Pinball Arcade would get. When people check out Zen pinball in 3D at my house, they walk away thinking how amazing Zen is as a game. (even though imo it pales in comparison to pinball arcade). And on the PC side of things people are starting to run platforms like Future in 3D stereo as well. So if you ask me, Pinball Arcade is being left behind. So I don't know, to me even though a smaller percentage of people may use 3D, I still say with such little effort in it's creation it seems almost silly not to add.

With that being said, I fully understand that there is a loss in asset quality/resolution/frame rate when going 3D in some cases. So if it is pushing the limits of what the machines can output as is, it might not be worth doing 3D. (which I really hope is not the case).

spoonman · Oct 29, 2012

flynnz said:
To all those saying it wouldnt be worth their time to add 3D, I don't think you understand how little it takes to add stereo 3D to games. They add a dummy camera set to the primary and change frame buffer and rate to display twice the amount of data. Hardly any coding or complexity needed. Hell on the PC there are middleware applications that can make any real-time game run in true stereo 3D. (again without changing a line of code on the games themselves) On the console side there are quite a few games that have had 3D stereo retro fitted after the fact because it is so easy to do. Also keep in mind, even if a small few can use the feature, those small few also are very vocal online. Adding to the overall "king of pinball games" Pinball Arcade would get. When people check out Zen pinball in 3D at my house, they walk away thinking how amazing Zen is as a game. (even though imo it pales in comparison to pinball arcade). And on the PC side of things people are starting to run platforms like Future in 3D stereo as well. So if you ask me, Pinball Arcade is being left behind. So I don't know, to me even though a smaller percentage of people may use 3D, I still say with such little effort in it's creation it seems almost silly not to add.

With that being said, I fully understand that there is a loss in asset quality/resolution/frame rate when going 3D in some cases. So if it is pushing the limits of what the machines can output as is, it might not be worth doing 3D. (which I really hope is not the case).

Well said Flynnz.

Also, I think the PS3 is quite capable of handling 3D without loss of quality. Seeing Uncharted 3 made me a believer. In addition, Naughty Dog has claimed that working on stereoscopic 3D has improved their
engine for 2D quality by pushing the graphics engine. There's a video where the lead designer (Also a huge fan of stereoscopic 3D!) talks about it.... found it:
[video]http://www.viddler.com/v/c662ea06[/video]

SKILL_SHOT · Oct 29, 2012

Um SONY simulview does 2 different 3D pictures at the same time but THAT might kill frame rates anyone try MotorStormAppocolypse in 3D simulview?

spoonman · Oct 29, 2012

SKILL_SHOT said:
Um SONY simulview does 2 different 3D pictures at the same time but THAT might kill frame rates anyone try MotorStormAppocolypse in 3D simulview?

Yeah, I played it last night with a friend. It looks no different to me. Same with Gran Turismo 5 via SimulView.

Speaking of that, it would be a neat option as well. 2 People playing a TPA table with their own view.

Not holding my breath on that one though.

brakel · Oct 29, 2012

I haven't seen one post in this thread where someone has said that adding 3D would be a waste of time. Where is this coming from?

Jim O'Brien · Oct 29, 2012

Showed my best friend TPA on my PS3 on our 50" plasma on the weekend and he mentioned the whole game looked like a cartoon and did not look like real pinball at all. Me, I totally disagree although he did bring up a good point that on consoles these games should look much more realistic then they do and I told him Farsight buys the actual tables and diss-mantels all the pieces one by one. Still we have what we have and I don't know if they could ever take it a few steps more, not on current consoles anyway.

smbhax · Oct 29, 2012

Oh I think they could; the PS3 version has the most rendering engine that Farsight have made so far, but the lighting is still fairly simplistic; when lights go blinking and flashing you don't really feel the light sourcing and illumination. I *think* the PS3 supports better dynamic lighting than TPA has got going currently. You might need some real smartypants graphic engine programmer to pull if off, I suppose. On the simpler side of things, some of the tables could just use better aesthetic placement of the lighting than what they have currently--Black Knight being the most obvious example, but others like Medieval Madness just don't really sparkle right now.

spoonman · Oct 31, 2012

brakel said:
I haven't seen one post in this thread where someone has said that adding 3D would be a waste of time. Where is this coming from?

I don't recall where it was, but there were a few posters saying it was useless, terrible, or something to that effect.

brakel · Oct 31, 2012

spoonman said:
I don't recall where it was, but there were a few posters saying it was useless, terrible, or something to that effect.

Not in this thread. This thread isn't that big.

J2fold · Oct 31, 2012

brakel said:
Not in this thread. This thread isn't that big.

I have seen a minority of people shooting 3D down and making excuses why Farsight should focus on other things. In all honesty it does not matter now because Farsight has pretty much confirmed it is going to make Pinball Arcade in 3D, that is if you read between the lines. Whoot whoot, this is good news to me, and makes the naysayers meaningless.

cheezr · Nov 2, 2012

3D would be nice but not necessary. 3D in Zen Pinball 2 is impressive to look at for the first few minutes but after a while I become so engrossed in the game that I stop noticing the 3D effect.

PS3 Pinball Arcade in 3D

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