General Illumination

One thing I've noticed when playing the iOS and 360 versions (not played PS3 as it isn't available in Europe yet) is that the general illumination of the table doesn't change during gameplay. On the original WMS DMD games it is deliberately dimmed or even switched off at certain times. For example, when you enter the trapdoor in Theatre of Magic the lamps under the plastics and bumpers dim as you go down the steps. It is even more apparent on Cirqus Voltaire when all the lights go out for Neon Multiball.

I would imagine that to make it work would require a degree of dynamic lighting or at least lowering the brightness of the plastics/playfield as the illumination is dimmed. Most likely not possible on iOS but maybe do-able on consoles and PC. Even 10 years ago Visual Pinball received on/off events for the general illumination from the os/rom emulation, so I assume that is still the case within Pinball Arcade.

Whilst it's probably not that high on the list of feature requests, it's something I would personally love to see added. Ideally in time for Attack From Mars and Strobe Multiball!

They are aware of this. All PS3 tables already have dynamic lighting, and all DLC for the 360 will also include it. The four 360 launch tables will be updated with the third DLC pack.

Ah. That's fantastic. It's such a small thing but I'm so used to the full-on light shows of the original tables. I really should make a US account and check out the PS3 version. Thanks for the confirmation.

I've now played the PS3 version... and there's not that much difference between it and the 360. The flasher effects are a fair bit better, and some playfield lights a little less saturated, but that's about the only visual difference I can discern.

Neither version appears to be doing anything with the General Illumination (GI) circuit. On the WMS games there were 5 GI circuits, most commonly with 3 directed to lighting the playfield (the bulbs found under most playfield plastics, bumpers, return lanes and slingshots) and 2 to the backbox. These circuits can be dimmed or switched on/off independent of each other. On a game like TOTAN, the 3 circuits light the left, center and right of the playfield respectively. This allows the designer to get some cool rippling light effects across the playfield. This is most noticeable when you have two balls locked and are aiming for the Genie to start multiball. It's also used a lot during Lightning Lamp and the Extra Ball sequence.

There are also some inlane flashers and a left eject flasher missing from TOTAN, but that's a more game-specific issue.

I think the GI simulation would be a big part of getting these to be as faithful as possible to the original tables. Some of the later tables got very creative with the use of GI to enhance the light-show. CV, TOTAN and TOM particularly. John Popadiuk sure loved his lighting effects! Even as far back as Bride of Pinbot or further still to Black Knight, designers have used the ability to switch the GI on and off to dramatic effect. I feel it's the one thing seriously missing from TPA at the present time.

Implementing GI is a little complicated, since it's essentially dozens of light bulbs that you would need to simulate. I have some ideas on how to pull it off, I just haven't had the time to implement it.

Also, the 360 playfield lights should be better after the upcoming patch.

Thanks for the response. I'm not surprised that it's not an easy addition. In the early days of Visual Pinball we got away with a two or three state (if there was a flasher underneath it) bitmap for the plastic. Effective up to a point but it couldn't really alter the actual playfield illumination properly, and TPA is clearly a far more polished simulation. The only good thing is that the bulbs are generally all controlled together under a particular playfield plastic, so I guess it might be able to treat it as a single light source rather than a handful of smaller ones. Mind you, I'm not a 3D modeller, so I might be talking rubbish here!

Really looking forward to the 360 update. CV particularly.

Why not use real-time, dynamic lighting? The PS3 and 360, at least, should be able to do it, as it's used in lots of other games.

For Tegra mobile devices, would it be possible to implement Dynamic Lighting with the extra processing grunt of 4 cores? I'm sure that a Tegra 2 or Tegra 3 device could handle this in Performance mode.

Would be nice if the 'light show' of the tables could be improved. The Addams Family's 'Show Time' mulitball mode just would be the same without the lightning light show

I've started the "Neon Multiball" a couple of times in CV, but it don't mean a thing when the lighting doesn't change.

Fungi said:

I've started the "Neon Multiball" a couple of times in CV, but it don't mean a thing when the lighting doesn't change.

Click to expand...

I think this might only be the case on mobile device, hopefully on the console versions this will be implemented?

Most of the mobile platforms don't have the power for dynamic lighting. Although it is being worked on for higher end mobile devices. So the lighting is different on the consoles for CV.

We do have dynamic lighting on the consoles, but to handle GI, you would need a few dozen point lights, which becomes really expensive processing wise. There are a few ways to do it, I've been looking into implementing one of those.

The texture state method is one way to do it, but I don't think it would look as good as some of the other methods.

Since there are 3 separate GI strings for the playfield, you also have an issue of some of the geometry encompasses all 3 strings (like the playfield itself), so just adjusting the ambient light on the whole model won't look right either.

Using dynamic point lights in the shaders is possible, but it requires smart light management (you don't want every object having dozens of point light calculations, especially if they aren't in range of the light).

Thanks for the detailled answer! Great to hear you guys are working on it.

Personally I'm very happy with how crisp the game already looks on the iPad 3, however it can be a little hard to tell what indicator lamps are actually on or flashing on visually busy machines like RBION (not so much on tables with darker art like TOM or MM), so it's not just a purely visual thing.

I am sure that the Ipad version could improve the lightning, raising up the constrast for instance. Ripley, Funhouse, etc, are too shiny. Real tables are darker.

A easy way to make the GI look better than what we have at the moment, would be to increase the contrast on the decal lights on the table, and decrease the playfeild contrast

Patrick said:

I am sure that the Ipad version could improve the lightning, raising up the constrast for instance. Ripley, Funhouse, etc, are too shiny. Real tables are darker.

Click to expand...

Real tables are only generally darker because they are dusty and grubby after about a weeks play... Get a mint condition one and they look just as shiny.

Any timescales as to when the 360 update is going to drop?
I much prefer the lighting on the iOS version, its just more playable when you can actually see whats going on...


iPad

360

Wadey said:

Any timescales as to when the 360 update is going to drop?
I much prefer the lighting on the iOS version, its just more playable when you can actually see whats going on...

Click to expand...

Yeah, but at least you got a nice non-distrating wooden floor in the background, the iOS still has that ****ty planet carpet. Do you know how many times a week I have to vacuum this carpet to keep it clean?

The Mac carpet is currently stinking up the arcade too! Kill the carpet!

yes kill the carpet, but he ipad version looks freaking awesome, almost like a real table. this is how a cabinet should look like.