Pinball Paddles
ktfright
Member Posts: 964
I have been looking at different forum threads, but I cant seem to find out the absolute best way to make pinball paddles that rotate correctly. any tips? 
Comments
In real pinball...they are either up or down...not much motion to them.
I had sort of thought about a seesaw type paddle with half transparent like firemaplegames is suggesting.
I currently own:
Attack from Mars
Twilight Zone
Indiana Jones
Theatre of Magic
Dracula
Creature from the black lagoon
Champion Pub
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I'm happy. This template is great!
Now I want to do a pinball game!
Too many ideas...not enough time....UGH!
Heh... and then I took a look at the scene attributes. The scene has zero gravity. For a second, it was like my brain was trying to divide by zero. I couldn't understand how it was possible. How could such a world exist without gravity?
Apparently, that's my first issue. I'm designing a game like in the real world... with gravity... when maybe I should just be simulating gravity with accelerate.
That might be the problem with my other game. I'm wondering if I disabled gravity, it might solve the joystick problem.
Although, that didn't quite fix my pinball game. I tried other settings. I went back and changed my flippers... 100 density... nope... that didn't work. I noticed that the flippers in the demo moved to a horizontal angle... while mine extended further. Could this be the problem? Did the angle of the flippers matter? Nope... I changed the template to rotate the flippers further. I could trap the pinball and everything seemed to work fine.
Could restitution have something to do with it? I don't think so, as the demo has the left flipper at zero while the right flipper is at 1.
That's when I tried doubling up on the collisions. It was suggested on the forums before. I put collide on both of my flippers. It got a lot better.
So, that brings up some questions...
1) Is gravity bad to use if it can be avoided?
2) What are the rules for using shared templates? Could someone just take the shared template, turn it into a full pinball game and sell it?
3) Where do you keep seven pinball games?!
Heh... Attack From Mars is a great pinball game.
- right next to the 10 arcade games of course!
The template is great, we should add a plunger and a little more code for ball count or high score? Would be nice. I can do the art and post on wed....
Someday I will own a ToTAN as well!
Shouldn't you be some chairman at some big company, like EA and having hundreds of programmers working for you? :-P
Sorry for highjacking the topic :-)
@Firemaple: It seems, you have a very big house :-)
Do you want to adopt me? :-)
There are still two unanswered questions...
1) Is gravity bad to use if it can be avoided?
2) What are the rules for using shared templates? Could someone just take the shared template, turn it into a full pinball game and sell it?
tellard, are you using "Relative to scene" in the rotate to angle? The "otherwise" option is what I used before seeing this demo... and it's what I see in the demo... It worked for me.
Well I own a small dev company. Just doing kids games and new app stuff. Love the iPad. Working on a BIG project for Apple (itunes) now. 1 year so far in development, but still a long way from complete.
But I do have humble roots and being a GS dev is really cool....IMHO. Nice to see the pinball enthusiasts.
You don't need gravity. Just use bounce and restitution.
In my wallbreaker game it works without problems. A wallbreaker is the same, like a pinball in the basics.
@guru:
I don't know, what you mean with Guru=John, but if it is some rebuke, then please call me Attila, even if you can't know that this is my real name and even if my nick is Hunnenkoenig :-P
Otherwise nice too meet you here :-)
Here's my pinball game just released today...
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cartoon-pin-ball/id361984641?mt=8
In GS the gravity pulls the ball towards the side of the device; X or Y axis. On a real table it pulls towards the table; Z axis.
Acceleration can be altered easily. Multiple layers with ramps and rails would be a headache with gravity.
I think a lot of computer pinball games use predetermined paths rather than physics.
There are still two unanswered questions...
1) Is gravity bad to use if it can be avoided?"
Sorry. To answer - I just add an Accelerate to the Ball actor. Gravity is almost always a bad idea as you keep on having to lock everything down with Constrain Attribute.
"tellard, are you using "Relative to scene" in the rotate to angle?
Yes. But the Otherwise I am using seems to not be in the demo template. Not a big drama but always learning.
Question #2 is still unanswered...
2) What are the rules for using shared templates?
Are people allowed to take the templates, improve them, and then resell them? What's the license they're using... or are you just supposed to use them as examples?
I think GameSalad could use more starting templates... like the pinball one... I think the pinball template should be there with space rocks and the touch joysticks demo. (Heh, but then I can see a huge surge in pinball games on the iPhone app store.
The pinball one is great. It was very close to my own, it just highlighted a mistake that I was making... switch from gravity and double up on the collides. I'm not using the template, so I can move forward with my project. Yet... I still get this weird feeling when I look at shared projects. I don't want to just take someone's work.
For example, I really enjoy the game "Population: Tire". ( http://www.homestarrunner.com/pop_tire.html ) I could make my own version of that game in about a day, but I'd feel bad about it. I don't want to make clones. I try to do original stuff... but if it's in a shared section, what does that mean? Is the intent for you to take it do whatever you want with it?