Pinball Physics (Pinball Reconstruction Set)

[vdecampo]

Well since I announced the start of this project, I have spent lots of time working on the pinball physics and how it will interact with the game board. I have come very close to achieving a decent approximation of a pinball and table.

It is one thing to bounce a ball off perpendicular surfaces (i.e.: walls) but quite another to make it interact (believably) with a curved surface. I had to break out the old trig books and re-familiarize myself with the math. But even that isn't enough to deal with all the interactions.

This demo of the pinball interacting with a curved surface is not completely accurate, but I am still tweaking the algorithms.

I just wanted to give a sneak peek. I think this may even give birth to a vector tutorial.

See it here…
www.ftpisland.com/files/Pinball.zip 158k Win32

The Game Engine is capped @ 33FPS. Hopefully the Render Engine is more than that. :-)

-Vince

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Well, the collision with the curved surface seems to work very well. Cool. Only, you really should come up with some better controls. Even if it's for demo purposes. It all seems wrong when I shot the ball in the air. Also, on my PC it looks like the ball moves with speeds (when I eject it) up to 20 pixels per loop.

I'll wait for a more elaborate demo.

[Jonge]

Looks pretty realistic to me, though sometimes it looks like the ball bounces up before it hits the "ground". Something like 5-10pixel above what its about to hit.
I think this could turn out to be a really fun game, really like the idea of being able to make my own pinball tables to(If your still going to do that) 

[Dr_D]

You know, you could use Newton or Chipmunk physics for some really nice effects.  Not that there is anything wrong with what you're doing now.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Don't push it, Dr_D.