3 ms·

It's way more than just the sphere, it's simulating all the surfaces and materials that the sphere interacts with. Particularly the mechanical pieces with thei

It's way more than just the sphere, it's simulating all the surfaces and materials that the sphere interacts with. Particularly the mechanical pieces with their own movement as well. The comparable level of detail to get pinball right would be something like simulating all the rubber gaskets and surfaces in the ailerons and elevators, all the fluid dynamics in the hydraulics, and so on. If you invested something like the $100 million that Boeing or Lockheed must have done in their simulators, you probably could. Video pinball isn't exactly that big economically, though.

mywittyname 3y ago
It is absolutely possible to model a pinball machine very accurately with existing CAD software, and for much less money than that. With GPU-powered physics, it might be possible to model this in real time. But if not, one could definitely run the simulations in CAD and export the results to a table (or fit to an equation) and use those in the game. The limitation isn't technology.
- vikingerik 3y ago
  Is your CAD software simulating the increase in temperature as the coil fires frequently throughout a game, with the ensuing changes in coil strength and rubber resilience? Is your GPU accounting for millisecond-level fluctuations in power as more lights and flashers are on at any given instant so any coil receives a tiny bit less power? Are you accounting for a tiny bit of residual magnetism left in the balls after they departed from recent contact with a magnet? You are correct that the limitation isn't technology. All this is doable with enough specialized computation - but the reality is that it's vast avenues of effort that nobody has done or likely will.
  - mywittyname 3y ago
    > Is your CAD software simulating the increase in temperature as the coil fires frequently throughout a game, with the ensuing changes in coil strength and rubber resilience? Yes. That's a basic feature a professional CAE package. And the materials library includes a few hundred different rubber compounds and metals to model with as well. Modern CAD is amazing. Back when I worked in the industry, we'd have customers whose simulations for jet turbine engines match the the sensor readings on the prototype almost exactly.
  - jwagenet 3y ago
    I don’t doubt that these interactions have some minuscule effect on pinball performance, but I’m skeptical that you couldn’t get close enough with some relatively simple models. Eg count the lights on and model a draw in remaining power available to solenoids.
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    Does your average patron notice literally anything you described? Would you? No, and no.
badpun 3y ago
Are plane simulators really simulating fluid dynamics in hydraulics, during real-time simulation? Is that even doable (assuming the simulation wants to be realistic).
- bluGill 3y ago
  Boeing is likely doing that in their CAD - but these are tests they they can throw at a super computer of some sort and let run for a week. Flight simulators that are used to train pilots are unlikely to have this level of detail. There is enough variation in things like wind turbulence that they can ignore a lot of the other effects as if you can handle turbulence you can handle smaller errors as well.

mywittyname 3y ago

It is absolutely possible to model a pinball machine very accurately with existing CAD software, and for much less money than that. With GPU-powered physics, it might be possible to model this in real time. But if not, one could definitely run the simulations in CAD and export the results to a table (or fit to an equation) and use those in the game. The limitation isn't technology.

vikingerik 3y ago
Is your CAD software simulating the increase in temperature as the coil fires frequently throughout a game, with the ensuing changes in coil strength and rubber resilience? Is your GPU accounting for millisecond-level fluctuations in power as more lights and flashers are on at any given instant so any coil receives a tiny bit less power? Are you accounting for a tiny bit of residual magnetism left in the balls after they departed from recent contact with a magnet? You are correct that the limitation isn't technology. All this is doable with enough specialized computation - but the reality is that it's vast avenues of effort that nobody has done or likely will.
- mywittyname 3y ago
  > Is your CAD software simulating the increase in temperature as the coil fires frequently throughout a game, with the ensuing changes in coil strength and rubber resilience? Yes. That's a basic feature a professional CAE package. And the materials library includes a few hundred different rubber compounds and metals to model with as well. Modern CAD is amazing. Back when I worked in the industry, we'd have customers whose simulations for jet turbine engines match the the sensor readings on the prototype almost exactly.
- jwagenet 3y ago
  I don’t doubt that these interactions have some minuscule effect on pinball performance, but I’m skeptical that you couldn’t get close enough with some relatively simple models. Eg count the lights on and model a draw in remaining power available to solenoids.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  Does your average patron notice literally anything you described? Would you? No, and no.

badpun 3y ago

Are plane simulators really simulating fluid dynamics in hydraulics, during real-time simulation? Is that even doable (assuming the simulation wants to be realistic).

bluGill 3y ago
Boeing is likely doing that in their CAD - but these are tests they they can throw at a super computer of some sort and let run for a week. Flight simulators that are used to train pilots are unlikely to have this level of detail. There is enough variation in things like wind turbulence that they can ignore a lot of the other effects as if you can handle turbulence you can handle smaller errors as well.