Hello-
In a previous post, I discussed a simple pinball simulation I am working on. In this post, I'd like to discuss the placement of the pins on the game board.

Each pin is a separate static object. Potentially there could be a dozen pins or more, and I am wondering how to make procedural copies of these objects.

Right now, when I add a pin, I do a copy and paste at the object level, and then I go into the AutoDopNetwork to add in the new node. I am sure there is a better way; I just can't figure it out. Maybe the pins don't need to be separate objects, or maybe there is a way to procedurally copy static objects?…

-Scott



Edit: I guess what I'm looking for a shelf tool like RBD objects, but, rather, for static objects.

here are some ideas

Michael,
Thanks for the ideas. It seems that the dynamics between the ball and bumpers are fine, but it seems confused about the positions of the pins.

I tried different initial y-velocities of the ball, to nudge it a bit to the right or left. Sometimes the ball seems to pass through pins, and other times to bounce off something which is invisible. I'm under the impression that the dynamics have difficulty merging the little skinny pins with the other geometry into a single object, with sufficient precision regarding the volume occupied by the object.
-Scott

Edit: on the other hand, maybe it is confusing the pins which I had set up with the new pins…
I guess as background to this, I should have said that I tried merging pins together in a single object, and making that object the static object, and it didn't seems to work, as if the geometry of the object was too complex. So I had the impression that I had to work with single, simpler objects. I'll play around with this idea some more.

when ever you have collision issues it's a good idea to check the collision geometry in DOPs
in the pic you can see that I've selected one of the bumpers and on the Collisions Tab, turned on Collision Guide to see what the real collision geometry will be - do this for everything you send into DOPs - you can turn off the Guide after you've checked

I've created a simplified scene to demonstrate the main point. It's just a sphere with a v-shaped “bumper” under it.

The bumper is meant to simply catch the sphere. The bumper consists of two boxes angled to make the shape of a “V.” The sphere is an RDB hero object and the bumpers comprise a static object.

When I run the simulation, the sphere seems to bounce off an invisible plane across the top of the “V” shape. I tried using the collision guide, but it traces out the precise shape of the V in blue, so it's not really helping. I think the issue must be one of the parameters in the dynamics, but I have not yet figured out which parameter.
-Scott