Avatar Pinball coming to a location near you

[Flake]

http://s974.photobucket.com/albums/ae228/jfp2673/avatar/?action=view&current=AvatarGame1-1_page1_image1.jpg

I found this on RGP.  Too bad they dont have the playfield pics.  I guess its not designed yet?

[Jeff AMN]

The design is done, I just don't think the final playfield art is finished. They've had some distributors in to play it, and Jack at Pinball Sales says that it's fun. Of course he'd want to spin it somewhat positively as he's going to try to sell them, but he's always been an upfront guy.

We'll see how it turns out. The guys at Stern seem to be pretty excited for the game.

[RayB]

Backglass art design is pretty bad.

Played Iron Man and Big Buck Hunter again yesterday. Still think Iron Man is "slow" and Big Buck is quite fun with several "surprise" events.

[Jeff AMN]

Wait...slow? The only part of Iron Man that I really felt was slow was the ball return to the flipper after a ramp shot. Other than the ball is zipping around the playfield, probably too fast.

[RayB]

Play a round of IM and then play BBH. You'll notice. Unless its a case of the IMs up here being set at a less steep playfield angle?? It's two locations now I've played both and had the exact same impressions.

[pinballwizard79]

I like the artwork, cool

We better hide this thread from Xiao

[meany]

Backglass art design is pretty bad.


They did it that way because the back glass will be in 3D. 

[RayB]

Backglass art design is pretty bad.

They did it that way because the back glass will be in 3D. 

Fer realz?

[Xiaou2]

Whats more exciting, is that they will be re-releasing Avatar 3D in Imax this August.

 

[Jeff AMN]

Play a round of IM and then play BBH. You'll notice. Unless its a case of the IMs up here being set at a less steep playfield angle?? It's two locations now I've played both and had the exact same impressions.

I've played both, they were side by side even. I think BBH is overall the better game, but the license is a real hit or miss scenario. It didn't bug me at all, but I would understand why others would be annoyed by it. Fish Tales is a lot like that. When I had that game nobody wanted to play it for very long because they hated the theme.

I guess an Iron Man on a soft angle could really slow the game down. It's just the few I have played have had the ball whipping around and it caused very short ball times.

I just hope Avatar is better than both of them. Iron Man is kinda fun on location, but it's nothing I'd ever want to own. Big Buck Hunter is pretty much the same way, but it's a lot more interesting from a gameplay standpoint. The only Borg game I've really liked was Jurassic Park. I owned one of those for a few years and was kind of sad to see it go.

[Q*Bert_OP]

The only Borg game I've really liked was Jurassic Park. I owned one of those for a few years and was kind of sad to see it go.

Compare The Adams Family to Jurassic Park...see the similarity? JP is a near copy of TAF...even the ball grabbing dino is similar to "Thing"

[Jeff AMN]

The only Borg game I've really liked was Jurassic Park. I owned one of those for a few years and was kind of sad to see it go.

Compare The Adams Family to Jurassic Park...see the similarity? JP is a near copy of TAF...even the ball grabbing dino is similar to "Thing"

It's no secret that Data East designers often "borrowed" heavily from some of the popular B/W designs and applied them to good licenses. I actually replaced my JP with an Addams...

[Jeff AMN]

Pinball News has some details and pics. Here's one of them. It's really hard to see much, so we'll have to wait for more angles and video. I know I'll be able to play locally, it's just a matter of waiting for the official release now.

[Q*Bert_OP]

Wonder if Kevin will buy one and sell it four times....



 

touche

[Q*Bert_OP]

Jokes aside, planning on buying one?   Iron Man was a decent $1,200ish game with a $4,000 price tag.

Likely. I'll need to see better pics and some video before I can say yes...

[Jeff AMN]

Jokes aside, planning on buying one?   Iron Man was a decent $1,200ish game with a $4,000 price tag.

Heh, I do think it's a good route game, just not one for me in my collection. Tons of people swear that it lasts in a HUO environment, but I just don't see it myself. It's worth dropping $2-3 into when passing by though. I'm hoping Avatar is better than that, I really am.

[Pinball Wizard]

Anyone notice the apron saying 50 cents a play? does that mean that stern finally is going back to old pricing? I personally won't put 75 cents into a game to play it so I hope.

[JeepMonkey]

I am not overly liking it much yet, mabye with more pics...  The theme really doesn't do it for me.

Something about the toy of the guy laying in the little Avatar control chamber really looks crappy.

[Jeff AMN]

What a terrible filming job. They needed to let the camera sit still for a bit so you could get a feel of how fast the ball was moving around, and rather than ridiculous music playing, they should have let us hear the game's sounds and music.

It looks really basic, I just hope those shots are fun to hit, because there isn't a lot of them.

[pinballwizard79]

Agreed with Jeff, thats not the video I hoped for but at least its something.

Damn those plastics are ugly, faded & muted on what could have been a rich & colorful PF.

I hope its cool though

[lilshawn]

Agreed with Jeff, thats not the video I hoped for but at least its something.

Damn those plastics are ugly, faded & muted on what could have been a rich & colorful PF.

I hope its cool though

could just be the camera and the unusual lighting...

[Xiaou2]

The type of Inkjet printer they use produces very poor color ranges... and
thus colors are drab, dark, and faded looking.  Its most especially noted on photographs,
which is basically what they use in most of their games.

 The low resolution does not help either.


 As for the layout... its crud, as expected.  There is no real flow to it... and a
stop-n-shot player isnt going to be challenged/impressed with it either.
All the shots look easy as pie, and plain old boring.

 The thing is butt ugly, does not represent the movies beauty at all.

 The soundtrack was probably so bad/annoying, that they chose to use a generic backing
track on the video.  heh

 The gameplay so bad, that they didnt show any (camera movement/placement tricks,
and edits).

 
 The simplest things like fiber-optic flowers w/ color cycle leds Should have been put it.
It wouldnt have increased the cost a few dollars, and actually drew more attention
than the crappy 3d backbox... as well as actually adding to the value and beauty of
the machine.   Of course, its pretty much a mute point, when they decided to use
such a poor quality print job...

[RayB]

Xiau2: Why would you assume it's "inkjet" ?? Inkjet prints would run/smear when come in contact with moisture. From what I've seen it looks like they are using old fashion "halftone" style printing method that pre-dates digital printing. It results in photos made up of little dot patterns and look like how newspaper photos used to look (ie: like crap).

Here's an exagerrated B&W example of a halftone print:


Maybe it saves on ink costs? Still odd considering the low cost/ high quality of professional digital print services these days.

[Jeff AMN]

I also like that he thinks that a printing style can make a photo's colors look different from a line drawing's colors. Whether it's a photo or an illustration, color is color when it comes to be printed. Photos don't get washed out any more than any other color. Whatever the process they use, it has nothing to do with them using photos in conjunction (or rather than) photos. And besides, many playfields look great. Few playfields look as colorful and lively as The Simpsons Pinball Party or Family Guy. It did help that they had the input of the shows' artists, but they didn't use any special printing processes for those games.

In short, Xiaou2 continues to not know what he's talking about.

[Pinball Wizard]

Remember this is not a complete game at the show. This is a sample game. When we first saw spiderman in the wild it had all red plastics, no artwork. When you saw that did you immediately think WTF this game has stupid plastics? Judge on the production run for artwork. I'll have to agree that the playfield does seem too easy.

[lilshawn]

Few playfields look as colorful and lively as The Simpsons Pinball Party or Family Guy.

kindly remember these are cartoons, not movies. if course they are going to be more colorful...the Simpsons are yellow for cripes sake, nobody is going to notice much if the yellow is off. 

also is it just me or are we looking at some wacky lenticular print 3D artwork for the backbox??

[Xiaou2]

 As far as Ive seen, Halftone is something they use for newspapers, or as a method of
design... Not a print technology.  For example, you can print halftone designs on an
inkjet printer.

 The main types of Printing technologies are:

1) Silk Screen
2) Inkjet

 Silk screening is what they used to use on Pinball & Arcade machines.  Each color
is rolled on individually.  This makes the colors very vivid, because you can directly
apply things like Neon Ink.  You just cant MIX up Neon colors from Red/Green/Blue!

 Because the number of inks are unlimted.. you can achieve excellent color
spectrum ranges.  Meaning... if you want to shade from light blue to dark
blue... you will have more 'steps' between each color.
 

 Inkjet quality is depends on the machine & choice of inks.  These are not your
typical home inkjets.  They are Industrial, but, they use the same technology.

 Just like your home inkjet:

 1) If you want to print photographs that LOOK like real photos, you will need
photo ink packages, and a printer that supports them.  This included things like a
Gloss black, as well as some other ink colors, that simply cant be mixed with
standard 3 color ink setups.  Typical photo inkjets have about 7 ink cartridges,
some have more.

 The same is true even for Traditional Art Paints.  The reason there are more than
5 colors, isnt because of lazy artists who dont want to mix colors up.  Its because
you will never achieve certain colors at correct shades and hues with only base colors.
When you try... you often get muddy colors... that look horrible.  I know this, because
I paint with oils and acrylics.

 2) Similarly, if you want a picture to look very good, you will need to use
the optimal settings (generous ink), as well as Super High resolution.

 3) The Artwork file you use, will also determine how it looks.  Typical pro printers
use CKMY, not RBG.   Realize that windows color output is actually very limited
compared to the real visual color spectrum.   I believe they do have ways to simulate
wider spectrums onscreen & print them in the wider ink-allowed spectrums.


 Sterns Inkjet machine, or the machines which they are paying to run their machines
on, is probably very low resolution, and as a result, they Have to use large dot
pattern artwork...  Or, the art is converted before its printed.

 I seriously doubt its simply to save ink.  If anything, it would be to save time.
High res prints can take a lot longer to print.  Hence the reason why silk-screen
is again preferred.  You can roll out an entire color in seconds, and when
there are more than one field involved, the process in very efficient and fast.


 

Photos don't get washed out any more than any other color.

 I did a good job of explaining it above.  But heres a few key notes:


1) A single color like RED, will be very vivid, because there is red ink in the hopper.

 However, Making PINK requires what? Stippling the red with the background white.
The stipple will make the picture quality worse, and the color itself wont look as good
as if it was a pink ink, or a mixture of red+white.

 Even mixtures of light blue to dark blue, will depend greatly on if there is more than
one blue to mix with, shaded with background white, or adding black.  Black would
seem to be fine right?  Sadly, black mixed with a pure color tends to make it look more
gray and muddy.  Same for adding white.  A pure color will always look 1000x better
and correct than trying to add white/black to it.  In simple terms, adding black & white
reduces the color spectrum when mixing inks/paints.

2) Photos have a very wide color spectrum.  They are not like single color lines.
Even light shading does not compared in spectrum to a typical photograph.
This is why its so noticeable when there is a lack of color spectrum when printing
photos.

3) Using non photo inks create worse photographic results, because they dont
capture the spectrums typical in photographs.  The resulting mixing of poorly matched
inks, will leave the image looking grayish, washed out, blurry... awful.

4) If a printer uses large visible stipples (dot patterns), that means the image is not
true, and you are losing the in-between colors.  Again, loss of spectrum = poor
color range = crappy picture.

5) A Silk-Screened image needs no stipples to mix colors.  Stipples are an artistic
choice.  However, the colors are always solid.  IE: Neon orange, will not be a mixture
of several colors dotted together to try to Look neon.


 They Do make incredible Industrial Inkjet machines, capable of more than 7 color
mixing,  UV resistant inks, and resolution that is so fine you would need a 10x magnifier
to see the dots.   However, you wont see stern using them...

[Pinball Wizard]

also is it just me or are we looking at some wacky lenticular print 3D artwork for the backbox??

That is correct it is a 3D backglass.

[Flake]

Stern playfields are silk screened.

Whats this you say?  Stern uses silk screen?  I hope your right PBJ. 

[Xiaou2]

My mistake, Turns out you are correct.

(though, my descriptions still remain true. IE: Color mixing / dithering faults / photo inks, etc.)

http://www.flippers.be/pinball_cabinets.html

The process Stern chose looks like butt.

[Flake]

Heres the relevant tidbits from the link Xiaou kindly posted:

"Stern also uses a 4-color process for their cabinets and playfields. Some people complain about the dithering on the cabinet artwork caused by this process. Dithering is however nothing new, as Williams cabinets also used gradients and were using a 4-color process on which you can also see the small dots when you look closely.
The difference is that because Stern uses more photo-realistic artwork, dithering can be quite explicit (using all 4 colors) and depends on the source used. Williams used more hand-drawn artwork with solid colors and gradients, dithering was more subtle (only 2 colors) and kept under control by the artist as he made the whole drawing himself."

Seems to me the only difference is Stern uses more photo prints rather than original artwork.  Doesnt seem like much of a difference to me but what the hell do I know?

[billpa]

First off...Xiaou needs to stop pretending he knows anything about printing "technologies".  Anyone that uses the terms CKMY and RBG is obviously clueless.  After that line, I stopped reading the rest of your post.

Stern does use screen printing...but they use a process technique as opposed to spot color.  Process typically involves 4 colors Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black (thats CMYK Xiaou...although K does not stand for Black but for Key...not enough time to teach you everything).  An image is separated into these 4 colors (tinted).  The tint is made up of tiny dots that are placed at different angles.  Then they apply these screens one at a time overprinting eachother.  This composite image makes the complex tonal values possible.  But it is a bit of a trick.  If you look closely you can see the individual dots or as someone else posted...dithering.  But last time I checked my face wasn't 1 inch from the playfield when I am playing.

Halftone is a type of process printing using only one color.  So the newspaper reference is correct.  It is a cheap option...one color ink and done.

Someone else posted about Wiliams using process printing...but look closely as it states their cabinets...not their playfields.  They used spot printing for their playfields...definitely more costly as you need to mix each individual color and there are more screens.  And good call on the thick black lines PBJ...that is definitely a technique to hide a lack of technique

I prefer the spot colored cartoony artwork over the photoshop collage type design Stern uses.  However, I completely understand why they use it.  To cut costs.  They can use all of the licensed photography and a printing process that only uses 4 colors.  Overall I think they look pretty good although I think they could have a little bit more QC when their stuff goes out.  I have seen a few alignment issues with playfields...Family Guy comes to mind.

I don't really understand the Stern bashing.  It's the last pinball company standing and they have put out some good titles (and some bad...but what company hasn't?).  I think the most disturbing trend I have seen is people wanting to see Stern fail so another company can step up and build better pins.  Um, why can't a company do that now?  Oh yea...because pinball itself is pretty dead and the amount of money to invest in an operation like that is incredible...and it would be financial suicide.

[RayB]

First off...Xiaou needs to stop pretending he knows anything about printing "technologies".  Anyone that uses the terms CKMY and RBG is obviously clueless.  After that line, I stopped reading the rest of your post.
----8<----
Halftone is a type of process printing using only one color.  So the newspaper reference is correct.  It is a cheap option...one color ink and done.

Well, the newspaper reference is not correct as it was stated. Not "only" newspapers use it. Just look at the side-art of many classic machines and you'll see half-tone patterns used to create gradients and optically blend two colors etc. (So you can save money by using only yellow and red, but get the optical illusion of an orange via the halftoning)

ANYWAYS.......... brevity; It's a great thing. Bye

[billpa]

Yes...exactly! That is how gradients are achieved with spot printing.  I believe playfields even have that technique. Funhouse comes to mind but I am sure there are a lot more.  They could also tint a specific color by creating a dot pattern.  For example...a blue color could look light blue if it was printed in a dot pattern over white ink.  Your eyes naturally blend the details together to create this intermediate color.

[RayB]

<offtopic>
Are any of you old-time graphic designers? Do you remember using those Letraset dry transfer halftone patterns? Oh those were the days! LOL
</offtopic>

[pinballwizard79]

XiaoPoo you lost me

[lilshawn]

c'mon really?!? if you want a piece of high quality art, buy some artwork. if you want a pinball machine buy a machine. you people have been soiled by HDTV and blueray dvd's. the price of new machines are high enough without having it cost $2000 to have the playfield and the box printed.

enjoy pinball machines while they last people, they ain't gon' be round much longer.

[Jeff AMN]

enjoy pinball machines while they last people, they ain't gon' be round much longer.

 

[JeepMonkey]

enjoy pinball machines while they last people, they ain't gon' be round much longer.

Are there many people that know they are still around now??

[JeepMonkey]

There's a persistent RGP belief that "if people just knew they existed, sales would be through the roof!!!!"

I do not agree with that argument.  You could tell everyone in the country that the brand new "Insert Theme" pinball machine is now on sale, and I doubt sales would go up much at all.  But I do believe that there would be way more people say "I didn't know they still made pinball machines" than "Yeah, I have been waiting to see the newest machine".