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Ripley's Believe It or Not! (Stern 2004)

Whitestar platform build with deep technical discussions on inserts, PWM flasher integration, VR compatibility, and physics tuning. Notable for establishing pop bumper radius sizing standards and dSleeves vs dPosts collection distinction. Built by apophis79, sixtoe, iaakki, and benji084.

Table-Specific Details

Mechanisms & Hardware

  • Whitestar platform requires UseVPMModSol = 2 (not 1) for proper PWM output. UseVPMModSol = 1 only worked by coincidence with early VPinMame 3.6 alpha builds.
  • Pop bumper radius was incorrectly sized to the plastic cap (45) -- correct radius matching the rubber skirt is 38. This same issue was found on X-Men where the Gambit shot through bumpers was impossible until corrected.
  • Varitarget: when ball falls through the playfield at this complex mechanism, a catcher trigger area below the playfield detects the "narnia ball" and places it in a nearby VUK.

Art & Visuals

  • Insert text overlays need per-insert shadows parallel to the text baseline (not a global light source) for an embedded ambient-occlusion effect. Render fill and stroke to the same image before applying shadow to avoid anti-aliasing holes in opacity.
  • PWM flasher integration with Flupper domes: each dome layer (flare, bloom, lit, base) fades at different rates using different exponents (aValue^2.5 for flare, aValue^3 for light intensity). Available bulb types include VPM_MODOUT_BULB_89_20V_DC_WPC (301) for flashers and VPM_MODOUT_BULB_44_6_3V_AC (100) for GI.

Physics & Gameplay

  • dSleeves collection has more damping than dPosts, correct for rubber sleeve-covered posts. Any post/sleeve primitives not assigned to collections may have inconsistent physics behavior.
  • Scoop hole sizing: a scoop only fractionally wider than the ball (53 wide for 50-diameter ball) makes shots unreasonably difficult. Cross-reference with Cliffy protector reference photos and real measurements.
  • Wire ramp exits: add invisible one-way gates when balls "wall ride" around exits instead of matching real table behavior.

Known Issues

  • PinMAME can drop fast solenoid events on 90s Williams games. GI flickering may not work correctly. If a rapidly flickering flasher appears static, the issue may be PinMAME emulation rather than table code.
  • VPX version forward compatibility breaks DisableLighting -- opening a VPX 10.8 table in 10.7 can reset DL parameters to zero.
  • Hidden objects on forgotten layers are a common source of hard-to-debug physics issues.

Techniques Developed Here

See Also