Are you open to physics adjustments?

[MegaMav]

Hi, I wanted to reach out to you regarding some things I've observed using this game for a few days.

Background:

Bachelors Computer Science (2005)
Bachelors Psychology (2005)
Working in IT for major companies for 15 years.
I've been bowling for about 25 years and have experienced the game of bowling from the recreational level to the sport level.

People that have bowled this long have an "eye" for what looks right in terms of how the ball interacts with the pins, how pins interact with other pins and how the pins interact with the kick plates and gutters.

First thing I noticed when playing this game is the ball doesnt "go through the pins the right way" too often on good, flush shots with a good angle on the pocket. Everything seemed too "bouncy" from the ball bouncing off the pins to pins hitting the kick plates like they're rubber.
Some odd ball leaves too, guys throwing frozen ropes at the pocket off the corner and striking, which in real life would be a ring 10 in most cases or worse.

I started tweaking the physics to get it close to what I view as reality, leaving the correct pins on the deck on less than optimal angle and positions in the pocket.
This took me quite a while (2 hours of bowling), I think I still have some more tweaking to go, but I feel im pretty close based on my last few sets.

Here is what I came up with for changes:

Ball-Pin bounciness first hit: 0.73
Ball-Pin bounciness: 0.73
Pin-pin bounciness: 0.30
Pin-SideKickbackWall Bounciness: 0.060
Pin center of mass: 0.0595
Pin mass: 1.5300

Some of these may seem like big changes compared to what you had but...

I'm leaving "flat 10s" (6 pin slides over and drops in the gutter) when I should, ring 10s when I should (ball too fast and flat, 6 pin wraps around 10) and good shots flush with angle go through the pins the right way and leave the pin deck on the 20 board like they should.

I dont think I'm done making small tweaks, but this is very close to simulation level IMO.
One thing I do need to figure out, sometimes when I should leave a flat 10, the ball bounces off the pocket like it should, the 6 pin slides over into the gutter and drops like it should but another pin takes the 10 out on a graze. Small tweak. This is close to reality, give it a shot!

Also, something else, I've conversed with another experienced bowler I convinced to buy this and he shares the same opinion that the carrydown in this game is quite excessive and happens too fast.
I've started experimenting briefly with that and so far I've come up with:

Lane oil wear factor: 0.030
Lane oil carry factor: 0.027

These settings seem closer to reality when bowling alone.

This post is part information for you, since you may not have the "eye" for this stuff as a developer, I'm not sure your bowling experience level. Its also part documentation for myself because it appears I lose the physics settings when I restart. :)

Are you open to changes? Should I keep going and report back when I feel its not tweakable anymore?

Overall, this game is amazing! You've spent a lot of time making a successful product, so I could see you being reluctant to changes.
You seem to be open to making it more simulation than arcade. I also see some players shooting 300 like its nothing, and its probably because of this extra bouncy effect.
Please consider these settings after you test them for yourself and maybe some other real life or simulation experienced bowlers that see this test it as well.

Thank you!

-Eric

Thread summary/TL;DR:

Here are the final custom physics settings slated for 1.13 release:

Lane oil wear factor: 0.055
Lane oil carry factor: 0.20
Ball-pin bounciness on first hit: 0.78
Ball-pin bounciness: 0.78
Pin-pin bounciness: 0.33
Pin-SideKickbackWall bounciness: 0.67
Pin-Lane bounciness: 0.74
Pin dynamic friction: 0.02
Pin static friction: 0.03
Pin center of mass: -0.0586
Pin mass (KG): 1.5409

[spl]

Thanks a lot for the input! This is very useful for us as -- like you guessed -- we are not very experienced in real life bowling.

We try to achieve maximum realism and we are open to make changes when improvements to physics settings are discovered. We'll test with your proposed settings and see how the game behaves.

PS. I tried changing physics settings and restarted the game. For me it remembered the changes. If it loses your physics customizations, have a look at the log file and see if there's any errors. Find Player log-file using File Explorer:

Windows-key + R: %appdata%\..\LocalLow\Sadetta\Premium Bowling\
> Player.log, Player-prev.log

[MegaMav]

My pleasure, I'll continue working to refine the settings to get it as close to real (from my perspective) as possible.
Like I said above the settings are still not *quite* right, but its a start.
I'm open to collaborating with you, please let me know what you find with my settings.
Will update again soon.

Thank you for keeping an open mind and the tip on the log file!

[MegaMav]

Ive done some more testing and tweaking.

LOWF: 0.030
LOCF: 0.25
BP Bounce First: 0.74
Ball Pin Bounce: 0.74
Pin-Pin Bounce: 0.28
Kickplate Bounce: 0.55
Pin Lane Bounce: 0.72 (negligible)
CoM: 0.0595
Pin Mass: 1.5354

[MegaMav]

I bowled online with the default settings for about an hour (shot 747) then went back to the physics shown above offline. Night and day difference, ball goes thru the pins completely different. Much more real considering the rev rate too.

[MegaMav]

Hi spl,

I've spent the better part of 8 hours now tweaking and testing the physics settings and this is as close as I can get to real life from my perspective.

Changes:

LOWF: 0.030
LOCF: 0.25
BP Bounce First: 0.74
Ball Pin Bounce: 0.74
Pin-Pin Bounce: 0.28
Kickplate Bounce: 0.60 (Needed a little more bounce for messengers off the wall)
Pin Lane Bounce: 0.72
CoM: 0.0586 (Corrected up, was noticing some unusual "neck up" pin rolling behavior)
Pin Mass: 1.5409 (Slightly heavier correction is OK but still needs to be slightly lower than the mean legal weights)

I'm getting results from shots I would expect now over many games.
4 pins, flat 10s, ring 10s, pocket 7-10s on steep angles but the ball is late, 2-4-8-10s on late balls too thin on the pocket, messengers off the sidewall on occasion on lighter hits.
Perfect balls with higher rev rates finish more over the 21 board toward the 8 pin, medium high rev rates around the 20 board and lower rev rates around 18.5/19 board. This is very close to reality. IMO this is more on the conservative side, the high end rev rates represented in this game, in reality would be difficult to control and carry the 9 pin, which I did see a few of those with 4-9 and 4-7-9. IMO if the highest rev rate were penalized it would probably be a detriment to the game's experience in terms of scoring.

I dont think its possible to perfect reality, but I think these settings represent as close as I can get at this time. Until I hear back from you on your feedback, I'll hold off on making more tweaks so you know I'm done for now. I'm not certain what I would even change at this point. It took me 2 hours to make small changes to get it looking perfect to my eye.

The only concern I have is, in the default physics and my tweaks I am still seeing an occasional "pocket 6 pin", which is unusual, but not completely uncommon, just seems more common than real life.

One important thing to note about bowling pins, there are 2 voids in a pin and it would be extremely difficult to emulate that effect based on how you are building them in the game. I think my physics tweaks get it close.

A video by Science Channel shows this at the 1:15 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT4cinDlqcM

Another important note about the oil settings. I assume most players will be hooking the ball like "reactive resin" bowling balls, my settings reflect that. Your default setting probably reflects an environment where most players would use plastic, the oil wouldnt be taken off the lane much and pushed more down lane due to lack of porosity and oil absorption chemical properties that reactive resin balls have. Players that throw the ball dead straight in this game wont know the difference.

Let me know your feedback, this was fun!
Still enjoying the game, even on default physics settings!

[jaws1948]

Hi MegaMav Just to let you know, I was intrigued by your settings and just had to try them. I figured, I can always return to default if they don't work. Well, I have to say, they work great. I'm now getting much more realistic pinfall. Personally, I've been bowling for 64 years (I'm now 71). In my prime I held an average of 207 which was excellent for the times and even dabbled in some local PBA bowling, holding my own. One of the leaves I saw quite often in this game was either a 6 pin or a 4-10 on hits that were short in the pocket. In all my years, I can only remember once or twice leaving a 6 when light in the pocket. So thanks for your work. It's fantastic. Now the only thing missing is the physics for a lacquer lane and a rubber ball with oil to the headpin and even across the boards. That's what we dealt with back in the 50's and 60's before urethane came along. Great job, MegaMav

[MegaMav]

Jaws,

I was born in 1980, your time was a bit before mine!
I'm happy to have helped another bowler enjoy the game more.
Its great to know we share the same "eye" for the pins.
Thank you for your feedback! Good eye!

[pinwolf]

I find it impossible to actually enter the exact numbers MegaMav is suggesting for Center on Mass and Pin Mass. Because if I move the mouse even as a little as possible, the jump between on number and the next is still to large. I have now CoM at -0.085 an PM at 1.5419. That's as close as I can get.
Would be nice to have the possibility to just type in the numbers per keyboard. Or is there a way and I have not found out how?

[pinwolf]

Also, after watching the video linked above, I notice, that the bowling pins in the game miss a 'important' feature: a 'Sadetta Oy / Made in Finland' manufacturer logo.

[MegaMav]

pinwolf,

Try lowering your mouse sensitivity in your OS settings.

[spl]

MegaMav: OK, we'll be testing with your final settings for a while and will report back. Thanks a lot and thanks also to Jaws for the comments!

Pinwolf: I think the differences in resolution causes differences in available slider values. Using closest available value should give practically identical results though... but let's see, maybe we even add an input field.

[canis39]

This is a great thread -- always cool when the developer and the community can come together to make a game better.

[MegaMav]

Originally posted by canis39:

This is a great thread -- always cool when the developer and the community can come together to make a game better.

My pleasure. The settings I proposed arent perfect, but the ball goes through the pins more realistic than with the current settings. It will take more tweaking to get it even better, but I want to leave the decision to move forward with the developers. I'm not going to keep tweaking my settings on them. I think this is a big step in the right direction of realism.

If you want to see the difference just hit the pocket flush between the 1 and 3 pins on an angle with the ball hooking from the outside part of the lane (outside of 10 board).
Default settings the ball will bounce off the pocket and finish behind the 8 pin (too much bounce), some pins will go airborne into the pinsetter (not normal, CoM too high).
My settings the ball finishes between the 8 and 9 pins (19-20.5 board) and the pins stay lower to the pin deck, flushed to the pit.

If any of you reading this are a casual bowler, you may not know the difference and these changes may not change your experience at all. Those of us that bowl more competitively and hook the ball, its a big difference.

From my perspective, getting the ball to go thru the pins the right way is the first real step, then getting the pins to look close to reality in how they react to other materials like the side wall kick plate is the other big one. Its a delicate balance, adding bounce makes them fly around more but it also makes the ball bounce off of them. Adding pin to pin bounces makes them sometimes travel too far too fast and taking it away makes the pins look too "dead". It takes some finessing, but it comes down to: "Did your shot deserve to strike?" and "If not, what pins should be left standing?"
Experienced bowlers have a feel for this when they see the ball hit the pins.
We're collaborating and I hope this leads to the most realistic bowling game of all time!
They've already done an amazing job!

[jaws1948]

Agreed 100%. The devs have done an outstanding job. This is the best bowling game for PC that I've seen.

[Xeroqualms]

Haha, nice to see you from BC, MegaMav. I was messing around with the settings to for several hours to try and tweak it.

This game is definitely one of the best bowling games as far as realism goes. I've been playing since the Bowling Evolution days. Discovered this a few days ago, was delighted to see a new game had been in the works. Having a lot of fun with it. Keep it up devs and can't wait for updates and new features!