sysrpl6 November 2026, 15:26
Weclome to the pinball engine forum. Here is a brief video showing what it currently looks like.
▶️ gameplay video
I am working on releasing a FOSS pinball engine, with an emphasis on working on Linx, but also supporting Windows, and MacOS. The workflow for creating new tables for my engine begins in parametric CAD. I am using it for creating tables, and the user community would have the same workflow for managing or creating the own tables.
My most recent build now features wire ramps, incandesent light bulbs, more shadows, including translucent shadow projection, plastic backlighing, improved prerfomance tricks, a few different camera views including some chase camera, and some other improvements.
Tables are designed in CAD in 3D. I've designed many scripts for CAD to create pinball rubber bands, ramps, wire guides, table slots and holes, overhead wiring, and target / widget placement. Here is how that design process works:
▶️ table design and build video
In the video above you can see that I wrote a tool allowing for finer grained control of conversion of CAD parts to meshes. It will be altered later and build into the game engine editor and layout parts of the engine. For now, it works by opening a desktop connection to OnShape and sends commands to it, then capturing parameters for defining how the mesh is composed. My game engine also intelligently generates simplified physics bodies using primitives such as sphers, cylinders, capsules, boxes, and cones as much as possible.
And finally my pinball game engine loads up the meshes and builds a model of the table component that a custom Typescript can use to define table logic. I am still working on adding features, and tonight I will be running a barrage of random material setting to determine which ones are best for the rubber, steel, plastic, sheet metal, and other parts like motors and springs.
The goal is to have a 3D pinball game engine that work the same on Linux, Windows, and Mac, while performing very well usings all sorts of tricks. The video of the gameplay was captured on an Intel 8th gen 7 CPU using integrated graphics with OpenGL 4.1.
Here are some fun articles I've researched over many years.
pool balls from 2020
pool vectors from 2018
3d terrain demo from 2016
my second game engine from 2014