home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
-
-
- TARDIS Object
-
- (or, "If You Knew How MUCH Trouble This Has Been...")
-
- The Amiga community is growing steadily, and acceptance
- among "serious" computer users is increasing. Heck, we've
- supposedly even sold 1,000,000 of these darlings! There is,
- however, one problem with the world of Amiga that has held us
- back, and could drastically slow down the personal computer
- takeover that's underway. That problem?
-
- Not enough Dr. Who stuff! We've had the game "Daleks," but
- that was, uh, hmmm, well, that was a long time ago. There's been
- a digitized Tardis sound on PLink for quite awhile now (THANK
- YOU!, THANK YOU!), and that's been about it, as far as I know. I
- haven't even come across any digitized pics from Dr. Who! Of
- course, Leo Schwab signs his Usenet postings with that famous
- quotation, and that counts for a lot, but still...
-
- Well, if we're gonna be taken seriously in the other
- computer communities, we're gonna have to do better! So, here's
- my contribution: a bona fide, Sculpt4D object of the TARDIS, the
- Dr.'s wonderful traveling machine/companion(?).
-
- I've had Sculpt3D since it came out, but haven't had a lot
- of success with it. I'm not the artistic type at all, and have
- very little creative tendencies, period; however, recently I was
- fooling around with Sculpt, trying to create a box (yep, THAT'S
- how bad I was) and noticed the TARDIS piggy bank that sits near
- my monitor (saving for an 020 board; total so far, $5.63). I
- said "That's not too complicated (HAH!), I might be able to do
- that!" Well, that was quite awhile ago, but I FINALLY have what
- turned out to be a darned complete object, with "Police (Public
- Call) Box" sign and all.
-
- When I got serious about trying to make this look good, I
- started looking at some Dr. Who magazines to try to get as much
- detail as possible. What's amazing is the variety of ways the
- TARDIS has been shown over the years. I found pictures with door
- handles (handles when the door pushes IN?), no keyhole, a
- detailed sign on the front door with writing on it, no windows,
- windows on all four sides (couldn't COUNT the variations on the
- number of window panes), and in one of the Sylvestor McCoy
- episodes, he and Ace are shown entering a TARDIS that doesn't
- have the Police Box sign on it! So, having decided that if the
- BBC can't get the thing right that anything I did couldn't be too
- bad, I decided to kind of squash the things I liked together, and
- allow a little license so it wouldn't get too complicated (after
- all, I plan on RENDERING this too!).
-
- This file should contain three files, unless some goon
- decided to save some room and leave something out: This rambling
- mess/explanation/apology/waste of time, Tardis.scene, and
- Tardis.image. The scene contains the object, and was used to
- render the enclosed pic.
-
- All of the creation was done in 3D, but the image was
- rendered on a friend's machine in 4D. We also decided to make
- the cap at the top metal (and the keyhole too, I think). The
- light right now is just a set of shiny red surfaces, but these
- can easily be converted to glass, and a red lamp can be placed
- inside. I left them shiny/red because it seems to look about the
- same, and cuts rendering down a lot.
-
- NOTE: In the enclosed image the Police Box sign is unclear, but
- the whole sign is there. Sculpt just gummed it up when it cleaned up
- the pic. On closer shots the sign comes through clear, but this pic
- looks best overall of the ones I've done so far.
-
- Going through all this DID finally make me decide to upgrade to
- 4D. Byte-by-Byte, the check's in the mail.
-
- So, what YOU have to do now is take this and do something
- wonderful with it. I hope to soon see lots of Dr. Who stuff
- appearing. About all that I could come up with for the TARDIS
- was to spin it around, but perhaps some of you will do better.
- The next order of business I guess will be a Dalek object, but
- PLEASE, somebody beat me to it! :-) After that I guess would be
- K-9. Also, will someone please do a Sonix version of the Dr. Who
- theme song? "Doctorin' the Tardis" would be a good substitute.
-
- I hope you like this, and even more, I hope you use it.
- That's what PD is about! If you'd care to chat sometime, or
- just yell at me for including a "doc" file for an object, I can
- be reached at the following:
-
- PLink B Earl
- Infinity BBS (404)475-1740 William Earl
- (PCPursuitable through the Atlanta outdial)
-