Hi !
Hope this is the right place for that. I'm the lucky one who bought the spare deck36 kit Spatcave sold a couple of weeks ago.
I gently started collecting parts to make it, and the kit suddenly poped out on ebay. Lucky me.
The secret aim is of course to make an electronic tracker with animated screen and real proximity sensor. I even plan to propose a kit (only the electronics).
I know, I'm kind of late... just like for my PR... and I know it's been done in the past by hyperdynelabs, and now there's a nice master replica version but... can't help it, I LOVE DIY !

I've played with my graphic display today, I already have an nice animation of the screen. Now I have to program my electronic board to really start the work.
The sensors will detect an object from 15 cm to 6.5 m, pretty nice to build some interaction with surrounding object and/or people.

Sounds will be changeable using my SD card system, of course, just like on my SW sabers, blaster or PR.

Like the PR, I'm going to detail that in an article on plecterlabs.com, including the construction of the MT kit, painting etc.

Hope you'll like this little soap I'm starting here !
Erv'

WE DEMAND PICS AND VIDEOS!!!

I bet you want some
I'm finishing the animation and I'm going to picture that. First it will be a simple animation with an alien blob/dot blinking on the screen, then I'll move to multiple animation sequences, remotely triggered with the motion sensor.
More pics probably this week end.
In the meanwhile, you can have a look to my latest thingie here (nothing about aliens or USCM but...)
http://www.plecterlabs.com/catalog/article_info.php?articles_id=45&language=en

Erv'

Sounds like fun!

Just checking the D36 installation guide.

Man, you have to do all the drilling,dremeling,and assy?

Wow. Talk about some dirty hands... BB style.


Can't wait to see picts!

"dirty hands" ? someone called me ?
*looks around*
yep, quite some work for that one.

After playing for a couple of hours with my favorite graphic program, I've made a nice animation for my graphic screen. It fits perfectly the hama slide viewer. It does not have a huge resolution (160 x 128) but with some anti aliasing, I think it's not that bad. I've skrinked the pics I've posted, so the result you see here is not as nice as in real. It will look nice as soon as I shoot a video.

Now I have to produce several of those animations, with different distances and different locations of the alien blob.

I appologize for this late update. The MT is mostly done and painted. The project has been slowed down, thought : After talking to several people including spat, I can't avoid it, I have to mold and recast the top part of the kango drill. For some reason this part was made out of a a bad resin mixture, probably too much catalyser or it was not stirred properly. Symptoms are : despite of washing it with soap, thinner, solvant, vinegar etc, a sort or oily-but-not-greasy liquid is flowing out of some zones of the resin part. Nothing takes on it. I've tried resin, gel coat, primer. It does not work.

I've found the person that will probably help me recasting the part, but now I have to find the time to spend a day or two in his workshop.
More when I'm done with that problem !
Erv'

The part was cast after the one I got in the kit, but the project stayed in the drawers for another year, being too busy with other props and electronic boards production.
Also, the cast was made on a very abused part since I tried many many different ways of coating it, so it was sanded several times. The person who did the cast filled up the biggest grooves & scratches prior casting but still... a lot of things remained to do. I keep taking pictures of the process, and I'll post them later today or tomorrow.

result so far. I'll make a recap later with all the build pics to show the "process".

I see wiring going to the hama remote control, is that the on/off switch?

not the on/off but it will be a functional switch for sure !
(PS : you have a PM )

the hama was part of the parts that were very damaged in the kit, resin bended and so forth so the 2 halves won't clip. I'm waiting the last minute to glue those.

My oh my I LIKE that Where do you get the specs to start a build? Is it done by eye?

_________________
Easily distracted by shiny things...

it's a "deck36" kit that was made by molding & casting all the vintage parts. I used the Harry Harris pictures as wells a several posts here, on in particular explains what all the parts are (search for "motion tracker parts" I think)

to give you an idea it started like that (LOTS of prep work)

project keeps going very well. Electronic in progress, started hooking things together yesterday and now I got the screen working and the main interaction planed.

I do have a question though. Do you know what's exactly supposed to display the red numbers ?



I'm having a doubt on the big numbers vs the smaller ones. Are they both related to distance to the aliens, the big numbers being the distance in meters and the smaller numbers the rest of the decimal value ?
Or is there one that is the number of targets and the other one the distance ?

thanks for your help !

Yes, in the image 24.75 indicates the distance only. 24 meters and 75 centimeters. So the minimum detection range goes by quarters of meter (25cm)
There is no indication on the number of signals detected.

that's indeed what I thought, I've just seen incoherent videos in which you had the aliens closer and the numbers increasing instead of displaying a shorter distance.

man i cant wait to see this finished

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I'm the one they warned you about

I explain the scenes where the display briefly shows an increasing distance with the idea that the tracker was going off scale due to the high number of targets (so it was not locking in precisely). Plus I think the device is not supposed to be as precise as it is in the videogames.

"It's reading right man, look!"

"Well you're not reading it right!"

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

my distance measurement system might not even be as accurate as in the movie. I'll see how it goes, I might tune the resolution of the display so that it matches what you see in the original prop.

kewl project I wanna get a kit for mine when it is available

still going.
Working on the storage of the media files on the screen. That ended requiring custom programing directly on the screen but it's quite efficient.
I expect to have the radar screen rotating with the motion of the user. Since I want the contents generation to be authored automatically, I'm working on a computer software to build up the media library (still screen, boot screen, MT beaming, alien spots etc) automatically. Still images can be built in photoshop then put in the software that will build dynamic sequences, export them as indexed movies then they are stored in the screen. With the media builder and the screen uploader, the user can change the contents, customize the boot screen etc. (that if a run ever happens)

keep up the good work

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I'm the one they warned you about

Are you doing this using a Game Boy Colour and custom Cartridge??

I've seen someone else use that method to great effect.

_________________
AKA: Simon

nope, all custom electronics That game boy hack is very cool though !

here's a little demo video of the screen (WIP). Please do not focus on the artwork of the screen, I *know* the beams (and ghost beams) aren't 100% accurate. Still, those a fully changeable and redoing the 600+ frames takes about 40 seconds only (then add 30 sec to upload the contents in the screen).
Artwork I'll fine tune later, for now I have enough work on putting all the electronics together. Enjoy !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydplmVm9Yw