For the comm station of the Nautilus we wanted to have something really functional without sacrificing too much realism. One of the things people used a LOT in our last game was Comm Ops; they loved sending and receiving messages, and we depended heavily on it for video and audio plot devices. Problem is, the last game was set on a spaceship, so it was super easy to do a computer station with a futuristic sci-fi look at feel.
Although the Nautilus is electrical, we didn't want to just set up a computer and monitor and be done. So, Gogas designed a Comm Ops that had a steampunk-y, Victorian feel.
He bought a thermal printer (you know, the kind receipts are printed with in stores) and programmed it to print Tweets. This way, the STs can use their phones or iPods to tweet a communication and it'll print out like a tickertape.
Painting the printer box copper and adding small buttons and gauges will give it the steampunk look we want.
For longer messages, and for sending communications, we're still using a computer. But we'll be turning the monitor and keyboard into something a little more Verne-esque. Gogas is getting his inspiration from Jake von Slatt's jaw-dropping projects. Still in the first phases, he's been experimenting with painting the monitor and using lamps as power sources:
He'll also be designing a Flash program that will make the monitor's display look more like paper and scrolling text, and have the interface a lot more anachronistic.
As things get built, I will post more pictures.
The thermal printer was purchased at Adafruit and is controlled using an Arduino Uno and an ethernet shield on top for network access. The code checks the latest tweet from a twitter account, parses through the text looking for the time and date, and if it is not equal to the last time and date that it printed a tweet from, then look for the matching tweet text and send that to the printer.
ReplyDeleteIt was pretty plug and play and didn't take much to get going. Kudos to the people who made the ethernet shield for encapsulating all the messy network code and making it easy to use.
The lamps were found at a thrift store for $4.25 each and look real vintage, but they were normal lamps without lampshades. Thrift stores usually have tons of lamps that people don't buy because they don't have lamp shades, and I found lamps to be treasure troves of useful parts and shapes. The screws holding lamps together are all half inch all thread bolts, so pieces from different lamps can be combined very easily.
I found those handing lamp glass pieces (two total with chains, I think they are meant to be hung outside) for $4 at the same thrift store, and they went perfectly atop the two other lamps. I ripped out the actual lamp light parts, but I think there is room to retain them in there, so they can still be legitimate lamps if I put the wiring back into them.
Those two lamps were meant to be what is holding the monitor up, but I wasn't sure they could support the weight properly, and then the monitors and lamps would have to be taken apart and moved in three different pieces and it would just be awkward. Now they are just for show and will sit to the left and right of the computer, which will now be mounted on a trophy base.
More pictures to come as it nears completion.