wwwmwww Wrote:No I didn't fall off the planet.  My workload has more or less doubled at work here in the last several weeks and I haven't had the time or the energy to play much with POV-Ray.  I'll get back to it as soon as I can but its looking like that may be a few more weeks.

Same here, trying to convince someone that I have enough programming skills that they will actually pay me for it (living the unemployment scene right now sucks!)

wwwmwww Wrote:Your names are on the left... my proposed names are on the right. Canopy = Canopy Canopy Shoulder + Trim = Side Panel Radius Side = Side Panel Foot Rest = Light Pipe; Navigation Light; Running Light (Not sure if any of these is any better then Foot Rest) Windshield = Windshield Wing = Side Window; Side Bay Window Chassis = Chassis Engine = Front Wheel Socket; Front Wheel Projector; Front Wheel Cone Transmission = Side Vent; Side Cone; Chassis Detail LightJet = Fender Cone; Fender Detail; Turn Signal Mounts; Fender Flare; Tail Wing Fender = Fender Rear Hub = Rear Hub Rear Wheel = Rear Wheel Front Wheel = Front Wheel and Front Hub Front Axle = Front Axle Rear Axle = Rear Axle Front Spoke = Front Spoke Rear Spoke = Rear Spoke Anything I over looked? Carl

After looking at these for the last week or so, and thinking about the names for a while, I've decided I don't like most of them (both mine and yours).  The main reason being is that they are not consistent.  In some cases we describe the CSG shape or the mathematical definition, other times the names are from real world objects (wheels, spokes, etc.).  Thus I have two trains of thought, uh, three (I just thought of another):

1. Name them based on what they are: cone, ellipse, torus, etc..
2. Give them names that match the idea of being inside a computer.  So, something like "canopy" would not make sense because there is no wind (or bugs, oh wait, well, not bugs that get in your teeth anyway... ;-) ) in a computer.
3. Combine the two.  Come up with "computer world" names, and also technical names for anyone wanting to model their own.

I like option 3.  The computer world names require a little imagination, engineering, and science fiction, but we can also have real world names that we can reference when modeling.

Thoughts?

Also, coming up with these part names (the computer world ones) is not limited to Carl and I...  The real world names are pretty fixed, since you can't argue that an ellipse is anything but an ellipse (well, you could argue, but resistance is futile!!)

wwwmwww Wrote:And see a robot with one bloodshot eye, wearing glasses, with a mohawk, and his mouth gaping wide open?

Haha, nope, I see it clear as day.  Very funny.

Matthew

might be an old thread, but wow, you guys have this all figured out! been a while for me and yes, I still want to make a full scale light cycle original 80's version

Will

Hello Will,

I was looking for this thread back in the 2006 area of the forum, now I know why I could not find it. ;-)  I don't know if Carl is still around, and it seems the forum was hacked and a lot of posts have had spam added to them, as well as being truncated.  It is too bad this place has gone down-hill so badly.

I'm watching your lightcycle build thread and I really hope you complete it!

It has been a long time since I have worked on my lightcycle, but I still have the models and my desktop background is one of my rendered images.  I also just went and saw TRON on 70mm last night at the Egyptian Threatre in Hollywood, which prompted me to revisit these forums after so many years away.

I might start to revisit my models too.  I still need to make a tank and recognizer after all. :-)  The logic probe, a gridbug, bit, and a few other models would be cool too.

I'm also still looking for official information on the specific SynthaVision objects and their information (coordinates, size, orientation, boolean operation, etc.) if it exists.  It must exist, somewhere, on graph paper in someones old filing cabinet.  The complete lightcycle assembly video would be a great find too.  sigh.

matthew180 Wrote:I wonder is anyone on this board knows the guys who actually built the lightcycle model at MAGI??  Anyone?

Most on the team are likely still alive, but many are getting to or are past retirement age now.  I have a list of the original code developers that would know from the MAGI days, but don't want to spam their names publicly.  If you do a literature search for the MAGIC computer code, there are at least four DoD technical reports with author names of relevance if someone wants to try and dig; and lots of names here: https://excelsior.asc.ohio-state.edu/~carlson/history/tree/magi.html

I wouldn't be surprised if the original geometry files aren't stored in some forgotten corner of Disney in a box simply labeled "Synthavision", on Gould floppy disks that suffered magnetic corruption 10 years ago.  But one can hope a copy was made before then and has been preserved.

Cheers!
Sean