Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Belkar 11-30-07, 12:46 PM	Yes, my friend, you can!! ;) Forgive the odd title, but I wanted to start this thread simply to share something I experience this week that blew my mind as a gamer. Maybe you all have seen this, or read about it. Maybe this is no big deal to you in any form or fashion. But maybe it is... ;) I've read online about folks who rig up a digital projector hooked to their PC, and hang it from the ceiling, to project a map down onto the play table. Nifty. And expensive. Plus... it seems to be a little lackluster (what with the shadows from the projection, and the low light needed, etc. I played with something much better this week... oh my, yes. Oh my. :D Went to a long-time friends house who was anxious to run a game (he hasn't in years), but wouldn't tell us why... This fellow does well for himself (he's a hardware engineer for a decent company), and he likes to buy himself toys (and he can afford to). So, we arrive, and go into the guy's den, and find some type of "table" with chairs around it. A grungy dining-room table, with a smooth, black square set into the center of it. Upon closer inspection, my friend had purchased an old table at a garage sale ($15) and gone to Wal-mart and purchased a non-high def, 47 inch LCD television ($1400) and gotten his carpentry tools out - and went to town. Cutting an insert hole out of the table top just the size of the television face (so the TV could lay flush with the table), he then lowered the cut piece down to match the precise thickness of the TV, and then bracketed it to the table under-side, then just laid onto it the LCD TV. Flat and staring "up" at us. Cables trailed out the underside and over to his PC's video card. I'm not sure what mapping program he used (I know there are dozens)... but it was incredible!! He adjusted his resolution so the program's 1 inch map squares became 1 inch squares on the LCD - and we just whipped our miniatures out and put the on the "map". It was amazing. Utterly amazing. His program allowed him to control lighting in certain areas, so our miniatures could only "see" where he let them, and he would adjust the lighting with our movements... it was...just...wow... He had an absulutely HUGE map for a dungeon crawl, and he moved it where we went. No re-drawing. Full color! Incredible. I've researched some of the various mapping programs online (maybe you folks could recommend the best of them), and I figure, I could do this myself for about $1500. Now... I know I'll probably get flamed for hurting the "imaginatory" quality of the game... but... lol.. man. It was just too cool. Thought I'd share an amazing idea.
Dog_O_War 11-30-07, 12:56 PM	Wow, I'ma rob yer friend;) Seriously though, that does sound incredible. Ask him what program that was and where it can be obtained from. As a person who often has a fair bit of extra cash myself (only because I lack alot of the "wants" the average person has, as well as minimal bills), as well as being THAT eccentric, I am completely enthused about this possibility.
CryoSilver 11-30-07, 01:42 PM	Though cash-strapped at the moment, my friends and I threw in for a projector. We use AutoCAD (because I already had a copy, and because we've all worked as draftsmen) for our map. The projector was a few hundred bucks, and we assembled a beater PC out of spare parts for the box to run AutoCAD.
Narf_the_Mouse 11-30-07, 02:00 PM	I want one of those!
Dougan Axehammer 11-30-07, 02:13 PM	Hell yes! I agree, get this guy's plans and share. (I've had similar ideas using currently unavailable technology - holoprojectors. Didn't really think of an LCD in a table though. :embarrass )
CosmicChaos 11-30-07, 02:48 PM	Belkar, Maybe your friend can get a booth at Origins or Gencon and get orders for his "product". I know if I had the spare cash, I would buy one. Especially if he could suggest the best software or make it part of a package deal (working with that software company). My one question though, you didn't place the minatures directly on the screen right? There was another plane of glass separating them? I don't remember if LCDs are the ones with screens that shouldn't be touched. I know one of the screens experiences damage over time from being touched.
CryoSilver 11-30-07, 03:14 PM	You can touch an LCD screen. You just shouldn't put pressure on it. A 1 ounce mini isn't going to damage the screen, but a 1 lb bowl of chips might.
Belkar 11-30-07, 03:21 PM	All right - I've emailed him to ask what software he was using... And, yes... we put our miniatures directly on the LCD. He asked us not to put pressure, though... and the table had enough wood surrounding the LCD that it wasn't an issue (as far as bowls of chips and books go ;) ). I think, though... when I make this... I'll probably get a 1/2 inch glass pane - or 1/8 inch lexan or a poly... would cover it quite nicely. Hmmm...
Grod_The_Giant 11-30-07, 03:26 PM	I want one...
Dougan Axehammer 11-30-07, 03:47 PM	All right - I've emailed him to ask what software he was using... And, yes... we put our miniatures directly on the LCD. He asked us not to put pressure, though... and the table had enough wood surrounding the LCD that it wasn't an issue (as far as bowls of chips and books go ;) ). I think, though... when I make this... I'll probably get a 1/2 inch glass pane - or 1/8 inch lexan or a poly... would cover it quite nicely. Hmmm... I also want to know how he installed the LCD into the table. Did he use brackets? Is it inset? What was his technique?
Belkar 11-30-07, 03:54 PM	I also want to know how he installed the LCD into the table. Did he use brackets? Is it inset? What was his technique? Dang... I've asked him for pics of it (though I don't know how comfortable he'll be with pics of his home being on the net ;) )... But picture this: 1. Take a dining room table, and stare at it from above... 2. In the dead-center of the table, cut a square out of it the exact dimensions (width & length) of the LCD TV (case and all). As if you just placed the LCD TV flat on the table and traced around it. 3. Take the same piece of wood you just cut out of your table, and use that as your "shelf" to rest the TV on underneath the table. If you were to take your cut-out piece of wood and put it back in the hole, and "let it fall" a few inches to the precise depth of the LCD TV - that's what you'd have. 4. Bracket that piece of cut out wood to the underside of the table, where it "fell" when you placed it. So, basically... you now have a table with a recessed area in the center the right size and shape for the LCD TV. 5. Then he just dropped the LCD into the recessed space, and ran the cords to his PC.
Tempest Stormwind 11-30-07, 05:08 PM	Sounds familiar. (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tutorials/tabletopprojection/) (Same guy who does d20SRD.org.)
CCS 12-01-07, 01:27 AM	That's fantastic! My own groups been discussing this very type of thing for about two years now. Though we intend to program all manner of board-games (settlers of catan, formula de, axis/allies, you name it, etc.) into it.... The price hasn't quite come down yet to where we'd like it to be though. I figure about 1 more year.... :)