Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Writing has slowed down significantly over the last few days as I got distracted by a nasty infected root canal. Yay. I can barely get a thousand words down a night at this point, but I'm still on track to finish before the end of November.

I've fiddled with the Gundam a bit as well, putting together a few optional weapon kits I bought a while back. I have a giant chain gun that has a little wind up motor to spin the barrels. I may have squeed when I built that.

Well because of your pimped tau, i think you should go with Huggy Bear

Iam Fearless

Finally got the juices flowing again. I went and made a "creativity playlist" with a bunch of Bryan Tyler, Abney Park and Hans Zimmer tracks and played that while chugging pre-workout supplements. You want something to get your brain working? Try L-arginine, it also makes video games waaaaaaaaay more intense. Seriously. Go chug a serving of NO-Xplode and play some Halo, you'll see what I mean. And then you may need to go out and run some sprints or whatever to cool off, but trust me, it's hella cool.

Tonight I managed to get past a pivotal hump that started the novel's climax and kicked off the final action sequence, which from here I can pretty much pound out. If I'm not done with the book by the end of the week I'll be pretty surprised.

 bossfearless wrote:
Finally got the juices flowing again. I went and made a "creativity playlist" with a bunch of Bryan Tyler, Abney Park and Hans Zimmer tracks and played that while chugging pre-workout supplements. You want something to get your brain working? Try L-arginine, it also makes video games waaaaaaaaay more intense. Seriously. Go chug a serving of NO-Xplode and play some Halo, you'll see what I mean. And then you may need to go out and run some sprints or whatever to cool off, but trust me, it's hella cool.

Tonight I managed to get past a pivotal hump that started the novel's climax and kicked off the final action sequence, which from here I can pretty much pound out. If I'm not done with the book by the end of the week I'll be pretty surprised.

Had a buddy of mine take a full dose of "C-4 Extreme" not 10 minutes before a rugby match. Lol, he turned pale, was sweating bullets and was like "guys, I can feel my heart.... in my chest.... seriously, we NEEEEED to get this game kicked off!"

Heh, yeah it totally fills you with the need to headbutt something. If you channel that into gaming, though, you get this super intense immersion and you may or may not let out a gut searing war cry, or celebrate your kills with IRL pelvic thrusting.

...note to self: try this.

Have you ever used your staff to bean somebody upside their iron helmet, then used a haste enchantment to speed up the vibration until it turned their brains into pudding? Merrick can now check that one off the bucket list. Writing continues. Two more chapters left, Batch 43 and A Pig's Fate, and then I'm just down to editing.

Trying to figure out how I would light a really big lightsaber that goes with the Gundam model. Maybe a series of LEDs down the inside of the "blade"? No idea. I really should start building on this thing some more.

 bossfearless wrote:


Trying to figure out how I would light a really big lightsaber that goes with the Gundam model. Maybe a series of LEDs down the inside of the "blade"? No idea. I really should start building on this thing some more.

Wouldn't it be better, or easier... or something.... to have a single LED lighting up the bottom of a colored plastic rod...fiber optic style?

The problem is that a single LED only gives off so much light. The light you see going up the length of that rod is actually light escaping from the system, so that the further up the rod you go the weaker the light gets. On a 40k sized model, a single LED works well enough. If you look at the light-up plasma cannon I posted a while back you get the example of a short, vibrant lit rod. But then if you look at Upgrayedd's pimp staff, you'll see that the light from a single LED has all but dissipated by the time it gets to the end of that clear acrylic flight stand. Now imagine you were trying to light something ten times that size.

Gundam models are generally on a whole different scale to 40k, and the smallest analog is a Knight or Riptide sized unit. So, it's just a great big question of scale.

Problem with that design is that it does more of a projected blade thing- which, while how they're described, isn't actually how they look or act at all. They're more a chainsaw of plasma vortices trapped in a coil of magnetic feedback.

Anvildude wrote:
Problem with that design is that it does more of a projected blade thing- which, while how they're described, isn't actually how they look or act at all. They're more a chainsaw of plasma vortices trapped in a coil of magnetic feedback.

Yeah, what he said. But, short of actually putting together some kind of pressurized gas emitter, we're stuck trying to light it up as a lightsaber instead.

 bossfearless wrote:
The problem is that a single LED only gives off so much light. The light you see going up the length of that rod is actually light escaping from the system, so that the further up the rod you go the weaker the light gets. On a 40k sized model, a single LED works well enough. If you look at the light-up plasma cannon I posted a while back you get the example of a short, vibrant lit rod. But then if you look at Upgrayedd's pimp staff, you'll see that the light from a single LED has all but dissipated by the time it gets to the end of that clear acrylic flight stand. Now imagine you were trying to light something ten times that size.

Gundam models are generally on a whole different scale to 40k, and the smallest analog is a Knight or Riptide sized unit. So, it's just a great big question of scale.

I get what you're saying, but I suppose it will come down to how the sword itself is built, whether you're cool with an "exposed" light source, or if there will be "gaps" between the lit part.


Looking around a tiny bit online, if you're going for a full on lightsaber design, perhaps using Fiberoptic cabling would be the way to go? Obviously there are pros and cons to that as a whole.... But depending on the time table you're setting for yourself, you should have time to research and get the materials you want

Actually the material I'd probably want is electroluminescent wire. I found a supplier once upon a time that sold it by the inch in various thickness and color options, but then my computer died on me and I lost the bookmark. Fiber optic wire would have the same limitations as an acrylic rod, losing light along the length of the blade. EL wire might have the right properties but that's for another time, I think.

 bossfearless wrote:
Actually the material I'd probably want is electroluminescent wire. I found a supplier once upon a time that sold it by the inch in various thickness and color options, but then my computer died on me and I lost the bookmark. Fiber optic wire would have the same limitations as an acrylic rod, losing light along the length of the blade. EL wire might have the right properties but that's for another time, I think.

Ahh... yea, the google search I did, I came across a fiber optic wire company that sold stuff that, in the pictures looked almost exactly like how I'd imagine you'd want your lightsaber look to have and it could just have been the lengths used on the site, but they didn't appear to dissipate light at all along the length.

Link?

 bossfearless wrote:
Link?

http://www.fiberopticproducts.com/Archery.htm


That's the one site I was on... But, I've personally not done any modelling with the stuff, I've only used fiber for networking

Do you have access to chemistry equipment or a supplier of various gasses? What about glassblowing equipment? You could potentially make a Neon miniature sword!

Dude, anvil, anvildude, dude. Negative on the chemistry set dude. Desert, dude.

Also Enris, I looked on that link and it's the same basic thing as the fiber optic I use now. It states on the site that it won't light up on the sides, only at the tips. EL wire is the closest thing I can think of.

Just invent a real, working laser sword and then scale it down.

If anyone can do it, Boss....

Lightsaber log, Day 1: Burnt my eyebrows off and I haven't seen the cat in hours. It's a good start.

Honestly, making a super-tiny lightsaber would probably be worlds easier than making a 'full size' one. Power consumption and field densities and atmospheric scattering and the square-cbe-law and all that.

Lightsaber log, Day 2: Burnt the house down, but succeeded in making toast with lightsaber.


Worked on the Gundam a bit. This thing, goddamn man. The head? 13 pieces. Added another 20 or so pieces to the torso, still not finished with that yet. These Japanese master grade kits are over the top complicated.

 bossfearless wrote:
Heh, yeah it totally fills you with the need to headbutt something. If you channel that into gaming, though, you get this super intense immersion and you may or may not let out a gut searing war cry, or celebrate your kills with IRL pelvic thrusting.

This post is so full of win and overpowered awesome, my computer shuddered and then sprouted limbs, battle music began to play -- and a mini boss fight ensued.

I am SO going to try this.

Also, this book, we gonna get a chance to read it?

Okay, the last chapter of the story itself is done. The big climactic boss fight has ended, Fat Suzy and Uncle Randall are no more, and batch 43 was an absolute failure. Brains leaked, heads exploded, characters died, and the truth wore purple. One more chapter to write, the epilogue, and then it's finally written after ten goddamn years of saying I'd write it.

Sweet zombie Space Jesus, I finally finished my first novel. This is kind of freaky. This project has existed in a perpetual twilight for more than ten years, always lurking in the back of my brain. Feels crazy to actually have it down on paper.

Lighsaber log, Day 23: Scrawled obscene graffiti on the wall with the power of a thousand suns.

Congratulations.

That's awesome news Boss. Now get that thing published so I can throw money at you.

Well done indeed.

As to EL wire: http://elwirecraft.co.uk/ I have used these guys before, but no idea on what shipping to Saudi is like.

Wrote an epilogue about an infantry regiment pooping out harpies, and used that as a parable to tie the whole novel together. Part of me really hopes this gets made into a movie someday just so I can see that on the big screen.


Lightsaber log, Day 30: With great power comes great responsibility, but with a lightsaber comes the ability to slice bread and turn it into toast at the same time. Also, speaking of lightsabers, I adamantly defend the validity of the cross-guard lightsaber from the new Star Wars trailer. There's already a plot device in place to make that cross guard a functional thing, "cortosis weave" I believe it's called, the extra layer that made your regular melee weapons immune to lightsabers in the KOTOR games. Yeah, nerd cred right there.