Steaming ahead
Jul. 24th, 2008 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffuturesWhile I wait for Jo to get back to me with corrections, I've been finishing off the cutout model paddle steamer I designined a while ago. Basically, I've added assembly instructions and pictures of the ship, fixed a few problems, and added floor plans for the below-deck areas. I'm not going to try to model the machinery in detail, steam engines are too bloody complicated, but I do want to show where all the bits are, e.g. the boiler etc., so I've spent most of the day with Micrografx Draw, and though I say it myself, the results could be a lot worse. This is the engine room - it's ludicrously simplified and maybe looks a bit reminiscent of something that Mamod or Mecanno might sell, but I think it will just about do.
I'm especially proud of the mesh overhead walkways, which is NOT something that's easy to do with this software. The crank shaft was a total pain, and doesn't look as good as I'd like, but I think it's just about OK. This is a paste-up of two screen dumps since the engine takes up about half a page (with the boiler on one page and the rest on the next page, unfortunately - I couldn't find a way to get everything on one page without putting a page boundary somewhere even more awkward). The slightly mottled appearance at a couple of points is down to jpeg compression, it isn't in the PDF.
The rest of it was comparatively easy, apart from some silly problems getting blankets to look vaguely like blankets on the cabin beds - that took a ludicrous number of separate elements per bed to get right.
Anyway, it comes out at 14 pages and a little over a megabyte, and I think that on the whole it's good.
Anyone who wonders why I'm bothering - remember that the next release will be space travel, and if there's one thing people are certain to want in a space travel game it's deck plans for their spaceships. I might as well get up to speed now!
Friday AM: Fixed the crank shaft, not perfect but a lot better.
I'm especially proud of the mesh overhead walkways, which is NOT something that's easy to do with this software. The crank shaft was a total pain, and doesn't look as good as I'd like, but I think it's just about OK. This is a paste-up of two screen dumps since the engine takes up about half a page (with the boiler on one page and the rest on the next page, unfortunately - I couldn't find a way to get everything on one page without putting a page boundary somewhere even more awkward). The slightly mottled appearance at a couple of points is down to jpeg compression, it isn't in the PDF.
The rest of it was comparatively easy, apart from some silly problems getting blankets to look vaguely like blankets on the cabin beds - that took a ludicrous number of separate elements per bed to get right.
Anyway, it comes out at 14 pages and a little over a megabyte, and I think that on the whole it's good.
Anyone who wonders why I'm bothering - remember that the next release will be space travel, and if there's one thing people are certain to want in a space travel game it's deck plans for their spaceships. I might as well get up to speed now!
Friday AM: Fixed the crank shaft, not perfect but a lot better.
