{"id":3837,"date":"2021-03-07T03:48:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T03:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/?p=3837"},"modified":"2021-03-07T22:16:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T22:16:13","slug":"impossible-mission-3d-printed-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/?p=3837","title":{"rendered":"Impossible Mission – 3D Printed Robots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I saw a 3D print of a robot and a runner from Impossible Mission<\/strong>, probably the best game ever written for the Commodore 64<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is a marvel of perfection, that game.<\/p>\n

And I have seen 3D prints before from these models. I found them on Thingiverse<\/a><\/strong>, by PixelPoldi.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They even appear in a book about the game and its sequel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And so I downloaded the models and cut them up so they could be printed in multiple colors. The models on Thingiverse were single solids. Also, the models were designed to be pixel-square, which is not how a Commodore 64 screen works.<\/p>\n

Pixels for a Commodore 64 screen in NTSC (where I lived and played) is 1 to .75, so they are a tad taller than they are wide. I scaled the models accordingly.<\/p>\n

My results:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, the more I looked at the robot, the less I liked it.<\/p>\n

Comparing the pixel models from screenshots, I could see a couple of things that didn’t sit right with me.<\/p>\n

First, the C64 Robot is created from a multi-colored sprite, which doubles the pixel width. So there are no single pixels, yet the model had several.<\/p>\n

I printed out the actual sprite images, and used them to completely remodel a new, more accurate version of my Robot.<\/p>\n

First thing I noticed was that instead of having a circular eye-piece, the sprite shows quite a wide rectangular eye-piece, much bigger than I remembered, when facing the camera.<\/p>\n

(Note that the robots appear in-game in various colors, and I chose a different color scheme than the pixel images I found.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I fixed some other things too, so that when facing the side, my new model was 100% pixel accurate. Sideways was a different issue, though.<\/p>\n

The pixels were impossible. Modeled, the robot would have to have a painted face with no depth. But I managed even to make that work by making a front piece with 45 degree sides that fit into the eye-piece.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here then is my final model, and you can even see that, while the rotating robot is intended to depict a cylinder, my version works pretty well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here they are, with floors modeled from the game, as display bases:<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I saw a 3D print of a robot and a runner from Impossible Mission, probably the best game ever written for the Commodore 64. It is a marvel of perfection, that game. And I have seen 3D prints before … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3845,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions\/3845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huxter.org\/words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}