[Photos Concept With Maze Rar
Addison Mauldin
In late 2012, director Wes Ball offered me the opportunity to design the mechanical creatures known as Grievers for the film. Additionally, I had the privilege of contributing to the design of several other elements, such as the Maze, Beetle Blade, and Cranks. As the project evolved, Method Studios joined the project and employed my designs for the visual effects.
Initially, it was planned to portrait the Grievers as large, robotic machines in the film. However, prior to being hired for the job, I had already developed a test design that incorporated the hybrid creature concept from the novel. I presented this design to director Wes Ball, who was immediately drawn to it. Together, we made several adjustments to make them more intimidating, such as adding a scorpion-like tail. Slugs and coconut crabs were big influences for me in finding the overall body shape. The head is a mixture of caterpillars, bulldogs and piranhas.
Wes already had many dynamic action scenes in his mind and asked me to incorporate a mechanical scorpion tail into the design. This required me to modify the body structure. I lowered the body closer to the ground and made adjustments to the small arms.
Since we see the Grievers mostly in the dark, Wes wanted to find a way to illuminate them with some kind of 'light dots' and sensors. This is one of a few options that I sent to him. One idea was to put these lights underneath the slightly translucent skin which would constantly move in one direction.
After the design was nearly completed, Wes requested an illustration featuring a Griever inside the maze. I generated several different ideas for this, marking my initial attempt at creating a maze concept. For inspiration, I referred to Wes's own 3D concepts.
The Beetle Blades didn't end up in the film, but I had a blast working on them. There were a few fun scenes in the script. Wes described them as the 'observation cameras' from the maze, therefore I attempted to make the design very functional. At the very beginning we thought about making them bio-mechanical, similar to the Grievers. Wes wanted something like a mutated and scary looking sowbug.
I am creating a laser maze by reflecting a laser in mirrors across a room. I have built the laser tripwire from Robotix (thanks!) and can see that it works. The challenge is the implementation - when I set thresholds from "near dark" to "laser reflected 5-6 times before it hits the photoresistor" I run into low differential readings that are sometimes set off when the tripwire isn't tripped and/or slight variations in the laser's direction (e.g. vibrations due to walking across the floor).
I have already bought a stronger laser (green light, rifle scope) and larger mirrors. That photoresistor is so tiny, it seems like something I could address but I am not sure how to rig something up. And open to any other ideas.
You should put the photo sensor in a small tube to limit ambient light to set it off. If using a simple photo resistor try using a photo transistor where you can adjust gain more precise. Another tip is to put a color filter to allow only the color (wavelength) of laser to pass through. Also look at resistance bridge type of measuring and using op amps.
A phototransistor at the back of a tube restricts the view into a very narrow cone. If the view reflects or sources light into the detector and the some one or thing blocks it, there you have a tripwire.
I know that lasers are TV/movie fascinating. So is fire but I don't play with that, have people walk through it either.
You want to make a safe laser effect, look into interference patterns or onto the wall displays you can make reasonably safe.
Vibrations will remain an issue unless you are on a solid concrete floor. Especially with six mirrors, any change in angle by vibration is amplified and the end point of your laser will be all over the place.
A possible solution to this would be to use slightly divergent (or just a much wider) beam, and/or an array of sensors on the other end so that when the beam is a little off it simply activates another sensor.
In optics, there are more to it that meets the eye. If safety is your concern, then a collimator (posted by GoForSmoke) is good but you might have to stay away from that somehow. A double collimation might suffice but still way off from real lazers. Also I don't know if there are ways for the particles to be seen but during my experiments, the light can only be seen on the object that might intersect the optical axis. Regarding that, using collimated LEDs defeats your purpose of the tripwire where light particles are seen. Also, you might want to also replace your mirrors with a high reflectance one, probably at around 93% reflectance, tested at 45 angle, passed endurance test at temperature same as your lazer light temperature.
My buddy was swinging his cheap pointer around when he hit a wide-view curved mirror and got some of the dispersed reflect. He spent a bit over 2 hours wondering if that eye would ever see anything but red. Not black, red. If someone on your ground spends even 1 minute like that, guess what you lose?
"With MAZE we wanted to consider what the future of a car community might look like, building from MG's fan base and following. The move to digital is unstoppable, so we wanted to create a concept that connected this digital realm to the physical one that gives us the real joy in driving," said Carl Gotham, Advanced Design Director. "The concept is a reaction to our lives during recent months, where we have been met with restrictions and limitations on our ability to move around and interact. Exploring the idea of 'mobile gaming', we used MAZE as platform for people to get out and rediscover their environment in a new and relevant way, opening up new experiences with their city."
The gaming aspect of the car reflects a desire to discover and reach new achievements, via a points-based reward system. Our car helps users to re-discover their city and their world by seeking exciting digital street art that is interacting with structures, buildings, and landmarks.
The exterior features a transparent shell, emulating high end gaming PC's with exposed componentry. Its outer surface is fluid and dynamic, exposing aspects of the chassis and interior design, that are otherwise hidden from view.
Inside, floating seats and UX/UI technology have been developed, enhancing the gaming aspect by giving a fun and enjoyable driving experience, while the steering is controlled not by a steering wheel but by the driver's smartphone.
I wanted to keep the theme of the maze related to the set, so this maze has you navigating the alleys of the Niima Outpost, avoiding the scrap piles, and eventually getting to the Millennium Falcon in order to escape from Jakku. Despite the limited selection of parts, I was able to design a couple of dynamic obstacles, including a rolling canister and swinging pendulum, which are pretty easy to get through, but will slow you down if you are trying to do a speed run.
Just today, /u/Marcus_Aurelius2 posted this awesome Benny/Classic Space themed maze over on reddit. I love the use of flexible hoses for part of the track, the elevation changes and the extension of the theme to the frame itself.
John Stephens create this wonderful factory themed maze. The factory/industrial aesthetic is bang on, with some great usage of stickers and printed pieces. Some great elevation changes on this one too, and I especially love the micro scaled equipment. He even posted a YouTube video of it in action.
This maze, by /u/Yifkong, is particularly interesting in that is has a couple of cars that roll back and forth, and you can use them to transport the ball. A really interesting game mechanic that I am looking forward to trying out myself at some point.
I also tried using curved bricks for walls and curved slopes to add a bridge and some bumps to roll around. I really liked both of these ideas. The bridge is quite interesting, as it requires you to gain some momentum to get the ball to roll over it, and I think the curved walls can be used to make some really interesting maze designs.
In my previous posts about the LEGO Maze (set 21305), I talked about the imbalance in the tilting mechanism, and mentioned I would be putting together a tutorial on how to modify the official set to extend and balance the tilting capabilities.
One note, this modification will disable the locking feature, since there is now a bigger gap between the tilt frames and the base, so a few extra bricks and plates will be handy if you want to re-enable that feature. The modification raises the tilt frames by the width of a one stud brick, which, if you know your LEGO dimensions, is 2 and half plates. In the video I show you one option for re-enabling the lock feature, which is to split the difference and increase the height of the locking block by 3 plates (1 brick) and the height of the ball container by 2 plates. If you are ambitious you can increase the height of each by 2 and half plates by using some fancy building techniques with bricks with studs on their sides.
I knew my original model had some shortcomings, especially with respect to strength. In particular, many high stress areas were only attached using stud connections, which would work themselves loose over time and eventually fall apart. Definitely not official LEGO set material.
The official set was designed by veteran designer Steen Sig Andersen, so I should have realized I had nothing to worry about. I was excited, impressed, and a little relieved, when I first saw the final design. The overall look and feel were retained, the tilting mechanism and control system were pretty much identical to those in my original model, and Steen had reinforced all of the major weak points of the model. Awesome!
My original mazes were also one plate thicker, with deeper holes to fall into, but they were also more part intensive and harder to build as a result. The official mazes are simpler, easier to build and much lighter, which results in the control system being much more responsive.
795a8134c1