Fuzzy Skin Finish For 3D Prints, Now On Top Layers

November 8, 2024 by Donald Papp 6 Comments

[TenTech]’s Fuzzyficator brings fuzzy skin — a textured finish normally limited to sides of 3D prints — to the top layer with the help of some non-planar printing, no hardware modifications required. You can watch it in action in the video below, which also includes details on how to integrate this functionality into your favorite slicer software.

Little z-axis hops while laying down the top layer creates a fuzzy skin texture.

Fuzzyficator essentially works by moving the print nozzle up and down while laying down a top layer, resulting in a textured finish that does a decent job of matching the fuzzy skin texture one can put on sides of a print. Instead of making small lateral movements while printing outside perimeters, the nozzle does little z-axis hops while printing the top.

Handily, Fuzzyficator works by being called as a post-processing script by the slicer (at this writing, PrusaSlicer, Orca Slicer, and Bambu Studio are tested) which also very conveniently reads the current slicer settings for fuzzy skin, in order to match them.

Non-planar 3D printing opens new doors but we haven’t seen it work like this before. There are a variety of ways to experiment with non-planar printing for those who like to tinker with their printers. But there’s work to be done that doesn’t involve hardware, too. Non-planar printing also requires new ways of thinking about slicing.

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Hear A Vintage Sound Chip Mimic The Real World

November 7, 2024 by Donald Papp 10 Comments

Sound chips from back in the day were capable of much more than a few beeps and boops, and [InazumaDenki] proves it in a video recreating recognizable real-world sounds with the AY-3-8910, a chip that was in everything from arcade games to home computers. Results are a bit mixed but it’s surprising how versatile a vintage sound chip that first came out in the late 70s is capable of, with the right configuration.

Recreating a sound begins by analyzing a spectrograph.

Chips like the AY-3-8910 work at a low level, and rely on being driven with the right inputs to generate something useful. It can generate up to three independent square-wave tones, but with the right approach and setup that’s enough to get outputs of varying recognizability for a pedestrian signal, bird call, jackhammer, and referee’s whistle.

To recreate a sound [InazumaDenki] begins by analyzing a recording with a spectrogram, which is a visual representation of frequency changes over time. Because real-world sounds consist of more than just one frequency (and the AY-3-8910 can only do three at once), this is how [InazumaDenki] chooses what frequencies to play, and when. The limitations make it an imperfect reproduction, but as you can hear for yourself, it can certainly be enough to do the job.

How does one go about actually programming the AY-3-8910? Happily there’s a handy Arduino AY3891x library by [Andreas Taylor] that makes it about as simple as can be to explore this part’s capabilities for yourself.

If you think retro-styled sound synthesis might fit into your next project, keep in mind that just about any modern microcontrollers has more than enough capability to do things like 80s-style speech synthesis entirely in software.

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Split-Flap Clock Flutters Its Way To Displaying Time Without Numbers

November 5, 2024 by Donald Papp 18 Comments

Here’s a design for a split-flap clock that doesn’t do it the usual way. Instead of the flaps showing numbers , Klapklok has a bit more in common with flip-dot displays.

It’s an art piece that uses custom-made split-flaps which flutter away to update the display as time passes. An array of vertically-mounted flaps creates a sort of low-res display, emulating an analog clock. These are no ordinary actuators, either. The visual contrast and cleanliness of the mechanism is fantastic, and the sound they make is less of a chatter and more of a whisper.

The sound the flaps create and the sight of the high-contrast flaps in motion are intended to be a relaxing and calming way to connect with the concept of time passing. There’s some interactivity built in as well, as the Klapklok also allows one to simply draw on it wirelessly with via a mobile phone.

Klapklok has a total of 69 elements which are all handmade. We imagine there was really no other way to get exactly what the designer had in mind; something many of us can relate to.

Split-flap mechanisms are wonderful for a number of reasons, and if you’re considering making your own be sure to check out this easy and modular DIY reference design before you go about re-inventing the wheel. On the other hand, if you do wish to get clever about actuators maybe check out this flexible PCB that is also its own actuator.

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DIY Laser Tag Project Does It In Style

October 26, 2024 by Donald Papp 21 Comments

This DIY lasertag project designed by [Nii], which he brought to Tokyo Maker Faire back in September, is a treasure trove. It’s all in Japanese and you’ll need to visit X (formerly Twitter) to see it, but the images do a fine job of getting the essentials across and your favorite translator tool will do a fair job of the rest.

There’s a whole lot to admire in this project. The swing-out transparent OLED display is super slick, the electronics are housed on a single PCB, the back half of the grip is in fact a portable USB power bank that slots directly in to provide power, and there’s a really smart use of a short RGB LED strip for effects.

The optical elements show some inspired design, as well. An infrared LED points forward, and with the help of a lens, focuses the beam tightly enough to make aiming meaningful. For detecting hits, the top of the pistol conceals a custom-made reflector that directs any IR downward into a receiver, making it omnidirectional in terms of hit sensing but only needing a single sensor.

Want to know more? Check out [Nii]’s earlier prototypes on his website. It’s clear this has been in the works for a while, so if you like seeing how a project develops, you’re in for a treat.

As for the choice of transparent OLED displays? They are certainly cool, and we remember how wild it looks to have several stacked together.

Donated Atari Mega ST Gives A Peek At Game Development History

October 25, 2024 by Donald Papp 9 Comments

[Neil] from The Cave, a computer and console gaming museum in the UK, has a treat for vintage computing and computer gaming enthusiasts. They received an important piece of game dev history from [Richard Costello], who coded ports of Gauntlet 2, Mortal Kombat, and Primal Rage for Atari ST and Amiga home computers. [Richard] brought them his non-functional Atari Mega ST in the hopes that they could get it working again, and demonstrate to visitors how game development was done back in the 80s — but sadly the hardware is not in the best shape.

The Atari ST flagged deleted files for overwriting but didn’t actively wipe them, allowing an undelete utility to work.

That doesn’t stop [Neil], however. The real goal is seeing if it’s possible to re-create the development environment and access the game assets on the SCSI hard drive, and it’s not necessary to revive every part of the hardware to do that. The solution is to back up the drive using a BlueSCSI board which can act as a host, scan the SCSI bus, and dump any device it finds to an SD card. The drive didn’t spin up originally, but some light percussive maintenance solved that.

With the files pulled off the drive, it was time to boot it up using an emulator (which begins at the 16:12 mark). There are multiple partitions, but not a lot of files. There was one more trick up [Neil]’s sleeve. Suspecting that deleting everything was the last thing [Richard] did before turning the machine off decades ago, he fired up a file recovery utility. The Atari ST “deleted” files by marking them to be overwritten by replacing the first letter of the filename with a ‘bomb’ character but otherwise leaving contents intact. Lo and behold, directories and files were available to be undeleted!

[Neil] found some fascinating stuff such as mixed game and concept assets as well as what appears to be a copy of Ramrod, a never-released game. It’s an ongoing process, but with any luck, the tools and environment a game developer used in the 80s will be made available for visitors to experience.

Of course, modern retro gaming enthusiasts don’t need to create games the classic way; tools like GB Studio make development much easier. And speaking of hidden cleverness in old games, did you know the original DOOM actually had multi-monitor support hidden under the hood?

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Behold A First-Person 3D Maze, Vintage Atari Style

October 20, 2024 by Donald Papp 15 Comments

[Joe Musashi] was inspired by discussions about 3D engines and decided to create a first-person 3D maze of his own. The really neat part? It could have been done on vintage Atari hardware. Well, mostly.

He does admit he had to do a little cheating to make this work; he relies on code for the ARM processor in the modern Atari VCS do the ray casting work, and the 6507 chip just handles the display kernel. Still, running his demo on a vintage Atari 2600 console could be possible, but would definitely require a Melody or Harmony cartridge, which are special reprogrammable cartridges popular for development and homebrew.

Ray casting is a conceptually simple method of generating a 3D view from given perspective, and here’s a tutorial that will tell you all you need to know about how it works, and how to implement your own.

[Joe]’s demo is just a navigable 3D maze rather than a game, but it’s pretty wild to see what could in theory have run on such an old platform, even if a few modern cheats are needed to pull it off. And if you agree that it’s neat, then hold onto your hats because a full 3D ray casting game — complete with a micro physics engine — was perfectly doable on the Commodore PET, which even had the additional limitation of a monochrome character-based display.

Make Your Own Remy The Rat This Halloween

October 19, 2024 by Donald Papp 10 Comments

[Christina Ernst] executed a fantastic idea just in time for Halloween: her very own Remy the rat (from the 2007 film Ratatouille). Just like in the film Remy perches on her head and appears to guide her movements by pulling on hair as though operating a marionette. It’s a great effect, and we love the hard headband used to anchor everything, which also offers a handy way to route the necessary wires.

Behind Remy are hidden two sub-micro servos, one for each arm. [Christina] simply ties locks of her hair to Remy’s hands, and lets the servos do the rest. Part of what makes the effect work so well is that Remy is eye-catching, and the relatively small movements of Remy’s hands are magnified and made more visible in the process of moving the locks of hair.

Originally Remy’s movements were random, but [Christina] added an MPU6050 accelerometer board to measure vertical movements of her own arm. She uses that sensor data to make Remy’s motions reflect her own. The MPU6050 is economical and easy to work with, readily available on breakout boards from countless overseas sellers, and we’ve seen it show up in all kinds of projects such as this tiny DIY drone and self-balancing cube.

Want to make your own Remy, or put your own spin on the idea? The 3D models and code are all on GitHub and if you want to see more of it in action, [Christina] posts videos of her work on TikTok and Instagram.

[via CBC]