Exterior Builds

When you decide to actually start building your TARDIS, create yourself a thread here and show us what you're doing! Pictures are welcome. When you finish, go over to the Exterior Gallery, and make a thread over there with some nice photos of your work.

TARDIS Builders :: TARDIS Exterior :: TARDIS Builds :: Dematerialiser's Tardis Page 1 of 9 » Jump to page   Go     Author Topic: Dematerialiser's Tardis (Read 12,160 times) Tom Chancellor member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 684 Location: New Brunswick, Canada Karma: 33 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Thread Started on Sept 24, 2005, 10:51pm » Best of luck Chris! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged kiwidoc Administrator member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 417 Location: Christchurch, New Zealand Karma: 6,017 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #1 on Sept 25, 2005, 10:21am » Great stuff chris - based on your 3D skills, you're going to havea kick-ass tardis! Seriously, really good start there, look froward to seeing more as you get there. - glen Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged The TARDIS Library - http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~trekker/policeboxes purpleblancmange Guest Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #2 on Sept 25, 2005, 12:47pm » Chris, that's looking really good there, but out of curiosity, did you use this: http://lib.cce.ac.nz/tardis/homepage_fil....Newbury-Box.jpg ...to base your corner post design on? They look incredibly alike, even down to the placement of the hinge. My advice to you is to bring the hinge in a bit, so that it's just 1cm in and not 5cm as per the drawing. Also, extend your wall to the inside corner of the post, then that block you hang the hinge to should butt up against the inside of the wall. This just makes things easier. The drawings on Glen's site were quick sketches to illustrate a point, but not to be taken literally in terms of construction techniques. « Last Edit: Sept 25, 2005, 12:49pm by purpleblancmange » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #3 on Sept 25, 2005, 10:27pm » Nice bit of prep work demat. Thought you said you were new to 3D stuff? The 3D stuff you've posted is brilliant! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Tom Chancellor member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 684 Location: New Brunswick, Canada Karma: 33 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #4 on Sept 26, 2005, 12:59am » Chris I downloaded Sketchup demo; do you think I could use it to make the 5 Docs console? Cheers Tom Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Scarfwearer Administrator member is offline Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 175 Location: Somewhere beginning with 'S' Karma: 12 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #5 on Sept 26, 2005, 6:53am » The planning is looking great - it should be really helpful. Don't worry about the avalanche of posts - sharing info is what we're about, right? I'm sure those Hijacking guys are characters I should recognize - maybe I'm out of touch though... Keep us posted with progress! Crispin Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Scarfwearer Administrator member is offline Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 175 Location: Somewhere beginning with 'S' Karma: 12 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #6 on Sept 26, 2005, 4:39pm » I'd love to hear about the TimeTot, also. By an odd coincidence, my police box was also begun shortly after we had a new baby... who's now in kindergarten . Crispin Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Scarfwearer Administrator member is offline Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 175 Location: Somewhere beginning with 'S' Karma: 12 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #7 on Sept 27, 2005, 4:12am » Uh oh, I'm worried now that you're going to call it Timetot! I suppose you could go for Romana, or Romanadvoratnelundar (did I just spell that correctly from memory?). Or Fred. If it's a girl... Since she was the TimeTot in question. Crispin Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #8 on Sept 27, 2005, 9:16am » Romana did cross our minds actually (not the full version though-school is difficult enough.. ) Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." mantawrays Castellan Has a TARDIS, all lovely like... member is offline Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 176 Location: Bristol Karma: 1,053 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #9 on Sept 27, 2005, 3:44pm » Dematerialiser thanks so much for the sketchup hint. I have been playing with sketchup this lunchtime and managed to knock this up in just an hour or so. What a fantastic piece of software! It's done from my plans I'm using to rebuild my box after recently moving house. The walk around feature is tremendous it's so great to walk around your design. Shame the software costs so much money! I became a father 7 months ago (to my son Tom!) and sadly my rebuilding has gone out the window a bit... hope you can fit more building in than me « Last Edit: Sept 27, 2005, 4:03pm by mantawrays » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged The Mantawrays - Bristol surf and drag www.myspace.com/mantawrays Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #10 on Sept 27, 2005, 8:20pm » Yes, I agree. This is a cracking bit of kit. Any idea if you can change the unit of measurements from millimetres io inches? (I know, its my own fault but I really don't fancy all that converting!) How much is "so much money"? Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged mantawrays Castellan Has a TARDIS, all lovely like... member is offline Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 176 Location: Bristol Karma: 1,053 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #11 on Sept 28, 2005, 10:37am » Bad news. I think when I looked it was something like £315! I had the same problem when I first started playing with it, everything was in millimetres. When I started it up yesterday, it was in inches, 1/2 inches, 1/4 inches etc. which as you know is spot on for what we're doing. I haven't yet worked out why this changed or how to change it manually. If I work it out I'll let you know! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged The Mantawrays - Bristol surf and drag www.myspace.com/mantawrays Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #12 on Sept 28, 2005, 11:02am » Hi Mantra, nice one - it is very easy once you get the basics isn't it. The only danger is you'll lose all of your free time, once you get the bug for seeing your plans come to life like that It is expensive, but luckily I was able to extend my trial time with it by using two different computers. Thanks for the encouragement! (and congrats on Tom!) Hi Mark, you can change the units to mm/inches/centimeters in Window>preferences>Template (but you have to start a new document for it to come into effect) I was working from inches to begin with, but because I've tweaked parts of mine away from the standard dims, I ended up preferring mm (mainly to avoid using fractions Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #13 on Sept 30, 2005, 9:28pm » Cheers Demat. Alot easier than convertin all my measurements over! Next question, how did you get text into the drawing (eg POLICE BOX etc)? Tried different stuff with not avail. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #14 on Oct 1, 2005, 10:04am » Hi Mark I found that there are two ways to get sign graphics etc into Sketchup, the first one (File>Import>2d Graphic) seems to compress the quality of the original far too much. I tried to import a .png file this way, but because it didnt look crisp enough, I dumped this method in favour of having fully scalable, vector based signage inside my 3d model. The only thing is, you'll need to have designed your signs as vectors and not bitmaps, to begin with (or at least have used fonts in an app like photoshop so that you can re-export your signs in a vector file type). Here's what I did: First I exported my signs from Adobe Illustrator as a .dxf file format. In Sketchup use the File>Import>3d Model option, and import your .dxf file. It won't care whether your sign is actually in 3d or 2d, it's just a way of getting the sign into Sketchup in a scalable, easy(ish) to manipulate format. The hard bit is in colouring in your sign letters - as Sketchup doesn't see the letters as letters, only shapes. Eg: the letter 'D' is actually made up of an outer 'D' shape and an inner 'D' shape, and it doesn't know which part to fill in with the paintbucket. I found that the only, and very longwinded, way of getting around this is to use the pencil tool to trace over*some parts* your lettering. Ie.: I only had to trace over some key uprights in the letter 'D' to enable it to be filled with colour, so when you get to know which bits need doing it's not that long winded really. Sorry for the lengthy response, but thought you might find it useful. If you find a better way of handling the lettering to avoid the tracing I'd be glad to know cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #15 on Oct 1, 2005, 5:44pm » Wow! Thing my 3D model will remain graphic-less! Don't have any of the software you mentioned (hoping I could just drag a JPG in) but not to worry. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #16 on Oct 5, 2005, 7:32pm » Well I now have some of those .dfx things, but (excuse me being a thinko) I can't get the bugger into the model. I did try doing what you said Demat, followed it to the T, honest! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #17 on Oct 5, 2005, 8:03pm » Hi Mark What actually happens when you use the 'Import 3d model' option? Does Sketchup give you any kind of message saying it can't import your file, or whatever? Assuming you're not getting any error messages but still nothing is appearing on the screen: the only reason I can think of is that perhaps the image you're exporting isn't vector-based in the first place - a dxf file made from a jpeg or gif would probably just turn out blank in Sketchup (sorry if that's stating the obvious a bit. ). Let me know and I'll see if I can duplicate what you're doing and work out what's happening. cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #18 on Oct 5, 2005, 8:07pm » It goes through the motions as though it's doing something, and then when it's finished, nothing! At first I thought well the wrighting's white so maybe it's vanished into the background, but after thinking, it would have had a yellow grid thing around it wouldn't it? Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #19 on Oct 6, 2005, 10:53am » Hi Mark That's weird - have you tried the other 3d file format (.dwg) ? Both .dxf and .dwg files import ok for me. If you like I can email you an example of both files to try out in sketchup (or you could send me your .dxf file for me to try out - I might be able to re-export it so that it works for you) - at least that way we'll know whether it's your version of Sketchup, or your .dxf file that's the problem. Send me a PM and we can sort out the email bit. cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #20 on Oct 6, 2005, 9:20pm » Thanks Demat, but as we speak I've just sorted it out! Well actually TG sorted it out for me, so I now have signs and am now a happy bunny. I'll try and get a picture up here of my attempts soon. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #21 on Oct 6, 2005, 10:26pm » Hi Mark Great - good to hear it's sorted, what was the answer in the end? Look forward to seeing your 3d model when it's ready cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #22 on Oct 15, 2005, 7:11pm » Hi Chris, More Sketch-up questions for you (help!!!!) How did you get saved images? The only way I can figure is to use a screen grab, which wouldn't be the best. Also what display setting's have you done yours on, mine still just looks like a computer graphic where as your's looks pretty 'real'? Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #23 on Oct 15, 2005, 7:12pm » Oh, and where did you get pebbled glass? Could only find reinforced! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #24 on Oct 16, 2005, 12:22pm » Hi Mark (Sorry - bit of a long reply on it's way ) Quote: How did you get saved images? The only way I can figure is to use a screen grab, which wouldn't be the best. You're right - the problem with screen-grabbing the open Sketchup window is that things look a bit rough. The way to export your current view with a smoother render is to go: File>Export>2d Graphic then choose your output file type, i.e: jpeg, and then by clicking the 'options' button you can define stuff like quality and size. Quote: Also what display setting's have you done yours on, mine still just looks like a computer graphic where as your's looks pretty 'real'? I think this might be related to your first problem - mine looks a lot smoother once it's been exported as a graphic. Just in case it's your shadows and lighting settings here's what I have: 1. Under 'View' I have 'Shadows' checked. 2. Under 'Camera' have 'perspective' checked. 3. In the 'Soften Edges' palette (Window>Soften Edges)I have 'Smooth Normals' checked and the slider is on 20 degrees. 4. Under 'View>Rendering>' I only have 'Shaded with Textures' checked. 5. In the 'Shadow Settings' palette I currently have 'Display Shadows' checked, the time is 11am in mid-september, 'light' is 92, and 'Dark' is 6. The bottom three 'Display' checkboxes are all checked. Quote: Oh, and where did you get pebbled glass? Could only find reinforced! I had to make mine using a photo I had of some pebbled glass. Here's how to make a new pebbled glass 'Material' a. Save this image to your computer as a jpeg. b. Go to the Materials palette (Window>Materials Browser) select the first colour in the palette ('Default') 'and click the 'create' button. c. In the new popup window tick the 'Use Texture Image' checkbox and navigate to where you saved the pebbled glass image, and select it. d. Set Opacity to around 50%. e. In the top left hand corner there's a name for your texture - call it what you want and click the 'Add' button. And that's it! You might find that the scale of the pebled texture is a bit too small or big for your needs, but if you 'edit' the new material you just made you can specify scale. I hope that helps, good luck! cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #25 on Oct 16, 2005, 4:57pm » Thanks again Chris, working a treat! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #26 on Oct 16, 2005, 8:50pm » Fantastic Can't wait to see it! cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." Mark Lord President Wants a real Police Box... member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 905 Karma: 382 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #27 on Oct 17, 2005, 12:12am » Well, this is the first attempt I made on using Sketch-up to make a Police Box. Many, many thanks to Chris for all the hints and tips! Now I've got to grips with what I'm doing, I'm onto doing it again, to accurate scale and with pebbled glass Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged mantawrays Castellan Has a TARDIS, all lovely like... member is offline Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 176 Location: Bristol Karma: 1,053 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #28 on Oct 17, 2005, 9:49am » I've started a new thread for Sketchup drawings and artwork. This could also become a general repository for plans of people's TARDIS'. I did this because I've got a few sketchup's to share too but don't want to clog up Dematerialiser's TARDIS thread with all my pictures. Mark, that's a great sketchup. From Met plans, am I right? After finishing one of my own box I was going to do one of a Met box but now I don't have to! More pics please! How does everyone feel about sharing their sketchup (.skp) files themselves? Or, an alternative, I've saved my model as a 'component' which other people can then add to their Sketchup designs with ease. It's in 'real' scale. From there you can make scenes etc. Or, if everyone's is to correct scale, we could put all models in one scene for comparison. So we could 'virtually' get all our Police Boxes together, even if we can't do this in real life! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged The Mantawrays - Bristol surf and drag www.myspace.com/mantawrays Dematerialiser Chancellor member is offline TO DO: Final weathering paint job, fit lights and sounds. Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 628 Location: UK Karma: 1,160 Re: Dematerialiser's Tardis « Reply #29 on Oct 17, 2005, 12:59pm » That's looking great, Mark! Those signboxes look brilliant - I found those the most complicated bit on my 3d model, especially the contour of the back so they fit around the posts, etc. Manta, I like the idea of collecting loads of boxes in the same space - perhaps when (if) there are more Sketchup users here we can do just that. cheers Chris Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged "Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with time travel; you can never remember." 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