I can’t believe how many LEGO sets I built and rendered using POV-Ray. Over the years, starting in 1996, I’ve built 125 different models—yes I counted them. To note, that doesn’t include the variations or alternate scenes within each set. Around the same time, I started to share my models online. To my surprise, many of my models were never shared! It’s time for me to fix that!
Sometimes inspiration arrives from odd places. For years, I have subscribed to BrinkSet’s newsfeed which serves up a random set of the day. A recent airplane set got me interested in playing with Mecabricks again. Plus Scrubs had released an update for his Advanced Blender Script. How exciting is it to flip through your feeds and end the day creating something. Even better, it sparked more renders that allowed me to escape pandemic news, if only for a bit.
A bit cliche by 1985, but I was obviously still playing Frogger and the clones it spawned. With all its dodging and moving, the game is classic for good reason. Even in modern times, it has spawned the likes of Crossy Road and other in spirt games. My own attempt, called Sea Cross, finds you trying to get your family safely across the water and home. I doubt you’ll be able to.
The ZX81’s graphics be a lot of fun to program. Although I wasn’t a big fan of the PLOT command, I do have some examples of its use. My taken on the TS logo for the rock band Twisted Sister is one one example. Like a primitive screen saver, it can be fun to watch.
Okay, I’ll admit that I was a Star Trek junky. As a kid, I remember eagerly waiting each week to watch reruns of the original series with my family. When 1983 rolled around, I’d watched both of the original movies and owned the comic books that bridged the two. As such, creating a Star Trek game on my ZX81 should come as no surprise.
Over the weekend, Mecabricks released an overhaul of its parts system. As noted in his announcement, it culminates over six months of research and development. Not wanting to lose the opportunity, I took the time to model and render a couple of images using the new system. So far, I’m enjoying the changes.
I’d taken a bit of hiatus from my LEGO rendering in the later half of last year. Life sometimes kick you in the teeth and some pleasures fall to the way side. Rendering was one of them. To my benefit, other interests flourished. But my heart was still yearning. Trying to kick off the new decade, I grabbed a model of the latest LEGO mini-build and set to work.
Running platform games with simple controls were all the rage when mobile gaming got started. Although the themes varied, they all tended to have a few if only on control to them. Some made you press down and release. Others ran on their own, requiring you to press or swipe as needed. My journey into the genre began in 1985 when I wrote Bolder. It may not be popular or exciting, but does show that the concept had roots going deeper than you may realize.
For November, I found another missile defense game that I wrote a few years back. I honestly didn’t remember this one until I started to play it. Starting off a bit slow, I kept telling myself that it should speed up. And, it did! Guess, my memory isn’t that bad after all. Let’s dig into Laser Catch a bit more.
Fall weather brings colder weather, colorful trees, and Halloween! The original movie was still a classic in 1984, even if a few sequels had been released by the time I wrote this program. Lacking the chills of the movie, my Halloween tries to convey the futility of running. Michael always wins.