Tuesday 2 August 2011

Make: 3D Dungeon Tiles Pt 2 - The Build

In Part One I discussed the design. However, I didn't give you any detailed plans with measurements, mostly because I didn't know how accurately I could cut the foamcore.

After a bit of trial and error, with different construction methods, I settled on the overlapping laminate design for each corner (as seen in the picture to the right).  This means that each tile has an outside measurement of 6" x 6" and they will tesselate quite nicely without any annoying gaps in the floor.  The downside to this design is that any opening which doesn't have a door or wall in it has an obvious slot in it's edge.

Cutting List

For each base you will need:

1 x Base (5mm Foamcore) - 6" x 6"

4 x Long Corner (2mm card) - 43mm x 1"
4 x Short Corner (2mm card) - 41mm x 1"
4 x Long Corner (5mm Foamcore) - 36mm x 1"
4 x Short Corner (5mm Foamcore) - 31mm x 1"
8 x Tabs (2mm card) - 10mm, 1"

Don't worry too much about getting it absolutely accurate to the mm as the foamcore is quite forgiving.  The card on the otherhand needs to be quite accurate as this is going to provide your overhang and ultimately a slot into which you can slide your door or wall sections.


All the corner sections are glued up with PVA (or Elmers) as in the picture above.  I used masking tape to bind the corner whilst I finageled in the foamcore, again the foamcore is quite forgiving so if the corners fold out, don't worry too much as the foamcore will compress back to 90 degrees when you glue each corner onto the base.


It's a good idea at this point to draw over the pencil lines on the base with a ballpoint pen, otherwise it'll be trick to get a straight edge in the confined space once you've glued on your corners.

My trial and error provided me with several abortive boards with good square corners, so I just used one as a jig.  This was invaluable and I would recommend making one.  The corners are then hot glued onto the base.  This is a bit of a messy job, but hot glue is way stronger than the foamcore's paper backing and provides a great bond.
Once all 4 corners have been glued onto the base, take some time to trim off any excess glue particularly around the join between the base and the overhanging card which forms one of the inside faces of the door/wall slot.  If there's any splodges of hotglue in the slot it will prevent your door or walls from sliding all the way to the bottom.

Then you just need to cut some 10mm x 1" tabs and hot glue to the opposite faces of the foamcore at both ends of each corner.  It took me a while to develop a technique of sliding the tabs towards the open end to get them into the correct position to prevent any hot glue seeping into the slot.

Once this is done the doors and walls can be cut from foamcore.  Doors are 3" x 2" and walls are 3" x 1", but can be trimmed down if they don't quite fit into the two slots at either side of an opening.  This gives you the option of having a door or a wall in each side.  Just cut more doors and walls as you need.

Eh Voila, three 20ft square dungeon rooms.

In my next part I'll be tackling the painting and decorating.

Monday 1 August 2011

Make: 3D Dungeon Tiles Pt 1 - The Design

One of the aspects of Roleplaying that I've always loved is the craft element, be it painting miniatures or making maps, it satisfies the modeller in me. In particular I've always wanted to have an impressive 3D dungeon setup, so when I stumbled upon Eredrian's Warhammer Quest Tiles I decided that I'd give it a go.

I've designed and built plenty of 2D tiles before, but never in 3D with walls and doors. The biggest change has been to scale everything up to a 1.5" grid as a 1" grid became too cramped and play broke down. Another inspiration was the fantastic drakkon boardgame which has a couple of fun actions like the Rotate a Room and Floating Room which I thought would be nice to have in a dungeon.


This all percolated into an embryonic design of a 6" square standard tile with a 4x4 grid 1 inch high walls with removable wall/door/feature sections which I drew out in sketchup.

In Part Two I'll be pulling out the foamcore and starting to cut.

Monday 25 July 2011

Movie Watch: Eyeborgs

Adrian Paul (Highlander TV Series) and Danny Trejo (Machete) star in this cautionary tale of technology gone too far set in a near future Chicago.  

The eyeborgs of the title are mobile surveillance cameras tasked with the surveillance of society for the Department of Homeland Security, but have they been compromised and if so, by whom?  Gunner Reynolds (Adrian Paul) a DHS agent discovers the truth about the real nature of the eyeborgs design.



If you can get past the distinctly "TV Movie" CGI eyeborgs which are nicely modeled but poorly composited, there's a good plot in there and certainly something that hasn't been seen before. The characters, and perhaps Paul's acting, are a little one dimensional but passable and Danny Trejo has the most lines I've ever heard him speak in one movie.

A solid 4 out of 5 for the story and a 3 out of 5 for the CGI.

Friday 22 July 2011

Beast of the Week: Hydrothermal Worm

Nature proves yet again that it can evolve animals which would fit quite nicely into any RPG scenario.  Meet... 

The Hydro Thermal Worm

This photo was taken by Philippe Crassous at FEI (makers of Electron Scanning Microscopes).

Hydrothermal Worm

I think that this is a suitable image for my 100th post

Thursday 21 July 2011

...meet Leonard of Quirm

Although it has been pretty quiet for blogging here at roleplay-geek HQ, I'm very busy; running my C&C campaign The Lands of Dual with my regular friday group; designing and building a foamcard pirate galleon; designing a new "Deluxe PDF" approach to Item Cards which will debut soon with the release of RGP004 - Armour and Shields and preparing a Star Blazer Adventures one nighter as a birthday treat for my buddy Paul Stebles, to name just a few.  I'm also working on v5.0 of my post apocalyptic car combat game which I hope to be able to release as a Print 'n' Play PDF in the very near future.
I'm beginning to feel a bit like Leonard of Quirm, too many projects and not enough time to finish them...