TARDIS Object

     (or, "If You Knew How MUCH Trouble This Has Been...")

   The Amiga community is growing steadily, and acceptance
among "serious" computer users is increasing.  Heck, we've
supposedly even sold 1,000,000 of these darlings!  There is,
however, one problem with the world of Amiga that has held us
back, and could drastically slow down the personal computer
takeover that's underway.  That problem?
 
   Not enough Dr. Who stuff!  We've had the game "Daleks," but
that was, uh, hmmm, well, that was a long time ago.  There's been
a digitized Tardis sound on PLink for quite awhile now (THANK
YOU!, THANK YOU!), and that's been about it, as far as I know.  I
haven't even come across any digitized pics from Dr. Who!  Of
course, Leo Schwab signs his Usenet postings with that famous
quotation, and that counts for a lot, but still...
 
   Well, if we're gonna be taken seriously in the other
computer communities, we're gonna have to do better!  So, here's
my contribution: a bona fide, Sculpt4D object of the TARDIS, the
Dr.'s wonderful traveling machine/companion(?).
 
   I've had Sculpt3D since it came out, but haven't had a lot
of success with it.  I'm not the artistic type at all, and have
very little creative tendencies, period;  however, recently I was
fooling around with Sculpt, trying to create a box (yep, THAT'S
how bad I was) and noticed the TARDIS piggy bank that sits near
my monitor (saving for an 020 board; total so far, $5.63).  I
said "That's not too complicated (HAH!), I might be able to do
that!"  Well, that was quite awhile ago, but I FINALLY have what
turned out to be a darned complete object, with "Police (Public
Call) Box" sign and all.  
 
   When I got serious about trying to make this look good, I
started looking at some Dr. Who magazines to try to get as much
detail as possible.  What's amazing is the variety of ways the
TARDIS has been shown over the years.  I found pictures with door
handles (handles when the door pushes IN?), no keyhole, a
detailed sign on the front door with writing on it, no windows,
windows on all four sides (couldn't COUNT the variations on the
number of window panes), and in one of the Sylvestor McCoy
episodes, he and Ace are shown entering a TARDIS that doesn't
have the Police Box sign on it!  So, having decided that if the
BBC can't get the thing right that anything I did couldn't be too
bad, I decided to kind of squash the things I liked together, and
allow a little license so it wouldn't get too complicated (after
all, I plan on RENDERING this too!).
 
   This file should contain three files, unless some goon
decided to save some room and leave something out:  This rambling
mess/explanation/apology/waste of time, Tardis.scene, and
Tardis.image.  The scene contains the object, and was used to
render the enclosed pic.
 
   All of the creation was done in 3D, but the image was
rendered on a friend's machine in 4D.  We also decided to make
the cap at the top metal (and the keyhole too, I think).  The
light right now is just a set of shiny red surfaces, but these
can easily be converted to glass, and a red lamp can be placed
inside.  I left them shiny/red because it seems to look about the
same, and cuts rendering down a lot.

NOTE: In the enclosed image the Police Box sign is unclear, but
the whole sign is there.  Sculpt just gummed it up when it cleaned up
the pic.  On closer shots the sign comes through clear, but this pic
looks best overall of the ones I've done so far.

Going through all this DID finally make me decide to upgrade to
4D.  Byte-by-Byte, the check's in the mail.
 
   So, what YOU have to do now is take this and do something
wonderful with it.  I hope to soon see lots of Dr. Who stuff
appearing.  About all that I could come up with for the TARDIS
was to spin it around, but perhaps some of you will do better. 
The next order of business I guess will be a Dalek object, but
PLEASE, somebody beat me to it! :-)  After that I guess would be
K-9.  Also, will someone please do a Sonix version of the Dr. Who
theme song?  "Doctorin' the Tardis" would be a good substitute.
 
   I hope you like this, and even more, I hope you use it. 
That's what PD is about!  If you'd care to chat sometime, or
just yell at me for including a "doc" file for an object, I can
be reached at the following:
 
PLink                               B Earl
Infinity BBS (404)475-1740          William Earl
  (PCPursuitable through the Atlanta outdial)