Pyra Blender File

[WizardStan]

Looking good. Interesting that you don't print this piece flat. But as long as it works it seems OK.

My first attempt was flat but it only makes contact with the bed in a couple of places, the rest is suspended which meant it needed to build up support and then print the case on that support.  The problem with that is support is meant to be easily pulled off, just there to make sure things like overhangs don't droop, it's not really meant to support the entire thing.  So as it finished the support and started printing the actual case it accidentally pulled away at one corner.  Printing it on the edge like this it has full bed contact, and required much less support.

 

[fusion_power]

Yupp, makes sense. The hinge part is in the way to print it flat upside-down, which would solve the problem with needing support structures mostly. Hm, in theory you could remove the hinge piece bevore printing and print it seperate. At the end you acetone-weld it together but of course this is not the most easy way. 

...or buy an SLA printer for many money...

 

[WizardStan]

I thought of doing that, too. If this didn't work that was what I was going to do.  Fortunately it did, "easy".

 

[fusion_power]

Well, I guess it still takes some years until 3D printers are really "easy" to use, even for the average user who can barely use an 2D printer. From what I've read, no 3D printer is "plug and play" yet, it always needs calibration and knowledge. But besides from that it's an very great and important technic, I'm glad it exist.  
 

 

[Grench]

So - what color options are open to exploration on the prototypes?  Sticking to "safe" colors in the grey/black/dark red types or exploring more radical color choice experiments?

Maybe a modern glow in the dark shoulder buttons & nubs?

http://colors.chromacolors.com/product/all-categories/photoluminescent-glow-in-the-dark-?

Will the prototype buyers get any input on the options or just get a luck of the draw?

 

[ible]

i thought ED said prototypers would get a choice of colors.

if so, please upload pictures, all you who get a prototype unit .

 

[pmprog]

i thought ED said prototypers would get a choice of colors.

if so, please upload pictures, all you who get a prototype unit .

He said "maybe"

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

i thought ED said prototypers would get a choice of colors.

if so, please upload pictures, all you who get a prototype unit .

He said "maybe"

Maybe's good. But yes, anyone with prototypes must do unboxing vids and show us their new toy.

 

[WizardStan]

And "choice" may be limited to the 4 or 5 colours he tries out.

 

[Grench]

And "choice" may be limited to the 4 or 5 colours he tries out.

And quite possibly limited to whatever is left over after he builds the units to be used in promotional materials.  With my last place in line position, assuming that they have enough fully working prototype boards to service my order, I could very well wind up with an odd combination of left over different colored parts from multiple mold test runs.  I'm excited regardless.

So far no prototype specific communications from ED, let alone any discussion of colors - and no I don't expect him to until he's ready to.  However, I think it's easier to be patient when something is known to be >= 2 Months out.

I don't do videos of prototype hardware coming out of improvised packaging.  Those types of things can wind up haunting a project as potential end-consumers assume that it is the expected level of product materials (it isn't).  I'll do a few pictures to post up here though - maybe a thread in Pyra General talk for showing it off and answering questions about it when the time  comes.

As far as I know, I'm the only prototype buyer who has acknowledged it publicly.  The prototype devs will be busy with dev work.  I'll help answer questions where appropriate - but then I will also need to be careful to not steal ED's thunder on news worthy items as they come along.  I hope to be allowed in to help beta test new drivers and system applications, but that is entirely up to ED's discretion.

 

[ible]

yeah i don't get why unboxing videos are so ... popular.

but don't worry about stealing ED's thunder.  pictures and acknowledgment of prototype status will pique people's curiosity but not make them expect this to be what they'll get.

 

[TeDaDeS]

The C64 colored one looks pretty nice, it also makes it clear it's running an emulator on it. But not sure if it's good for the masses, I would assume most people would not mind a safe color like black/gray/dark-blue/dark-green/etc but they might not like a retro color scheme.

 

[erico]

Here some testing...materials are not quite there and no photography neither art direction yet.
I tried to mimic the plastic as the silver pandora is.

Hopefully this will turn into a GIF animation candidate for the Pyra front page.

Hey Ed, can you dump a Pyra OS with lots going on? Like emulators, games and serious stuff as you had on your presentations.

edit: looking at the design, that hinge middle hole could sure use a camera...  
What is that hole on the lower left part of the d-pad? A mic? 

 

[TrashyMG]

Here some testing...materials are not quite there and no photography neither art direction yet.
I tried to mimic the plastic as the silver pandora is.

Hopefully this will turn into a GIF animation candidate for the Pyra front page.

Hey Ed, can you dump a Pyra OS with lots going on? Like emulators, games and serious stuff as you had on your presentations.

edit: looking at the design, that hinge middle hole could sure use a camera...  
What is that hole on the lower left part of the d-pad? A mic? 

Yes the mic.

 

[levi]

Here some testing...materials are not quite there and no photography neither art direction yet.
I tried to mimic the plastic as the silver pandora is.

Very nice.  I guess that screenshot is a picure of Gnome 3 running on Debian though, and as far as I've heard nobody's seriously suggested that as a DE to run on the Pyra for real.

Hey Ed, can you dump a Pyra OS with lots going on? Like emulators, games and serious stuff as you had on your presentations.

You mean a picture of the OS I assume.  Anyone with a way to run the prototype OS should have a way to do that.  I'm not sure what DE the prototype OS is currently running FWIW.

 

[fusion_power]

Here some testing...materials are not quite there and no photography neither art direction yet.
I tried to mimic the plastic as the silver pandora is.

Hopefully this will turn into a GIF animation candidate for the Pyra front page.

Hey Ed, can you dump a Pyra OS with lots going on? Like emulators, games and serious stuff as you had on your presentations.

edit: looking at the design, that hinge middle hole could sure use a camera...  
What is that hole on the lower left part of the d-pad? A mic? 

Very nice rendering, I tried such an light/environment setting but without much success. And the standard material of the transparent keycaps tends to produce ugly prism-effects when the light is set up more intense. ^^"

What material settings did you use? It looks more shiny than the standard material. 

 

[TrashyMG]

]You mean a picture of the OS I assume.  Anyone with a way to run the prototype OS should have a way to do that.  I'm not sure what DE the prototype OS is currently running FWIW.

You can just take a 1280x720 picture of the XFCE4 desktop from any distribution and it wouldn't be too far off.

 

[erico]

Would be nice to have a movie of the desktop running a couple emulators, browser, gimp, open office and so.

Yep. I took a debian picture from the internets, but something more akin to Pyra aplications would be way better, even with a lighter background.

I haven´t checked much of the materials yet, just did a bit on the silver plastic trying to mimic pictures of the silver pandora I found on the webs.

The model, as converted from its original cad type file, generates too many triangles, I think the final object has somewhat a few million points.

It is too heavy for the purpose of beauty, so I remodeled some of the heavier parts into lower poly and quads, the latest would be best to keep an eternal resolution but then I´d be looking at a few days work.

Now it is around 500k points, enough to output full renders in real time.  

 

[erico]

I was wondering about the mic, would not it be better if it was located outside possible hand path?

I can imagine a frenetic player might fill that hole with sweat and grease. ;P 

 

[ible]

as long as the mic is not being covered when the dpad is being pressed (for e.g. some games where you may want mic input), i'm ok with it...