Laser Games - Like a giant colour Vectrex that can blind you
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- Playing some laser projector games with LaserOS www.wickedlasers.com/laseros
standupmaths did a much better video about laser games here
• Recreating Asteroids w...
My 2016 Laserdock review video in full: • LaserDock - 'World's f...
You can buy a laser projector like the one I used via ebay: ebay.to/2H88CPw
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Obligatory Patronising Warnings
LASER PROJECTORS ARE NOT TOYS
Even just thinking about them is probably dangerous
All stunts in this video were performed by professional idiots
(on a closed road)
Winners don’t take drugs
Just say no
When the fun stops, stop.
If you want everyone to know you’re a super cool expert on laser projectors, make sure you use the word ‘galvos’ In your comment.
FAQs
Q) Does the software do (insert function here)?
A) Download it - it’s free - try it yourself. This video was about the games. www.wickedlasers.com/laseros
Q) Have you adjusted the settings, have you tried a filter on your camera, perhaps there’s a problem with the software, the projector is rubbish etc..
A) This video is what it is. It was shot in February and initially binned due to the fact I was unhappy with the way it looked. After making quite a few edits, I’ve released it as an ‘Extra’ - there will be another video along in a few days.
This one has problems - The video quality is rubbish, and the projector is too slow - but that was it - it’s was over and done a couple of months ago.
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Links & answers to any FAQs (if there are any) are in the *Video Description Text Box*
Is the flickering (most visible in asteroids at the start when there's a lot of stuff exploding) a camera thing or is it that visible in person? It made me a bit ill to look at.
It's a bit of everything - the projector, the camera and real life. In person it's not always fun to look at.
What was the song at 0:28?
Is this laser any good for displaying the oscilloscope style music videos ?
Have you tried the built in ND-filter on the Sony RX-10? That should allow you to use a slower shutter speed, thus possibly reducing flicker/halo.
Hey, I've had a lot of experience (and trouble) filming laser shows myself (my business) and found that the easiest solution is to just drop an ND1024 filter over the camera lens and adjust your F-stop/ISO a bit. Awesome video btw! (Now I've REALLY gotta get one of these...) (Honestly since it's short-range and indoors, you could probably get away with an ND256 here... definitely cheaper.)
the animation actually looks better all curvy on the projector imo. it unintentionally gives it a neat art style
It looks like long-exposure light art.
It looks cool. It kind of looks like neon.
The squiggles are kinda cool, actually.
Agreed
It's cute. It's obviously massively underengineered, but there is something quaint about that.
yes it does make a change from square lines, a hand drawn quality
my thought exactly
Despite not appearing as it was designed to be, I thought Attack of the Squigglons was rather charming.
Displaced Gamers
There's Squigglons on the starboard bow!
... starboard bow! Starboard bow! There's Squigglons on the---. Oh no. It is stuck in my head now.
It's not that their appearance is unintended. There's just always some degree of distortion depending on how many thousands of dollars the owner has poured into the projector. It's always there, to some degree.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks watching most of your videos, still finding more. I just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoy your work. As someone who searches out retro tech from thrift stores as a hobby, I find techmoan endlessly fascinating. Keep up the great work, love the puppets too!
So Techmoan is Lazer Game Review now :)
*L* *A* *S* *E* *R* *M* *O* *A* *N* here, internet bussiest láser game nerd.
Grreeeetings
1:23 And there's a Techmoan in his natural habitat. A truly interesting and phenomenal mammal.
Kei Nishimaru Phenomenammal
(🎵doo doo d-doo-doo🎵)
The bendy inaccuracies and ghosted images is actually really quaint and cute.
However, it does make me wonder about making a proper one with tight tolerances, bet it would look fantastic.
Even with the curved line problem I still find the effect impressive and beautiful. Thanks for demoing everything. You're an awesome reviewer. Long time fan.
The compilation in the credits needs a standalone video. It's just so relaxing.
I love the 80s look of the glasses and the icecubes, looks like artwork come to life.
I like the clipped edges. It's like a visual version of what a tube amp does to a guitar signal when viewed through an oscilloscope.
Oh my God, I wan't to play asteroids on the huge hillside by our house now.
I'll buy that for a dollar!
or on the side of a wal-mart at 2AM
Frogz, A DLP won't light up the side of a damn or hillside though unfortunately.
So many blind rabbits...
Makes me miss my old Vectrex even more. I've always had a soft spot for vector graphics games, and poured way too many quarters into Asteroids, Star Wars, and Tempest machines as a teenager in the eighties. While all my friends were buying Colecovisions and Atari consoles, I scrimped and saved for the Vectrex. I had the 3-d goggles and the light pen and most of the games that were available for the machine. I foolishly gave it away to an old flatmate trying to downsize for a move to the UK. I ended up back in the states eventually, and now have a 16 year old son who loves retro gaming. Looking at what the Vectrex and accessories go for on Ebay, I fear I'll never have another one. Hopefully this technology will mature to the point where I can play a ten foot version of Tempest on my ceiling! Love your videos, and your accent makes me homesick for my adopted second home in Blighty.
I'm impressed by the colors and charmed by the curves.
It actually looks really cool how all of the lines get curved, as if it's animated neon sign lights. It gives it a very unique look.
Automatically generated subs: "That's it for the Bourbon..." LOL
Tempest was my all time favourite as a kid. I only ever found one machine. I remember the large weighted control dial vividly.
Bliss 😍😍😍
RAW TOPSHOT Yeah, tempest was great. My favourite has got to be Polybius though due to the fast and addictive gameplay.
You had me at potential eye damage
I love the fact that somebody went through and ported so many Vectrex titles just to give added bonus value to their laser product. That is really rare and cool. I've never considered dj laser shows as vector projectors before this video.
i like the smoother look!!!! you found a gem i think for simple club animations
Still a very nice use for the projector glad to see it in use again!
i used to love playing these games and actually i think was my first interaction with with gaming way before the first nintendo - great video - keep up the good work :)
I would have loved to see this with some smoke in the room 😃😃
IgnoreMyChan Oh wow, that would be crazy. I'm interested too.
I would be interested in this if a better "Tempest" clone was to be had. "Tempest" ,"Battle Zone" and "Missile Command" are STILL my favorite arcade games!
Just love your “Obligatory Patronising Warnings” 😁
Actually, it's quite amazing considering when I started working with lasers, HeNe tubes were $300+ for a .5 mw beam. Even galvanometers for professional shows are thousands of dollars so I really couldn't complain about this little gadget at all. Great video. Thanks for sharing.
Pangolin laser software use to have asteroids built in back in the early 2000s. this takes me back
Awesome to see some vectrex ports for this:
Starhawk, Star Ship and Amour Attack look pretty good (starts at 8:36).
Looks rad, would like to see this tech taken further. I love Vectrex and Tempest.
Yeah, with more lasers at once color vector games would certainly be more of a possibility than the vectrex while using the 3d viewer.
Tempest 2000 can be played for a long time already on pangolins QM2000 and easylase and its called lazymame!
The inability to draw hard angles produces a “rendered neon tubes” look. Cool.
i love the vectrex i got to play one at the maker faire my dad has never seen one but he was really impressed with the asteroids game and how smooth it is
I saw the Asteroids laser projector demo in person. It was stunning
what a great show every time this guy is great
I wouldn't feel too bad about the cutting of corners - I really find the result quite charming to be honest. The output feels really nice and analog - physical, I guess - in comparison to the input. Great review, and a good effort put into capturing the bright laser projection!
Always love it when there is a new Techmoan video👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Man, if this could emulate the Star Wars Arcade game. Or the Vectrex. That‘d be really, really amazing.
BattleZone, Gravitar, Major Havoc, lots of great vector scan games back in the day!
TRON!
I'd like to see a better version of Tempest. That's the best of the best.
Tail Gunner.
I was hoping for Elite.
My favorite tech channel.
I love this channel & 8-bit guy's channel.
Yep! I was worried during the last scene! The laser almost hit you in the glasses. But everything ended normally. Thanks for that video
Reminds of the computer displays in the X-Wings!
I actually really dig the sort of stylized curves it draws, and I'd love to either have or to make a game that is supposed to look like that!
Wow. Even with the issues this still seems cool. It would be great to be able to play the whole Vectrex library on it.
Interesting product. I'll have to check out the 2016 video but I'd love to see a laser spectrum analyzer.
I think you'll find that this thing is capable of that, the rest is just software.
Good point, Jesus. I'm sure you are right. Would be great to see that in action.
Maybe you should download the software because I was just watching it again and I saw a few Speccy type displays flick up on the screen during the bit where he's setting it up. Smack bang on the 2:00 mark.
During the section at the end of the video, where I’m talking to camera, look to the right of the screen, you’ll see that the lasers are reacting to the sound of my voice. This is one of the features of the software. In this video I was just playing some games. You can download the software for yourself if you want to look through all the other features.
Ah yes, thank you. I hadn't even noticed it was reacting to your voice! Would be great to see this with music too. I'll have to take a look at the software.
This holds so much potential.
There's something quite nice about the underpowered ice in the glass drawings
Interesting that it's kind of the opposite of not having the power for 3d graphics. Instead of becoming angular and blocky things become squiggly and rounded.
Lol. Well, it's not that it doesn't have the power, it doesn't have the accuracy. Things look rounded because the motors are not stepped enough, it just guesses(wrongly) the positioning.
Richard Smith I think they were stepped enough, but lacked the torque to actually reach all the locations in the right time, so instead it literally cut corners
these are mems aren't they? I wouldn't think this would be anything like steppers.
Yeah maybe, or lacked the speed. If it's high powered lasers, it very well may be torque, moving the heatsinks in all.
Yeah, I think the main issue is a lack of accuracy at speed.
If it were moving too slow parts of the image would not get drawn at all, but if it rushes I guess it approximates the fastest path through it.
I suppose part of the problem could be that the X and Y deflection happens with separate mirrors, meaning that if one mirror isn't moving it would need to start moving in advance to complete a later part of the movement in time.
I imagine the mirrors have a relatively high mass compared to the deflection speed, so it doesn't instantly start or stop. That in itself means the ends of any line drawn involves a degree of acceleration, and taken to an extreme that means sharp edges become curves. (since it's easier to smoothly transition to a new direction than to create a sharp corner, which would require coming to a complete stop, then starting again.)
Yes, the fact that the mirrors cannot stop and start instantly would seem to be the most likely reason sharp points have a habit of vanishing when there isn't enough time.
A hard corner would require deceleration, stop, accelerate, while a smooth curve is an even acceleration all the way through, and thus takes less time to complete.
Weird quirk with unusual visual effects, but interesting to consider the reasons for it.
i like how it stylizes it!
I remember when I was a kid playing those neon ‘bar top’ (I think?) where the display was on the wall. I want to say it had a light gun, I could be mixing that up with another style of the same type of game. This reminded me of that.
I'm not a big fan of vector graphics games, but I appreciate the continued popularity of machines like the Vectrex. That having been said, I think this laser rendition of vector graphics games looks fantastic.
Admittedly, there's room for improvement, but this is something I'd definitely love to have once all the bugs are worked out, and if it's available for PCs.
Actually, that animated EQ/audio meter at the end was quite cool!
Love the look of these, I think the curves look better than hard angles.
It might not be ideal - but it's still friggin' awesome!!
looks amazing
Dang it, I wish you would add a "no puppets this time! 😣" warning to the end of the video as the credits. I always get excited I might see more puppets, but the patreon credits are just getting longer 😂😂😂
Love your videos. I'm not sure if you tried this to reduce flicker, but Premiere has a Flicker Filter in the Field Option settings. I'm sure you're shooting progressive but it still should reduce the flicker for next time. Thanks again for making this video!
That’s sick man. Wish I could see it in person.
Dies
Dies
Dies
Dies
"It's a little bit easy though..."
Dies
Dies
The version your projector displays reminds me of the guitar on the money for nothing video.
Omg omg omg a tempest and missile command clone!! I so neeeeed this right now!! 🙀
The King of Random did a DIY video where they used a vibrating laser pointer to produce laser effects to music. The projector doesn't seem all that different in concept. It just controls the vibrations better.
Looks very cool - even with rounded shapes.
Thumbs up for being a big boy with cool toys (-:
Now we need Tron on this masterpiece
i own one of the newer laser cubes and i gotta say watching you speak while the 2w class 4 laser projector was pointed at your face was pretty nerve racking
I'm gonna try this, I just bought a Mac mini and connected it to my neck center, looks exciting.
At the beginning I noticed "He's wearing a shirt which I've got in the closet." During laser setup: "He's wearing a different shirt which I've also got in the closet." I'm starting to feel some kinship with Techmoan beyond merely our age, appearance, interests and approximate speaking style.
I've been drawing pretty much nothing but line SVGs since 2013, in anticipation of this technology!
This is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME.
That's pretty cool. The kids on the pills and electronic music would stare at that for hours.
imtheotherdave Is this comment from 1993?
This is by far one of the coolest things I've ever bought.... This video doesn't do it justice... TH-cam 'LD1000 Laser'...
Thank you Techmoan for closing the decision on buying this. I thought maybe a scam on eBay...
Search for LaserOS, it's free and you can simulate what it can do... I played with that for weeks until I pulled the trigger...
I think the footage of the laser on the projector screen looks far more interesting than "how it should have looked" (9:13), despite halos and squares turning into circles!
Reminds me of one of the original vector graphics games, namely Lunar Lander, which ran on a DEC graphics terminal back in the 60's.
Star Wars and Battlezone were the ultimate vector games.
Ah Your Correct Sir it was Battlezone not Tank Command..!
I wish there had been more vector games. They just have certain unique appeal to them.
And Play-ability..!
And also the companion to Battlezone at that time "Red Baron", I spent a lot of money on those two in my youth...
th-cam.com/video/HedT3ERkLac/w-d-xo.html
I was wondering if a Neutral density or polarised filter would help with the haloing around the projected shapes.
A mems based laser projector would fare much better with less mass for the actuated mirror which would allow for a faster refresh through higher acceleration. Alternatively depending on the control resolution you could simply limit the actuation range and back the projector away more to gain refresh speed. Of course all this would require modification of the control software and/or driving firmware.
Wow brings back great Memories of Star Wars & Tank Command....
Sorry Battlezone..!
You have to keep in mind this only costs $800. That's extremely cheap for colored laser that does animations. I remember back in early 2000's there use to be a guy bringing in a $30k laser to rave which only did green color and had super basic animation. I know this was while back but still this laser is amazing!
MAME + any vector based arcade game + that laser projector = AWESOMENESS???
If you want a few tips of capturing laser (and CRT) projections on video: Set the shutter time to no shorter than 1/25 and adjust aperture and/or ISO to compensate for brightness.
Also, you could try re-tuning your scanner amplifiers if you want the images to be sharper. Reducing the scan angle also helps a lot with image sharpness.
8:08 I had that game on the Commodore 64! It was all character graphics, but definitely the same game. The Tanks game reminds me of Wii Play Tanks.
I actually like the shapes the laser projector creates. It is kind of retro and doesn't disturb too much for me. :-)
I wonder if some of the blobbyness might be fixable by doing more work in software, e.g changing the order different segments are drawn, using more laser-friendly shapes for things that don't matter as much, or using some sort of hinting scheme of the sort used for font rendering to prioritize some aspects of the geometry over others.
That's really cool
Would some strong glass photographic filter across the output window of the projector not have helped tone down the strength of the laser? Or if you used ND filters on the camera?
I remember looking at solar eclipses in the middle of the day with some photographic filters a few years ago.
I remember playing Galaga in the arcade at the mall for 25 cents a game. Back when that was real money. I loved that game!
Sideshow Bob not a vector game.
Days ago, I was wondering about vector monitors, because of Vectrex itself, and also Arcades that used them, if they are still produced, since even oscilloscopes went LCD.
These demos may trigger some nostalgia, but, as show, it doesn't last long due the laser speed. It would be nice with 4K screens, to have this kind of games with quite sharp lines.
Looks like something I'd love to see at a barcade!
8:09 - almost looks like Scorched Earth. we used to get sent to the principals office if we got caught playing that in computer class.
remember them tapes you used to buy advertised in magazines? '100 games! Amazing bargain etc' I bought one once and it was full of games basically written in basic. Ah the joys of being old...
"Eek help Spike", "Oh no, Molly"
8:08 SCORCHED EARTH! I remember a time before "Worms" basically became the de facto version of this game.
Got a 4.5 watt german laser myself for shows with Pangolin's FB3-QS. Was really bummed when i realized you couldn't use the Pangolin ILDA converter for more fu hacking projects. Still useful for shows mind you but...
The space shooter game with what you called the "Klingon ships" is a clone of an Odyssey2 game, the name of which I no longer remember.
Yes, I think that's the one I was thinking of. I just did a search and it was called Cosmic Conflict on the Odyssey2. And yes, I remember enjoying the Lord of the Rings RPG (which was half boardgame if I remember correctly; you moved on the board and resolved fights in the game).
Lots of games used that same patter. Activision's Star Master, Atari's Star Raiders, just for starters.
I've been thinking about something like this but with the laser projector placed behind a Back-Projection-Cloth to better approach the vector-monitor feel.
This is weird. I was just talking about the Vectrex on a live stream when this vid was released.
(I also built an RGB laser projector a few years ago, so this is definitely of great interest.) ;)
I'd love to play a version of Dance Dance Revolution that drew the arrows from that projector
I imagine it might be possible to improve the projector's performance by reducing the scanning angle (and put the projector further away from the screen so that the projected image is the same size), so that the mirror is making smaller movements. Not sure if this would be a feature of the projector itself, but in theory it should be possible for the software to do it. Obviously there's a limit to how far you can go which is determined by how much fine accuracy the motors have.
I still think it performs very well for electromechanical mirror beam steering.
For the longest time I have wanted to do laser Lissajou curves of live input music - as a visualizer for shows. Ive not seen anything close to the clarity and response of an old oscilloscope but this is getting there... one day perhaps!
Oh and if they can get Battlezone and Star Wars arcade running its an insta-buy from me :-)
Thanks for the amazing video!
It would be cool if you could play cartoons on it, like if there was some kind of MPEG4 to Vector converter. I know the results wouldn't be technically "perfect" but it would produce some interesting artefacts that could then be prone to some hackery.
The ultimate final product would be a 3D hologram in High Def using real video footage, combine that with some of the 3D TV know-how that is currently 0-10 years old now, and this technology could really get interesting.
I'm a fan though, I love it. And the Epileptic Seizure was totally worth it.