Prismatic Opticon

Overview

Used in the Test of the Prismatic Opticon

Sources

This building becomes available after starting the Test of the Prismatic Opticon at a University of Art, which in turn requires you know the Fine Balance technology from a University of Thought.

Cost

• 21 Fine Glass Rods
• 210 Gold Wire
• 210 Steel Wire
• 7 Mirror
• 1 Large Topaz
• 1 Large Ruby
• 98 Bearings
• 1 Ra's Lantern Sunstone
• 2 Hile's Chevrons Sunstone
• 2 Bastet Sunstone
• 3 Amanti Jade
• 2 Choronzon Jade
• 2 Khufu's Ship Jade
• 3 Appolonia Garnet
• 1 Full Eye (Any)
• 1 or more random 1-output Gearbox (see Running the Opticon section below.)

Built in a Small Construction Site.

Designing an Opticon

Overall, the opticon design consists of one or more phases, which are like frames of a slow motion movie. Each frame contains a set of rays between targets and each ray is a colored light beam that starts at a point on the base and connects a sequence of targets in the 3D space around the base. The number of targets and rays and the color of each ray is the same for every frame, but you may change the target positions and the connections of the rays. A ray may end abruptly at one of the targets, or it may extend straight through, fading into space. When you run the opticon (described below) the rods will smoothly animate between each frame, and any rays that connect between the same targets will stay on continuously. A change in the rays between two frames will take effect at the beginning of the animation to the second frame.

Designing the Opticon Light Show

To design your opticon light show, click on the opticon to get the configuration controls. Several of the configuration controls are not very useful, so the following short tutorial will focus on the few that are useful. It is recommended that you do a small test design from start to finish, so you can get the feel for how everything works before launching into your real work of art.

Pin up the "Reconfigure..." menu, which lets you Add a Target (looks like a grey blob~Hanid), Add a Ray (looks like a wire ~ Hanid), and Add a Phase (Freeze frame when grouped together to make the animation ~ Hanid). When you reset the opticon design, you start with one of each. First add two or three more Targets and one more Ray. Note that the Ray sources are attached to the top of the upright in the middle of the structure, while the targets appear at the end of semi-transparent rods sticking out from the top of the structure.

The targets are the balls at the end of each rod, but it is the rods that you select. Select a rod by clicking on it directly. To move a rod, pin up the Target Movement menu. The Fast, Medium, and Slow speed controls how quickly you can move the rods and/or their attached targets during the design phase. These settings do not control movement speed during the actual running of the Opticon. You can move the targets Up, Down, Right, Left, In and Out. In and Out determines the length of the light ray in the final design. (Comment: set the Target Movement menu to: Speed: Fast to see the target moving - Nissim)

To make a ray visible, click on one of the ray sources on the top of the base; then click on one of the targets, and then on another, etc. You can return multiple times to the same target but only after you go to another target. If you click multiple times on the last target, it toggles whether to extend the ray into space. If you make a mistake in the ray sequence, simply click again on the Ray Source to start over.

Change the color of a ray by using the Ray Color menu. Keeping track of which ray is which color is awkward, so it is best to set up the colors you want early in your design. There are six available colors: White, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow and Purple. You can have multiple Ray Sources set to the same color.

Use the Add a Phase menu to add phases one at a time. Pin up the Select Phase menu, and select each of the phases. Notice that the new phases have the same set of targets and rays, but the targets are in the initial default position, and the rays are all off. The easiest way to get a smooth transition from one phase to the next is to use one of the copy operations. First select a phase that you want to change, one of your new phases, and then use Copy Full Phase and select the phase you want to copy from. Then go to each phase change the target positions and rays into the configuration you want. Continue in this manner until you have your design configuration finished. At that point, you can pin up your "Select Phase" menu and click the phases in numerical order to see a "slide show" of what your running design will look like.

Running the Opticon

Once your design is finished, select the Run menu and note what single-output gearbox it requires. You cannot see the animation of the opticon without the required gearbox. But each time you make a change to the opticon targets, the rays, or add/subtract a phase, a different gearbox will be required.

Since it is very useful to see how your opticon works in action while you are designing it, but rather difficult to design a new gearbox for each configuration, there is a simple trick that lets you reuse a small number of gearboxes. Any change at all, no matter how small, will reset the gearbox requirement. One method that you can use is to change movement speed to "Slow" and make a miniscule change to a target (in one or more of the phases). After each change, click "Run" on the Opticon menu until you hit upon a requirement for a gearbox that you have. Install that gearbox, which removes any gearbox which was previously installed.

Once you click "Run" after gearbox installation, the design animates and your opticon becomes judgable as soon as it is running. ("Run" does not install the gearbox. There is a separate command to do this on the menu. ~ Hanid) The Opticon remains running full-time thereafter, and judges are not required to stop or start it in order to make their Judgement. If, as the owner, you decide to stop the Opticon, you will receive a warning message that all votes/judgements will be reset to zero. Only stop it if you have decided to change the design and are willing to lose all voting progress.

Just one last note (from Tale 3): The Reconfigure Menu tells you that you can have a max of 21 Rays, 21 Rods, 21 Targets, and 21 Phases. However, this does not mean that you are allowed 21 of each. During my design, I tried to set 14 Rays, 8 Targets, 8 Rods and 13 Phases. When trying to add another Phase, I received the message that nothing more could be added, because the design had reached maximum complexity. My final design had 5 Rays, 5 Rods and Targets, and 18 phases. It's unknown at this time how much more complicated the design can be, before reaching the limit. -Degas-

The popup on the Opticon indicates that the limit is (Rays + Targets) * Phases <= 300.