Project Lament: HellRaiser Cenobite PC -=FINISHED=-

Thanks Buddha.

Here is a pic of me getting the big check, wish I could have won the hottie in the red dress instead... lol.



QuakeCon 2005 was a blast...

 

Here are two high-res images of his PC at QuakeCon.

 

Once again after passing this case Several Times just to view it i am not at all surpirsed to see it win!!!!!!!! Congrats!

Also could somone at quakecon tell me the placings in the mod contest i was unable to attend, some family deal on the wrong weekend!

 

Damn Zap, those pics make me jealous as hell of your camera.

 

Congradulations senjor... Although I can't say I love your mod since it is a bit too freaky not too usefull, I am though amazed bu the quality of your work. And the amount of details is amazing (daaamn just look at his head, and teeth). I was following this from the beginning...


As for cameras, half of the world camera users have cameras that are good enaugh, they just don't bother to learn how to use it. Now I'm curious what camera is that Zap?

 

First: Hellraiser Cenobite
Second: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapwizard/34102189/
(The guy aparently didn't actualy make the cabnite for the PC)
Third: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapwizard/34102121/

It is true most people don't know how to use their camera properly.
Mine is a Casio QV-R51, it has awsome image quality in general, but a great nightshot mode of 4-second. Takes the best PC mod images as you don't have to use flash and drown out the lights.
I actualy want a Casio Exlim Z750, it's smaller, higher res, and has a 60-second night shot mode.
The above images were taken on 4-second nightshot, 2-second delay timer, proper white balance, and a tripod.

 

First: Damn Texas is big!

Second: I was interested as to who were the runner up's. I now wish that I did not know. At least they picked the right winner...

Third: I probably did not place because of the poor lighting... yaa that's it, the poor lighting, they couldn't see my case.

- actually it does look better with the lights on. See you at the next one.

 

I agree with Bootuobuddha on this one the 2nd and 3rd place welllllll.... i dont think they are all that great (personnal opinion)! And what is this i hear about the guy didint make the actual case? i met the guy with the submerged fishtank and the window ac unit and it sounded like he knew what he was doing but still it was pretty darn ghetto!

Bootupbuddha i was surprized and glad to see you there! It was ironic that i was bragging about your case to one of my firends and then the next day, there you were all the way from CA!

Who judged the mod contest?

 

Brilliant but scary

Well done ZapWizard.....again

 

They had five judges total.
At least two of them were Creative Reps, I don't know who the rest were.

 

Very well done you deserve that award from Quake Con. Congrats!

 

the mod's very great...but it could be more scary

 

eww!

 

There should be a warning label on that, almost keeled over.

 

Update... Fixing a few issues.

For those that do not know already, mid-August I packed up my mod and drove it from Michigan to Texas to show and compete at QuakeCon.



Taking my mod to QuakeCon 2005 was one of the best experiences ever, the amount of attention the mod received and winning first place in the QuakeCon Creative case mod competition made all the months of work involved creating it entirely worth it.



Sadly, there was also a design flaw made apparent by taking my mod to Texas, that being the power button on the puzzle box. People like to push buttons (*******s) and it is my own fault for not taking that fact into account when I chose to put the power button where I did.



I have already devised a plan to correct this issue by completely stealthing the button. The button deal is not world ending, the worst that pressing the button could do anyway is turn the PC on or off, a minor annoyance compared to this next bit...



During the trip home when I was almost forced off the expressway by a merging semi, I cut the wheel left and then right to prevent an accident and heard crunching and snapping noises from the back of the van... so not good.



The Cenobite PC has it's own modded two wheeled dolly cart that it is strapped onto for transport, the mod lies face up and spikes down on the cart when loaded into the van and balances on the carts wheels and handle, it all worked awesome until the mod to rolled left and right. I pulled over to check the damage and saw that the top plexi glass spikes had shattered at the tips... both of the top spikes on each arm had varying degrees of damage ranging from bad to worse.



Damage repair comes before fixing design flaws, so when I got home I tried gluing the acrylic back together (after I found all the small pieces scattered across the van floor)... but it was futile, the glue mended plexi was weak both in structure and appearance. After thinking it over for a while I decided that the only way to fix the "wings" would be to do more cutting on them, the left breakage was the worst as it was down past the etched zig zag spike.



I masked off the spikes for both arms freehand leaving the top spikes as long as possible and shortening the others to match, since the angles of the top spike would not match the original triangle design every spike needed to be redesigned and cut. Also, the plexi spikes were created in two layers so re-doing them requires careful cutting of the etched layer while still on top of the clear layer for each arm. The spikes are one of the few parts of this mod that are not easily removed so cutting would have to be done while still attached to the arms.



As you can see in the above and below pictures the re-cut spikes are now more random in appearance compared to before with the etched and clear layers now meeting up at the tips of the spikes.



I spent close to two weeks trying to figure out how best to cut them and I am still not sure if I like the revision better than the original, but on the plus side being shorter now they do light up harder... and it wasn't like I had much choice.



The spikes don't stick out as far now and if the mod were to roll again during transport it should not cause any further damage to them.



It might have been an omen, when I first wheeled the mod into Quakecon and was signing in one of the event staff (someone told me he was somebody from Id), who in his hurry to enter it into the mod competition (I was second in), wound up running full speed into a spike and suffered a puncture wound on his forearm drawing blood (apologies), thankfully the spike did not break off then. One of the first questions everyone at QuakeCon asked (after how long it took) was "what's in it?", when I would rattle off the hardware list I could tell by facial expression that nobody was very impressed... and I would tend to agree. I am using last generation hardware, not a big deal if the top end of that gen. was used... but this mod was on a tight budget, at the time it was the best I thought I could do. Well, I did bring it in under the $2000 budget and since I did I felt a few upgrades were in order, nothing overly major... just a little boost so that Lament is not viewed as all show and no go. I have decided to upgrade the processor in the Lament mod from the Athlon XP 2600+ 333FSB to an Athlon XP 3000+ 400FSB, it is already ordered and should arrive by midweek. I have also ordered a 250GB Western Digital hard drive to replace the 120GB Hitachi hard drive, doubling the storage capacity. I won the Corsair rig of the month with this mod and they sent me a 1GB PC3200 XMS Expert kit (with the programmable readout) and it will be going into the mod to replace the Kingston HyperX 512MB PC2700 that is currently installed which will also double that. Like I said, nothing major but still a lot better than where it's at currently.

There are a few other things about the mod that have been bothering me besides the power button, things that were not obvious before taking it to a LAN. These things will all be addressed, this mod is my best so far and anything that can be done to make it better will be done... it is the "Mod it Til it Bleeds!" mentality at work, good enough never is. I also plan to gore the mod up a little, it is creepy as is but I intend to instead make it entirely horrific by adding blood, hooks and chains so it ties in better with the HellRaiser mythos. Over the next couple of days I will work on fixing the power button problem.

Stay Tuned

 

Call me stupid, but there is a setting in Windows XP, where you can give Windows the finger and prevent Windows from shuting down when some nitwit hits the button

With some tweaking, you migth be able to play a sound like "Don't press my button" when somebody presses the button

 

I was told that the power button could be disabled in Windows, but for me that is not the best way to fix it. The button sitting on top of the box kind of throws things off, it doesn't look right or belong there so I will instead move the button inside the box.

 

Just wanted to say -
Sucks about the almost-accident and the broken plexi -
glad you were able to salvage.

Perhaps you should consider lexan when you repair - they sell it at home depot and it's pretty tuff stuff.