Duplo and the Third Dimension - Part Two

This posting forms the belated sequel to 'Duplo and the Third Dimension - Part One', posted in November 2011.  It feels that only a matter of days have passed since penning that blog post (perceptions of time are all relative, and it's nothing to be embarrassed about).  This blog charts the trajectory of doodlecraft emissions that gradually progressed through dimensionalities.  Duplo began as a mental oubliette to stow over-energetic doodleforms born of catharsis, its perimeters gradually vanishing until the doodleforms escaped... as we shall see.

A dot matrix Nod God - one of the earliest computerised renderings, c. 1994

For doodleforms to increase their dimensionality, a willing collusion is required on the part of the instigator; much as in hypnosis - the subject must be cooperative.  Nod Gods were freed from one-dimensional quarantine by gifts of cartoonish vehicular apparatus, providing manoeuvrability within the 2D world of exercise books and pocketable papers.  The challenge and creative problem-solving involved in the nourishing of doodleforms appealed to other classmates, as I described previously.  Duplo was a means to control doodleforms, but its spoiling-for-an-uprising, cod-fascist high-and-mightiness provided a good excuse to sketch elaborate battlefields of melodrama.  The progression to the next dimension - the 3D world - was occasioned by the use of computers in creating virtual worlds.  It was a natural transition, given that Nod Gods themselves partly derived from the culture of computer gaming.  Nod Gods, being spheroidal, were easily dolloped out in 3D rendering software.  In those pre-internet days, such software was gleaned from magazine cover CDs - Visual Reality 1.5 was seized upon, as its tagline promised something along the lines of an escape to a new world.  The Nod Gods' presence in the third dimension immediately heralded the tenancy of a 3D Duplo Officer, and numerous 3D Duplo/anti-Duplo machinations soon followed.

The Duplo Officer in glorious 3D

A short prehistory may be in order.  Arriving in the secondary school's First Year in 1993, myself and a friend decided to become librarians.  Library duties occupied our breaktimes - tasks included shelving books to the Dewey specifications, aligning chairs, and helping other people find things.  The appeal of librarianship lay partly in the avoidance of the dull tarmac playground.  The library seemed an ideal place to experimentalise doodlecraft.  Librarianship quickly lost its allure however when obnoxious older pupils began messing up shelves on purpose.  These hostilities became tiresome.  Furthermore, older jobsworth librarians would scupper any doodling activity by agitating us out from some perceived idleness - I was even physically barred from merely reading the library's monthly copy of 'CD-ROM Magazine'.

In the 1990s, it was distinctly unfashionable to be knowledgable in computers.  Secondary school offered BBC Micros, RM Nimbuses, and various IBM PCs running Windows 3.1.  Then, all of a sudden, Windows 95 machines swept all these away.  A big "fuck off" was gestured towards the library, and stewardship of the computer room beckoned.  Many of us still owned Commodore Amigas at home, and those of us who did were compelled to push our Amigas to perform like a Windows 95 PC - in my case this simply entailed displaying images imported from PCs and making pretend.  3D images were rendered on the PC and converted to Amiga IFF image format to distribute on 'Duplo disks'.

My ambitions to become a computer game developer have long since been dashed against the rocks on the shores of bewilderment, but throughout the 1990s I pursued these dreams in various attempts to create virtual simulations of life.  Whereas real-life actions tend to have consequences, these simulations - centred around school life - provided an arena for enactments not possible in real life.  The foremost of these self-built 'games' was Mount Viewpoint on the Amiga (examined previously the first part of 'Duplo and the Third Dimension'): set in primary school and its surrounding suburbs, all from within the Freescape 3D engine.  Freescape did not allow sphere shapes, alas.  Doodles and Duplo did not feature in this game owing to such representational limitations, but it facilitated both a mode of thinking in three dimensional terms, and presented a promised land: a 'middle-ground' between reality and imagination.

Mount Viewpoint had no ending or level completion strategy, but it was playable.  A PC successor to Mount Viewpoint was never completed in any playable state - it was called TBSHS: The Game, and was set at the titular acronymous secondary school.  I took measurements around school and noted down tile patterns and textures.  Location sounds were also recorded on dictaphone and sampled as wonky in-game noises.  By the year 2000, it had dawned on me that I was no longer at school.  Everybody I had known had stopped talking to me because they wanted girlfriends and newfangled poise, etc.  I digress...

TBSHS : The Game - An uncompleted PC sequel to Mount Viewpoint

To return to the matter of 3D...  TBSHS: The Game was notable for actual real-life 2D digitisations of teachers placed within a highly accurate reconstruction of the sprawling school environment.   This represented the pinnacle of a graphical flourish I habitually employed in 3D rendering software: placing 'real-world' 2D cut-outs in 3D worlds.

It cannot be stressed enough how mentally significant this was.  Maybe younger generations take such things for granted, but back in the mid-1990s, it was mindblowing.  Picture this: a sketch is drawn in an exercise book.  The sketch is then scanned and digitally cut-out.  PC-based 3D software is then used to build a scene for the sketch, it is then introduced and rotated to face the virtual camera.   The scene is subsequently rendered as an image, and lastly, downsampled and converted to an Amiga graphics format for slide-shows on Duplo disks, viewed on cathode ray televisions...  Televisions RF switchable between Amiga input or TV aerial.  The very same televisions we watched Noel's House Party, X-Files and Gamesmaster upon.

A sketched Duplo Officer placed within a virtual 3D environment

Despite the fact that these 3D images were only stills, they fired the imagination in a peculiar way.  And successive dimensions would soon fall within doodlecraft's demesne...

A custom Quake level for the PC was designed with Duplo Officers and Nod Gods, but like TBSHS: The Game, it does not seem to have survived data reshuffles over the years.