I am painting screens from a video game on my garage doors as soon as it gets warm and stays there. I have calculated it the best I could, but can’t get a perfectly filled door. If anyone can help me, I’d appreciate it. Here’s the info:
There are 255 screens in the game and 2 garage doors. To make it an even 127 screens per door I am going to put the starting screen on the bricks between the doors.
My garage doors are 90.2cm high and 167cm wide. The sample screen I have is 10cm high and 17cm wide.
That will give us 15 screens across with .7cm left over, allowing for a lines between screens.
And 9 screens down. With a lot of space in between and a row with only 7 screens to go across in one row. Hence the problem.
The issue is that there’s a lot more border space between rows than there is on the sides. It fits perfectly across, but too much space between rows. We could make the screens bigger, go 14 across and 9 full rows down, but that’s 126 screens and leaves you one short. I guess I could do the starter screen and -1 and +1 screens on the concrete between the doors, but they’d be on top of each other, not left and right, which would be a little confusing.
Or we could just do the original 15 across, 9 down, and fill the gaps with characters and some game related artwork…which I like a lot but would rather see the screens more squared out and fit better.
So, any ideas and math help would be greatly appreciated!
Can you clarify? You are hand painting multiple screen shots from your favorite video game onto your garage doors? How much definition do you intend to get from this type of painting?
Is it that important that all 255 screens are represented? Is one of your neighbors going to know if one got left out?
I’m not following your math. 15 screens across with each screen 17 cm wide is 255 cm, but your door is only 167 cm. Or are you going to scale down the screens to fit?
I’ll note that 127 is a prime number, so there’s no way to make a rectangular grid of 127 screens with the same number in every row. You’re going to have to get creative with what you do with the short row. Or if you can omit one screen, you could do 14 by 9 = 126.
I’m also a little confused what kind of garage has doors that are not even a meter high. Is there some other usage of the word I’m unaware of? Or am I just imagining this garage incorrectly?
Notwithstanding the questions above … I’d suggest scrunching the rows up so the the gaps between the rows are close to the gaps between the columns … leaving the big space on the bottom is perfectly fine, even better since this last bit of garage door takes the most wear-and-tear …
I think there are 256 screens … maybe there’s one that’s not displayed for some reason … 2[sup]8[/sup] = 256 … make up one and stick it in the middle someplace … see if anyone notices …
[QUOTE=Omar Little]
Can you clarify? You are hand painting multiple screen shots from your favorite video game onto your garage doors? How much definition do you intend to get from this type of painting?
Is it that important that all 255 screens are represented? Is one of your neighbors going to know if one got left out?
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Yes I am painting all 255 screens from Pitfall on two garage doors. :D:cool: There are not that many different objects/creatures in the game, and it’s pixelated graphics. The screens are formulatic and there aren’t that many different ones. Just paint colored stripes across for the floor and background, there’s only 2 tree patterns. I am going to get some thin plastic and cut stencils for the ponds, logs, scorpions, vines, etc.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
I’m also a little confused what kind of garage has doors that are not even a meter high. Is there some other usage of the word I’m unaware of? Or am I just imagining this garage incorrectly?
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Ok, I screwed this up. The garage doors are each 191cm high (6 feet 3 inches approx) and 267cm wide (8 feet 9 inches approx). I will double check it tomorrow and make sure. The screen I have is 17cm wide (6 and 3/4 inches) by 10cm high (just a hair under 4 inches). I printed it and used it as a test width and height and it gave me 15 screens across, with not much space to spare.
[QUOTE=markn+]
I’ll note that 127 is a prime number, so there’s no way to make a rectangular grid of 127 screens with the same number in every row. You’re going to have to get creative with what you do with the short row. Or if you can omit one screen, you could do 14 by 9 = 126.
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Thats what I’m trying to decide, either put 126 door screens and 3 screens on the concrete between the doors to make it nice and rectangular, or do a half row of screens and fill in the gaps with box art or something?
You could do it kinda like the stars on the American flag: 11 rows of alternating 12-wide and 11-wide, with the even rows offset by half a width. 126 + 115 = 127. Packed tightly, assuming 17x10 cm, that gives a total of 204x110 cm. Padded out gives you fairly even borders in width and height.
Well, the story is I have an uncle who is a year older than me (grandparents supposedly got frisky after my parents wedding :eek:). He helped me map out the game when I was 11-12 years old. He’d play and I’d draw a really rough screen. Later I’d draw a much nicer version of the screens on graph paper. Looking through my old computer stuff a little while back, I found 2 pieces of graph paper with 176 screens drawn on it, but not the 3rd page, if there was ever one. I don’t remember if we finished it or not, neither does my uncle.
So my uncle has agreed to help me finish the maps 35 years later. That’s a big reason I want to paint all of the screens, because that was a great game, we had a blast mappng it out and great memories to share with him. The other reasons are: Also proud of my map-making skills back in the day:p, I’ve never seen anything like it before so it’ll be unique and different, it’s the first of hopefully many pieces of unique art that I want to do on and around the house.
I have been off work since June last year due to 12 hours of surgery and 7 weeks of radiation and am not sure when I’m going back to work. So I need things to keep busy, and one of them is fix up the yard and house and make them look nice. Great thing is I can do as much work as I can handle with no pressure, so I’m trying to build up str and energy so I can go back to my job. This’ll be more work than just doing a single screen or two, but my goal is not to make it as simple and easy to do as possible…
[QUOTE=Dr. Strangelove]
You could do it kinda like the stars on the American flag: 11 rows of alternating 12-wide and 11-wide, with the even rows offset by half a width. 126 + 115 = 127. Packed tightly, assuming 17x10 cm, that gives a total of 204x110 cm. Padded out gives you fairly even borders in width and height.
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Thats an awesome idea and exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I am not married to 17x10 screens though, I would definitely want to expand the screens a bit if i’m going 12 across. It’s 267 x 191 cm doors minus your 204 x 110 screens gives me an extra 63cm across and 81cm up and down. I am not good at figuring out exactly how big to make the screens so they’ll fit as closely as possible AND maintaining the correct ratio.
The garage doors are each 191cm high (6 feet 3 inches approx) and 267cm wide (8 feet 9 inches approx). I am sorry, I typed it in wrong when I first posted
I would expand the screens to 20x12, which is basically the same aspect ratio. Then, give each of them a border of 1 cm all the way around, which means that any two adjacent screens have a gap of 2 cm between them. That’s a total of 22x14 each, or 264x154 cm for the full grid. That’s a nice tight fit width-wise, and still pretty close to the full height.
Yes. At one point there was a gravel driveway that went around the side of the house then up to the street in front, but it’s almost gone except for some gravel still underneath the grass. The front of our house is on ground level, and the back of the house is on ground level, so the driveway sloped down fairly steep.
We don’t use the garage for the car because the driveway is too steep and with snow and ice it would be very difficult to get up and down. During warmer weather we wouldn’t need to use the garage. I have asked my wife if she wanted to get a dump truck full of gravel at some point and redo the driveway and she didn’t want to go through the expense and work for something we would not use.
My understanding is my wife’s ex used the garage to work on cars, which was a habit for him. The house was very small to begin with, and when they moved in and expanded the house (it’s about twice the original very small size), he had a garage put in the back.
LOL the guy next door and 2-3 houses across the street have yards that look like they could be on a magazine cover (Better Homes and Gardens). Our house and yard looked like they could be on a magazine cover too (America’s Most Wanted :p) and were really in bad shape until I started working on it. We have a lot of the upstairs painted and starting to look nice. The outside I started working on last year, trimmed all the trees and bushes, cut down weeds which were 3 feet high in some places, and made it look okay. Still a lot to do, but I am getting there.
I had a hunch that this was going to be Pitfall. But Pitfall does have 256 screens, not 255, as others have said. You might be getting thrown off by the fact that they’re numbered starting with 0.
Err… :smack: I’ve been wondering that since watchwolf49’s post, but haven’t checked the number of screens in the game. I am going to shop for an Atari and the cartridge soon and get playing and mapping with my uncle. So it’s 128 screens per side, with the option to put some of the screens on the concrete wall between the doors. I am so sorry for screwing this up and making people calculate the wrong number
I am going to start shopping for paint and equipment in the next few days. Going to find some thin plastic of some kind, an exacto knife, and start making the stencils. I don’t know when it’s going to be consistently warm enough to paint, but I hope soon. We have some old tv boxes and cardboard we’re throwing out, I want to practice with the stencils on the cardboard and make sure it’s right first.
In the mean time I am going to get some printer ink and finish the “Hall of Fame”, my indoor project for when its cold or wet ourside. I can post pics of it on my photobucket if anyone wants to see it. I have always been a fan of Pittsburgh sports teams (the Steelers won their first super bowl when I was 4, Pirates won the world series when I was 9), so last year my sister and her husband painted the upstairs hallway black and gold for us. I have some photo quality printer paper and pics of most of the Steelers I want saved (just missing a handful of players), and about half of the Penguins I want. The Pirates I am not as familiar with and they have a 100+ year history, but I found a site with pics of 160 of their best players (In their opinion) and saved them.
That’s a big reason I want to paint all of the screens, because that was a great game, we had a blast mappng it out and great memories to share with him. The other reasons are: Also proud of my map-making skills back in the day:p, I’ve never seen anything like it before so it’ll be unique and different, it’s the first of hopefully many pieces of unique art that I want to do on and around the house.