Reinventing the Wheel

Wheel of Fortune came back to ITV last weekend. There’s some inspiration to make this model – which, coincidentally enough, was started mere days before the revival was announced back in June – vaguely presentable and get a render out of it. For here, we have a representation of the classic American look for the show.

The wheel was almost entirely completed last summer. There were lots of crazy spaces on the American wheel that never appeared on the UK version, although of course, where they had “Surprise” we had “Brad’s Box”, where you might stand a chance of winning a Walkman, a digital watch, or something else from the Argos catalogue of the day.

The board, however, was where things halted last time, but I managed to cobble something together using my previous attempt at the original UK counterpart. The fan motif took a bit of wrangling, but once the lights were in place things started to come together. The letters on the blocks are also using a custom typeface.

I’m surprised it has taken this long for Wheel of Fortune to return, given how popular it was back in the day. It’s a simplistic game, more sparkle than substance… hard to screw up, surely?

Well, what we have is very much an import of the American version, which has its pros and cons. But, ultimately, it turns out that a whole hour of Wheel is just too much; I was flagging during part three and had pretty much lost interest by the end. It worked so much better – and continues to work Stateside – as a quick, fun half-hour. Also, as much as I like Graham Norton as presenter, I found it quite empty without a co-host – I realise this is essentially a pointless role these days, what with the video board revealing the letters itself, but having someone to bounce off might have livened things up a bit. And this programme really needs livening up.

Oh well. At least ITV’s other American quiz show revival, Jeopardy, is looking much more promising. I was more invested in that one, and I’m glad to say I’m hooked!

Here’s the subject of the puzzle by the way, if you need to inject some eighties energy into a dreary January:

Crystal Ball

Yes, we’ve been watching The Crystal Maze again over Christmas.

I thought it would be fun to try and recreate the fancy little animation that appears at the end of the opening titles, as well as into and out of commercials. Made back in 1992 for the show’s third series – and a vast improvement on the original design – I can imagine the crystal in particular was a time-consuming process which required lots of resourceful thinking and/or trickery. I found it tricky enough decades later!

That’s twenty seconds of time inside the Crystal Dome.

This is a brand new crystal model. I’m not sure it’s perfectly accurate, but it is much closer than my previous attempt, which better resembled the shape of the Crystal Dome. Once I had the model and scene down, I attempted the caustic light emanating from the crystal. Several methods were explored but, as you can see below, it did not go well, so I proceeded without it. It does look rather bare without it, so I’ll probably have another go at some point.

Simulating the ripple effect as the crystal rose was, happily, very easy. It’s just a Formula displacer. My only complaint is that it’s a hair too slow, and I never figured out how to speed it up. The big boom at the end could probably also have been executed better, but dealing with a lens flare, I was wary of blinding people. Possibly a speedier explosion with a stronger Random effector to give a bit more, well, randomness.

So, overall, lots of fun here, but plenty of areas to refine for another go – whenever that may be.

Happy New Year to you. If you’re one of the six or so still visiting at this point, you’re obviously the decent sort. I cannot look into a crystal ball, but I hope 2024 is a happy and fruitful one for you.