Bioshock anyone?

[ThePope43]

Well I'm not entirely obsessed with the game, but it's definitely an eye catcher of a game I'd say. Anyways, I've been talking to jdbnsn for a while, and I'm not sure if I really have the time to build the case myself, but I for sure want it build one way or another, either by me or someone else. Anyways I just drew up my first sketch in good ol' MS Paint. I'm just throwing a few ideas out and putting them together to see what comes out.

First off, I've never built a custom pc case in my life. I'm 16years old, and very talented, so I'd like to think I can handle the job, except for the no time part. Please throw every comment/suggestion at me that you can possibly think of, I'd really love some enthusiastic help, especially from you more expierenced modders out there =]

Also, I might like to add that this is going to be a gaming PC. Here's going to be some simple specs to show you what we're dealing with here

Processor: Q9650
Ram: 4gigs ddr2 pc6400
hdd: about 250-500gigs
video cards: two 9800Gx2's when they come out
cooling: Definitely will need/want water, especially for this case =]




Anyways, here's my first rough sketch to date:

http://i27.tinypic.com/286zazl.jpg

[jdbnsn]

You know, rather than having Big Daddy breaking through the front, it might look better to just mount it centrally (like a moose head for lack of a better example). Since they have such and interesting head piece with all of the red eyes I think that would look slick as the facade. Good luck with your first build by the way!!!

[ThePope43]

Yeah, I thought about doing that. I'll see what else I can come up with. Anyone else have any ideas/thoughts/comments?

[ThePope43]

Anyone? Show the love?

[jdbnsn]

give it some time, it's kind of like fishing

[Zephik]

Honestly, that looks pretty much good to go if you ask me.

Make it look all old and rusted looking and instead of having what looks like water trickling down in those front tubes, have green "radio-active looking" coolant instead with some hidden uv leds to make the coolant glow.

Thats just a suggestion, I think it will be great either way. Rust and radio-activeness just seems to go together really well to me. You could also then just hook it up straight to your wc kit (whenever you get one), so it wouldn't be just aesthetic, but functional as well.

All in all, Its not too complicated and it looks like the hardest part will be making it look "Bioshock-ish" with the paint job. Making things look old and rusted is always a hard thing to do. I've seen many people do awesome work with their cases, but then funk it up with a non-convincing paint job. Check out the Doom3 mod, that should help give you an idea about how to go about it. Of course, also just google around for rusted things to help get an idea about how it should look.

Anyways, just focus on building the thing first! The design looks great. I really think you should go ahead and try to tackle this. It looks like a great first time build. Don't think you have to build this every other day or anything or make it some kind of super professional build. Just take your time and do things to the best of your ability and we'll be here to root you on and to give you advice when and where you need it.

If you end up not being able to do it, well thats fine. We have plenty of people who can only throw out ideas at the moment for whatever reason or another. Thats why we have the idea section after all. I've contributed a few times to the idea area myself. Sometimes I want to do something, but end up just not being able to. But one day I will! You all just wait, I'm going to put you all to shame! lol :)

[ThePope43]

Haha Yeah understandable. I have an entire "idea" box of xbox parts lol They'll one day do something...maybe. I've built/broke/rebuilt so many xboxes, I probably have parts in there to make 2 or 3 of them!

Anyways there's two problems I have. One is I have no idea in hell what to use for the porthole, I couldn't come up with anything! Secondly, what are some tools/items I'm going to need for general case modding, and this case?

[OvRiDe]

Looks like an excellent start on the planning stages. For a port hole you could use some plexi and modify a PVC pipe flange from a hardware store.

As for tools, you can use anything you can find, and your 2 hands. Check out the Dutch modders, they come up with the most creative ways of fabricating.

[ThePope43]

I ment tools such as a Dremel, I don't even have one of those yet :P

[jdbnsn]

I looked at some pics and thought of a couple of things:

If you did mount Big Daddy on the front, these eyes/lights on his head would make nice power/reset/drive door buttons

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/bioshock/335x265_bioshock.jpg


This picture of Rapture shows some nice lighting effects that would highlight the edges or sides nicely:

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/bioshock/Bioshock-rapture.jpg


And since you plan to watercool, you could build the whole top of the case as a reservoir to resemble one of the walkways (since you want to place your res above all of the other watercooling components anyway.

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/bioshock/bioshock.jpg

[Zephik]

Porthole could be made out of plexi. Just cut out a circle, then cut out another circle within that circle. Make sure it lines up with the hole in the side of the case of course. lol

Then of course, if you want to make it nice looking. Leave the edges that are against the case alone and sound down the outside edged on both the outside and inner circle at an angle. Wow, that was confusing. lol

I mean something like this:
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/9568/ringtopqw8.jpg

That would actually be perfect if it was a twenty times larger lol. But yea, just make a larger version of that out of plexi. Jigsaw and some way of sanding, whether by hand or machine and that should do it I think.

[ThePope43]

@Jdbnsn:

I like where you're going with the water resivoir on the top. Possiby Turn it into a much larger resivoir on the top, and make sure it's sealed tightly. Also, I thought about this:

http://www.heise.de/ct/05/10/090/dcmm-bilder/hi/artefakt.jpg


Notice on their case that red reflector-type thing. It would be amazing if I had something of the same sort that came up, but inside it was the headphone/usb jacks, etc? As for the big daddy's head being the buttons, that would require me to cut through him in some sort of manner.