What does your game table look like?

[jkthomsen9]

TY for all the replys. DLG, reading your earlier post is what prompted my thoughts of switching. I am not unhappy with my projector, as it is a short throw HD projector. It amazed me the difference in picture quality and lamp power (for lighted room) between my first and second projector. I would have to get about a 78" flat screen to get the same viewing area, about 55"X55", or multiple smaller screens. I think I will Watch and listen to the community and let my projector get a little older before I spend the $$$.

[pyremius]

Has anyone looked into using a short-throw on the floor with rear projection?

I'm not sure what sort of size that would end up at, but it would remove all of the issues relating to shadows and ceiling mounts.

[Jamz]

Originally Posted by pyremius

Has anyone looked into using a short-throw on the floor with rear projection?

I'm not sure what sort of size that would end up at, but it would remove all of the issues relating to shadows and ceiling mounts.

Personally, IMO, the shadows aren't really that big of a deal. Then again, I quickly gave up on using Mini's on the table, if you go digital, go digital. It's really a PITA as you still need digital tokens if you want the VBL/Vision.

If you have to go through the trouble with a projector on the floor, mirror, boxing it in so you don't kick it (and loose leg room), I think a TV is a better solution. I know my Short Throw projector was 1,100 bucks, and you can get a 4k 50" TV for less than that. (Sister got one for 600$ on black friday deal). I think the 4K TV's will end up being really nice options, considering just a 1080p Projector is still expensive, comparative wise.

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by pyremius

Has anyone looked into using a short-throw on the floor with rear projection?
I'm not sure what sort of size that would end up at, but it would remove all of the issues relating to shadows and ceiling mounts.

I did.
*** Lengthy Rebuttal for Clarity**

Through several different attempts with a Viewsonic PJD2121.
General Info>

• Veiwsonic list the throw at 28" ...3' more accurate. and at the shortest throw distance produces a 45" diagonal basically a 27"x36" rectangle display if utilizing a default(4:3). Though this particular projector does have "letter box", some do not, so will use "normal" mode for this purpose of discussion.
  My goal was to be able to sit 10 people (including DM) around the table. So this comes into consideration on my analysis.
  Lastly, the projection when reflected can change size based on where the reflective surface is in relation to the projector, I will discuss as if this distance is basically equal. AND if equal, your reflective surface sizing will have to increase based on how large you wish the final projection to be.
  Also, any reflection is good for maps bad for text.

Attempt #1>
Direct projection from undertable.

• This requires some sort of screen surface to "capture" the projection. Two possibilities are a parabolic lens (cannibalized from an old projection TV), or the use of vellum paper. The use of the lens produced a nostalgic "rainbow hue" often found on the TVs of the 70s using this "tech". The vellum paper has to be supported, so I sandwiched it between two pieces of glass (in this case an old sliding patio door).
  While I preferred the softer tones of the vellum, you loose abit on sharpness. The real downside was even with a short throw projection, the table had to be nearly 4' off the floor.

Attempt #2>
Reflection undertable.

• Depending on the degree of keystone you can play with this abit, but again for this purpose, we will assume keystone is set to zero. As Jamz points out, you do loose leg room undertable and for better projection the projection field should be boxed in to save moving it, and lost light. Problem with boxing is this elevates the heat which projectors create a lot of leaving you two choices, vent the heat out or overheat your projector. While reflection will lower your table height down by roughly halve, it doesn't change the finished projection size, currently still 45" diagonal. However, the table doesn't have to be two feet tall either, so raising the table back to say 36" gains a foot of projection area on the "Throw". So at a throw distance of 4' I get a projection of 60" diagonal 48"x36". Not bad, but at those lengths, I might only be able to seat 6 around it, not 10.

Attempt #3>

• Similar to Attempt #2, but played with the 16:9 (letterbox) projection. This approach still only gave me the same seating, but abit more comfortably (30" per person was the goal). The projection diagonal staying constant gave me a display size of about 53"x30" or put another way a table 5'6" x 3' with a 6" space around the edge for books, dice etc. Not bad, but again still too small for 10 people.

The various attempts all were considered fail.

So, I went with above table projection, only to find I couldn't see finer detail on some maps due to lights being on in the room during game play. All projection is effected by the amount of ambient light in the room vs the amount of contrast and lumen they produce. It varies from projector to projector and personal taste.

After several game sessions we abandoned the projector for the embedded TVs (as noted in my earlier posts). The end result (currently hehe) is a table 11'x3'6" with a display surface of 24"x84". At first I thought the 2' wide display would be too narrow, but after several months I have found it works well because it leaves 9" on either side of the screen for books and dice trays, etc. and I can scroll the maps used quite easily.

A comparable projection application would have required the throw length to be 7' (thus making table heights difficult) and 5'6" wide (which my game room would not comfortably support) and still not address lighting issues or text displayed if mirrored.

Some helpful links in reference to this
http://www.projectorcentral.com/View...calculator.htm
http://www1.viewsonic.com/products/archive/pjd2121.htm

D20Pro's partnership with Mesa Mundi see a lot of possibilities for the table top gamer... So I am considering this> http://mesamundi.com/collections/mul...uch-overlay-84 This as others have noted is about the cost of a low end 4k TV but would give you touch capability.
And as a D20pro user / developer, I was hopeful of the RW partnership as well, but frankly, RW just struggles to deliver on their own target goals, so you can't tie too many "hopes" on what they do.

I hope you find this helpful
DLG

[Oberons_child]

Hey everyone, it's been a while since the last post but I wanted to share my journey with you as well. We were gaming in a living room and I built a table to house the computer that would wheel around, it was connected to the TV which we would use to run Maptool. When I heard about realm works I began working on a few other hair brained schemes. My first was a projector. I tried finding a way to make the projector shoot from the ceiling but since it wasn't my house that became somewhat problematic. Instead I would up building a table out of Plexiglass and putting the projector underneath, I lined the plexiglass with white contact paper and the image was great. Setup however left something to be desired, between the mirror, the table, the computer, and the shifting environment.
This was the original "test" of it using a white sheet.
Projector table.jpg

That led me to pursue new avenues. I began to design a game table for when I eventually had a "game room" set up. Which I am happy to say I now have. Not quite finished with it but getting close.

Game table.jpg

The table is much larger than it may appear in the photograph, I had to design it to fit 8 people, so its about 5' x 7' roughly.

[daplunk]

I've been playing with getting a projector to work. Certainly not as easy as i had originally hoped. Starting to think about getting a 55"-60" tv instead and mounting it into a table.

http://downunderdm.blogspot.com.au/2...-to-table.html

[Oberons_child]

The projector did not work well overhead in my experience, I tried it a few different ways but there was a lot of things to work through with it. The picture was definitely better with the projector because there was no gap between the mini(if you are using those) and the image. With the tv I put a piece of plexiglass on top (will upgrade to glass with the next installment) which looks great and works great for things like maptool, but if you are using minis it does create a gap, making it difficult for all involved to know which square you are actually in.
Also as a side note, the tv is 43" and leaves everyone with plenty of space on the outlying areas. Everyone has their own idea of how big the tv "needs to be" but I found that a 43 was a great size, and not too much on cost. I probably spent 200 on the table, already had all the monitors and attachments.

[adzling]

That's called parallax.

To combat that you need the minis as close to the tv's LCD surface as possible.

The best way to accomplish that is to get a TV with side-firing LEDs that light the LCD as they are FAR thinner.

Most of the newer TVs have a rear-mounted LED array that makes the TV thicker and induces Parallax.

I have a previous post in this thread that shows my setup with a TV with side-firing LEDs, it has ZERO parallax.

The tv's also so thin we can easily drop it on the table and remove it (no need to embed it in the tabletop), removing all that extensive cabinetry work ;-)

Originally Posted by Oberons_child

The projector did not work well overhead in my experience, I tried it a few different ways but there was a lot of things to work through with it. The picture was definitely better with the projector because there was no gap between the mini(if you are using those) and the image. With the tv I put a piece of plexiglass on top (will upgrade to glass with the next installment) which looks great and works great for things like maptool, but if you are using minis it does create a gap, making it difficult for all involved to know which square you are actually in.

[BJ]

Originally Posted by Jamz

Here's my custom table I built last year. It's 10' x 52" to fit the 7-8 players we have on a weekly basis! (It now has a glass insert that protects the TV).

Beautiful! You did a good job!

[Fuzzy]

I'm guessing there is far more paralax being introduced by the glass/plexi being elevated above the screen because of the TV's plastic bezel, and the thickness of the glass/plexi than there would be from the actually thickness of the LCD panel itself.