An actual-world well being bar for Outdated Faculty RuneScape

For these of us of a sure age, RuneScape offers a deep sense of nostalgia. The unique RuneScape MMORPG died off in recognition a few years in the past, however Outdated Faculty RuneScape, which launched in 2013, lately gained traction as soon as once more. As with most MMORPGs, Outdated Faculty RuneScape offers the participant a well being readout within the type of hit factors. Austin Blake wished to see his character’s well being in the true world and turned to Arduino to make it occur.

Blake selected to show his hit factors on a heart-shaped LED array. It signifies well being by means of each shade and stage. At full well being, the entire LEDs gentle up in inexperienced. At half well being, solely half of the LEDs are lit and so they gentle up in amber. The LEDs are strips of Adafruit NeoPixels and Blake controls them with an Arduino Nano Each board operating the FastLED library. These mount right into a 3D-printed body that Blake designed in Autodesk Fusion 360.

However so as to gentle up the center precisely, Blake wanted a solution to pull his character’s hit level depend from the sport and ship it to the Arduino. First he tried utilizing picture recognition, however that proved to be too complicated. Then he discovered RuneLite, which is a 3rd occasion Outdated Faculty RuneScape consumer constructed on Java that enables for some customization. Blake coded a script that might print his hit factors within the sport chat each time they modified. On the similar time, it sends the numerical worth over the serial connection to the Arduino, which in flip shows it graphically on the LED array.