This tutorial will cover how to make a 24 hour digital number display that can count up, as well as one that can count down. We will be creating a clock/stopwatch and a timer. Part 2 will cover how to make a digital number display that can count both up and down. That will be a separate tutorial about alarms and timers that can be set by the player. There are other tutorials and videos on this subject, but in my tutorial I will aim for clarity in my explanation and efficiency in the creation process. This will work for LBP2, LBPVita, and LBP3.
Applications AKA Why would anyone ever want to make a digital number display in their level?
Some games track the amount of time played. You can place a digital stopwatch in your level and have an area where players can see how long they have been playing. The police station in Lego City Undercover has this feature. If you want a timed race without race gates, you can use a digital timer. Zelda BOTW uses a timer for some of the side quests.
You can also recreate objects from real life with this digital display. Most ovens and microwaves display the time. With some modifications to this logic, you can make an oven temperature display. Some crosswalk signs have 25 second countdowns. You can recreate this in LBP if you only do the logic for the seconds.
These are just a few ideas. You can use a digital display for anything in your level.
Step 1: Obtaining and Placing Digital Numbers
The first thing you'll need to do is place digital numbers 0-9. You can use the stickers from story mode, make your own numbers, or get them from a community level.
The digital number stickers from LBP2's story mode are something that almost everyone has. But these stickers might not be the best option for two reasons. First of all, the numbers are green by default so when placed on a sticker panel/hologram it won't be possible to get lighter colors and other colors will have a green tint. The second issue with these stickers is that they have a black background which may not be desirable for your creation. LBPVita’s digital numbers have a transparent background, but the default color is still green.
You can make your own numbers using the paint tool or sticker panel/hologram. The good thing about these is that you can get different colors if you make your default design white. I recommend creating each number as one item which will make wiring quicker.
I will be using numbers that I got from the level "Free Digital Timer and holographic Numbers" by Ghrisholm. They’re made of hologram and each number is made up of one object. To use this community font, I had to capture the object so I could separate and delete the numbers without all 10 being considered one object. I also used the material change tool on the numbers to make them sticker panel.
No matter which font you use, make sure that all of the numbers are the same size and that they align to the grid so they're easier to stack together. Don't stack them until the end of step 2. In order to make this process less confusing, we will place each number in order vertically before wiring them. Make sure they're aligned horizontally.
From top to bottom: 10 port selector on sticker panel, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
Figure 1
The white lines in Figure 1, show that my numbers are almost perfectly aligned.
You'll also want to select all the numbers and make them invisible for the "off" option in the tweak menu. If you're using hologram, set the off option to 0% brightness. For sticker panel, you would set the off option to 0% opacity.
Step 2: Wiring the Numbers
The method we are using here will make the rest of the process quicker and less tedious. First, place a square of sticker panel/hologram above your numbers and place a 10 port selector on it. This selector, as well as other selectors will end up on a microchip eventually. The first input should be wired to number 0 and the 10th input should be wired to number 9. Wiring all 10 numbers will take awhile, but take your time so you don't wire up the wrong number. After finishing this, manually change the number of the selector to make sure that the numbers activate in the correct order. We won't have to wire the numbers more than once because we will be copying and pasting the numbers and the square of sticker panel/hologram with the selector.
First we will make the seconds go up to 59. Copy and paste the numbers and the square with the selector. Place this copy to the left of your first set of numbers. The first set represents the 1s digits and the second set represents the 10s digits. The 10s digits should be numbers 0-5, so you can delete the rest (6-9). Change the second set's selector to 6 ports. Then copy and paste both sets to the left. These will represent the minutes which will also go up to 59.
At this point you should make the 2 dots that separate the seconds and minutes. Place a rectangle of sticker panel or hologram. If you're using sticker panel, place the white circle stickers from story mode directly onto the material. If you're using hologram, place a black sticker to completely cover the material and then place the stickers. That way it will be transparent. You'll have to make the sticker panel/hologram big, place the stickers at their smallest size and then shrink the object. We are using stickers for the dots instead of material because materials lose corners when shrunk down. We want circles, not triangles for the dots.
Now we are going to make the hours which will go up to 24. Copy and paste the minutes and place it to the left. Copy and paste the dots also. The 1s digits of the hours should go up to 9.The 10s digits should go up to 2 so delete numbers 3-5. The selector on the far left should have 3 ports.
Now we can place the selectors onto the microchip. Make sure the circuit board is big enough, then multiselect the selectors. We are using multiselect (hold R2 and press X) instead of group select (holding X to draw a square around the objects) because we just want the selectors, not the objects that they're on.
Selectors from left to right: Hrs 10s, hrs 1s, mins 10s, mins 1s, secs 10s, secs 1s
Figure 2
We will be making 2 separate digital displays, so before stacking the numbers, save this setup to your popit. If you place it or copy and paste it while it's stacked, sometimes the game merges the numbers as one object.
Now we are going to stack the numbers together. Instead of doing this one number at a time, we are going to group select all the numbers except for the zero and move them up. Then select the rest of the numbers and keep moving them up. Turn small grid on and off as needed to make sure they align properly. Save this setup to your popit in case the game doesn't merge the numbers.
Using group select to stack the numbers
Figure 3
Step 3: Making the Numbers Count Up Like a Clock or Stopwatch
Figure 4 explains how this will work. When the seconds change from 9 to 10, the 1s digit is changing to 0 which causes the 10s digits to increase by 1. When the seconds are changing from 19 to 20, the 1s digit is changing to 0 which causes the 10s digits to increase by 1. When the time changes from 59 seconds to 1 minute, the 9 changes to 0 which causes the 5 to change to 0 which causes the minutes to increase by 1. It's the same thing for the rest of the digits.
How the count up function will work
Figure 4
From right to left, connect the first input of each selector to the cycle input of the next selector. The first input of every selector represents the number 0. Figure 5 shows the full setup without the other wires.
Connect a 1 second timer that resets itself (connect the output to the reset input) to the cycle input of the selector on the far right. If you run the clock for a while, you'll see that it works just like a real clock. The only problem is that it can go past 23:59:59 instead of resetting to 00:00:00, but we can fix this with an AND gate. Connect the hour’s 10s digits selector’s 3rd output (represents hr 20) into one of the AND gate’s ports. Connect the hour’s 1s digits selector’s 5th output (represents hr 4) output into the other port. Connect the AND gate to the hour’s 1s digits selector’s 1st input (represents hr 0). This setup means that when the timer gets to 24 hours, it will reset to 0 hours.
Wiring the selectors to count up (without the other wires)
Figure 5
Step 4: Making the Numbers Count Down Like a Timer
Figure 6 explains how this will work. When the seconds change from 10 to 9, the 1s digits is changing to 9 which causes the 10s digits to decrease by 1. When the seconds are changing from 20 to 19, the 1s digits is changing to 9 which causes the 10s digits to decrease by 1. When the time changes from 1 minute to 59 seconds, the 0 changes to 9 which causes the 0 to change to 5 which causes the minutes to decrease by 1. It's the same thing for the rest of the digits.
How the count down function will work
Figure 6
Place the digital display from before that you saved into your popit. We need to connect a
direction combiner to the cycle input of each of our selectors. The last input of each selector should go into the negative input of the next selector's direction combiner. Once again we have the problem of the timer going past 24 hrs. To fix this we will use an AND gate. Connect the hour’s 10s digits selector’s 3rd output (represents hr 20) into one of the AND gate’s ports. Connect the hour’s 1s digits selector’s 10th output (represents hr 9) output into the other port. Connect the AND gate to the hour’s 1s digits selector’s 4th input (represents hr 3). This means that when the timer reaches 00:00:00 and tries to cycle to 29:59:59, it will instead cycle to 23:59:59.
Wiring the clock to count down (without the other wires)
Figure 7
If you want a sound to play when the timer reaches 0, use a 6 port AND gate. Wire the 1st input of every selector to the AND gate. The AND gate should be connected to the sound or sequence of sounds you want. I created 5 beeps on a 0.8 sec sequencer for my 0 seconds sound.
The timer plays a sound when the hrs, mins, and secs are 0
Figure 8
You can modify the logic to make it work the way you want. For example, if I only wanted the minutes and seconds, I would delete both the logic and numbers for the hours. Then I would use an AND gate to restrict the max value. If I wanted my clock to only count up to 15 minutes, I would connect the 7th output of the minute's 1s digits selector (represents minute 6) to the AND gate. Then I would connect the 2nd output of the minutes 10s digits selector (represents minute 10) to the other port of the AND gate. The AND gate would be connected to the 1st input of the minute’s 1s digit selector (represents minute 0).
I would like to emphasize that this logic, once you understand it, can be applied to any digital display, not just a clock. I remade my oven temperature with similar logic.
Part 2 should be coming out in a week or two. It will cover how to make a timer and alarm clock that can be set by the player in play mode. It will be a bit more advanced, so make sure that you fully understand this tutorial and save the digital displays from this tutorial into your popit.
This is exceptionally good! You covered all the bases, and the visual demonstrations were top notch 👏
This is the type of content we need more of!