The Brothers Brick » CAD

CGI Train

gambort — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:46:40 +0000

Ben Beneke is one of the greats of LEGO train building, with even his old steamers still standing out as some of the best. I’d been wondering what had happened to Ben recently (he usually posts at least one new train a year) but apparently he’s been spending time making excellent animations using LDraw and POVray. An animation like this is really hard to do in POVray. I know, I’ve tried.

Lego Flying Dutchman for the Lego Pirates of the Caribbean video game

Nannan — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:42:37 +0000

Carl Greatrix is a designer for the official Lego games, and his design of the Flying Dutchman for the Lego Pirates of the Caribbean video game shows why he’s the man for the job. Even though this is a render, just about all the parts used are official Lego elements.

Not the castles you’re used to

gambort — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 07:25:51 +0000

Not only was it really difficult to choose a `lead’ shot for this amazing collection of castles, it’s quite hard to quite describe the bizzarre form of creative genius RoxYourBlox has used for them. They’re casles, but not as you’ve ever seen them. Making tidy work of both LDD and excel for the trigonometry he (I assume) has created some of the oddest geometric castle-like structures I’ve ever seen. And you should see the one that didn’t make it to the brick.

Cars Roundup

Caylin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:26:23 +0000

There are too many fantastic entries this month into LUGNut‘s Cars, Too theme, so I do believe I’m just going to list my favorites here, in no particular order. We are, after all, big fans of all things Pixar here at this humble blog.

So! Onto the cars.

Tim Inman, with Giselle Grocery Getter:

Peter Blackert, with Ramone:

Peter Blackert, with Ramone’s sister, Coral:

Nathan Proudlove, with a LEGO Chatterphone (While not in Cars, necessarily, this one DOES figure into another Pixar favorite!):

Fish and Chips

gambort — Tue, 31 May 2011 23:53:53 +0000

Doing good posing in LDraw is really challenging so this diorama by Chris Becheman is a rarity. I’m particularly fond of the damaged road surface and washed out render style.

LEGO Catan?

gambort — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:25:08 +0000

Settlers of Catan is, by all accounts, a rather fun German board game. LEGO is, by all accounts, a rather fun toy. So it makes sense to combine the two.

Except Michael (suparMacho) hasn’t actually built this. He’s use SR3D builder (an LDraw editor) and POVray to render it. Aside from those people lucky enough to use LEGO’s in-house rendering tools this is the most photo-realistic LEGO render I’ve seen.

LEGO 3D scanner used to generate 3D LDraw parts

gambort — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:44:10 +0000

Did you know you can make a 3D laser scanner out of LEGO bricks and a few custom parts? No? Nor did I until today. Did you know you can then use your LEGO model to scan LEGO parts and turn them into 3D CAD LDraw parts to make virtual LEGO models out of? Amazing hey?

Phillipe Hurbaine (philo) is well known for his clever software, hardware, LEGOware and general LEGO-mechanical skill but I have to say his latest work just takes the cake. And as if making a 3D scanner wasn’t enough he has actually used it to model some LDraw parts. I think this is probably the best working LEGO thing I have ever seen.

Virtual Insanity

gambort — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:09:29 +0000

I always get very excited about finding a new model from Andreas Weissenburg (grubaluk) because he is a) an excellent builder and b) an excellent renderer. Which means his CGI BR 55 gets to give a big tick to both our Trains and CAD categories.

Getting started with LDraw

gambort — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:38:14 +0000

The ever helpful Willy Tschager has just released an excellent tutorial on getting started with MLCAD and LDraw. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to use virtual LEGO to create your own virtual masterpieces from nothing but your imagination and a computer this is an excellent way to cross the first hurdle.

Show some backbone!

gambort — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:06:39 +0000

I was going to delay posting this to leave the 5th birthday post at the top of the page for longer but decided that we are here because we highlight cool LEGO models. Marco Tagliaferri (Tagl) demonstrates a lovely addition to the popular moonbase standard in the form of this transit spine standard. It feels so real.

And he has instructions to boot.

LEGO LDD contest at Eurobricks

gambort — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:07:05 +0000

Eurobricks are hosting a contest for models made in LEGO Digital Designer. It has some cool prizes donated by TLG so if you like using the software it’s time to start it running and get building.

EDIT: References to DesignByMe removed for clarity.

Caveat Emptor

gambort — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:19:36 +0000

If you look on eBay at any time you may see people selling custom instructions or custom LEGO sets. While it’s generally not for me I can understand that some people might want to make some money out of their hobby and this is one way to do so.

What you may not realise is that some of these people sell custom instructions or sets of models that are not theirs to sell. I’ve discovered two cases of people selling my work and am aware of others becoming victims of the same unscupulous actions. This is really bad behaviour. Everytime someone does this it makes people less inclined to give their instructions away for free knowing that someone else may profit from their generosity.

This morning Tim David alerted me to this sales announcement (do not buy) from eBay store DJs-Treasure-Box (Paypal account markjohnson4111@msn.com) who is selling instructions to my Koef (pictured above) and my Cuban Alco as well as James Mathis’ center beam wagon and I’m fairly certain some more works of his as well as some by Tom Cook.

My first thought was to write eBay an email to complain but knowing how this sort of thing works I figured that would be a lot of hassle for little reward. Besides which the victim isn’t really me as I’ve already given away instructions for free. The victim is the buyer. So I figured I’d alert any buyers who read TBB to this dishonest practise and make sure they don’t get ripped off.

It also presents me with an opportunity to make people aware that this is not a rare practise and that they should always search Flickr, RAILBRICKS and Brickshelf for free copies of instructions before making any purchase on eBay. Also ask the seller if all models are original creations by them. If they lie and you find out then you have a case for dishonest sales practise.

Also, if you spot anyone else doing this please alert me so I can name and shame. If we don’t buy from these parasites then they may stop their bad behaviour.

See comments for other sellers to avoid

EDIT: As there hasn’t been a comment for a while where the author had read the post I’m locking comments to avoid more misinformation and keep my blood pressure low. If you’d like to report any other sellers who I should name and shame please let me know via email.

Also the sales have been pulled by eBay. Thanks to William Noetling for encouraging me to use the eBay VeRO system

Klingon Bird of Prey, made from 274,350 virtual bricks

Nannan — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:25:11 +0000

We’ve hardly blogged digitally constructed and rendered creations, but Kevin Walter‘s Klingon Bird of Prey needs no explanation to be featured. This 13’5″ X 11′ X 5’1″ mega sculpture is the culmination of two years of work. You should check out the large image on Flickr, on which it is still difficult to identify a recognizable brick. I can only imagine what this thing would look like in real life.

Volunteering for LDraw

gambort — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:17:31 +0000

According to my Future of LDraw? post there are a bunch of readers of this blog who use LDraw. But LDraw can only work with a steady stream of volunteers to make and review parts for use in new parts releases. (I also forgot to pimp the Flickr group for LDraw)

Reviewing parts is a great way to get involved without having to get too technical. Niels Bugge has written a very handy tutorial explaining what is involved and how to get involved. If you feel you’d like to give something back to LDraw this is a great way to get started.

It is also a good start to making new parts if you wish to pursue that path. If you understand 3D software which can output 3DS format you can even get involved with LDraw part creation without leaving your known environment. Simply team up with someone who does understand the LDraw file format and make and convert a file from your preferred tool to LDraw format for tidying.

There are also other ways to get involved such as running for elected office (not for a year or so now) and helping out with the website. If you think you might be interested in these roles please contact me privately.

Remember that without volunteers the LDraw library would grind to a halt. Fresh faces are always welcome and necessary. If you like LDraw please consider helping it.

Image credit to LDraw.org, Elroy Davis (taltosvt) and Niels Bugge from top to bottom

The future of LDraw?

gambort — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:39:35 +0000

A recent discussion at LUGNET raised questions about the future of LDraw in the fan community. Oddly enough I feel I’ve seen a resurgence in LDraw work recently but of course like all of us I tend to see what I want to see so I figured I’d throw some questions out to a wider audience.

The first question is, obviously, have you ever heard of LDraw? And if you have do you know what it is? Have you ever considered using it but decided against it? If so why? Did you know the parts are all designed by volunteers?

To quickly give an overview it’s a CAD system and associated library designed to let you build LEGO models on your computer. It’s not the editors (those are things like MLCAD, LeoCAD and Bricksmith) or the renderers (like LDView) but the system all of these use and the parts library. Like LDD but more versatile. All the pictures in this article are recent creations designed in LDraw compatible software.

If you are a user I’d really like to know what you use LDraw for? Do you use it to document old models? To make instructions? To make nice pictures? To make things you don’t have the bricks for? To design models you later build in bricks? Other reasons?

Personally I feel that LDraw has enriched my LEGO hobby immeasurably and I am constantly thankful to all the volunteers who have dedicated their time to making it such a good system. I don’t ever want to see it die a slow death and I don’t think I will. I would, however, like to know what a newer and broader audience thinks.

So please, comment here, on LUGNET, or on flickr. But please do comment if you are remotely interested.

Image credit to LDraw.org, Tyler Clites (legohaulic), Mike Pianta (scruffulous) and Robin Chang (GreenLead) from top to bottom