LEGO Renders – Reid’s For Fun

The Long and Short of Rendering Lego Blades

Steven Reid — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 23:19:00 -0600

Wandering through Mecabricks the other day, I ran across a fun pair of Mini-Katana’s by Shipmaster. Digging deeper, I also discovered his excellent Katana. Both models really appealed to me. Given my recent binge watching of Forged in Fire, both made for excellent subjects to render. As is usual for me, I promptly saved the models and fired up Blender.

# Sharp curved metal.

Although the Mini-Katan’s were what caught my eye, it wasn’t my first render. Instead, my interest gravitated towards Shipmaster’s Katana creation. It is a great model, and I was impressed by the subtle curve and design.

My first render, below, was done using a darker light. I used a more overcast, reddish HDRI sky that I hoped would enhance the render. I liked the chocolate cast of of the lighting that set an evening mood.

Katana by Shipmaster by Steven Reid, on Flickr

The lighting did trouble me a bit. Although I liked the darker browns, it felt too dark. I initially tried to adjust in post processing, but found the details lacking. I amped up the lighting a bit for the final version. After some minor color corrections, this version is still my favorite.

# Simple and easy.

Even so, I also made a more traditional render with a studio light. I made a few renders from this image trying to find a nice balance of position and scale. Finding the detail lacking in some places, I decided to scale up the render. It still looks great at any scale, but the details are more obvious in its original size.

Katana by Shipmaster by Steven Reid, on Flickr

# A nice forge.

Returning back to that earlier model from Shipmaster, I began working on a new render.. The Mini Katanas also by Shipmaster have very interesting handle designs. Similar to Katana, I enjoyed the subtle curve of the shorter blades.

For this render, I attempted to make the scene a bit more interesting. I searched for some forge images that fit the mood of the blades that I could add as a backdrop. I like that the image reflects in the handles, adding depth to the final render.

Mini Katana by Shipmaster by Steven Reid, on Flickr

I also had a fire image in the foreground but much of that didn't come through into render. I was hoping you would see some orange or red reflections, but the LEGO parts just weren’t shiny enough for that. Dialing down the lighting might have helped.

Although I like the composition of the model, the edge of the table feels too flat. It isn’t unrealistic, edges can be sharp in real life. But the black felt a bit too clean against the more rustic back drop. Something to work on in future models.

A Cold Chalet Render to Kick off 2022

Steven Reid — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 22:28:00 -0600

Having spent spent my time with physical LEGO builds lately, my render output has dropped quite a bit. Getting around to visiting Mecabricks again, I ran across a nicely designed model by Furbysims of a Chalet. Since it lacked a render, I thought to myself, “I can add one!” So I did.

# A great view.

Furbysims did a great job taking the LEGO 349 Swiss Chalet from 1971 and modernizing it. The color shift to brown from the original white really looks great. Plus all that snow amped the overall ambience of the scene.

As usually, I did some quick edits in Mecabricks to position the figure then exported it. I was still using the 1.93 LTS from last July. For some reason I had to reload the Mecabricks add-in, but once I did it was easy to load and position the model. I struggled a bit with the HDRI, being a bit dark on the initial renders. After some tweaking, the final image feels cold and sufficiently bright for the snow.

Chalet (349 rebuild) by Furbysims by Steven Reid, on Flickr

# A fun build.

It was nice working with the Apple Silicon version of Blender again. The preview render is so much faster on my M1. My previous 2013 MacBook Pro required patience using preview to fine tune my image. Even the Intel version wasn’t much faster on my M1. I had none of those issues this time around.

Given how much time had passed, I expected I would struggle setting up the image. To my surprise, I picked things up quickly. Funny enough, my biggest struggle was remembering the shortcut key to position objects. Once I overcame that memory lapse, it took me no time to get everything setup.

# Taking a look back.

Having finished this, I decided I’d go back and see if I can render the original Swiss Chalet as a comparison. I thought I might have already rendered it, but a quick search proved otherwise. There are some older parts I will need to import that will make it a more difficult build.

349 Swiss Chalet by Steven Reid, on Flickr

For this one, I decided to install Blender v3.01. One nice feature is that it imported my v1.93 settings. That made things a bit easier as all my folders were there. It even enabled the the Mecabricks add-in.

Because a couple of the parts just looked wrong, even with my fixes, I decided to import the LDraw parts. I was able to grab the antenna from another model. I then installed the LDraw add-in again and used it to import the correct base plate. I had problems with the scale and getting the colors right. But, as you can see, it looks decent enough.

I did leave in the new tree—I really didn’t want to deal with that old tree design. I could have updated the door, but it was already getting late. There wasn’t enough of a difference to matter for the render. I would have liked to cleaned up a few of the rounded edges, but things look good enough.

# Not like the original.

Although I like the simplicity of the original, it isn’t quite doing it for me. The aerial feels too big and could have been a bit bigger. I still like the model, but it lacks charm. Furbysims' improves upon the original design in just the right ways. I do wonder what color that roof will be when the snow melts.

Revisiting Running Blender in Apple Silicon Using a MacBook Pro M1

Steven Reid — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 09:17:00 -0600

While watching a review for the new M1 iMac, they ran the typical Blender test as a benchmark. That wasn’t overly surprising, but the reviewer did say something that peaked my interest. Apparently, the latest version of Blender now supported Apple Silicon. Tucking that tidbit away at the time, I got around to downloading LTS 2.93 today and giving it a whirl.

It’s just Blender, but better.

Okay, 2.93 does have some nice features that make it better. But in this context, I’m talking about the version. I had run a native version of Blender in the past, but it wasn‘t officially supported. Heading over to blender.org, I quickly located the download. Now, although it knew I was running on a Mac, the download still showed the Intel version. I had to fiddle around a bit to find the option to change to the Apple Silicon version. Once I did, I ready to get started.

Funny enough, the download took the longest time. Installing was quick, I just replaced the current version I was running. I opened up a previous model, Spring Tree did the trick, and set about playing in the interface. It looked and worked pretty much the same as before. Yet, felt snappier.

To get a feel for things, I shifted the model to the right and rotated it. This gave me a different angle to render, something I had wanted to do anyway. Everything worked as expected. I even threw in the render preview and was surprised how quickly it rendered. There was almost no dithering, the window worked amazingly well.

Spring Fall v2 by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Looking forward.

Now, I didn‘t really notice any huge speed improvements this time around. Apple‘s x86 emulation is pretty fantastic and I had no problems running the 2.8 branch on my M1 MacBook. But it is nice to have a native version of the application to avoid any overhead. As noted above, that does help in some instances.

I also started digging through the different settings to see how things worked in this version. Obviously, GPU is grayed out as Metal isn‘t supported. I did some checking on the web and it doesn‘t look like it would make a huge difference anyway. The CPU render does well enough.

I did notice some differences in rendering picking different denosiers. Even reverting back, the render looked different. It could be the case of a scene designed for older versions. In the picture above, for example, the finger prints are very noticeable. But the scratches and pits are, to a degree, too much so. I’ll have to render a scene from scratch to and see if things change any.

Now this is all just playing around still. I haven’t been keeping up with Blender development this year, but it looks like they have ARM support in the upcoming 3.0 branch as well. Even in the 2.93, there are significant improvements to Blender as a whole. This is exciting and something I’ll look to get back into in the future.

My Adventure with Apple’s M1 and Blender

Steven Reid — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 01:10:00 -0600

Although my late 2013 MacBook Pro still works well, it was showing it’s age. Sadly, I found it freezing from time to time and generally not running like it used to. Given that my Window’s laptops lasted only a few years, I’ve been very happy with longevity my mac. Yet, this was going to be the last year it received an OS update. With the release of the M1, I took the opportunity to upgrade and try it out. That means it was time to render some LEGO bricks!

Running some OOB tests.

Of course, my first test was to launch POV-Ray and see how it compared. Yeah, the M1 beat my old laptop, but the more interesting part was it worked. That gave me hope when I fired up Blender to see how it performed. For a quick test, I loaded up my last render to see if it would run. It did, and was was definitely faster, and even under Rosetta.

Not satisfied, I’d been digging around for a native M1 version of Blender. Digging through forums, I found an unofficial build by Stefan Werner to try out. Although an alpha build, it loaded up the Santa scene and rendered without issue. The initial tests were in the 6:35 minute range. My tests with the Intel version was over 13 minutes, but I was able to get it down under 9.

These results were great and showed how well the M1 performed in either case. My intent wasn’t to run a direct speed test, but to check how it would impact my workflow. To Apple’s credit, everything ran well. I ran some informal tests by turning on preview windows and moving objects. Things were quite snappy.

Trying something bigger.

For a better test, I thought it would be fun to render something new. As an avid follower of classic space, I thought rendering the Galaxy Explorer would make a great test. Plus, I didn’t need to build it. After a quick search, I found a model on Mecabricks. I made some minor tweaks, but for the most part left it alone.

After a quick export, I booted up the alpha build. I added in the Mecabricks advanced script and loaded in the model. The first attempt didn’t work right, but after loading a new template I found it worked fine. Next step was to make it look interesting. I dug around a bit to find a nice galaxy to explore. I decided I wanted the explorer without the base. I imported the image as a plane, got everything set up, and I was ready to go. Sort of.

Not quite perfect.

Remember, this is an alpha build. For whatever reason, the HDRI lighting didn’t work. No matter what I tried, I could only get the default red sky. Not very useful. After exhausting options, I decided to load the scene in 1.89. After a sufficient warning about different versions, the scene worked fine. I saved and went back to the M1 version of Blender. This time, everything worked great! A few more tweaks, it was time to render.

497 Galaxy Explorer by Steven Reid, on Flickr

The results were great, as expected. It ran quick and the preview was good enough for testing rotations and the like. Being a newer computer, I expected it to be faster. But still, it was a nice to see how things worked in practice. Well, most of the time. I still get the occasional crash with Blender, but I had that problem on Intel as well. I had to run an older version of Stud.io, but everything else has run so far. I look forward to seeing how things improve over the coming months.

Happy Holidays! Here Is a Fun Render to Close out the Year.

Steven Reid — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 22:19:00 -0600

Tis the season to render Santa. Well that wasn’t really my plan, but it worked out that way. I was browsing around Bricklinks, mostly trying to update some of the recent sets. Searching for a small reindeer figure, I ran across LEGO set 1628 Santa with Reindeer and Sleigh. A great set from 1989, it looked like it would be a fun set to render.

Starting at the end.

I’ve been pretty busy in 2020, building quite a few renders. Most were of small sets, but there are a few big ones as well. Sadly, I didn’t get around to putting many on my website. I mostly shared them through Flickr. It wasn’t until I went grab the link that I realized how many new images I added this year. Funny how I find time to create, but not to share.

Coming back to LEGO set 1638, I thought I’d share more about my process. I went back and grabbed some screenshots of my work flow. It isn’t as cool as a video—something to work on in the future, but it might still be of interest to someone. However, before digging into that, let’s review the final image.

1628 Santa with Reindeer and Sleigh by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Although I didn’t time it, I’d guess that from beginning to end probably took me an hour or so. My process flow is pretty quick, with only a few items that slowed me down. I’ll note a few hiccups below, but otherwise this was a smooth render.

A quick build.

As usual, I started by looking first to see if someone had already built the model. After a quick search in Mecabricks came up with nothing, I opened up the workbench and got started. I opened up the instructions in Peeron, a site I’ve used for years, and set them to the side.

The build itself is mostly basic bricks. I started with the reindeer, which is almost all white bricks. The antlers were the most complex to move, which isn’t saying much. I had a minor panic when I couldn't find the hat. To my relief, it popped right up when I searched for the part number.

With that done, I moved on to Santa and his sleigh. Although more complex, it is obvious that the build is for younger children. There are no special techniques here. Being 1989, the set is very blocky’just the way LEGO should be! Okay, I like SNOT techniques as much as anyone else, but the charm of these old sets never grows old.

Working on LEGO 1628 in Mecabricks by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Perhaps the biggest headache was putting the strings in. I’m not a big fan of strings, and I almost passed on this set because of them. Yet, I knew that Stubs had improved them in the latest workshop build. Armed with that knowledge, I dived in. They were a bit of a pain, but after figuring out the handles, I had them positioned and looking pretty decent.

Needing a background image.

With the model complete, I exported it in the ZMBX format that the Mecabricks add-in uses. I own the advanced script, something I recommend purchasing if you want the best looking parts. I usually have to dial down the finger prints, but this time I didn’t need to. The only weird part was Blender hung when I first tried to import. I grabbed the default template and tried again without issues.

After importing the bricks, I started to think about how I wanted the set to look. I really liked the original LEGO art in the instructions. The stars and moon with the gradient background looked pretty good. I decided to replicate some of that in my render.

After walking through a few options in my head, I loaded up Boxy SVG. I knew there was a star shape already, but was glad to see a crescent as well. The default wasn’t quite right, but after digging through the options I found the way to tweak the shape. With the moon looking right, I positioned it in the center of the resized backdrop. I decided to just use the same dimensions as the viewport: 1920x1080.

Working on LEGO 1628 Background in Boxy SVG by Steven Reid, on Flickr

With the moon in place, I started to add in all the stars. There were 21 of them, yes I counted them. After adding them, I then positioned them in a pattern like the the box art. I had to rotate and resize them to get the look just right. Usually this part takes me forever. This time, I was done in maybe 20 minutes. I exported the image as a PNG and imported into Blender as a plane.

Let’s render this Santa!

I thought the reindeer and sleigh would look best flying. This made it a bit easier to position everything. I centered the camera, which is usually pointing down at the model at an angle. Not needing that, I just set it to a 90° and changed its height. After appending a gradient background from my other template, I was able to position the background and fix the camera location.

With the scene set up, I turned on preview and started to position the model. Tweaking different location and rotation values, I finally got it sitting nicely within the stars. Normally, this is where I tweak the model itself. Usually there are round parts that need a little cleaning up. This time, the model was all square. This saved a ton of time and allowed me to focus on the next part, lighting.

Working on LEGO 1628 in Blender by Steven Reid, on Flickr

And lighting was where I struggled. I loaded maybe a half dozen HDRIs trying to find the right look. I wanted something white, but with shadows. The first few I tried added a color cast or were too dark. I found a good studio light, but it didn’t look right when I imported it. After tweaking the rotation, I found an angle that did a good job of lighting everything.

After a final tweak of the contrast, I was ready to render. That took some time, which I used to publish the model on Mecabricks. Once the render was done, I exported the render and did some final color tuning. That is the final revision that I loaded into Flickr. All said and done, this article took longer to write than the entire time it took me to build and render the image! Talk about a decent workflow. Hope you enjoyed this. Have a wonder holiday and I’ll see you in the new year!

More May Fun With Blender And Lego Bricks

Steven Reid — Mon, 25 May 2020 23:50:00 -0600

I’ve been having a lot of fun in May, rendering images and trying out some new techniques when I can. I’ve also been trying to learn Blender, work on decorations for old models, and try out new sites. Although still learning, here are four of the renders I made during the middle of the month.

Lizard Test

I found instructions for this little guy on Pinterest. Although he didn’t take long to model, finding something to do with him was more of a challenge. This is my test render using a colorful baseplate.

Lizard Test by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Not done yet, I want to put more effort into building a little enclosure for him, much like the designer did. But for some reason I haven’t found the desire to work on it. Instead, I decided to play around with the Mecabricks workbench and run some test renders with it.

Once happy with the results, I ported it into Blender for the final render. I like the features in the advanced Mecabricks importer. After my initial render, I made some tweaks to the settings and parts for the final image. The fingerprints and scratches were too much for this closeup.

6524 Blizzard Blazer

I was futzing around online and ran across this model. It was already built on Mecabricks, but lacked a render. The snow parts were interesting and I thought it would be easy to render. It was. Although, I was busy watching LEGO videos while Blender did its magic.

6524 Blizzard Blazer by Steven Reid, on Flickr

1580 Silja Line Ferry

When I saw this set from 1977, I thought it looked like a fun build. Although already built, I used it as an excuse to revisit water in Blender. Using the time I spent waiting on the last render to complete, I divided my time watching water tutorials.

1580 Silja Line Ferry by Steven Reid, on Flickr

I had done water before, but I felt I could do better. My goal was to create better looking waves. The material came first, which was easier than I expected. But the waves still didn’t look right. After watching another tutorial, I figured out the different options on the ocean modifier. For the final image, I found a decent HDRI and turned off transparent to let the clouds show through.

MTA New Flyer XD-40

Lilbiridie16 let me know of a new version of the MTA Flyer. Taking a break from watching videos, I decided to grab the latest model to render. I Love the use of the Ghostbuster’s license plate, tying it back to New York.

MTA New Flyer XD-40 by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Trying to differentiate it from my last render, I decided to add some road plates to the model. Although not a whole city, it is more interesting than a white ground. I played around with different lighting and angles of the bus until it looked the way I wanted. I also had to tweak a few settings and parts for the final render.

After those renders, I spent a good amount of time playing around with animation. I tried to rig up a minifig. I used the one from the 6524 set above. Although finally successful, for some reason I can’t seem to add key frames. Frustrated, I decided to put it aside for a bit and focus on other activities. That said, I promise to get back to animation again.

Planes, LEGO and Motion, What Could Be More Fun?

Steven Reid — Sun, 17 May 2020 23:01:00 -0600

As May kicked off, I got to work finishing the decorations for set 6444 Outback Airstrip. Because I had a few different decorations to finish, I got distracted. That distraction was with a much older LEGO Airplane. Both renders gave me a chance to revisit motion blur in Blender.

320 Airplane

The first model for May, set 320 was another random find. The model is older than me, released in 1965, and I love the look. Blocky, yet recognizable, the airplane is full of nostalgia from that era. I love the old style wheels built with metal pins and a special 4x2 wheel brick. I may have a few of those in my collection still.

320 Airplane by Steven Reid, on Flickr

One of the nice features of these old models is they don’t have a lot of special bricks. The design of the wings and tail of this set use standard LEGO bricks you can still find today. But those wheels don’t exist in modern sets or in Mecabricks. Although it has a lot of LEGO parts, there are still a few old ones that are missing.

Mecabricks does have some older parts, including a larger train wheel and the rubber tires. This allowed me to build a similar look alike part that let me finish the build. At first glance, you probably wouldn’t notice. The missing hole in the wheel brick is the easiest sign that the brick isn’t quite right.

6444 Outback Airstrip

After finishing rendering the last model, I continued to work on the decorations for Outback Airstrip. Having finished the boom box in April, I need to work on the missing shirts and ham radio. In between work, runs and other chores, it took me a week to complete each of the decorations.

As usual, I imported the final model into Blender and got to work setting up the scene. I also swapped in a few missing parts, such as the large propellor and some windows. But the propellor had some defects. I spent a good amount of time smoothing it out, but the curves were noticeable. After a few unsatisfying renders, I decided to do something different.

6444 Outback Airstrip by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Digging through the forums and catching up on decoration and other techniques, I ran across a motion blur tutorial. I needed the refresher. It had been awhile since my last attempt. Everything came back quickly and I had the wind vane working in short order. Yet, the airplane propellors were a different story.

For some reason, the engine on the left didn’t want to rotate properly. After a numerous failed attempts, I ended up copying the working engine over. After tweaking the speed of each, I wanted the airplane props to spin faster than the wind vane, I rendered the final image.

320 Airplane in motion

Of course, once started it got me thinking about my previous render. What if I could make those propellors move? That question sent me on a quest to figure it out. It was actually a bit more work than I expected.

320 Airplane in motion by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Unlike the single parts I was rotating before, this time I needed to rotate a group of parts. This required me to do a little work to merge the parts together and get them to rotate properly. It was a great opportunity to learn more of Blender. While I was at it, I made some additional tweaks to the wheels. You can’t really tell, but I like the final image.

Cheers To April and a Month of Great LEGOs

Steven Reid — Sat, 02 May 2020 01:10:00 -0600

Shifting from POV-Ray back to Blender, I'm playing around with Mecabricks again. Taking a break from blogging about images, I decided to shift my focus. During the last week of April, I decided to clean up models and make new decorations. The journey weaved a bit, starting with an old model, but ending with something new. Below are the results of that virtual trip.

It started with a post.

Checking my feeds, I was intrigued by Brickset’s Featured set of the day: Car with camper. It was a interesting little set and looked like a fun build. With that thought in mind, I wandered over to Mecabricks.

Searching the site, I discovered it was already built which made it less interesting. There is fun in adding to the catalog, but that’s okay. It still looked interesting to render, but I got distracted. I happened to see a couple of other sets, including one of my older ones, 6349 Holiday Villa.

Built a few years ago, this set took me on quite a trip. A larger set, I took the opportunity to create all the missing stickers for it. The road plate took the longest, but completes the build. It was a learning experience, especially the minifigures.

6349 Holiday Villa by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Once done, I had submitted the decorations to get them added into Mecabricks. After fixing some errors, they were included in the library. I promptly updated the model in Mecabricks to complete the set.

During that same search, I also saw 6374 Holiday Home. It was like the Villa and used one of my decorations, the umbrella. But it was missing a couple other stickers as well the decorated road plate. Even with all the parts, for some reason it looked unfinished to me. Distracted, I thought it would be fun to finish it.

After adding in some of the missing elements, I realized that the girl’s shirt was a substituted part. As it was supposed to be a simple striped design, I decided I’d update it. In doing so, I realized that the minfig was also used in the Camper that had started this journey!

MTA Prevost X3-45 Bus

In the middle of this journey, I was asked to check out Lilbirdie16’s MTA Bus on Mecabricks. The design is nice and I realized it would make a nice image. This is actual the second as I didn’t realize the bus’ wheels were below the ground plane. Oops. It was a quick fix. It is well designed scene, I didn’t have to change anything. I like the potential passenger waving at the bus.

MTA Prevost X3-45 Bus by Steven Reid, on Flickr

6374 Holiday Home

Returning to the original path, I got to work on the Holiday Home decorations. After completing the shirt design, I added in the missing numbered slope, which was a bit of a pain. The curves in the seven required some patience.

Making a more adjustments, I exported the model for rendering. Not leaving well enough along, I decided to swap out the tree for the taller fern. It wasn’t the only part needed. I was also missing the door and awning decorations, but I decided they didn’t add enough to make a difference.

6374 Holiday Home by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Since I had recently upgraded my Mac Mini, I thought I’d render this one on it. While it was rendering, I got back to that camper set. I added in the new shirt sticker and adjusted the scene. After exporting the model, I got distracted again.

353 Terrace House with Car and Garage - Blender/Updated

Finishing the Holiday House, I wondered about other models missing decorations. Due to missing parts, I never felt 353 was complete. The Mecabricks model had been updated some time ago when various window parts were added. But, the render was still wrong. The incorrect numbers I used always bugged me.

More comfortable using Mecabricks part system, I decided to correct the number decorations. After exporting the model, I swapped in a few other missing parts from LDraw: gates, baseplate, cellar windows, and arial antenna, and the doors. The Mecabricks model used “faked” parts for most of those, I wanted a more complete version for the render.

353 Terrace House with Car and Garage - Blender/Updated by Steven Reid, on Flickr

You’ll notice that I went back to an older backdrop that used a blue sky. Not looking as smooth as I’d like, I cleaned up the gradient to improve the look. I contemplated using the original scene, but decided against it. The blue backdrop completed the set better.

The fern tree is the only part that is wrong. It should be the LEGO fruit tree, which I couldn’t find a model of. In my POV-Ray version, I used a round tree, which is closer to the original. After rendering Holiday House again, though, I think the taller fern would look better.

6372 Town House

Caught up in shirt design, I kept wondering about other models that used it. More houses came up in my searches, leading me to LEGO set 6372. The set was released in 1992, the year I graduated from college and married my lovely wife. How could I not complete it?

Town House had almost all the correct parts to start. It was nice to see that 6372 was another set that used my umbrella and farmer decorations, both I traced for 6349. Adding in the girl’s shirt pattern completed the look of the model. The stove pattern is wrong, but you can’t see it in the render. There should also be some awning stickers over the big window, but I couldn’t find the pattern to trace.

6372 Town House by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Going back to old renders.

After completing, I started pondering completing another one of my sets. LEGO set 6410 Cabana Beach was missing a bunch of decorations. I’d always planned to finish them, but other interests interviened. After looking up the set again, I pulled up the parts list to find the missing decorations. I spent some time finding quality images to trace. That was when the boom box caught my eye, causing me to start with it.

Thinking the simple shapes would be easy to trace, I soon learned otherwise. The speaker grill was made up of checker board patter of black and white squares. Figuring out the size of the each square required trial and error. I got code enough, bother were difficult to get right.

The two tape players and buttons were much easier. In then end, it took much longer than I thought it would to complete the radio. Yet, once finished, it looked great. I uploaded it to Mecabricks and added it to my Cabana model. And then I got distracted again.

6444 Outback Airstrip (draft)

Like the earlier shirt, I started searching for other models that used the boom box. This led me to Outback Airstrip as my next model to build. It is a pretty interesting model, and I discovered it wasn’t already in Mecabricks. Double fun! Even better, most of the parts existed in Mecabricks, making it an easy build. I added in my new tape player, but there are a good number of decorations missing.

6444 Outback Airstrip (draft) by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Although I'm still working the other decorations, I wanted to get a draft render done. I decided to use the blue backdrop, but after rendering I felt the ground was too white. I’ve already corrected that, but I’ll finish the other prints first before rendering again. I’m making good progress, having already modeled one of the shirts.

6694 Car with Camper

Which brings us to the end of journey, which is back to where I started. The last model I shared was actually rendered a couple of days earlier. Finished around the same time as the Town House, my new shirt print completed the model.

There are quite a number of other parts still missing. But, I did swap out the window on the camper for the correct train window part. As you can tell, I’m enjoying using the LDraw importer, probably more than I should.

6694 Car with Camper by Steven Reid, on Flickr

And with this render, I can close out April. I took a couple days off due to work, but am starting to get back to my hobby. I’ve modeled a little lizard I found, but am still building his enclosure. I also want to get back to those missing decorations. Here’s to May and finally getting out of the house!

A Flash to the Past, Here Is the Latest Render of My 588 Police Station

Steven Reid — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:34:00 -0600

Following my Blender renders for 588, I started work on rendering the POV-Ray versions. Not quite the original versions, these renders use radiosity with an updated environment. Besides being a larger render, I turned on some of the features I usually don’t. The images came out pretty good, even if I’m always looking to improve them.

Rendering options.

Let’s start with a discussion about how I rendered this image. Instead of using my MacBook Pro, I used my recently updated Mac Mini. It has six cores, which helps improve the render time. Unfortunately, it still takes forever to render with all the clear pieces in the set. I turned off radiosity, but left fog, blur and shiny pieces turned on. Even with a beefier machine, I’m still asking a lot of this computer.

Usually I didn’t bother turning on shiny bricks. I had reflections on when I first started, but after talking to other artists I decided to turn it off. The LEGO logo has also been part of my library since the start as well. Every time I turned it on, it would bog down my machine. Used to the the images without it, I got in the habit of leaving it off.

Not part of the original image, I added the blur and fog later models as I improved the scene. Looking for options to improve my images, I had been looking at other render techniques. The fog blurs the horizon, reducing the sharpness of the world edge. A small amount of blur seems to help antialiasing. Yet, both options seriously impact render time, but yield better results.

588 Police Headquarters - POV-Ray - Front by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Shapes have drawbacks.

Unlike the meshes in Blender, I created my bricks using SDL, POV-Ray’s scripting language. It has a lot of advantages. For one, the shapes are easier to visualize. When I started, I used a lot of boxes and geometry, unions and differences, to make my parts. Although they looked like LEGO sets, they weren’t very real. I didn’t use individual pieces until later when I wanted to show the seams.

The reason for this, when I started, I was trying to keep the model as small as possible. Although my computer was powerful for the time, ray tracing needs a lot of memory. To save space, I would add each brick in as needed. When I started to use brick libraries, I would break them apart to try to only include the bricks I needed. Over time, this limit eased as my computers gained more memory.

When they got powerful enough, I used POV-Ray’s language to build bricks using functions. This allowed me to scale them to different sizes when needed. Also, as I was experimenting still, I could use variables to define various aspects of the bricks. In the early days, the boxes weren’t quite sized right and I was trying to make the bricks as accurate as possible. Later I used those variables to position the bricks within the scene.

As I got better, I added beveled edges to many of the bricks. This increased the realism at the expense of memory and speed. Other libraries, such as LGEO, also used SDL for most parts. But they also used meshes made of triangles to represent complex parts. To my surprise, they often render faster, but tend to look less real if the mesh is too basic. I liked the look of my bricks, but I often wonder if I’d made the right choice.

Parts of parts.

Fast forward to today and I wish I’d spent more time with meshes. If I had, it would be have been easier to shift to other render engines. My early attempts with other render engines didn’t go well. I was a programmer, more comfortable with scripts and math. Using CAD programs to build wasn’t as easy for me. I can do it, but for some reason I struggle with it.

That said, my LEGO part library still looks great. The parts aren’t as much the issue as the difficulty in quality renders. Materials can be quite finicky and it takes a lot of renders to get them right. But lighting and other settings can be difficult to get perfect in POV-Ray. That doesn’t mean you can’t, but I do struggle with it.

Although Blender can create animations, POV-Ray lets you check the frame of the clock. I used that to my advantage to create alternate images using the same scene. I wrap changes in #IF statements to change the position of the camera and parts. Although, as I found when I adjusted the environment, you have to make sure you include things in the right order.

My first attempt at rendering the back had a mix of elements. The camera was in the right place, as were some models. But some of the minifigs were in the wrong position or duplicated. Seems, I included the object file before setting the frame. After fixing the order, the final render had the correct positions. This is still one of my favorite pictures.

588 Police Headquarters - POV-Ray - Back by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Still having fun with scripts.

For all the challenges with POV-Ray, it is still fun to play with. I love tweaking the scene files to see what works. Plus, I can create some pretty cool things with it. LEGO 588, as I noted, was one of those fun models. Because it is a big set and one of my first, I built a lot of parts using it. Some better than others.

Constructing the building itself was the easiest part. I had most of those pieces already from earlier models. Also, I had built smaller sets with figures. The hardest part of the policemen was creating their stickers. Other complex parts, such as the doors, windows and hinges, took a lot of planning to get right. Those were fun days.

Although complete, I could have made some parts better. I did a decent job building the wheels and helmets. The windows look good, as do the doors. Plus, all the stickers came out fine, at least POV-Ray does a good job of scaling them. But the hairpiece looks horrible—more like a brown helmet. Since I used basic shapes to sculpt a part, I didn’t have the control I needed to make that part look good.

Now, if I’d used a mesh and sculpted the piece it would be better. I should have have left it swapped out, I used a hat in the first render. But, it wasn’t my concern. Focusing on fun, I wasn’t going for realism back then. That would come later. Even then, I focused more on lighting and the environment than I did the LEGO parts.

Colors were also a bit of a pain. I never could seem to get them quite right. Too dark or light, most of my time was spend testing new ways to improve their look. It is also one of the big reasons I switched to Mecabricks and Blender. The materials and light probes look great in Cycles. Yes, at times the fake edges of the Mecabricks parts show through. But I can usually subdivide the surfaces to smooth them out.

Time shift, and I shift with them.

And, for that reason, I jumped off the POV-Ray bandwagon for a bit. I kicked myself for not learning Blender earlier. The render speed and quality of the images are its best advantage. The node editor for materials works well, but kind of a pain next to ways I created materials in POV-Ray. Although, I can often make changes in real time, something that POV-Ray can’t. It helps that Mecabricks makes that part easy.

Thinking back, I wonder what it would have been like to build my own parts in something like Wings-3D. I tried, but couldn’t get the hang of it. Hindsight what it is, I wished I had stuck with it. Blender isn’t any harder, it requires practice and patience. Like POV-Ray’s language, it took me a years to improve my part library and learn the different features. And that’s okay. It’s fun playing with both.

Who knows, in a couple of years I could be doing something completely different. Times change and I’ve learned to change with them. For now, let’s enjoy a couple more images from the past.

Here Is the Refresh of My Favorite LEGO Fire Station

Steven Reid — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 22:04:00 -0600

Last week, I shared my POV-Ray version of LEGO 590. Now, it seemed like a good time to build a Blender version. Starting in Mecabricks, I was fortunate to find that awesomo had recently built the model. Although missing a few parts, it gave me a shortcut into building a realistic render of the box art. Starting as a simple idea, my journey towards the final image wouldn’t be a straight one.

Building a picture.

My first thought was to add the missing parts, much like I did with my 588 Police Station render. Using the Mecabricks model as a base, I first corrected a few errors I noticed and reoriented the model. After it was cleaned up to my liking, I added in alternative parts where needed. This included the no entry sign and areial antenna.

With that done, I loaded up Blender, imported the model, and positioned it within the scene. Using the default background, I decided to keep this one clean and crisp and loaded in a good studio light probe. The first render looked good, but I wanted to add in the stickers to get it closer to my POV-Ray image.

Creating stickers usually takes me a couples of hours. As luck would have it, I found the sticker set on the web, making it easier for me to trace what I need. Loading up Boxy SVG, I started the work of tracing out the images. The final results look good, but took a lot longer than I expected. Comparing the image to the Mecabricks version, you can can guess where I got distracted.

590 Engine Co. No. 9 - Blender - Front by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Adding missing parts.

After I started tracing my stickers, I got distracted with the missing parts. Although my alternate parts looked fine, I had recently changed my mind. For the last couple of days, I’d been playing with LeoCAD and Blender. It had me asking myself if I could use the LDraw parts in my model. No longer content with my submitted parts, I decided to swap them out,

First, I created an LDraw file using LeoCAD. Then, using the LDraw importer I as experimenting with before, I pulled each part in. Now as the real test to see if they would fit. Given LEGO bricks have defined dimensions, I was hopeful they would work. After playing around with the scaling, I found that the LDRaw parts did fit well with the Mecabricks ones.

With that done, I then copied over the Mecabricks material nodes to match the other parts. To my surprise, they don’t look half bad. In fact, I doubt you would have noticed if I hadn’t told you. Although, it wasn’t without without issue.

While positioning the ladder, I struggled to line it up. The rungs wouldn’t fit right on the pegs. At some point, I gave up and left it lined up as close as possible. You couldn’t notice it in the first render, but things didn’t look right when I was rendering the back. It was then then that I realized the scale was wrong. In fact, I had it correct to start, but when lining up the tree I thought it was too small. The problem, it seems, was I had placed the tree too high.

In fact, positioning was the hardest part. I spent a good amount of time figuring out how to align the parts to the existing model. Blender offers features to make this easier, which it forced me to learn. After a lot of trial and error, I was able to get them pretty close to existing pieces. To make my life easier, I hid the existing parts. This lets me turn them back on if things don’t look right. With that done, it was time to get back to the stickers.

Making custom parts with stickers.

As I had done before, I traced the stickers into the UV maps needed for each part. Once done, I could then map those images onto the bricks. In the past, I would cheat by using a brick with a different image. After exporting, I would swap it out with my own image before rendering. This made it easy for me to test and, if all went well, I could submit the images as future stickers.

Yet, in the current version of Mecabricks, you can now build custom parts. This cuts out the need for me to export bricks as I could build them within Mecabricks. The system isn’t quite as intuitive as I expected. After watching a video from Scrubs, I was able to get a couple bricks crated.

With that done, I could import those custom parts into my model. Using the workshop, I swapped out my blank pieces with the new custom ones. It was all very easy, except for one problem. Not all the bricks are available yet for custom stickers. In my case, Mecabricks lacked an editable 3008 or 8x1 brick.

Although discouraged, I decided to press forward with what I could do. The numbers over each garage worked, as LEGO part 3004 (2x1 brick) was available. I thought about using my old trick to swap out the sticker of another 8x1 brick. In the end, I decide to add the image as a separate sticker.

Part of the reason I did that was because I need to add the clock and flame stickers anyway. To do this, I imported each sticker as an image and rotated them into place. This took me a good amount of time as I had already rotated my model into place. A worth challenge, though, as I learned a few more Blender commands in the process.

Although my stickers aren’t perfect, it works well enough and the results looked good. Part of the reason I like the custom parts is that they use the proper materials to build. Doing it this way, I lose the materials, making them look flat next to other parts. Yet, as stickers, the look works pretty well. For a moment I thought about ways to make them look more like stickers, but I ended up deciding against that. I could always revisit it in the future.

Showing off the rest of the model.

With the final image complete, it was time to work on the back. I’d already decided to model it before I began working on the stickers. The office is hinged and you can open it up as a play area. It is a neat feature, and I wanted to show off that design element.

For some variety, I also wanted the minifigs to be in different positions. To accommodate that, I’d built an alternative scene in Mecabricks and exported it. I’m not sure how that fireman gets on the roof, but since there is a door there I thought it fitting. The easy part done, now I had to get all of those new parts and stickers added again.

To do that, I decided to import the back model into the same Blender file. This way, I could align the two models, then hide the first one. Because I had kept all the alternative parts and stickers in a separate container, they lined up and didn’t require repositioning. I then hid the original model. With that done, I rearranged the camera to show off the new perspective.

590 Engine Co. No. 9 - Blender - Back by Steven Reid, on Flickr

The final render of the back with the corrected parts is above. Much of my time on this model was spent correcting little mistakes. The floor lighting looks odd, but seems to be an artifact of the reflections. I’m sure I’ll find some more issues, but I’m ready to move on.

I already have some POV-Ray images done that I still need to share. Plus, my mind is already thinking about my older models and how I could apply my new techniques to them. The possibilities are endless and I now have plenty to do.

Here Are the Results of My LDraw and Blender Experiments

Steven Reid — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 22:54:00 -0600

Not quite done trying things out, I spent time the futzing around with Blender the other night. Looking around for LEGO materials, I ran across a Blender importer for LDraw files. I didn’t know such a thing existed. Intrigued, it resulted in a night of experimentation and the results look pretty good.

Starting again, with different results.

Once I got the importer installed, I started with my LeoCAD models. The importer supports a couple other formats, but LeoCAD uses standard LDraw files. Like the previous night’s fun, I started with my Mini ZX81 file. The cool part is it can import the lighting, camera and scene as well. I started with that, turning on all the high definition part options. To my surprise, that wasn’t a great idea.

The round 1x1’s ended up looking wrong with a gap in them. I spent a good half hour trying to smooth them out with different modifiers and such. None worked. Yes, I could have edited the mesh, but it was a pain selecting what I needed. I’m not good at that yet and it is something I need to work on.

On the positive side, the importer added bevels, and surface improvements. Gaps aside, the model looked better than the LeoCAD export using Wavefront. That was part of the reason I spent so much time trying to fix it. The default was still better than my exported version.

Rethinking a bit, I decided to back out and try the other options. Using standard pieces, I found the gap was gone. I could smooth out the rounds using a subdivision surface. The results were pretty good, better than I expected. I kept asking myself why I hadn’t played with this before.

Mini Zx81 - v4 - LDraw Importer by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Trying something new.

Saying that to myself, I already knew the answer. Blender scared me when I tried it years ago. Not literally, but all four screens at the start kind of stare at you. I put me off and after some short attempts, I gave up. I kick myself for not walking through tutorials, much like I did when I tried again with Mecabricks. At the time, my investment was in POV-Ray.

Back to the fun today, I was pretty impressed with the materials. That made me wonder, what would stickers look like? The problem was I used LeoCAD to convert most of the models from LDD files. When the parts didn’t exist, LeoCAD wouldn’t bring them in. I swapped out the default parts with blanks or alternatives.

I first tired to use my Sea Swallow model, but the girl’s face and shirt didn’t import. So much for that attempt. Digging through my folder, I ran across some LDraw examples that looked promising. Looking for something with a sticker, I landed on the Space Buggy. It had two: a face and shirt.

I was happy to see the model imported without issue. Well, almost none. The empty containers had axises that needed hidden. I did some subdivision of a few of the more obvious parts to smooth them out. Loading in a nice studio HDRI, the final render of the model looks pretty good.

886 - Space Buggy - LDraw Importer by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Insanity and results.

As a final test, I decided to reimport the model again with the higher quality. Although some parts looked better, others looked worse. Much like before, It didn’t help where I hoped it would. After Blender crashed while I was adjusting options, I decided to stop and call it a night. The previous results were good enough for me.

Does this mean I’m giving up on Mecabricks? That would be no. I still enjoy the online editor, the community and the results I get from my renders. Stubs does an excellent job improving the bricks and textures. I only expect them to keep getting better. But it is still fun to try out other options. Plus, I’m getting to learn more about Blender and how it works. That only helps me improve my models in the long term.