Major Project on the way!

If there is one thing I love more than Lego it's Star Wars! So what better than creating a Lego model based on a Star Wars starship? The ship in question is the Corellian Corvette (it's the one that the Star Destroyer captures in the opening sequences of the original 1977 film). Unfortunately, or fortunately (not sure), it's a very complex model which when finished will look great, but until then is causing me some serious headaches as I try to fathom out rotation methods to get the rounded parts looking ok.

Anyway in the meantime, here is a tiny sneak preview of the ship.

6380 - Town Hospital

I'd quite happily start with the first model in the Lego range and work my way through them all, however it's sometimes nice to build a model and render it for someone else. A friend of mine suggested the Lego Town hospital that he always wanted but could never get, so I had a crack at it. It's taking me less and less time to make models these days as the MLCAD software becomes much easier to use with time. So this one was knocked together in about half an hour and rendered in 800x600 with nice antialiasing. This one is for you Tom!

The hospital encapsulates everything I love about Lego Town (old school Lego). The complete absence of custom parts means this hospital can be broken up after construction and ALL the parts reused in a say ... fire station, or lorry, or airport. This model captures the beauty of the original Lego toy.

Complete Moonbase, with background

So I finished up the base. It looks okay I think but I have a lot of learning to do about cutting/pasting the lego models into backgrounds and making them feel realistic. Anyway, I'm not too unhappy with it for a first effort! Considering the amount of steps and programs I needed to go through to get this far, I think that I have come a long way and learned quite a lot about the lego rendering scene (no pun intended!).

Time to get back to my rocket launchpad I think and try to get that rendering correctly.

Moonbase! Taking a break from the rocket launch..

So the rocket launch hasn't quite worked out yet. I've figured out how to import models in their entirety into a scene, however when I try to import a second model it wipes out the first. No matter, I found a set that I used to own way back when so thought I would have a go at mounting that into a space scene instead. You can see from the picture that I've finished the basic base, and removed the shadows from the rendering in order to add them to the scene at a later stage. So I've got the shadows (which are proving tricky to copy/paste!) and the base, and the scene, and it's all just waiting to be put together.

A little snag I hit was that once the base is pasted into the moon scene the edges of the model are rather ragged. I'll need to hit up a tutorial on GIMP on how to blend a pasted image more nicely into a background. Oh and if you haven't tried GIMP by the way, it's rather powerful, and completely free to download and use. Have a look here. Oh and in case you were wondering, this set is labelled 493-926 over at Cubiculus.com

0358 - Hit a bit of a snag

I bet there are hundreds of readers of this blog eagerly awaiting the finalised launchpad and rocket! Ok, well maybe not ... but anyways! I have fun into a little problem with the scene - in that when I open the launchpad, and add the rocket and little van to it, the file for Povray that is supposed to describe the scene is completely blank when I run it through the converter and I haven't yet managed to figure out why.

I will though ... and once I do I'll post the final image on here! So stay tuned.

0358 - Rocket Complete!

I've finished up the actual rocket now for the rocket launchpad. Had some problems with the cylindrical blocks for the rocket body, as rotation around a point that is anything other than 90,180,270,360 degrees appears to be quite complicated. I tried a tutorial on it but found blocks going in all sorts of strange directions and ending up in wierd places! Never mind, it looks alright, and I'll be adding it into the scene. The next thing to do now is embed the launchpad into a 2D scene, which looks like is easily done with copying and pasting using GIMP or similar. I will take a look at that shortly, but for now here is the rocket that will be going onto the launchpad.

0358 - Rocket Launchpad Truck

The set I have been working on, 0358 - Rocket Launch Base, also comes with a rocket (obviously) and a small truck, in addition to the launchpad itself (see previous post for the launchpad render). The truck is cute, and I thought it would make a great addition to the scene. It's also an example of the sort of simple, yet wonderful, Lego models that categorised early Legoland and Town constructions, along with the first incarnations of space Lego. It's a simple little thing, but it looks sweet so I've rendered it here.

Only the rocket to go now, and that shouldn't take long (just a tall series of circular blocks!) so the final scene should not be too far off in coming!

Moon Base rocket launch

Hello!

I have started building what I hope to make into a nice final scene including a background (something I have not quite figured out how to do yet in Pov-ray, that is include a scene directly into the rendering instead of just copying/pasting using GIMP or similar). Once I have this figured out I'll do the rocket and the small truck that comes with this set, but for now here is the launchpad for the rocket. I've rendered it from the ground looking up, as I think this will give the best view once the rocket is on the launchpad - this is opposed to most of my other renderings that take a top-down view (the default!) of the model.

The instructions are here - this is Lego model #0358. I'll repost once I've added the rocket to it and finally figured out how to make nicer backdrops for the models!

Go on then, just one more

I was intending to put my models up here just one at a time, I've only done about six after all, but I couldn't resist throwing another one on here for you to enjoy. I went for something a little more complex this time, and chose a house. The old Lego Town stuff is by far and away my favourite - very simple models with little to no custome pieces ... back in the day that meant you could buy (or rather my parents could pay for ..) a few models and reuse the bricks over and over again in your own creations. It's one of the few pet peeves that I have regarding Lego these days - yes its possible to create the most wonderful models with the sets now available but they are packed with pieces that you would scratch your head at wondering what to do with in your next project! I find the best thing to do is pick up bags of random assorted bricks at car boot sales and just get them home and let your imagination run wild.

You could also of course sort them into little bags of the same colour ... yes I have done that before, but there is little in this world more satisfying to me than splattering the Lego all over the floor with my eight year old and dreaming up something to make. Anyway, onto the model. As mentioned I went for something more complex, in this case a rather quaint two storey house. Click the picture to see the full version - and if you want the building instructions (this one is model: 346), then you can find them here.

My first one ever

Hey readers,

Here is the first ever model I built and rendered with MLCAD and POV-RAY, and it inspired me to go on and do more. I chose a very simple old "town" Lego building for my first one as I wasn't sure if the amount of time involved in creating the model would be excessive. It wasn't! The whole thing was done and rendered in about half an hour (not counting time reading tutorials on how to do things!).

For those interested it is model number 608, and is a small Post Office (or similar) with a telephone box. You can find the building instructions for it here. Try it for yourself, with real Lego if you have it!

Welcome to Lego Renderings!

Hi all,

When I was a child Lego was by far and away my favourite toy. I clung onto my Lego as for as long as I possibly could as adulthood approached, but eventually it had to go. Then came my kids ... they loved Lego until they too outgrew it (damn the computer/console age!). But recently I came across a rather excellent program called MLCAD, which in conjunction with an engine called LDRAW and a renderer called POV-RAY, can be used to build "virtual" Lego models!

So I downloaded all the bits and pieces and starting building. The software installs easily, is incredibly easy to use, and is able to knock together the most complex of models in just an hour or two. Use the renderer to produce the finished article and away you go!

This blog is here so I can record for posterity the models that I make, and the renderings that come out of them. Hopefully you will have fun whilst browsing here, and if I can bring a smile to your face with my pictures then I'm happy. I know I smiled a lot while making them!

Any questions, post in comments. Once I am set up with a few posts and renderings I will start posting a few links and possibly a short beginners guide or two to get you going, should you fancy having a crack at this sort of thing yourself. Go on, it's easy!

Stefan