Playing around with Lego Digital Designer: A side topic.

[bicyclebuilder]

This is a side-topic from: Pack your bags. The world has ended - Steampunk LEGOs
http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,36246.0.html

I've recently discovered "Lego Digital Designer". It's an infinite pile of every known LEGO brick inside a 3d sandbox. Right now I've got this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Steampunk Rabbit Hunt

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(not so) Steampunk sports car.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Steam locomotive.


I want the latter to be more Steampunk. Something that makes it extraordinary. I would also like to make it more of a scene, rather than a stationary model. I want someting to happen, some funny event.
I was thinking about a few things:
- a traveling zoo/circus;
- huge portable telescope
or microscope
- tied down king kong;
- a railway version of an aircraft carrier (with Wright Flyer's or Da Vinci airplane's).

Unless I can create some extraordinary animals, it would be "just" a traveling circus.
Perhaps a shark in a basin or a baby cthulhu.

The huge telescope can work. Inside the cylinder of the telescope I can place an asteroid shaped LEGO brick, so when you look down the cylinder, it looks like your looking at the moon. On the top part of the telescope I can place a transparent dish with a huge eye behind it. Kind of like looking down on the observer's eyeball.

Same illusion I can do with a huge microscope. On one side, zoomed in on a flower and on the other side a huge pental behind a transparent dish. Personally, I think this option might look to close to the "rabbit hunt".

A tied down King Kong could work, but I need something to happen to make it more "alive". A hand that got free or something along those lines.

An aircraft carrier could look good just standing there, with lots of details and militairy personel in position. Or a scene "in combat". Airplanes leaving, guns blazing, enemy aircrafts.


For now, I'm going to try and see if the telescope/microscope illusion would work. Other suggestions are welcome. More pics to follow. For now, this is the finished product. I'm going to look for a rendering program that can read the LEGO-files so I can create a more realistic picture.

[akumabito]

How about an air-kraken tentacle wrapped around the locomotive?

[pakled05]

huh. There used to be a free program called Leocad, but I'm sure it's 'club 404' by now. Maybe this is an upgrade. For moving stuff, I think that if you can save it in .obj (or maybe even .3ds), you could do an animation in Daz3d (not a plug...) just an idea.

[bicyclebuilder]

How could I forget, an Air-kraken! That's going to be on the list.

I have found Leocad, I think it still works. I'll try if it can be saved in .obj or .3ds. I've got a 3d rendering program somewhere called Micrographx Simply3D. It can use .s3d .e3d .3ds .eye .ged .dxf .obj .drw .cdr .dsf .emf and .wmf. Thanks for the tip. The problem is the conversion from . lxf (the official Lego extention file) to a 3d rendering format. Lego hasn't provided a converter. They should, because the LDD is now only used for digital building. They used to have a brick ordering service, but they cancelled that a couple of years ago. Because of populairity, they kept the program.

I have seen a 3d render of a quad, made with Lego Digital Designer and other free software. The fellow who made it, had a list of programs he used, with links and all. But I can't remember where I saw it. 

About the telescope:
I've got this:

The eye of the observer, behind a lens.


The telescope. On the side, I'm making the observer's chair.


Looking down the finder of the telescope. I have used a star instead of a moon. A moon is 4x4 bricks. It fits inside the telescope, but it was to big to view thru the finder.

[bicyclebuilder]

Last weekend I joined a LEGO forum called Eurobricks. Lots of LEGO builds, in real life and with the Designer. Meanwhile the telescope is WAY to big for the train, especially with the construction I added. Back to the drawingboard.

I also think I've found a way to render the pictures into a more realistic one.

[Maets]

Do you have a link to a gallery of lego images?

[bicyclebuilder]

Do you have a link to a gallery of lego images?

I don't understand the question. Do you mean a gallery of my LEGO images or a gallery of more realistic images?
The first 10 pictures of this gallery are my LEGO designs. Made with LEGO Digital Designer.
http://steven6773.deviantart.com/gallery/37034815

This gallery is from a fellow who rendered the images to a more realistic level.
http://pixelquarry.deviantart.com/gallery/127319

[bicyclebuilder]

The best thing about the LEGO Digital Designer is that you don't have to tear your creation apart to start a new one. I've started a new build that is supposed to end up looking like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's the Montparnasse train station steamtrain crash. So far I've build the second floor of the train station.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)