Modeling Lego can be tricky.  Not only are there all those raised bumps (called “Studs”, I think), for a photo-realistic render, you want to reveal all of those minute seams between each brick.  Add to that the glossy, and somewhat, reflective surfaces and it’s already sounding like a pretty big hill to climb.

Now if you love Lego as much as I do, you might consider embarking on such as crazy journey, but if you’re smart (and I know you are ;-), then you are probably asking yourself, “Hasn’t somebody already done this?”.  Of course, the answer is “Yes”.  Better still, someone has even built a CAD-style program to build everything with and a community supported library of Lego pieces.

A while ago, I stumbled on a few such programs.  I eventually  settled on the one I liked the most and have used it to rebuild all of my long-lost childhood Lego kits and more.

Here’s a couple models I put together using one such freeware program called MLCAD v3.20.

The designs are from existing LEGO kits and are not my own.  Although you can probably still get the instructions to build the X-Wing Fighter from www.lego.com, the blue space cruiser is from the 70’s and was my first lego kit I got when I was just a wee lad. The X-Wing model is missing a few pieces on the far/top engine as well as R2D2 (you can see the space behind the cockpit where he is supposed to go).

To get the instructions, I went to www.hccamsterdam.nl/brickfactory where you can find instruction booklets for almost every LEGO kit ever made.

Both were rendered with a freeware renderer called POV-Ray for Windows
version 3.5
http://www.povray.org/

In a later post I will detail how I converted the space cruiser LDR model file as an OBJ file and brought it into Maya to setup and animate the ship coming in for a landing.

Like I said, fun!

Here’s some more of the same episode 45 of Carl Squared involving the Zombie Aliens From Outer Space.  This time, I designed half graves, half flying saucers (as per the script).  I know, it’s beyond weird, but that’s what the Writer wrote it to be.  Any ways, it was fun.

Grey-Shaded Zombie Fighter

Toon-Shaded Zombie Fighter

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

The Zombie Fighters as they appeared in the show in the actual shot

Here’s a design I came up with a couple of years ago for Episode No.45 of the television series “Carl Squared”.

Grey-shaded version

Toon-shaded version

Here’s one of the shots it was used in:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

I had been asked to design and produce a few shots in 3D for a video game that the main characters were playing.  It was called “Zombie Aliens from Outer Space” or something like that.  If you know the show, it’s completely done in 2D using Flash.  Of course the challenge for me was trying to match the style of the other 2D elements of the show.

The 2D style for Carl Squared

I used Maya 7 and rendered using the built-in vector renderer.  The lines on the surfaces of the stone in the model that were to depict individual bricks were achieved by sub-dividing the surface to create a grid.  Then I selected the edges where I wanted vector lines to appear and made them hard edges.  As hardened edges, the vector renderer treats them as if the were any other edge along an angled surface.  This also allowed me to keep these lines as true vector stroked lines that could be inported into Flash and further edited.

Here are some concept sketches alogn with the final cleaned-up B&W and Colour design …

Zombie Alien Mothership - version 1

Zombie Alien Mothership - version 2

Zombie Alien Fleet

Zombie Alien Fleet - Coloured

Unfortunately, they never called for any other 3D elements in the show.  Too bad, because I thought there were many opportunities to model elements in 3D and leverage the ability to rotate things smoothly.

PIP Animation was responsible for some of the scripts in the final season, and all storyboards, designs, animation, straight through to final cut.  Portfolio Entertainment produced the show and it was broadcast in Canada on Teletoon.

It was a fun show to work on.  At least now I can say some of my 3D work made it to the small screen.

I just came across this little Maya oddity and solution.  I thought I would share it.

When you first launch Maya, you see the following message in the feedback box at the bottom of your workspace…

Error: Warning: Not all preferences were saved. See Script Editor for details.

Description:

Maya doesn’t retain any changes you have made to your workspace, such as which shelf you last had open, which panel set you were last using, or any other customizations to the interface in general.

Solution (Windows XP Pro, SP 2):

Create a System Variable called MAYA_APP_DIR and enter the path to the maya folder as it is in your “My Documents” target folder.

Here’s how:

1.Right click on ‘My Computer’ and choose ‘Properties’
2. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, and click on ‘Environment Varibales’

3. Under ‘System Variables’ click on ‘New’ and name it: MAYA_APP_DIR. Set the value to the location you wish to use, e.g. D:/maya

4. Click OK until all dialogs are closed.

5. Restart Maya if you have it open.

Why does this happen?

If you change the target folder for your “My Documents” folder to something different since you installed Maya, this problem will occur.

In the coming months I will be collaborating with a 2D character/animator to create a character who they have designed and animated in 2D, I will model and rig it and they will take back to animate.  As a matter of fact, the character has already been animated so we know where we’re headed.  We are attempting to reproduce some of the 2D animation, but plan on leveraging the possibilities afforded by going 3D.  For me, it’s a chance to do some work that rewards me by getting into a character that I know will work.  It also has the potential to get the attention of clients who might employ us to keep going.  Second only to having fun making stuff in 3D, making money at it is the goal.

So, as soon as we reveal our work to the potential client, I will begin posting our work.

The three weekend workshops have come to an end and I wish to thank all who signed up to show their support of the project in the beginning, and I especially want to thank those who were able to make it out to the workshops.

So now that almost twenty people have had a brief introduction to 3D modeling and animation, what’s next?

Well, there may be no more 4 hour long workshops on the weekend, but I intend to continue on with shorter sessions. In the months to come, I plan to offer several 2 hour demos of various 3D techniques. They could include topics like more specific modeling and animation projects, or in-depth topics like texturing, lighting, rendering and some dynamics and special effects. I will prepare a detailed list of topics and post them soon.

After I give each demo, I will later post it here, in the form of a screencast on the blog for everyone else to benefit from.

Thanks again everyone and have a great summer.